there is a Paper wherein these words are engraven Ego sicut Oliva fructifera in domo Dei taken out of Ps 52. 8. which pourtraictures they then printed and published to the world wherein they set forth the number of their Colledges and Seminaries to be no less then 777. increased to 155 more by the yeer 1640. in all 932. as they published in like Pictures Pageants printed at Antwerp 1640. Besides sundry New Colledges and Seminaries erected since In these Colledges and Seminaries of theirs they had then as they print 15591 Fellews of their Society of Jesus besides the Novices Scholars and Lay-brethren of their Order amounting to neer ten times that number So infinitely did this evil weed grow and spread it self within one hundred yeers after its first planting And which is most observable of these Colledges and Seminaries they reckoned then no less then 15 secret ones IN PROVINCIA ANGLICANA in the Province of ENGLAND where were 267 SOCII or Fellows of that Society besides 4 COLLEDGES OF ENGLISH JESUITES ELSEWHERE In IRELAND and elsewhere 8 Colledges of IRISH JESUITES and in SCOTLAND and otherwhere 2 Residencies of SCOTTISH JESUITES What the chief imployments of Ignatius and his numerous swarms of Disciples are in the World his own Society at the time of his Canonization for a Romish Saint sufficiently discovered in their painted Pageants then shewed to the people wherein they pourtraied this new Saint holding the whole world in his hand and fire streaming out forth of his heart rather to set the whole world on fire by Combustions Wars Treasons Powder-plots Schismes new State and old Church-Heresies then to enlighten it with this Motto VENI IGNEM MITTFRE I came to send fire into the World which the University of Cracow in Poland objected amongst other Articles against them Anno 1622. and Alphonsus de Vargas more largly insisteth on in his Relatio de Stratagematis Sophismatis Politicis Jesuitarum c. An. 1641. c. 7 8 24. Their number being so infinite and the Pope and Spaniard too having long since by Campanella's advice erected many Colledges in Rome Italy Spain the Netherlands and elsewhere for English Scottish Irish Jesuites as well as for such secular Priests Friers Nuns of purpose to promote their designs against the Protestant Princes Realms Churches Parliaments of England Scotland Ireland to reduce them under their long prosecuted UNIVERSAL MONARCHY over them by Fraud Policy Treason intestine Divisions and Wars being unable to effect it by their own Power no doubt of late yeers many hundreds if not thousands of this Society have crept into England Scotland and Ireland lurking under several disguises yea an whole Colledge of them sate weekly in counsel in or neer Westminster some few yeers since under Conne the Popes Nuntio on purpose to embroyle England and Scotland in bloody civil wars therby to endanger shake subvert these Realms and destroy the late King as you may read at large in my Romes Master-piece published by the Commons special Order An. 1643. who occasioned excited fomâ—nted the first and second intended but happily prevented wars between England and Scotland and after that the unhappy Differences Wars between the King Parliament and our three Protestant Kingdoms to bring them to utter desolation and extirpate our reformed Religion The Kings Forces in which many of them were Souldiers after some yeers wars being defeated thereupon their Father Ignatius being a SOULDIER and they his Military sons not a few of them secretly insinuated themselves as Souldiers into the Parliaments Army and Forces as they had formerly done into the Kings where they so cunningly acted their parts as extraordinary illuminates gifted brethren and grand States-men that they soon leavened many of the Officers Troopers and common Souldiers with their dangerous Jesuitical State-politicks and Practises put them upon sundry strange designs to new-mould the old Monarchical Government Parliaments Church Ministers Laws of England erecting a New General Councel of army-Army-Officers and Agitators for that purpose acting more like a Parliament and Supream Dictators then Souldiers And at last instigated the Army by open force against their Commissions Duties Oaths Protestations and Solemn League Covenant to Impeach imprison seclude first eleveÌ„ Commoners then some six or seven Lords after that to secure seclude the Majority of the Commons House suppress the whole House of Lords destroy the King Parliament Government Priviledges Liberties of the Kingdom Nation for whose defence they were first raised which by no other adverse power they could effect This produced new bloody divisions animosities wars in and between our three Protestant Realms and Nations after with our Protestant Allies of the Netherlands Campanella's express old projected Plots to subject us both to the Popes and Spaniards Monarchies effected by the Spaniards Gold and Agents with sundry heavy Monthly Taxes Excises Oppressions Sales of the Churches Crowns and of many Nobles and Gentlemens Lands and Estates to their undoing our whole Nations impoverishing and discontent an infinite profuse expence of Treasure of Protestant blood both by Land and Sea decay of Trade with other sad effects in all our three Kingdoms yea sundry successive New changes of our publick Government made by the Army-Officers who are still ringing the changes according to Campanela's and Parsons Platforms So that if Fire may be certainly discerned by the smoke or the Tree commonly known by its Fruits as the Truth it self resolves Matth. 12. 33. we may truly cry out to all our Rulers as the Jews did once to the Rulers of Thessalonica in another case Act. 17. 6. THOSE Jesuites WHO HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN ARE COME HITHER ALSO and have turned our Kingdoms Kings Peers Monarchy Parliaments Government Laws Liberties yea our very Church and Religion too in a great measure UPSIDE DOWNE even by those very Persons who were purposely raised commissiond waged engaged by Protestations Covenanes Vows Oathes Laws Allegiance and Duty to protect them from these Jesuitical Innovations and subversions And those Jesuites Spanish Romish Agents who have so far seduced so deeply engaged them contrary to all these Obligations and to their own former printed Engagements Remonstrances Representations Proposals Desires and RESOLUTIONS for setling this Nation in its just Rights the Parliament in their just Priviledges and the Subjects in their Liberties and Freedoms published to all the World in the name of Sir Thomas Fairfax THE ARMY AND THE GENERAL COUNCEL OF THE ARMY none Volume London 1647. which they may do well to peruse yea against the Votes Intreaties Desires Advices of both Houses of Parliament the Generality of the good Ministers people of the three whole Kingdoms and their wisest best affected Protestant Friends who commissioned raised paid assisted them for far other ends O whether may they will they not in all humane probability rashly blindly suriously henceforth lead drive precipitate them to our whole three Kingdoms Churches Parliaments
universal liberty of exercising their Popish Religion throughout his Realms and Dominions and then to train up his Son under them in the Popish Religion To which not onely heretofore but now likewise they strenuously endeavour by all possible means to seduce him as appears more especially by Monsieur Militiere his late book dedicated to Him for that purpose to invite him to the Roman Catholick Faith Surely all these premised instances compared together and with that memorable passage of the English Jesuite Campian in his Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae or Epistle to Queen Elizabeths Councel Treviris 1583. p. 22. Velim sciatis quod ad Societatem nostram attinet omnes nos qui per totum Orbeni longe lateque diffusi sunt quarum est continua successio magnus numerus Sanctum foedus infisse nec quamdiu unus nostrum supererit studium consilia nostra intermissuros ad Reges Hereticos quovis modo tollendos as Hospinian relates and expounds his words and meaning Religionem vestram extingâ—ere Iampridem jacta est ratio inchoatum certamen nulla vis nullus Anglorum impetus superabit so as to hinder this their holy League and Covenant long since entred into To destroy take out of the way ruine all Protestant Kings throughout the World under the Notion of Hereticks by any means whatsoever and the Protestant Religion togetherwith them With a Copy of a Letter sent by an Independent Agent from Paris some few weeks before the Kings removal from the Isle of Weight by the army-Army-Officers declaring the Jesuites implacable Enmity to the King and to hereditary Monarchy throughout the World And an Express sent from Paris to the King himself some three dayes before his seisure and translation from Weight to this effect as I have heard from persons of Honour That the Jesuites at a general meeting in France had resolved by the power of their friends in England to seise on his Majesty bring him to justice and cut off his head because he had contrary to their expectation closed with the Parliament consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy and to five new Bills against Jesuites Popish Priests Mass Popery and all Popish Ceremonies in the last Treaty and advising Him to prepare for this new storm which within few days after fell upon him will sufficiently inform the world that the late unparallel'd capital proceedings against our Protestant King contrary to the Votes of both Houses of Parliament the Parliament Members Peers House and forced dissolved late Parliament too proceeded not from the Principles of our reformed Protestant Religion as this Monsieur in his printed Pamphlet would make his Reader the youg King to whom he dedicates it and all the World believe but from the Popes and Jesuites forecited Treasonable Opinions seconded with their clandestine Sollicitations and Practises and that they with some French Cardinals Jesuites as well as Spanish and English then present in England to promote their Designes were the chief original Contrivers Promoters of them whoever were the immediate visible Instruments as I have elsewhere more fully demonstrated for the wiping off this Scandal from our reformed Religion the sincere Professors of it who both abominated and protested against it in print 〈◊〉 Radolphus Hospinian in his excellent Historia Jesuitica l. 4. f. 244 245. reckons up these three prime causes of the Jesuites Regicides other Notorious Treasons The first is that blinde Obedience which they vow to their Superiours to execute with great celerity spiritual joy and perseverance whatever their Superiours shall enjoyne them by being perswaded That all their Cemmands are Iust to them by renouncing their own Opinion and Iudgement with a certain Blinde Obedience and by believing that those who live under Obedience are carried and governed by Divine Providence a word now most in use with our Army-Saints and Souldiers wholly infected with this Jesuitical Doctrine of Obedience by their Superiors whithersoever they shall suffer themselves to be carried or in what sort soever they shall be dealt with by them like a staffe in the hand of a man which readily obeys him that holds it wheresoever and in what thing soever he will please to use it especially when backed with a pretext of Necessity Religions Safety Publick Good Exemplary Justice and promoting the common Cause for which their Society was first instituted 2. That they hold themselves obliged to no Kings Princes or Civil Magistrates by any Oath of Allegiance but onely to the Pope and their Generals and therefore think themselves free and unable to commit any Treason at all against them although at the Popes and â—heir Superiours commands they still rise up against murder â—stroy them 3. That they deem those Kings Princes which the Pope and Jesuites or other learned men of their Religion or the common people shall deem Hereticks to be thereby wholly made uncapable of any Empires Kingdoms or Principalities or any other civil Diguity yea to be accursed Tyrants unworthy of the name of Kings that thereby their Subjects are totally absolved from the bond of Allegiance to them and that thereupon it is lawful to kill and destroy them and the murders of such are meritorious Now that these three Jesuitical Grounds and Principles infused into our Army-Officers and Souldiers by the Jesuites and their Instruments of late yeers against their Primitive Orthodox Positions Protestations Declarations Oaths Covenants Engagements backed with secret Avarice Ambition and Self-ends were the principal impulsive Causes of all the extravagant violent Proceedings both against the late King and Parliament not the loyal Principles of the Protestant Religion is apparent unto all the World by the Armies own Declarations of Nov. 16. and Decemb. 7. 1648. Their True State of the Commonwealth of England c. 1654. and other Pamphlets for their justification which all true Protestants blush at 〈◊〉 3. That the Jesuites ever since the Establishment of their Military Order under Ignatius their Martial General have been the principal Firebrands Bellows Instruments of kindling somenting raising continuing all the publick commotions wars seditions and bloody fewds that have happened in or between any Kings Kingdoms States Princes Soveraigns or Subjects throughout the Christians world and more particularly of all the Civil commotions wars in France Germany Transylvania Bohemia Hungary Russia Poland England Scotland and Ireland to the effusion of whole Oceans of Christian blood which one poetically thus expresseth Quicquid in Orbe mali passim Peccante Gradido est Quicquid turbarum tempora nostra vident Cuncta Sodalitio mentito Nomine Jesu Accepta Historiâ teste referre licet Itâ— modò vestrae celebrate Encaenia Sectae Militis inventum Loiolana cohors Yea it is well worthy observation what Jacobus Crucius a Jesuite Rector of the Jesuites Novices at Landsberge presumed to publish in his Explication of the Rules of the Jesuites Anno 1584. in these words The Father
largly contributed to this war and designe for which he Sir John Winter Master Mountague and others who had a hand in this conspiracy were convented and brought upon their knees at the Commons House-bar Jan. 28. 1640. upon which he retyring into France was about May 1645. sent as a speciall Embassadour from the Queen to the Pope of Rome himself to solicit him for ayds of monies men arms against the Parliament is first audience he had the best reception and fairest Promises of Aid in general that could be wished writing hopefully of supplies of Moneys from Rome to the Queen and others as both Houses of Parliament in their Declaration and Letters published 26 March 1646. proclaim to all the world and likewise good Hopes of a Cardinals Cap for himself or the Lord Aubeny or Mr. Mountagne for which he and the Queen sollicited After that upon his return from Rome he was sent over into England about Decemb. 1648. as a fit instrument to New-moddle us into a Commonwealth and promote the violent Proceedings of the Army Officers and their Confederates set on work by the Jesuits and their Agents against the late King Parliament Members where upon his arrival he was instead of being apprehended and brought to justice for the premises hugged by some Grandees whom he courted permitted to ride and walk about at large while the Members were under strict guards and restraints frequently repaired to Whitehall where he was well received his Sequestration totally taken off without any Fees or gratification by special order and himself now at last permitted to lodge not only in Wildemans House where the Queens Capuchins formerly resided but sometimes in Whitehall it self to the admiration of many understanding Protestants who justly suspect he hath there more disguised Iesuits to consult with and promote both their old and new designs against our Church State Religion Laws Liberties till they have brought them and us to utter ruine I shall for brevity sake acquaint you with one memorable general instance discovering what swarms of Jesuites are now amongst us under other visors An English Protestant Nobleman a person of honor whose Ancestors were Papists being courteously entertained within these two years at Rome by some eminent Iesuits in their chief Colledge there was brought by them into a Gallery having Chambers round about it with Titles over every door for several Kingdoms and amongst the rest one for ENGLAND Upon which he enquiring of the Iesuits what these titles signified was answered by them That they were the Chambers of the Provincial Iesuits of each Kingdom and Province written ever the respective doors wherein they had any members of their society now residing who received all Letters of intelligence from their Agents in those places every week and gave account of the to the General of their Order That the Provincial for England lodged in the Chamber over which the title ENGLAND was written who could shew him the last news from England which he desiring to see they thereupon knocked at the door which was presently opened the Provincial being informed who what the Lord was read the last news from England to them Hereupon the Nobleman demanded of them Whether any of their society were now in England how they could stay with safety or support themselves there seeing most of the English Nobility Gentry and Families that were Papists were ruined in their estates or sequestred by the late wars troubles so as they could neither harbour conceal nor maintain them as they had done heretofore They answered It was true but the greater the dangers and difficulties of those of their society now in England were the greater was their merit And that they had then above fiftéen hundred of their Society in England able to work in several Professions Trades which they had there taken upon them the better to support secure themselves from being discovered who together with some Popish Priests and Friers no doubt upon diligent inquiry will appear to be the chiefest Speakers Quakers Disputers Seducers Rulers in most separate Congregations and the principle brochers of all New Opinions Blasphemies now abounding amongst us This Relation I have heard from the mouth of a Reverend Divine more than once to whom this Noble Lord upo his return into England not many Months since seriously related the Premises averring the truth of them upon his Honour Yet for all this since the stupendious pretended repeals and annihilations of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance that of Abjuration of Popery consented to by the late King in the Isle of Wight purposely made for the better detection and prevention of Iesuites and their treasonable forementioned practises against our Church Kingdoms Princes Religion Parliaments and Government by the wisdom and zeal of our best affected vigilant * Protestant Parliaments I can neither hear nor read of any effectual means endeavoured or prescribed by any in power for the discovery of these Romish Ianizaries or banishing feretting and keeping them out of England where they have wrought so much mischief of late years and whose utter ruine they attempt nor any incouragement at all given to the Discoverers of their Plots and Persons but many affronts and discouragements put upon them and particularly on my self lately mewed up close Prisoner under strictest Guards in remotest Castles near three years space without any Accusation hearing or particular cause yet assigned or disclosed to me though oft then and since demanded by me from my Imprisoners whiles they all walked abroad at large of purpose to hinder me from any discoveries of their practises by my Pen where as they printed vended publickly here in England above 30000 Popish Books of several kinds during my imprisonment without the least restraint to oppugne our Protestant established Religion as many of them do in terminis as most damnable Heresie propagate the Jesuites Plots and antichristian Romish Church and Religion amongst us as you may read at large in the Stationers Beacon fired which seasonable book and Discovery of these Romish Emissaries books and plots some Officers of the Army in their Beacon quenched publickly traduced in print as a New-Powder-Treason of the Presbyterian Party to blow up the Army and that pretended Parliament of their own erection which themselves soon after blew up and dissolved in good earnest pleading for a free Toleration of such Popish Books and all Religions as agreeable to the Armies Engagements and Principles to carry on their designs against our Religion and Laws But most certain it is there hath been of late years not only a General Councel of Officers of the Army sitting many moneths together in Councel to alter and new model all our ancient Laws and Statutes in pursuance of Father Parson's design but likewise two Conventicles of their own selection and election sitting of late in the Parliament House at Westminster assuming to themselves the Name and far
more than the Power of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England together with the transcendent ambitious Title of The Supream Authority of the Nation in derogation of the Army Officers Supremacy who sufficiently chastised them for this strange Usurpation who have made it their chief businesse not only to New-model our ancient Fundamental Government Parliaments Ministry Ministers maintenance by Glebes Tithes and our Universities much according to Parsons and his Fellow Jesuites forementioned Plat-formes and Thomas Campanella his Instructions to the King of Spain De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25. but likewise to New-mould subvert eradicate the whole Body of our municipal Laws and with them the great Charter of our Liberties it self And in their last casâ—iered unelected Convention as some of their Companions now in greatest Power assure us in their True State of the Case of the Commonwealth of England c. London 1654. p. 5 16 17 18. there was a strong prevailing party whom nothing would satisfie but A Total Eradication of the whole body of the good old Laws of England the Guardians of our Lives and Fortunes to the utter subversion of civil Right and Propriety who likewise took upon them by vertue of a supposed right of Saintship in themselves to lay the foundation of a new Platform which was to go under the Name of A Fift Monarchy never to have an end but To war withall other powers and break them to pieces baptizing all their proselites into this Principle and perswasion that the Powers formerly in being were branches of the Fourth Monarchy of England Scotland and Ireland which must be rooted up and destroyed And what other Fifth Monarchy this could be but that projected universal Monarchy of the Iesuites which would bring the whole Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland together with France Spain and all other Princes States in Christendome under the â—esuites subjection and break all other powers in pieces mentioned by Watson in his Quodlibets p. 306 to 333. and Alphonsus de Vargas Relatio de Stratagematis Sophismatis Politicis societatis Iesu Ad Monarchiam orbis terrarum sibi conficiendam c. 8. c. or else that Elective New Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland projected by Campanella and Cardinal Richelieu which some Grandees now endeavour by their Instrument to erect and perpetuate for ever without alteration in themselves and their Successors though they thus expresly brand it in others let themselves and wise men resolve it being apparent by the practises and proceedings of all the Propugners of this new Project that this Fifth Monarchy they intend to erect is neither the spiritual Kingdom of Iesus Christ in their own hearts mortifying their ambitioÌ„ covetousness pride self-seeking unrighteousness violence rapines other worldly lusts nor the personal reign of Christ himself alone in and over our 3 Kingdoms and all other Nations for ever depriving all Temporal Kings and Princes of their Crowns Rights and Government over their Subjects which they falsly endeavour to evince from Dan. 2. 44 45 c. 7. 14 27. Micah 4. 1 2 7. Luke 1. 32 33. Rev. 20. 1. to 8. 1 Cor. 15. 24 25. Heb. 12. 26 27 28. but a meer supream arbitrary temporal Authority without Bounds or Limits encroached by and erected in themselves and their confederates without any colour of Right or Title by the Laws of God or the Realm and no ways intended but refuted by all these sacred Scriptures others which explain them This design of the Jesuites to alter and subvert the whole body of our Laws was so far promoted by the Iesuitical and Anabaptistical party in this last Assembly elected only by the Army-Officers that on Aug. 20. 1653. as our News-books print they Ordered there should be a Committee selected to consider of a A new Body of the Law for the Government of this Commonwealth who were to new-mould The whole Body of the Law according to Parsons his mould And hereupon our cheating Astrologers especially Lilly Culpeper the Iesuites grand Factors to cry down our Laws Tithes Ministers from the meer visible earthly Conjunctions Votes Motions Influences of these New wandring excentrick Planets at Westminster only not of any Coelestial Stars as they would make Country-Clowns believe alwayes moving and acting themselves by an unalterable Law from the very Creation until now Gen. 1. 14. to 19. c. 8. 22. Psal 104. 19. Psal 136. 8. 9. Ier. 31. 35 36. c. 33. 20 21. Iob 38. 32 33. therefore no ways exciting men to alter Fundamental Laws and Governments here on earth took upon them in their Monthly Prognostications for this year 1654. versity College Lands by Monthly endless Taxes Excises a perpetual Law Tith-oppugning Parliament-dissolving Army in whose Councels we have cause to fear the Iesuites have been most predominant of late years and will still make use of them to our final ruine if not effectually purged out and the Army new moulded new principled if any longer continued under pretext of publick safety and not wholy disbanded for the peoples ease and Liberty It is worthy observation that Tho. Campanella prescribed the sowing and continual nourishing of Divisions Dissentions Discords Sects and Schisms among us both in State and Church by the Machivilian Plots and Policies he suggests punctually prosecuted among us of late years as the principal means to weaken ruine both our Nation and Religion and bring us under the Spanish and Popish yokes at last witness his IAMVERO AD ENERVANDOS ANGLOS NIHIL TAM CONDUCIT QUAM DISSENTIO ET DISCORDIA INTER ILLOS EXCIT AT A PERPETUOQUE NUTRITA Quod citâ— meliâ—res occasiones suppeditabiâ— and that principally by instigating the Nobles and chief Men of the Parliament of England UT ANGLIAMIN FORMAM REIPUBLICAE REDUCANT AD IMITATIONEM HOLLANDORVM which our Republicans lately did by the power of the Army Officers or by sowing the seeds of an inexplicable war between England and Scotland By making it an Elective Kingdom as some now endeavour under another Notion or by setting up Other Kings of another Race without Legal Right or just Title against that ancient unquestioned undoubted Right and Title setled established in King Iames and his Royal Posterity by Inherent Birthright and lawfull right of Descent by God himself and his Laws confirmned strengthned by all possible Titles and Rights of compact Laws Statutes Oaths perpetual uncontradicted custome Protestations Covenants the solemn Publick Faith and Engagement of our English Parliaments Nation for themselves Their Heirs Posterities for ever as the Statutes of 1 Iacobi c. 1. 2 3 Iac. c. 1. 4 7. Iac. c. 6. which both houses of Parliament in their Declaration of Nov. 2. 1642. Exact Collect. p. 705 resolve And that upon this suggestion to the People Crudelem fore SCOTUM ubi semel Imperium in illos obtinuerit 〈…〉 mente repostum quanta injuria Angli Scotos superioribus
of late have given ample testimony thereof for maintenance of their Lawes Liberties and Religion and with them and others of their resolution we shall be ready to live and die But how many of these Declarers have made good this publike engagement yea have not some of them been and still are more ready to secure seclude disoffice imprison kill slay any such true-hearted Patrons as I have felt by sad experience than to live and die with them And we must own it as our duty to use our best endeavors that the meanest of the Commonalty may enjoy their own Birth-rights Freedom and Liberty of the Laws of the Land being equally entituled thereto with the greatest Subject I trust therefore the greatest Grandees in late or present power neither will nor can be offended with me and that all the Nobility Gentry Commons and true-hearted Patrons in the Nation who bear any love to the Laws Li-Liberties Freedom of the people for which their Ancestors and they have so long so stoutly contended heretofore and lately with our Kings will live and die with me in this their Viâ—dication and Defence against any of their fellow-Subjects who shall endeavor to subvert or deprive them of the full and free enjoyment of all or any of them according to this Engagement and Declaration Wherein there are these further observable passages relating to the Parliaments priviledges and its Members which I desire our Army-Grandees who impeached secured secluded my self with other Members of the last true Parliament levied war against and forcibly dissolved it with the Contrivers of our late New-Modelled Governments would seriously ponder who in common justice must be content to be as freely told of and reprehended for their frauds faults in print where the publike and every mans private interest Right Liberty Security is concerned as they have censured others as well their Superiors as Equalls oft in print though perchance lâ—sse peccant than themselves in that they object against them For the matter of his Majesties raising an Army against the Parliament wherein many Papists Priests Jesuites were imployed and taking away the priviledge thereof we shall refer it to the judgement of every ordinary capacity whether it be void of sense to say that this War is raised against the Parliament But the truth is that it is not a few persons but the Parliament it self is the thorn that lies in these mens sides which heretofore when it was wont to â—rick them was with much ease by a sudden dissolution pulled out But now that is more deeply fastned by the Act of Continuance they would force it out by the power of an Army Hath not this been the very practise of some Army-Grandees of late here objected against the King Jesuitical and Popish ill Counsellors And whosoever will peruse the several Speeches and Declarations made upon the breaking up of former Parliaments since the beginnning of his Majesties Reign will find the pretences of those unjust and illegal Dissolutions to be grounded upon the exceptions against some particular Members under the name of A few factious and seditious persons so that the aspersing and wounding of the Parliament through the sides of a few Members is no new invention And hath not this been the very army-Army-Officers practise since the first year of their reign till now to wound the last real Parliament yea their own late dissolved Mock Parliaments since through the sides of a few corrupt Members or a corrupt Majority in the House as all their Printed Declarations upon their dâ—ssolutions attest And is this then no crime or no Jesuitical practise in them though such in the late King and his ill Counsellors And for the satisfaction of all indifferent men that this War is raised against the Parliament we shall refer them to former Declarations â—issued out in His Majesties name being so many invectives and ground lesse accusations not against particular Members only but against the Vote and proceedings of both Houses And are not many of the Armies Declarations in 1647. and 1648. yea the late Pamphlet of some present Grandees intituled A True State of the Case of the Commonwealth of England Printed 1654 Such let them now then see whence they took their pattern even from the beheaded Kings Jesuited evil Counsellors whose steps they exactly trace in this But if the truth were as that Declaration seems to imply That this Army is raised to force some particular Members of this Parliament to be delivered up yet upon that ground would it follow that the same is levied against the Parliament For it cannot be denied by any ingenious man but that the Parliament by their inherent rights and priviledges hath the power to judge and punish their own Members yet the Army Officers took upon them to secure seclude them without Charge and their future New-minted Parliament Members though only elected by the People must be tryed judged by the new Whitehall Members ere they can be admitted to sit Article 21 of the New Government And we have often declared to His Majestie and the World That we are alwayes ready to receive any evidence or accusations against any of them and to judge and punish them according to their demerits yet hitherto no evidence produced no Accuser appearing And yet notwistanding to raise an Army to compel the Parliament to expose those Members to the fury of those wicked Counsellors that thirst for nothing more than the ruine of them and the Commonwealth What can be more evident than that the same is levied against the Parliament For did they prevail in this then by the same reason pray observe it They might demand 20 more and never rest satisfied until their malice and Tyrany did devour all those Members they found crosse and opposite to their lewd and wicked designs And was not this the practice of the Army-Officers who levied a real actual War against the Parliament They first impeached secluded XI Members of the Commons-House and some Lords soon after An. 1647. 〈◊〉 then they secluded other Members by their high Declaration of Aug. 18. 1647. after that they secured imprisoned my self with 44 Members more and secluded the greatest part of the Commons House leaving not above 50 or 60 at first sitting who confederated with them in December 1648. within two moneths after this they beheaded the King then suppressed the whole Lords House to carry on their designs since acted At last they dissolved their own Mock Parliaments when they crossed their ambitious aspires What they did in September last since this was first penned to those now sitting is fresh in memory Touching the Privileges of Parliament which the contrivers of that Declaration in his Majesties name and the Contrivers of sundry Declarations since in the Armies name who imitated them herein seem to be so tender of and to professe all conformity unto and deny this Army to be raised in any degree
to violate we shall appeal to the judgement of any indifferent man how little truth is contained in this their assertion or in the Army Officers printed Papers to the same effect The Parliament is to be considered in three severall respects First As a Councell to advise Secondly As a Court to judge 3. As it is the body representative of the whole Kingdom to make repeal or alter Laws and whether the Parliament hath enjoyed its priviledges in any of these respects under the army-Army-Officers and powers as well as late King let any that hath eyes open judge For the first We dare appeal even to the Consciences of the Contrivers themselves and to the consciences of the army-Army-Officers Souldiers and Whitehall men themselves whether matters of the highest importance witness all the publick proceedings against the late Parliament King Peers Government the Warrs with Scotland Holland their new Magna Châ—rta repealing the old Entituled The Government of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland wherein they take upon them such an Omnipotent Soveraign power as To pass a decree upon the wavering humors of the people and to say to this Nation yea to Scotland and Ireland too As the Almighty himself said once to the unruly Sea Here shall be thy bounds hitherto shalt thou come and no further as some of them most arrogantly if not blasphemously publish in print to all the world in their True State of the Case of the Commonwealth p. 34. Their making of new binding Laws and Ordinances repealing old Laws and Statutes in and by pretext of this Instrument out of Parliament as their manifold Whitehall Folio new Edicts amounting to near 700 pages attest have not been agitated and determined in and by the army-Army-Officers General Councel and other unparliamentary Juncto's not only without but contrary to their Advice and Votes too and whether private unknown Councels in the Army Whitehall and elswhere yea the private Councels Plots conspiracies of Iesuits of Forraign Popish and Spanish Agents have not been hearkned unto approved and followed when the Faithful and wholsom advice of the great Counsel hath been scorned neglected by the Army Officers and their Confederates And yet none can deny but it is one of the Principle ends why a Parliament is called To Consult the great Affairs of the Church and State And what miserable effects and sad events this neglect of the great Councel and preferring of unknown and private Councels before it hath produced let the present Distractions of this Kingdom bear witnesse with all the bloody unchristian Wars Taxes Oppressions Distractions since the Armies force upon the King Members Houses Anno 1647. and 1648. to this present time Concerning the Second it sufficiently appears by the making the Kings Court by the Force and Power of the Kings Army the Sanctuary and refuge of All sorts of Delinquents against the Parliament and Kingdom and protecting and defending them from the Justice thereof and by admitting such to bear places of great trust in the Army and to stand in defiance of the Parliament and the Authority thereof and is it not a far greater crime to make the Parliaments Army it self a Delinquent against the Parliament and Kingdom the sanctuary of such Delinquents against both and to continue such Officers in places of greatest trust in the Army who have levied actual war against the Parliament secluded secured members of Parliament kept divers years under their armed guards in defiance of the Parliament without any particular Charge or Impeachment refusing to release them even when the Serjeant was sent at first from the House it self to demand the Members seised By all which it is apparent how our Privledges have been torn from us by piece-meals from time to time And we might mention many passages whereby they were endeavoured to be pulled up by the root and totally subverted As the attempt to bring up the late Army from the North to force Conditions upon the Parliament His Majesties Letters and Commands to the Members of both Houses which found obedience in a great many to attend him at York and so By depriving the Parliament of their Members destroy the whole Body And was not the actual twice bringing up of the Parliaments own Army by the Army Officers against the Parliament it self to impeach secure some principal Members of both Houses seclude the Majority of the Commons House suppress the whole House of Lords break off the Treaty behead the King the Head of the Parliament against the Parliaments Votes alter the Government force conditions on the Parliament it self to omit the 12 21 24 32 37 38 39 Articles of their New Government with the secluding of all the Members lately admitted by Armed Souldiers till they took a New Engagement and keeping out all others a taking of the Privileges of the Parliament from them all by Whole-sale and a more desperate pulling up by the Roots and total subversion of all the Priviledges and whole Body of the Parliament than this objected against the Northern Army or the Kings Jesuitical ill Councel Which is enough to prove the vanity of the Contrivers of that Declaration and of the Army Officers too to feed themselves with hope of belief That the Priviledges of Parliament are not Violated but intended to be preserved with all due observance Concerning the Allegation That the Army raised by the Parliament is to murder the KING oft alledged by the King and his Party in many printed PROCLAMATIONS Declarations before and after this here mentioned We hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that professed but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a SCANDAL especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses and Army Officers too whereby they promise in the presence of Almighty God TO DEFEND HIS MAJESTIES PERSON The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and die with him wherein is expressed THAT THIS ARMY WAS RAISED FOR DEFENCE OF THE KINGS PERSON Our oft earnest and most humble Address to his Majesty to leave that desperate and dangerous Army c. A request inconsistent with any purpose to offer the least violence to His Person which hath and ever shall be dear unto us And concerning the imputation laid to our Charge of Raising this Army to Alter the whole Frame of Government and Established Laws of the Land which the King and his party frequently objected in print we shall need give no other Answer but this That the Army Raised by the Parliament is to no other end but for the Preservation of his Majesties Person to Defend themselves the Laws of the Land and the true Protestant Religion After which they there and elswhere conclude And by this time we doubt not but every man doth plainly discern through
the Mask and Visard of their Hypocrifie what their the Kings ill Counsels design is To Subject both King and Parliament and Kingdom to their needy Ambitious and Avaritious Spirits and to the violent Laws Martial law of Governing the People by guards and by the Souldiers But alas for grief how superlatively have many of the Army Officers and their confederate members though parties to these Declarations and Protestations violated them and both Houses Faiths Trusts intentions ends in raising the Army in every of these particulars How have they verified justified the Kings Declarations Jealousies concerning the Parliaments Army in every point here and elswhere disclaimed by both Houses How have they exceeded out-acted the Kings Jesuitical Counsellers and most desperate Popish Army in violating subverting both the Parliaments Priviledges Members and Parliaments themselves together with our Fundamental Laws Liberties Government for whose preservation they were only raised paid How have they pursued the Kings and his worst Jesuited Counsellers footsteps in all the charges here objected against them by both Houses in relation to the Parliaments priviledges Members Constitution Rights Laws to their utter subversion dissolution and waged war against them And doth not every man plainly discern through the Mask and Visard of their Hypocrifie to use both Houses expressions that their design is just the same with that here objected by the Parliament to the Kings ill Jesuited Counsellers and Popish army even to subject both King Parliament and Kingdom to their needy ambitious avaritions spirits and to the violent Laws marshal Law of Governing the People yea Parliaments themselves by Guards and by the Souldiers and By Conquest to establish an absolute and unlimited power over the Parliament and good Subjects of this Kingdom as the Houses elswhere thrice objected against the late King his Army and party being the very design as many wisemen fear of the 27 Article of their New Government to settle a constant Annual revenue for the maintenance of 20000 Foot 10000 Horse and Dragoones to be alwayes constantly kept up Winter and Summer without disbanding or diminution for the Defence and Security of England Scotland and Ireland Which must henceforth be kept under by Mercinary Foâ—ces to guard of Protectors when as the Heathen Poet assures us â—nteger vitae scelâ—risque purus non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu much less our English Nation ever formerly secured by their own unmercinary Militia of the Trained Bands and those Lords and Gentlemen who hold their Lands by Knight-service O that they would now in the name and fear of God as they tender the eternal salvation of their Souls the honour and priviledges of all future Parliaments the ease welfare settlement of our Nation Lay all this most seriously to their Hearts and make it a matter of their greatest lamentation and repentance Besides this have they not falsified that memorable late Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Novemb. 2. 1642. in Answer to his Majesties well worthy perusal now and made good both for the time past and all succeeding Parliaments whiles there shall be any standing Army in England able to over-power them all the odious scandalous positions in relation to the English Parliament its Members and priviledges deduced from the Kings Declaration only by inference but disclaimed by the King summed up by them in the close of that Remonstrance and published in these ensuing terms as will evidently appear if applied to the Army and their Generall Councel of Officers by adding or exchanging their names only for the Kings in a parenthesis 1. That the King the * Army General and their General Councel of Officers when he pleaseth may declare the Major part of both Houses which in all sorts of Republicks doth yea ought of right to over sway the Minority their Votes to be firm and binding to all men as Aristotle himself resolves a faction of Malignant Schismatical and ambitious Persons so that all Parliaments that have been heretofore and SHALL BE HEREAFTER AND ALL LAWS MADE IN THEM may by this means be called in question at pleasure yea nulled and repealed for ever as some former Parliaments have been when held and over-awed by armed power or unduly elected packed summoned without Lawfull Authority or some of the Members forcibly secluded as you may read at large in the Statutes of 21 R. 2. c. 11 12 16 17 18. 1 H. 4. c. 3. 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 22 23 36 48 66 70. 113. 39 H. 6. c. 1. 17 E. 4. c. 7. worthy the serious perusal of our present Grandees and all illegitimate Parliaments where they may read the fatal end of all new unparliamentary projects laws devices wherein many now so much glory as if they would continue form for ever when as in a few years space they will all probably prove nullities be for ever reversed yea branded to posterity as most pernicious presidents 2. That his Majesty the Army and their General Councel may declare what is the known Law of the Land against the judgement of the Highest Court and consequently of all his Courts So that the safety and right of King and people and THE LAW IT SELF must depend upon his Majesties the Army General and their Councels pleasure 4. That as the King hath a property in his Townes Forts and Kingdoms so he the Army and their General Councel may dispose of them as he pleaseth and the Representative body of the whole Kingdom may not intermedle in discharge of his Majesties the Armies Generals Councels trust though by the advice of evil Councellers they see it diverted to the hazard of the publique peace safety of the Kingdom 5. That his Majesty the Army General and their Councel or any other person may upon suggestions and pretences of Treason Felony or breach of peace or of their Trusts a fourth Army new-minted cause Take the Members of Parliament without giving satisfaction to the House whereof they are Members of the grounds of such suggestion or accusation and without and against their consent as in the case of the late secured secluded Members and their two Junctâ—'s since so they may Dismember a Parliament when they please and make it what they will when they will 6. That whosoever shall follow the King Army General and their Councel in the wars against the Parliament though it were to destroy Laws Liberty Religion the Parliament it self and the whole Kingdom yet he shall be free from all crime or punishment And that on the other side to oppose by force any such force though in the most Legal way and by authority of the Representative body of the whole Kingdom is to leavy war against the King Army General and TREASON within the Letter of 25 E. 3. or of their new Knacks since So our Lands Liberties Lives Religion and Laws themselves Whereby all the Rights both of King and People
as he shall depute or by his command shall be deputed to keep the peace within the said places and also except the Kings servants according to the Statute of Northampton And it is not the intention of our Lord the King that any Earl or Baron may not have his Lance brought to him in any place but onely in the Kings presence and in the place of Councell The like Proclamations were made in the beginning of the Parliaments of 9. 1â— 17 18. 20 25 â—dw 3. and sundry others more necessary to be revived in all succeeding English Parliaments now than ever heretofore since the unpresidented forces upon the late Members of both Houses and the Parliament it self by the army-Army-Officers and Souldiers raised to defend them from Violence The Treasonablenesse and Transcendency whereof being at large related in my Epistle to the Reader before my Speech in Parliament 4 December 1648 I shall not here criminally presse nor insist on but referred them thereunto However for the future security and freedome of our Parliaments from violence I must crave liberty to inform these Army Parliament drivers forcers dissolvers habituated to this trade That if the late Kings march to the House of Commons accompanied only with some of his Pensioners and others armed with Pistols and Swords meerly to demand but five Members thereof to be delivered up to Justice particularly impeached by him of High Treason some dayes before to wit That they had traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of this Kingdome To deprive the King of his Royal power To place over the Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical power To subvert the very Rights and being of Parliaments and by force and terrour to compell the Parliament to joyn with them in their designs for which end they had actually raised and countenanced Tumults against the King and Parliament Or if the Kings bare tampering with some Officers of his own Northern Army to draw a Petition from them to the Houses or march towards London from their quarters not to seise upon force or dissolve the Parliament or its Members but only to over-aw them and impeach the freedom of their debates Votes touching Episcopacy Church-Government and the Kings Revenues were such high transcendent violations of the Priviledges and Freedome of Parliament and unsufferable injuries as both Houses of Parliament separately and joyntly proclaimed them to all the world in severall Declarations during his life Or such capitall crimes as those who condemned and executed him for a Traytor and Tyrant have published in their Declaration of 17 March 1648. touching the grounds of their proceedings against him and setling the Government in the way of a Free State without King or House of Lords since his beheading in these very words But ABOVE ALL the English army was laboured by the King to be engaged against the English Parliament a thing of that strange in piety and unnaturalness for the King of England that nothing can answer it but his being a Forraigner neither could it have easily purchased belief but by his succeeding visible actions in full pursuance of the same as the Kings comming in Person to the House of Commons to seise the five Members whither he was followed with some hundreds of unworthy debauched persons armed with swords and pistols and other arms and they attending him at the door of the House ready to execute what the Leader should command them Which they charged against the King as the highest of his unparralleld Offences for which they appeal to all the world of indifferent men to judge whether they had not sufficient cause to bring him to Justice Though neither he nor his followers then seized secured secluded injured any one Member when they thus went to the Commons House Yea presently retracted his Impeachment and offered all satisfaction that should be desired by the House for this breach of Privilege and though neither the Northern Army nor their Officers ever advanced towards or offered the least violence to the Houses or their priviledges by Petition or otherwise Then certainly the Parliaments own Armies Officers Counsels manifold high printed Declarations of June 14. 23. July 7. Aug. 18. 1647. Nov. 16. Decemb 7. 1648. and others before and since their professed open Oppositions Impeachments against the very Proceedings Votes Orders Ordinances Members of both Houses of Parliament which first raised them principally for their defence Printed by their order in their Book of Declarations The History of Independency and my Speech in Parliament their Impeachment of eleven Members of the House of Commons and sundry Lords at once their securing of above 40 and secluding of above five parts of six of the whole House of Commons at once their avowed marches with the whole Body of the Army in Baâ—talia severall times to force the Houses seise their Members over-aw affright dis-member dissolve the Parliament it self and their own new erected Junctoes since and justification of it to all the world in print in their humble Answer touching the secured and secluded Members Jan. 3. 1648. The true state of the case of the Commonwealth of England 1654. and their Declarations concerning their dissolution of their two Junctoes after these Misdemeanours of the King without the least repentance for them must needs be farre more execrable unwarrantable and criminal than the Kings and deserve a severer censure than his Peccadilioes in respect of their crimes And if by the whole Armies printed Remonstrances August 2. and 18. 1647. the tumult of some unarmed London Apprentices who offered some small force to the Houses to the violation of their Priviledges without securing or secluding any one Member deserved a speedy and exemplary capital proceeding against the principal contrivers and Actors in it as they then declared and vehemently urged again and again in those Remonstrances Or if by their own Charge in the Name of the whole Army June 14. 1647. against the XI Members it was so high an offence in them That they joyntly or severally invited encouraged abetted or countenanced several Reformadoes and OTHER OFFICERS AND SOULDIERS TVMVLTVOVSLY AND VIOLENTLY TO GATHER TOGETHER AT WESTMINSTER TO AFFRIGHT ASSAULT THE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT IN PASSAGES TO FROM THE HOâ—SE TO OFFER VIOLENCE TO THE HOUSE IT SELF BY SVCH VNRVLY OVTRAGES THREATS TO AWE AND INFORCE THE PARLIAMENT And that upon their bare suggestion thereof without any proof at all or colour of truth they presently demanded That the persons impeached MIGHT BE FORTHWITH SECLVDED FROM SITTING IN THE HOVSE and removed thence before any hearing or trial which the Officers and Army eagerly pressed in their Paper of June 15. 1647. Nay if by their own late printed Instrument of the Government of the Commonwealth of England c. Articles 14. 16. All and every person and persons who have aided advised assisted or abetted in any war against the Parliament since the first day of
January 1641. unlesse they have since been in the Service of the Parliament and given signal testimony of their good affections thereunto shall be disabled and be uncapable to be elected or to give any Vote in the Election of any Member to serve in the next or in the three succeeding triennial Parliaments and all Votes and Elections given to the contrary shall be null and void And if any person so made uncapable shall forfeit one full years value of his real estate and one full third part of his personal estate in case he shall give his Vote for election of Members to serve in Parliament as they there adjudge though such persons as they intend thus to disable never waged any actual war against the Parliament it self or its Members immediatly but only against the Forces raised by the Parliament and so mediatly and indirectly only against the Parliament the case of all the late Kings adherents and assistants not within the letter but meaning of these Articles then doubtless those army-Army-Officers Souldiers and their Confederats who advised sided assisted abetted in one or more wars against the Parliament Houses and Parliament Members themselves whom they immediately assaulted forced secured secluded dissipated dissolved destroyed and have justified it several times in print without giving any signal testimony of their good affections to the Parliament and in this their Instrument have laid many Chains clogs restraints on all new future Parliaments of their own framing inconsistent with the Honour Freedom Priviledges being of real English Parliaments deserve a farre higher and severer censure than these Apprentices or impeached Members did in their repute or those Members they most insolently accuse and impeach in their Declarations of June 2â— and August 18. 1647. not to be presidented in any age since the Creation till then and they all are by their own Verdict Instrument totally disabled as much as the archest Malignants and Cavaliers by the very letter of these Articles to be elected or give any vote for the election of Members in the four next succeeding Parliaments and those who have given their Votes in the late Elections have thereby forfeited at least one full years value of their real and one full third part of their personal estates and deserve as high if not an higher censure as any sequestred or other Delinquents condemned formerly by them for bearing arms levying or abetting any war but only mediately against the Parliament and as high an uncapacity to be put not only on themselves but their Heir males to serve in Parliament as the Statute of 21 R. 2. c. 6. imposed heretofore on others for a farre lesse offence to secure the Members and Priviledges of all succeeding Parliaments from such unpresidented forcible violences ruptures dismembrings dissolutions as the last Parliament sustained by the Armies outrage and confederacy against them of most dangerous president to Posterity of which I desire to make them truly sensible The last real and duly constituted English Parliament we had were so deeply sensible of the dangerous destructive Consequences of securing or secluding their Members and keeping them from the Houses upon any Impeachments or Surmises without the Notice and consent of the House that in their forementioned Remonstrance of Nov. 2. 1642. they claimed and asserted this TO BE SO CLEAR AND ESSENTIAL A PRIVILEDGE OF PARLIAMENT THAT THE WHOLE FREEDOM THEREOF DEPENDETH UPON IT That NO MEMBER OF EITHER HOVSE OF PARLIAMENT was to be proceeded against or judged NOR TAKEN AWAY OR DETAINED FROM THE SERVICE OF THE HOUSE WHEREOF HE IS A MEMBER no not in case of Treason Felony or Breach of Peace much lesse in any other until such time as that House hath satisfaction concerning the cause though in such cases they confessed he might be arrested by the Officers of Parliament or any other Ministers of Iustice to the intent only That he might be brought to the Parliament Corpus cum causa and deteined in safe custody till he may be brought to the Parliament but not to be proceeded against in any inferior Court before such timeâ— as the cause be heard in Parliament and dismissed from it For else who seâ—s not that by this means UNDER FALSE PRETENCES OF CRIMES AND ACCUSATIONS SVCH AND SO MANY MEMBERS OF BOTH OR EITHER HOVSE OF PARLIAMENT MAY BE TAKEN OVT OF IT AT ANY TIME BY ANY PERSONS TO SERVE A TVRN AND TO MAKE A MAJOR PART OF WHOM THEY WILL AT PLEASVRE And as the grand Inquest of the whole Kingdom should be by this means subject to the grand Inquest of one particular County So the whole Representative Body of the Kingdom should be at the Devotion of a Middlesex Iury as since of their own Army raised to protect them from these mischiefs And therefore as THE FREEDOM OF PARLIAMENTS DEPENDETH IN A GREAT PART VPON THEIR PRIVILEGES AND THE FREEDOM OF THIS NATION UPON THE FREEDOM OF PARLIAMENTS WE HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELEIVE that the People of England knowing their Lives and Fortunes are bound up in this bundle will venture their Lives and Fortunes in this Quarrel Which I intreat all those who have so highly infringed this principle Privilege of Parliament of late years with all the people of England now seriously to consider to vindicate preserve it in all succeeding ages from the like violations if ever they expect to be Freemen or to enjoy free English Parliaments again which are such an ESSENTIAL PART OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE KINGDOM that we can attain TO NO HAPPINESSE WITHOUT THEM and like Hipocrates twins We must laugh and cry LIVE AND DIE TOGETHER WITH THEM Now farther to convince the army-Army-Officers Souldiers of their late great injustice to and affronts contempts against the Parliament which raised them in relation to our ancient fundamental Government and chief Member of the Parliament I shall desire them and all their confederates in cold blood seriously to consider whether they have not by their undutifull violent proceedings against them contrary to the Votes Declarations Remonstrances of the PARLIAMENT endeavoured as much as in them is to falsifie this clause in both Houses Declaration Nov. 2. 1642 Although they would perswade his Majesty That there is little confidence to be placed in our Modesty and Duty yet AS GOD IS WITNESSE OF OUR THOVGHTS SO SHALL OUR ACTIONS WITNESSE TO ALL THE WORLD that TO THE HONOR OF OUR RELIGION and OF THOSE WHO ARE MOST ZEALOUS IN IT so much strucken at by the contrivers of that Declaration under odious names we shall suffer more for and from our Soveraign than we hope God will ever permit the malice of evil Counsellors to put us to And although the happinesse of this and all Kingdomes dependeth chiefly upon God Yet WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT DOTH SO MAINLY DEPEND UPON HIS MAJESTY and THE ROYALL BRANCHES OF THAT ROOT that as WE HAVE HERETOFORE SO WE SHALL HEREAFTER esteem no hazard too great no
Parliament set on Impositions either within the Land or upon commodities exported or imported by the merchants they have in open Parliament complained of it in that it was done without their consents and thereupon never failed to obtain a speedy and full redresse without any claim made by the Kings of any Power or Prerogative in that point And though the Law of property be original and carefully preserved by the Common Laws of this Real WHiCH ARE AS ANCIENT AS THE KINGDOME IT SELF yet those famous Kings for the better contentment and assurance of their loving Subjects agreed THAT THIS OLD FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT observe the words should be further declared and established by Acts of Parliament wherein it is provided That no such Charge shall ever be laid upon the People without their common Consents as may appear by sundry Records of former times We therefore your Majesties most humble Commons assembled in Parliament following the example of this worthy care of our Ancestors and out of our Duty to those for whom we serve finding that your Majesty without advice of your Lords and Commons hath lately in times of Peace Set both greater Impositions and farre more in number than any your Noble Ancestors did ever in time of Warre do with all humility present this most just and necessary Petition unto your Majesty THAT ALL IMPOSITIONS SET WITHOVT ASSENT IN PARLIAMENT MAY BE QVITE ABOLISHED AND TAKEN AWAY And that your Majesty likewise in imitation of your Royal Progenitors will be pleased that a Law in your time and during this Session of Parliament may be also made to declare That all Imposition of any kinde set or to be set upon your people their Goods or Merchandises save onely by common Consent in Parliament are and shall bâ— Void wherein your Majesty shall not onely Give your Subjects great Satisfaction in point of their Right but also bring exceeding joy and comfort to them who now suffer partly through the abating of the price of Native Commodities and partly through the raising of all Forraign to the overthrow of Merchants and shipping the causing of general dearth and decay of all wealth among your people who will be thereby no lesse discouraged than disabled to supply your Majesty when occasion shall require In which memorable Petition the whole House of Commons resolve in direct terms 1. That the Subjects of England have old original Fundamental Rights and more particularly in the Property of their Goods exempted from all Impositions whatsoever in times of peace or war without their common consent in Parliament declared and established both by the ancient and common law of England and sundry Acts of Parliament and records of former times 2. They declare the constant vigilant care zeal of our ancestors and former Parliaments in all ages inviolably to maintain defend preserve the same against all enchroachments together with their own care duty and vigilancy in this kind in that very Parliament 3. They relate the readinesse of our Kings to ratifie these their Fundamental Rights by new Acts of Parliament when they have been violated in any kinde 4. They declare the benefit accruing both to Prince and People by the inviolable preservation and establishment of this old Fundamental right and the mischiefs accruing to both by the infringment thereof by arbitrary illegall impositions without full consent in Parliament 5. They earnestly in point of Conscience prudence and duty to those for whom they served Petition his Majesty for a new Law and Declaration against all new Impositions and Taxes on inland Goods or Merchandises imported or exported without the peoples free consent in Parliament as null void utterly to be abolished and taken away Whether it will not be absolutely necessary for the whole English Nation and the next ensuing National or reall Parliament to prosecute enact establish such a Declaration and Law against all such former and future arbitrary illegal oppressive Taxes Impositions Excises that have been imposed and continued for many years together on the whole kingdome by new extravagant self-created usurping army-ARMY-OFFICERS and other Powers without free and full consent of the people in Lawfull English Parliaments against all former Laws Declarations and Resolutions in Parliaments to their great oppression enslaving undoing in far greater proportions multiplicity and variety than ever in former Ages without the least intermission and likewise against their late declared designe to perpetuate them on our exhausted Nation without alteration or diminution beyond and against all presidents of former Ages both in times of Peace and War for the future by the 27 28 29 30 39. Articles of the Instrument entituled The Government of the Common-wealth of England c. I remit to their most serious considerations to determine if ever they resolve to be English Freemen again or to imitate the wisdome prudence zeal courage and laudable examples of their worthy Ancestors from which they cannot now degenerate without the greatest Infamy and enslaving of themselves with their Posterities for ever to the arbitrary wils of present or future Vsurpers on their Fundamental Rights and Liberties in an higher degree then ever in any precedent Ages under the greatest Conquerours or Kings after all their late costly bloody Wars for their Defence against the beheaded King 5 The fifth is A learned and necessary Argument made in the Commons House of Parliament Anno 7. Jacobi to prove That each Subject hath a Property in his Goods shewing also the extent of the Kings Prerogative in Impositions upon the Goods of Merchants exported or imported c. by a late learned Judge of this Kingdome printed at London by Richard Bishop 1641. and Ordered to be Published in Print at a Committee appointed by the Honorable House of Commons for examination and Licensing of Books 20. Maii 1641. In which Parliamentary Argument p. 8. 11. 16. I finde these direct Passages That the New Impositions contained in the Book of Rates imposed on Merchandizes imported and exported by the Kings Prerogative and Letters Patents without consent in Parliament is against the natural Frame and Constitution of the Policy of this Kingdome which is JVS PVBLICVM REGNI AND SO SVBVERTETH THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THE REALM and introduceth a new Form of State and Government Can any man give me a reason why the King can only in Parliament make Laws No man ever read any Law whereby it was so ordained and yet no man ever read that any King practised the contrary therefore IT IS THE ORIGINAL RIGHT OF THE KINGDOME AND THE VERY NATURAL CONSTITUTION OF OUR STATE AND POLICY being one of the highest Rights of Soveraign Power If the King alone out of Parliament may impose HE ALTERETH THE LAW OF ENGLAND IN ONE OF THESE TWO MAIN FUNDAMENTAL POiNTS he must either take the Subjects Goods from them without assent of the Party which is against the law or else he must give his own Letters Patents the force of
after so many Declarations and solemn Protestations made by his Majesty to rule by the known Laws of this Land his Majesty by advice of his ill Councellors should be perswaded to set such a Commission on foot which is so clearly contrary TO THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THIS LAND the Rights of Property and Liberty of the Subject contrary to former resolutions of Parliament and to the Petition of Right I am certain the generality of the Nation are now as much and more agrieved that some who were Parties to this Declaration and others who have made as many or more Declarations Protestations as his Majesty ever did to rule by the known laws of the Land should since this far exceed his Majesty in the like nay greater more exorbitances in the Militia Excises Taxes Impositions Imprisonments arbitrary extravagant proceedings capital executions in new erected Courts of Injustice and whole volumes of new binding Ordinances as they term them and their ill-sounding Instrument obliging all our three Nations both for the present all future ages in their intention as diametrically contrary as the Kings Commissions of Array to the Fundamentall Laws of the Land four times together so stiled and insisted on as such in this one Declaration of both Houses the Right of Property of the Subject contrary to former Resolutions and the Petition of Right yea which is most abominable to their own Declarations Remonstrances Votes Protestations Vows Solemne Leagues and Covenants in Parliament to their own eternall Infamy as well as the peoples intolerable oppression and slavery who thereupon may justly conclude and protest against them as both Houses did in the close of this Declaration against the Array viz. And the Lords and Commons do and shall adhere to their former Votes Resolutions That all those that are Actors in putting of this Commission of Array these Instruments Ordinances new Taxes Imposts Excises in execution shall be esteemed disturbers of the Peace of the Kingdome and of the Properties and Liberties of the Subject 10. The tenth Evidence is the Vote and Letter of both Houses of Parliament sent to his Majesty at Oxford 9. March 1643. in Answer to his Majesties of the third of March and wherein there is this passage We the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England c. Have resolved with the concurrent advice and consent of the Commissioners of Scotland to represent to your Majesty in all humility and plainnesse as followeth That this present Parliament convened according to the known and FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE KINGDOME the continuance whereof is established by a law consented to by your Majesty is in effect denied to be a Parliament c. And hereupon we think our selves bound to let your Majesty know That since the continuance of this Parliament is settled by a Law which as all other laws of your Kingdome your Majesty is sworn to maintain as we are sworn to our Allegiance to your Majesty those Obligations being reciprocall we must in duty and accordingly are resolved with our Lives and Fortunes to Defend and preserve the â—ust Rights and full Power of this Parliament To which the Earle of Essex then General by both Houses order in his Letter to the Earle of Forth January 30. 1643. adds this Corolary My Lord the mainâ—enance of the Parliament of England and the Priviledges thereof is that for which we are resolved to spend our bloud as being THE FOVNDATION WHEREON ALL OVR LAWS AND LIBERTIES ARE BVILT Which both the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their Declaration 23. March 1643. touching their proceedings upon his Majesties Letter concerning a Treaty of Peace wherein this Earls former letter is recited thus second The Parliament of England is the onely Basis the chief Support and Pillar of our Laws and Liberties c. And if notwithstanding all these Obligations the King shall at his pleasure dissolve this Parliament the Kingdome is not onely deprived of the present but made uncapable of enjoying the benefit of any future Parliament or Laws any longer than shall stand with the will and pleasure of the King and consequently THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ALL OUR LAWS AND GOVERNMENT ARE SUBVERTED Let the Parliament-purging securing sequestring dissolving Officers Army and their Confederates seriously ponder this yea let all the whole English Nation and their Trustees who shall hereafter sit in Parliament consider and reform it in the first place if ever they expect any Freedome free Parliaments Peace settlement enjoyment of their Fundamental Laws Rights or Liberties for the future depending on our Parliaments Freedome and exemption from all force and violence on its Members The eleventh is the Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament 13. Junii 1644. For the Forces raised in the County of Salop which begins thus The Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament taking into their serious considerations the great Oppressions under which the Inhabitants of the County of Salop lie by reason the insupportable Taxes c. and the present condition of the County by reason of the great number of Irish Rebels that have invaded it and joyned with Papists and other ill affected Persons now in those parts which threaten the extirpation of the Protestant Religion and the subversion of the FUNDAMENTAL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM For prevention whereof c. A direct Ordinance in point The twelfth is a Declaration of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament 17. Aprilis 1646. Of their true intentions concerning the ANCIENT and FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOME securing the people against ALL ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT c. wherein they complain That the Enemy being in dispair to accomplish his Designes by War do mis-represent our intentions in the use we intend to make of the great successes God hath given us and the happy opportunity to settle Peace and Truth in the three Kingdomes to beget a belief that we now desire to excâ—ed or swerve from our first Aym's and Principles in the undertaking of this War and to recede from the Solemn League and Covenant and Treaties between the two Kingdomes and that we would prolong these uncomfortable troubles and bleeding distractions IN ORDER TO ALTER THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTION AND FRAME OF THIS KINGDOME to leave all Government in the Church loose and unsettled and ourselves to exercise THE SAME ARBITRARY POWER OVER THE PERSONS and ESTATES OF THE SVBJECTS which this present Parliament hath thought fit to abolish by taking away the Star-Chamber High-Commission and other arbitrary Courts and the exorbitant Power of the Council Table all which we have seen experimentally verified in every particular in the highest degree notwithstanding this Declaration by some in late and present power and new White-hall Council Tables exceeding the old in illegal Taxes Law-making and other extravagances All which being seriously considered by us c. We do declare THAT OUR TRUE and REAL INTENTIONS ARE and OUR ENDEAVOUR SHALL BE
one of the Judges of the Common Pleas exhibited sundry Articles of Impeachment to King Henry the 8. against Cardinal Wolsey That he had by divers and many sundry wayes and fashions committed High Treason and NOTABLE GRIEVOUS OFFENCES by misusing altering and subverting of his Graces Laws and otherwise contrary to his high Honour Prerogative Crown Estate and Dignity Royal to the inestimable great hinderance diminution and decay of the universal wealth of this his Graces Realm The Articles are 43. in number the 20 21 26 30 35 37 42 43. contain his illegal arbitrary practises and proceedings to the subversion of the due course and order of his Graces Laws to the undoing of a great number of his loving people Whereupon they pray Please therefore your mostexcellent Majesty of your excellent goodnesse towards the Weal of this your Realm and subjects of the same to set such order and direction upon the said Lord Cardinal as may be to terrible example of other to beware to offend your Grace and your Laws hereafter and that he be so provided for that he never have any Power Jurisdiction or authority hereafter to trouble vex or impoverish the common-wealth of this your Realm as he hath done heretofore to the great hurt and dammage of every man almost high and low His poysoning himself prevented his legal judgement for these his Practises 7. The Statute of 3. and 4. Ed. c. 5 6. enacts That if any persons to the number of twelve or more being assembled together shall intend go about practise or put in use with force and arms unlawfully of their own authority TO CHANGE ANY LAWS made for Religion by authority of Parliament OR ANY OTHER LAWS OR STATUTES OF THIS REALM STANDING IN FORCE OR ANY OF THEM and shall continue together by the space of an houre being commanded by a Justice of Peace Mayor Sheriffe or other Officer to return or shall by ringing of any Bell sounding of any Trumpet Drumme Horn c. raise such a number of persons to the intent to put any the things aforesaid in ure IT SHALL BE HIGH TREASON and the parties executed as Traytors After this the Statute of 1 Mariaec 12. Enacted That if twelve or more in manner aforesaid shall endeavour by force to alter any of the Laws or Statutes of the Kingdome the offenders shall from the time therein limited be adâ—udged ONELY AS FELONS whereas it was Treason before but this Act continuing but till the next Parliament and then expiring the offence remains Treason as formerly 8. In the 39. year of Queen Elizabeth divers in the County of Oxford consulted together to go from house to house in that County and from thence to London and other parts to excite them to take arms for the throwing down of inclosures throughout the Realm nothing more was prosecuted nor assemblies made yet in Easter Term 39. Elizabeth it was resolved by all the Judges of England who met about the Case that this was High Treason and a levying war against the Queen because it was to throw down all inclosures throughout the Kingdom to which they could pretend no right and that the end of it was TO OVER THROW THE LAWS AND STATUTES for inclosures Whereupon BRADSHAW and BURTON two of the principal Offenders were condemned and executed at Ainstow Hill in Oxfordshire where they intended their first meeting 9. To come nearer to our present times and case In the last Parliament of King Charls Anno 1640. The whole House of Commons impeached Thomas Earl of Strafford Lord Deputy of Ireland of High Treason amongst other Articles for this crime especially wherein all the other centred That he hath TREASONABLY ENDEAVOURED by his Words Actions and Counsels TO SUBVERT THE FUNDAMENTALL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND and IRELAND and introduce an arbitrary and Tyrannical Government This the whole Parliament declared and adjudged to be High Treason in and by their Votes and a special Act of Parliament for his Attainder for which he was condemned and soon after executed on Tower-Hill as a Traytor to the King and Kingdome May 22. 1641. 10. The whole House of Commons the same Parliament impeached William Laud Arch-bishop of Canterbury of HIGH TREASON in these very terms February 6 1640. First That he hath traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of this Kingdome of England and instead thereof to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical Government against Law And he to that end hath wickedly and TRAYTEROVSLY advised his Majesty that he might at his own will and pleasure levy and take mony of his Subjects without THEIR CONSENT IN PARLIAMENT and this he affirmed was warrantable by the law of God Secondly He hath for the better accomplishment of that his Traiterous Designe advised and procured Sermons and other Discourses to be preached printed and published in which the Authority of Parliaments and the force of the Laws of this Kingdome have been denyed and absolute and unlimitted Power over the Persons and Estates of his Majesties Subjects maintained and defended not onely in the King but in himself and other Bishops against the Law Thirdly He hath by Letters Messages Threats and Promises and by divers other wayes to Judges and other Ministers of Justice interrupted perverted and at other times by means aforesaid hath endeavoured to interrupt and pervert the course of Justice in his Majesties Courts at Westminster and other Courts TO THE SUBVERSION OF THE LAWS OF THIS KINGDOME whereby sundry of his Majesties Subjects have been stopt in their just suits deprived of their lawfull Rights and subjected to his Tyrannicall will to their ruine and destruction Fourthly That he hath traiterously endeavoured to corrupt the other Courts of Justice by advising and procuring his Majesty to sell places of Judicature and other Offices CONTRARY TO THE LAWS and CUSTOMES in that behalf Fifthly That he hath TRAITEROUSLY caused a a Book of Canons to be compiled and published without any lawfull warrant and Authority in that behalf in which pretended Canons many matters are contained contrary to the Kings Prerogative to the Fundamentall Laws and Statutes of this Realm to the Rights of Parliament to the Property and Liberty of the Subject and matters tending Sedition and of dangerous consequence and to the establishing of a vast unlawfull presumptuous power in himself and his successors c. Seventhly That he hath traiterously endeavoured to alter and subvert Gods true Religion BY LAW ESTABLISHED and instead thereof to set up Popish Religion and Idolatry And to that end hath declared and maintained in Speeches and printed Books diverse Popish Doctrines and Opinions contrary to the Articles of Religion ESTABLISHED BY LAW He hath urged and enjoyned divers Popish and Superstitious Ceremonies WITHOUT ANY WARRANT OF LAW and hath cruelly persecuted those who have opposed the same by corporal punishment and imprisonments and most unjustly vexed others who refused to conform thereunto by
Ecclesiasticall Censures Excommunication Suspension Deprivation and Degradation CONTRARY TO THE LAWS of this kingdome Thirteenth He did by his own authority and power contrary to Law procure sundry of his Majesties Subjects and enforced the Clergy of this Kingdome to contribute towards the maintenance of the War against the Scots That to preserve himself from being questioned for these other his Traiterous courses he hath laboured to subvert the Rights of Parliament and the ancient course of Parliamentary proceedings and have not the Army Officers and others actually done it since upon the same accompt and by false and malicious slanders to incense his Majesty against Parliaments All which being proved against him at his Triall were after solemn Argument by Mr. Samuel Brown in behalf of the Commons House proved and soon after adjudged to be High Treason at the Common Law by both Houses of Parliament and so declared in the Ordinance for his Attainder for which he was condemned and beheaded as a Traitor against the King Law and Kingdom on Tower Hill January 10. 1644. 11. In the same Parliament December 21. Jan. 14. Febr. 11. 1640. and July 6. 1641. Sir John Finch then Lord Keeper Chief Justice Bramston Judge Berkley Judge Crawly Chief Baron Davenport Baron Weston and Baron Trevour were accused and impeached by the House of Commons by several Articles transmitted to the Lords OF HIGH TREASON for that they had Traiterously and wickedly endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and established Government of the Realm of ENGLAND and instead thereof to introdâ—ce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law which they had declared by traiterous and wicked words opinions judgements and more especially in this their extrajudiciall opinion subscribed by them in the case of Ship money viz. We are of opinion that when the good and safety of the Kingdome in generall is concerned and the whole Kingdome in danger your Majesty may by Writ under the Great Seal of England without consent in Parliament command all your Subjects of this your Kingdome at their charge to provide and furnish such a number of Ships with Men Victuall and Ammunition and for such time as your Majesty shall think fit for the Defence and safeguard of the Kingdome from such danger and perill And we are of Opinion that in such case your Majesty is the sole Judge both of the danger and when and how the sume is to be prevented and avoided And likewise for arguing and giving judgment accordingly in Mr. John Hampdens case in the Exchequer Chamber in the point of Ship money in April 1638 which said opinions are Destructive to the Fundamental Laws of the Realm the Subjects Right of Property and contrary to former Resolutions in Parliament and the Petition of Right as the words of their severall Impeachments run Sir John Finâ—h fled the Realm to preserve his head on his shoulders some others of them died through fear to prevent the danger soon after their Impeachments and the rest who were lesse peccant were put to Fines 12. Mr. John Pym in his Declaration upon the whole matter of the charge of High Treason against Thomas Earl of Strafford Aprill 12. 1641. before a Committee of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall printed and published by Order of the House of Commons proves his endeavour to subvert the Fundamental Laws of England and to introduce an Arbitrary Power to be High Treason and an offence very hainous in the nature and mischievous in the effects thereof which saith he will best appear if it be examined by that universall and supream Law Saluâ— Populi the element of all Laws out of which they are derived the end of all Laws to which they are designed and in which they are perfected 1. It is an offence comprehending all other Offences Here you shall finde several Treasons Murthers Rapines Oppressions Perjuries There is in this Crime a Seminary of all evils hurtfull to a State and if you consider the Reasons of it it must needs be so The Law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evill betwixt just and unjust If you take away the law all things will fall into confusion every man will become a law to himself which in the depraved condition of humane nature must needs produce many great enormities Lust will become a Law and Envy will become a law Covetousnesse and Ambition will become laws and what Dictates what decisions such laws will produce may easily be discerned in the late Government of Ireland and England too since this The law hath a power to prevent to restrain to repair evils without this all kindes of mischiefs and distempers will break in upon a State It is the Law that intitles the King to the Allegiance and Service of his people it intitles the People to the Protection and Justice of the King c. The Law is the Boundary the measure betwixt the Kings Prerogative and the Peoples Liberties whiles these move in their Orbe they are a support and security to one another but if these Bounds be so removed that they enter into contestation and conflict one of these great mischiefs must needs ensue if the Prerogative of the King overwhelm the Liberty of the people it will be turned into Tyranny If Liberty undermine the Prerogative it will turn into Anarchy The Law is the safegard the custody of all private interests your Honours your Lives your Liberties and your estates are all in the keeping of the Law without this every man hath a like Right to any thing and this is the condition into which the Irish were brought by the Earl of Strafford and the English by others who condemned him And the reason which he gave for it hath more mischief than the thing it self THEY ARE A CONQUERED NATION let those who now say the same of England as well as Scotland and Ireland consider and observe what followes There cannot be a word more pregnant and fruitfull IN TREASON than that word is There are few Nations in the world that have not been conquered and no doubt but the conquerour may give what Laws he please to those that are conquered But if the succeeding Parts and Agreements do not limit and restrain that right what people can be secure England hath been conquered and Wales hath been conquered and by this reason will be in little better case than Ireland If the King by the Right of a Conquerour give Lawes to his people shall not the people by the same reason be restored to the Right of the conquered to recover their Liberty if they can What can be more hurtful more pernicious than such Propositions as these 2. It is dangerous to the Kings Person and dangerous to his Crown it is apt to cherish ambition usurpation and oppression in great men and to beget sedition discontent in the people and both these have been and in reason must ever be great causes of trouble
the Realm as the Arteries Nerves Veines are in and to the natural Body the Bark to the Tree the Foundation to the House and therefore the cutting of them a sunder or their Subversion must of necessity kill destroy disjoyn and ruine the whole Realm at once Wherefore it must be Treason in the highest degree But I shall onely subjoyn here some materiall Passages in Master St. Johns Argument at Law concerning the Attainder of High Treason of Thomas Earle of Strafford before a Committee of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall Aprill 29. 1641. soon after Printed and published by Order of the Commons House Wherein p. 8. he lays down this Position recited again p. 64. That Straffords endeavouring To subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government of England and Ireland and instead therefore to introduce a Tyrannicall Government against Law is Treason by the Common Law That Treasons at the Common Law are not taken away by the statutes of 25. E. 3. 1 H. 4. c. 10. 1 Mar. c. 1. nor any of them The Authorities Judgements in and out of Parliament which he cites to prove it have been already mentioned some others he omitted I shall therefore but transcribe his Reasons to evince it to be Treason superadded to those alledged by him against the Ship mony Judges Page 12. It is a War against the King Let our Military Officers and Souldiers consider it when intended For alteration of the Laws or Government in any part of them This is a levying War against the King and so Treason within the Statute of 25. E. 3. 1. Because the King doth maintain and protect the Laws in every part of them 2. Because they are the Kings Laws He is the Fountain from whence in their severall Channels they are derived to the Subject Whence all our indictments run thus Trespasses laid to be done Contra pacem Domini Regis c. against the Kings peace for exorbitant offences though not intended against the Kings Person against the King his Crown and Dignity Page 64. In this I shall not labour at all to prove That the endeavouring by words Counsels and actions To subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdome is Treason at the Common Law If there be any Common Law Treasons at all left NOTHING TREASON IF THIS IS NOT TO MAKE A KINGDOME NO KINGDOME Take the Policy and Government away Englands but a piece of earth wherein so many men have their commerce and abode without rank or distinction of men without property in any thing further than in possession no Law to punish the murdering or robbing one another Page 70 71 72. The horridnesse of the offence in endeavouring to overthrow the Laws and present Government hath been fully opened before The Parliament is the representation of the whole Kingdome wherein the King as Head your Lordships as the more Noble and the Commons the other Members are knit together in one body Politique This dissolves the Arteries and Ligaments that hold the body together THE LAWS He that takes away the Laws takes not away the Allegiance of one Subject only but of the whole Kingdome It was made Treason by the Statute of 13 Eliz. for her time to affirm That the Law of the Realm do not binde the descent of the Crown No Law no descent at all NO LAWS NO PEERAGE no ranks nor degrees of men the same condition to all It s Treason to kill a Judge upon the Bench this kills not Judicem sed Judicium There be twelve men but no Law never a Judge amongst them It s Felony to embezell any one of the Judiciall Records of the Kingdome THIS AT ONCE SWEEPS THEM ALL AWAY and FROM ALL. It s Teason to counterfeit a Twenty shilling peice Here 's a counterfeiting of the Law we can call neither the counterfeit nor the true Coyn our own It s Treason to counterfeit the great Seal for an Acre of Land No property is left hereby to any Land at all NOTHING TREASON NOW AGAINST KING OR KINGDOME NO LAW TO PVNISH IT My Lords If the question were asked in Westminster Hall whether this were a Crime punishable in the Star Chamber or in THE KINGS BENCH by Fine or Imprisonment They would say It were higher If whether Felony They would say That is an Offence onely against the Life or Goods of some one or few persons It would I believe be answered by the JVDGES as it was by the Chief Justice Thirning in the 21 R. 2. That though he could not judge the Case TREASON there before him yet if he were a Peer in Parliament HE WOULD SO ADJUDGE IT And so the Peers did here in Straffords and not long after in Canterburies case who both lost their Heads on Tower-Hill I have transcribed these Passâ—ges of Mr. Oliver S. John at large for five Reasons 1. Because they were the Voice and Sence of the whole House of Commons by his mouth who afterwards owned and ratified them by their special Order for their publication in Print for information and satisfaction of the whole Nation and terrour of all others who should after that either secretly or openly by fraud or force directly or indirectly attempt the subversion of all or any of our Fundamental Laws or Liberties or the alteration of our Fundamental Government or setting up any Arbitrary or Tyrannical Power Taxes Impositions or new kinds of arbitrary Judicatories and imprisonments against these our Laws and Liberties 2. To minde and inform all such who have not onely equalled but transcended Strafford and Canterbury in these their HIGH TREASONS even since these PUBLICATIONS SPEECHES and their EXEMPLARY EXECUTIONS of the hainousnesse in excusablenesse wilfulnesse maliciousnesse Capitalnesse of their Crimes which not onely the whole Parliament in generality but many of themselves in particular so severely prosecuted condemned and inexorably punished of late years in them that so they may sadly consider bewail repent reform them with all speed and diligence as much as in them lies And with all I shall exhort them seriously to consider that Gospel terrifying passage if they have not quite sinned away all Conscience Shame Christianity Religion and Fear of the last Judge and Judgement to come Rom. 2. 1 2 3. Therefore thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou CONDEMNEST THY SELF FOR THOV THAT JUDGEST DOEST THOV THE SAME THING But we are sure that the Judgment of God is according to truth against them who commit such things And thinkest thou this O man that judgest them which do such things and doest the same that thou shalt escape the Judgment of God 3. To excite all Lawyers especially such who of late times have taken upon them the stile power of Judges to examine their Consciences Actions how far all or any of them have been guilty in the highest degree of these Crimes and Treasons so highly aggravated so exemplarily punished of former and
peace upon grounds of Common Right 9. November 1647 viz. Resolved upon the Question That the matters contained in these Papers are destructive to the being of Parliaments and to the fundamental Government of this Kingdom Resolved c. That a Letter be sent to the General and those Papers inclosed together with the Vote of this House upon them And that he be desired to examine the proceedings of this business in the Army where it was first coyned and return an Accompt hereof to this House These Votes were seconded soon after with these ensuing Votes entred in the Commons Journal and printed by their special Order 23 Novemb. 1647. A Petition directed to the Supream Authority of England The Commons in Parliament assembled The humble Petition of many Free-born people of England c. was read the first and second time Resolved upon the Question That this Petition is A seditious and contemptuous avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An agreement of the People formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and Fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That Thomas Prince Cheese-monger and Samuel Chidley bee forthwith committed Prisoners to the Prison of the Gate-house there to remain Prisoners during the pleasure of this House for a Seditious avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An Agreement of the people formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That Jeremy Ives Thomas Taylor and William Larnar bee forth-with committed to the Prison of Newgate there to remain Prisoners during the pleasure of this House for a seditious and contemptuous avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An Agreement of the People formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That a Letter be prepared and sent to the General taking notice of his proceeding in the execution according to the Rules of Warre of a Mutinous person avowing and prosecuting this Agreement in the Army contrary to these Votes at the Rendezvous near Ware and to give him thanks for it and to desire him to prosecute that Business to the bottome and to bring such guilty persons as he shall think fit to condign and exemplary punishment Resolved c. That the Votes upon the Petition and Agreement annexed and likewise the Votes upon this Petition be forth-with printed and published After which by a special Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament 17 Decemb. 1647. no person whatsoever who had contrived plotted prosecuted or entred into that Engagement intituled The Agreement of the people declared To bee destructive to the being of Parliaments and Fundamental Government of the Kingdom for one whole year was to be elected chosen or put into the Office or place of Lord Mayor or Alderman Sheriff Deputy of a Ward or Common Counselman of the City of London or to have a voyce in the Election of any such Officers All these particulars with the Capital proceedings against White and others who fomented this Agreement in the Army abundantly evidence the verity of my foresaid Proposition and the extraordinary guilt of those Members and Souldiers who contrary to their own Votes Ordinances Proceedings and Censures of others have since prosecuted this the like or far worse Agreement to the destruction of our ancient Parliaments and their Priviledges and of the fundamental Government Laws and Liberty of our Nation which I wish they would now sadly lay to heart with that saying of Augustine approved by all sorts of Divines and Casuists Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatuâ—â— sciendum est Quod Restitutio est IN PRISTINUM STATUM POSITIO The third is the memorable Statutes of 3 Jacobi c. 1 2 4. 5. which relating the old Gunpowder Treason of the Jesuits and Papists and their infernal inhuman barbarous detestable plot to blow up the King Queen Prince Lords Commons and the whole House of Peers with Gunpowder when they should have been assembled in Parliament in the upper House of Parliament upon the fifth of November in the year of our Lord 1605. do aggravate the hainousness and transcendency thereof by this circumstance That it was as some of the principal Conspirators confessed purposely devised and concluded to be done in the said House That where sundry necessary and religious Laws for preservation of the Church and State were made which they falsly and slanderously termed Cruel Laws enacted against them and their Religion both Place and Persons should be all destroyed and blown up at once and by these dangerous Consequences if it had not been miraculously prevented but taken effect That it would have turned to the utter ruine overthrow and subversion of the whole State and Common-wealth of this flourishing and renowned Kingdom of Gods true Religion therein established by Law and of our Laws and Government For which horrid Treason they were all attainted and then executed as Traytors and some of their Heads Quarters set upon the Parliament House for terrour of others Even so let all other Traytors Conspirators against all Blowers up and subverters of our fundamental Laws Liberties Government Kings Parliaments and Religion treading presumptuously in their Jesuitical footsteps perish O Lord but let all them who cordially love and strenuously maintain them against all Conspirators Traytors Underminers Invaders whatsoever be as the Sun when hee goeth forth in his might That the Land may have rest peace settlement again for as many years at least as it had before our late Innovations Warres Confusions by their restitution and re-establishment CHAP. 2. HAving thus sufficiently proved That the Kingdom and Freemen of England have some antient Hereditary Rights Liberties Franchises Privileges Customs properly called FUNDAMENTAL as likewise a Fundamental Government no ways to bee altered undermined subverted directly or indirectly under the guilt and pain of High Treason in those who attempt it especially by fraud force or armed Power I shall in the second place present you in brief Propositions a Summary of the chiefest and most considerable of them which our prudent Ancestors in former Ages and our latest real Parliaments have both declared to be and eagerly contested for as fundamental and essential to their very being and well being as a Free People Kingdom Republick unwilling to be enslaved under any Yorkes of Tyranny or Arbitrary Power that so the whole Nation may the more perspicuously know and discern them the more strenuously contend for them the more vigilantly watch against their violations underminings in any kinde by any Powers or pretences whatsoever and transmit perpetuate them intirely to their Posterities as their best and chiefest inheritance I shall comprise the sum and substance of them all in these Ten Propositions beginning with the Subjects Property which hath been most
can the new Modellers of our Government over and over who were parties to this Declaration then Members of the Commons House say so now or read this without blushing and self-abhorrence * Is not a superintendent power in the Army over above against the Parliament or People far more dangerous likely to introduce such an arbitrary Government in the Nation if lest in the General Officers or their Councels power * Did not the imposing a strange New Engagement and sundry arbitrary Committes of Indemnity c. intâ—râ—upt it in the highest degree and the misnamed high Courts of Justice falsifie this whole clause * Exact Collect. p. 4. 12. 34. 61. 243. 260. 321. 500. 502. * See the humble Remonstrance against the illegall Tax of Ship-money briefly discussed p. 2. c. Englands Birth righ their Treatises The Declaration of Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Army under his Command tendered to the Parliament June 14. 1647. concerning the Just and Fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Kingdome * Walsingham Stow Holinshed Speed Grasion Trussel Baker in 5 R. 2. John Stows Survey of London p. 89. to 103 Mr. St. Johns Argument at Law at Straffords Attainller p. 14. * The Statutes at large Stow Holinshed Speed Grafton Baker Trussel in 10 21 R. 2. 1 H. 4. M. St. Johns Speech concerning the Ship-mony Judges p. 28. to 37. and argument at Law at Straffords Attainder * As some of late years have done * M. St. Johns argument at Law at Straffords Attainder p. 13 14 17. * Hall Fabian Holinshed Speed Graftoâ— Stow Martin Baker * And have not others of late assumed to themselves more Royal power than he resolved to be Treason by 21. â— 3. Rot. Parl. Cooks 3. Institut p 9. * To wit by Cade and his Confederates for the alteration of the laws * See Mr. St. Johns argument against Strafford p. 17. Halls Chronicle and Holinshed * Cooks 3. Institutes p. 9 10. * Cooks 4. Institutes c. 8. p. 89. to 96. * See Speed Hollinshed Grafton Stow Antiquitates Ecclesiae Brit. p. 378. 379. and Godwin in his life * Mr. St. Johns Argument against Strafford p. 14 15. * Cooks 3 Instit c. 1. p. 9 10. Mr. St. Johns Argument at law against Strafford p 15 16. * See the Journals of both Houses Act for his Attainder Mr. Pyms Declaration upon the whole matter of the Charge of High Treason against him Aprill 12. 1641. Mr. St. Johns argument at law at his Attainder and Diurnal Occurrences * See the Commons and Lords Journals his printed Impeachment Mr. Pyms Speech thereat Canterburies Doom p. 25 26 27 38 40. See Chap. 2. Proposition 1. * Do not others now do it who impeached and condemnedhim in an higher degree then he * Is it not so in the New Instrument Article 1. 2 3 4 5 9 10 12 13 16 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 37 38 39 40. 42. of our New Government and those that compiled and prescribed it to the 3 kingdoms * Are there not more such matters contained in the new Instrument of Government than in these * Have not arbitrary Committees in most places done the like or worse in many cases * Have not others done the like in an higher degree * See the Commons and Lords Journals Diurnal Occurrences p. 15 16 19 37 191 to 264. and Mr. St Johns Speech at a Conference of both Houses of Parliament concerning ship money these Judges Togegether with the Speeches of Mr Hide Mr. Waller M. Peâ—rpoint M Denzill Hollis at their Impeachments July 6. 1641. aggravating their offences in Diurnal Occurrences and Speeches p. 237 to 264. * Now others presume to do it without writ of consulting with the judges who condemned it in them See c. 2 Proposition 1. * Have not others been sole Judges of it and other pretended dangers since Nota. * And are they not so now * And did not some at White-Hall do so of late and now too witnesse their volumes of new Declarations Edicts Ordinances there made * Have not others taken up such Principles in their practises proceedings even against Kings Kingdomes Parliament Peers as well as private persons Nota. * Note this all the whole commons-Commons-House opinion then * Is not this an experimental truth now * And were they ever so base cowardly slavish as now * Was ever their power violence so unlimited unbounded in all kinds as now against Kings kingdoms Parliaments Peers People * Is it not most true of late and still Note * See Article 2 2 3 â— 5 10 11 12 13 16 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 39 p. 45 46. of the Government of the Common-wealth of England c. * Doth not the Declaration of 17 March 1648 and the Instrument of the new Government do it in the highest degree * And others as well as he of far inferiour place estate * But have not our times bred men much bolder than he since this speech was made and he executed * Since he hath many followers * p. 36. * Have none done so since them See Chap. 2. Proposition 1. * Have not other Pioneers and Judasses done the like * This is grown a meer Paradon of late years in Judges souldiers others * What are they now of late times of publike Changes * See 27 H. 8. c. 24. 26. Magna Charta c. 12. 29. 52. H. 3. c. 1 3 5 9 20. 3 E. 1. c. 44 45 46. 13 E. 1. c. 10 12 30 31 35 39 44 45. 25 E. 1. c. 1 2. 27 E. 1. c. 2 3. 34 E. 1. c. 6. 12 E 2. c. 6. 2 E. 3. c. 3. 14 E 3. c. 10. 16. Rastal Justices * Was it ever so frequent a sin as now in all sorts of late Judges Officers Subjects * Do none deserve as severe now * See Cookes 3. Institutes p. 146 147 and page 133. Holinshed page 284 285. Speeds History page 651. Stow Walsingham Daniel in 18 E. 1. * See Cooks 3. Instit p. 145. * Have none of this name or of this Function since done as bad or worse in an higher degree * Let Custodes Legum Libertatum Angliae and those now called Judges remember it * Let the Reporter and others now consider it * 1 Eliz. c. 1 3 Jac. c. 4. 7 Jac. c. 6. * This is nothing incomparison to the late Taxes Ship mony Excises imposed on the subjects without a Parliament amounting to above 20 times as much as the Kings Ship mony and more frequent uncessant and endlesse then it * Are we now beholding to it for any thing against the onely new Law of the longest sword Which takes imposeth what when and how much it pleaseth without accompt or dispute from all sorts and degrees of Persons and that by those who were commissioned trusted engaged by Oaths Protestations Vows League and Covenant to preserve our
Bull the Jesuites after her decease disswaded the Romish-minded Subjects from yielding in any wise obedience to King James as their Soveraign and entrâ—d into a Treasonable Conspiracy with the Lord Cobham Lord Gray and others against him to imprison him for the ends aforesaid or destroy him pretending that King Iames was no King at all before his Coronation and that therefore they might by force of Arms lawfully surprise his person and Prince Henry his Son and imprison them in the Tower of London or Dover-Castle till they inforced them by duress to grant a free toleration of their Catholick Religion to remove some evil Counsellors from about them and to grant them a free Pardon for this violence or else they would put some further project in execution against them to their destruction But this Conspiricy being discovered The Traytors were apprehended arraighned condemned and Watson and Clerk two Jesuited Priests who had drawn them into this Conspiracy upon the aforesaid Pretext with some others executed as Traytors all the Iudges of England resolving that King Iames being right Heir to the Crown by descent was immediately upon the death of Queen Elizabeth actually possessed of the Crown and lawful King of England before any Proclamatâ—on or Coronation of him which are but Ceremonies as was formerly adjudged in the case of Queen Mary and Queed Iane 1 Mariae there being no Interregnum by the Law of ENGLAND as is adjudged declared by Act of Parliament 1 Iac. c. 1. worthy serious perusal 8. their horrid Gun-powder Treason Plot contrived fomented by Garnet Superiour of the English Jesuites Gerard Tensmod and other Jesuites who by their Apostolical power did not onely commend but absolve from all sin the other Jesuited Popish Conspirators and Faux The Sculdier who were their instruments to effect it Yea the Jesuitical Priests were so Atheistical as that they usually concluded their Masses with Prayers for the good success of this hellish Plot which was suddenly with no less then 36 Barrels of Gunpowder placed in a secret Vault under the House of Lords to have blown up and destroyed at once King James himself the Queen Prince Lords Spirituall and Temporal with the Commons assembled together in the upper-Upper-House of Parliament upon the 5 of November Anno Dom. 1605. and then forcibly to have seised with armed men prepared for that purpose the persons of our late beheaded King then Dake of York and of the Lady Elizabeth his Sister if absent from the Parliament and not there destroyed with the rest that so there might be none of the Royal Line left to inherit the Crown of England Scotland and Ireland to the utter overthrow and subversion of the whole Royal Family Parliament State and Government of this Realm Which unparallel'd inhumane bloody Plot being miraculously discovered prevented the very day before its execution in perpetual detestation of it and of the Jesuites and their traiterous Romish Religion which both contrived and approved it the 5 day of November by the Statute of 3 Jacobi ch 1. was enacted to be had in perpetual Remembrance that all Ages to come might thereon meet together publickly throughout the whole Nation to render publick praises unto God for preventing this infernal Jesuitical Design and keep in memory this joyful Day of Deliverance for which end special forms of publick Prayers and Thankesgivings were then appointed and that Day ever since more or less annually observed till this present And it is worthy special observation that had this Plot taken effect It was agreed by the Jesuites and Popish Conspirators before-hand That the Imputation of this Treason should be cast upon the Puritans to make them more Odious as now they father all the Powder-Plots of this kinde which they have not onely laid but fully accomplished of late yeers against the King Prince Royal Posterity the Lords and Commons House our old English Parliaments and Government upon those Independents and Anabaptistical Sword-men whom they now repute and stile the most reformed PURITANS who were in truth but their meer under Instruments to effect them When as they originally laid the Plots as is clear by Campanella's Book De Monarchia Hisp ch 25. and Cardinal Richelieu his Instructions at his death to the King of France And it is very observable that as Courtney the Jesuite Rector of the English Jesuites Colledge at Rome did in the year 1641. when the name of Independents was scarce heard of in England openly affirm to some English Gentlemen and a Reverend Minister of late in Cornwal from whom I had this Relation then and there feasted by the English Jesuites in their Colledge That now at last after all their former Plots had miscarried they had found out a sure way to subvert and ruine the Church of England which was most formidable to them of all others by the Independents who immediately after by the Jesuites clandestine assistance infinitely encreased supplanted the Presbyterians by degrees got the whole power of the Army and by it of the Kingdom into their hands then subverted both the Presbyterian Government and Church of England in a great measure with the Parliament King and his Posterity as Monsieur Militiere a Jesuited French-Papist observes So some Independent Ministers Sectaries and Anabaptists ever since 1648. have neglected the observation of the fifth of November as I am credibly informed and refused to render publick thanks to God for the deliverance thereon contrary to the Act for this very reason which some of them have rendered That they would not mock God in publick by praising him for delivering the late King Royal Posterity and House of Lords from destruction then by Jesuites and Papists when as themselves have since destroyed and subverted them through Gods providence and repute it a special mercy and deliverance to the Nation from Tyranny and Bondage for which they have cause to bless the Lord Performing that for the Jesuites and Powder-Traytors which themselves could not effect The Lord give them grace and hearts to consider how much they acted the Jesuites and promoted their very worst Designes against us therein what infamy and scandal they have thereby drawn upon all zealous Professors of our Protestant Religion and what will they do in the end thereof 9. To omit all other Forraign instances cited in Speculum Jesuiticum p. 124 to 130. where you may peruse them at leisure By their poysoning King Iames himself in conclusion as some of them have boasted 10. By the Popes Nuntio's and a Conclave of Jesuites Conspiracy at London Anno 1640. to poyson our late King Charles himself as they had poysoned his Father with a poysoned Indian Nut kept by the Jesuites and shewed often by Conne the Popes Nuntio to the Discoverer of that Plot or else to destroy him by the Scotish wars and troubles raised for that very end by the Jesuites in case he refused to grant them a
are due to them and preserved for them shall be at the sole will and pleasâ—re of the Prince Army General and General Councel of Officers in their new High Courts of Injustice or other Martial Judicatories as now they are O consider consider seriously by these particulars to what a sad low despicable condition all English Parliaments are now for ever reduced and their pristine antient Priviledges Honor Freedom Power violently ravished from them by the late Army practises violences and rebellious insolencies against them never to be parallel'd in any age which hath really verified this clause in the Declaration of both Houses August 4. 1642. objected against the King and his popish Army in relation to the Parliaments Army purposely raised commissioned engaged for their defence That if the King by his Army may force this Parliament as the Parliaments Army both forced and dissolved it they may bid farewell to all Parliaments for ever receiving good by them And if Parliaments be lost they the People are lost their Laws are lost as well those lately made as in former times ALL WHICH WILL BE CVT IN SVNDER WITH THE SAME SWORD NOW DRAWN FOR THE DESTRVCTION OF THIS PARLIAMENT as we now find true by sad experience Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria about the year of our Lord 340. objected this as a great crime barbarism cruelty and violation of the priviledges of Councels to the Arrian Emperour Constantius That whensoever he called a Councel or Assembly of Bishops it was but for a shew For he would not permit them to be guided by the Ecclesiastical Canons but his Will alone must be their only Canon And when they advised him not to subvert the Ecclesiastical order nor bring the Arrian Heresie into the Church of God he would neither hear nor permit them to speak freely but grievously bending his brows if they had spoken cross to his designs and SHAKING HIS SWORD AT THEM COMMANDED THEM TO BE TAKEN AWAY Whereupon he thus infers What Liberty for perswasion or place for advice is there left when he that contradicteth shall for his labour lose either his Life or his Country Why hath the Emperour gathered so great a number of Bishops partly terrified with threats partly inticed with promises to condescend that they will not communicate wiâ—h Athanasius And Hilary Bishop of Poictou Ann. 360. in his first Book against this Tyrannical Arrian Emperour Constantius thus censures his violent proceedings of this kind to the subversion of the freedom and priviledge of Councils and their members Thou gatherest COUNCILS and when they be shut up together in one City thou TERRIFIEST THEM WITH THREATS THOU PINEST THEM WITH HVNGER THOU LAMEST THEM WITH COLD as the Army Officers did the secluded Members 6 and 7 Decemb. 1648. when they shut them up all night in Hell on the bare boards without beds in the cold and kept them fasting all the next day at Whitehall til 7 a clock at night Thou depravest them with Dissembling O THOU WICKED ONE what a mockery dost thou make of the Church and Councels Only Dogs return to their Vomit and thou compellest the Priests of Christ to sup up those things which they have disgorged and commandest them in their confessions to allow that WHICH BEFORE THEY CONDEMNED What Bishops hand hast thou left innocent What tongue hast thou not forced to falshood Whose heart hast thou not brought to the condemning of his former opinion Thou hast subjected all to thy will yea to thy violence And have not some swaying Army Officers by their frowns menaces frauds Swords open force upon the Parliament and its Members beyond all the presidents in any ages done the like and exceeded this Arrian Tyrant herein And is it not then high time for all friends to Parliaments to protest and provide against such detestable treasonable violences for the future destructive to all Parliaments if permitted or silently pretermitted without question exemplary censure righting of the imprisoned Members or any provision to redresse them for the future Our prudent Ancesters were so carefull to prevent all violence force arms and armed men in or near any places where Parliaments were held to terrifie over-awe or disturb their proceedings or Members That in the Parliament of 7 E. 1. as you may read in Rastals Abridgement Armour 1. Provision was made by the King by common consent of the Prelates Earls and Barons by a general act That in all Parliaments Treaties and other Assemblies which should be made in the Realm of England FOR EVER every man shall come without Force and without Armour well and peaceably to the honour of the King and of the peace of him and of his Realm and they together with the Commonalty of the Realm upon solemn advise declared That it belonged to the King and his part it is by his Royal Signiory strictly to defend Wearing of Armour and all other Force against his peace at all times when it shall please him especially at such times and in places where such Parliaments Treaties and Assemblies are held and to punish them which shall doe contrary according to the Laws and usage of the Realm And hereunto they are bound to aid the Kind as their Soveraign Lord at all seasons when need shall be Hereupon our Kings ever since this statute by virtue thereof and by the Law and Custom of the PARLIAMENT as Sir Edward Cook in his 4 Institutes c. 1. p. 14. informs us did at the beginning of every Parliament make a speciall Proclamation Prohibiting the bearing of Arms or weapons in or near the places where the Parliament sate under pain of forfeiting all they had Of which there are sundry presidents cited by Sir Edward Cook in his Margin whereof I shall transcribe but one which he omits and that is 6 E. 3. Rot. Parliament n. 2. 3. Because that before these days at the Parliaments and Counsels of our Lord the King Debates Riots and commotions have risen and been moved for that People have come to the places where Parliaments have been summoned and assembled armed with privy coats of plate spears swords long knives or daggers and other sort of arms by which the businesses of our Lord the King and his Realm have been impeached and the great men which have come thither by his command have been affrighted Our Lord the King willing to provide remedy against such mischiefs defendeth that no man of what estate or condition soever he be upon pain of forfeiting all that he may forfeit to the King shall be seen armed with a Coat of Male nor yet of plate nor with an Halberd nor with a spear nor sword nor long knife nor any other suspitious arms within the City of LONDON nor within the Suburbs thereof nor any place near the said City nor yet within the Palace of WEST MINSTER or any place near the said Palace by Land or Water under the foresaid pain except only such of the Kings men
reproach too vile but that we shall willingly goe through the one and undergoe the other That we and the WHOLE KINGDOME MAY ENJOY THAT HAPPINESSE which we cannot in an ordinary way of providence expect FROM ANY OTHER FOUNTAIN OR STREAM than those from whence were the poison of evil Councels once removed from about them no doubt but we and THE WHOLE KINGDOME SHOULD BE SATISFIED MOST ABUNDANTLY And on the contrary have they not fully and actually verified in respect of themselves and their Confederates in the Houses this Odious aspersion then only in prediction cast by the KING on the PARLIAMENT but by them at that time renounced with greatest detestation and drawn those sad consequences on the whole Kingdom wherewith both HOUSES conclude that Declaration in these words 7. That the Representative Body of the whole Kingdom since dissolved by the Army is a Faction of Malignant Schismatical ambitious Persons whose DESION IS AND ALWAYES HATH BEEN TO ALTER THE WHOLE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT BOTH OF CHURCH AND STATE AND TO SUBJECT BOTH KING AND PEOPLE TO THEIR OWN LAWLESSE ARBITRARY POWER AND GOVERNMENT and that they DESIGN THE RUINE OF HIS MAJESTIES PERSON and OF MONARCHY IT SELF and consequently that they are TRAITORS and all the Kingdome with them for their act is the act of the whole Kingdome And whether their punishment and ruine may not also INVOLVE THE WHOLE KINGDOM IN CONCLUSION AND REDUCE IT INTO THE CONDITION OF A CONQUERED NATION as some ARMY OFFICERS SOULDIERS openly averre we are now reduced to by and under them NO MAN CAN TELL BUT EXPERIENCE SHEWETH US and now we find it most true in the ARMY-OFFICERS COVNCELL SOVLDIERS THAT SVCCESSE OFTEN DRAWS MEN NOT ONELY BEYOND THEIR PROFESSION but also many times beyond their first intentions Surely as the Armies and their Confederates late proceedings in relation to themselves though not unto the forced dismembred dissolved Parliament and secured Members have fully verified this charge in every particular then reputed most false and scandalous which I thus press upon their consciences at this time and so largely insist on not to defame or asperse them to the world as many others do who apply that black Character of Ier. 9. 2. to 6. c. 12. 6. Rev. 3. 10. to 19. They are all an ASSEMBLY OF TREACHEROVS MEN Thine habitation is in the MIDST OF DECEIT c. Destruction and Misery are in their wayes and the way of Peace they have not known there is no fear of God before their eyes unto them in a more eminent manner as being really verified by their unparalleld exorbitances formentioned but to vindicate the Innocency Integrity of the Majority and secluded Members of both Houses against the scandalous printed aspersions of Militiere and other Papists to preserve and justifie the Honour of our Reformed Religion and of the most zealous Professors thereof to restore re-establish if possible the Priviledges the Freedom of all Future Parliaments much impaired endangered by their heady violent Proceedings and most pernicious Presidents to Posterity if not publikely abominated exploded by them or exemplarily punished to deterr all others from their future imitation to convince them by what Jesuitical Popish old Court-Principles Counsels Practises they have hitherto been misguided and to reclaim them as much as in me lieth for the future from the like destructive Practises for the publick Safety Peace Settlement of our distracted Kingdoms and do most earnestly beseech them as they are English-men Souldiers Christians seriously to repent of and lay to heart lest they perish eternally for them at last as likewise to take heed lest by teaching and instigating the Common Souldiers of the Army to suppresse oppresse betray the Parliament Kingdom People who raised payed and entrusted them only for their safeguard and defence they do not thereby instruct and encourage them at last to betray and destroy themselves it being a true observation of Seneca the Philosopher Aliquando Tyrannorum praefidia in ipsos consurrexerunt PERFIDIAMQVE ET IMPIETATEM ET FERITAREM ET QVICQVID AB ILLIS DIDICERANT IN IPSOS EXECRERVNT Quid enim potest ab eo quisquam sperare QVEM MALVM ESSE DOCVIT Non diu paret nequitia nec quantum jubetur peccat as we have seen by many late presidents So the Army-Officers Souldiers Great Successes in all their Wars Designs and forcible ill Proceedings against the King Parliament Kingdom Government Laws and Liberties as it hath caused them not only beyond their Professions but also beyond their first Intentions Commissions Protestations to forget that Gospel-precept given to Souldiers Luke 3. 14. to advance themselves to a more absolute Soveraign arbitrary Power over them than ever any Kings of England claimed or pretended to as their late Proceedings Remonstrances and transcendent Instrument of the Government of the three Kingdoms manifest so it hath been the principal Ground whereby they have justified all their unpresidented forementioned Exorbitances as lawfull commendable Christian and that which hath struck such a stupifying pannick fear such a stupendious cowardize baseness sottâ—shness into the Generality of the Nobility Gentry Ministery and Commons of our late most heroick English Naton that there is scarce a man to be found throughout the Realm of any Eminency though we should seek after him like Diogenes with a Candle that dares freely open his mouth against their most irregular illegal violent destructive arbitrary Proceedings Usurpations Innovations Oppressions Taxes Projects to the shaking and utter subverting of our ancient Fundamental Laws Liberties Rights Properties Parliaments Parliamentary priviledges Government and taking away of the very Lives of some and thereby endangering the Lives of all other English Freemen of all Degrees in mischristened High Courts of Justice Such a strange Charm is there in Success alone to metamorphise Men into meer temporising slavish sordid sotts and beasts yea to cause not only persons truly honourable but the very Devil himself and the worst of beasts to be wondred after applauded adored not only as Saints but Gods We read Rev. 13. of a Monstrous deformed BEAST to whom the Dragon the Devil gave his Power Seat and Great Authority whereupon all the world wondred after the Beast and worshipped not onely the Dragon that gave him power but the Beast likewise saying Who is like unto the Beast WHO IS ABLE TO MAKE WAR WITH HIM And there was given unto him a Mouth speaking Great things and blasphemies and power was given him to continue and make war forty and two months And power was given unto him to make war with the SAINTS AND TO OVERCOME THEM and power was given him over all Kindreds and Tongues and Nations And HEREVPON IT FOLLOWS all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life And another Beast under him caused the earth and all that dwell therein to set up the Image of this Beast and to worship it and he
Government and Religion of our Realm which the Jesuites and their Instruments make their Master-piece totally to undermine and subvert And in nothing terrified by your Adversaries which is to them an evident token of Perdition but to you of Salvation and that of God If the Presidents of your renowned Ancesters here recorded the Paterns of many gallant Pagan Romans Graecians who have spent their Lives for their Countries Laws Liberties Or if my example and these my Lucubrations shall provoke you hereunto I shall think my labour well bestowed and you and your Posterities worthy to live like English-Freemen But if you wil now neither manfully demand speak nor contend for them any more out of a slavish fear of a prevailing Army raised only for their just defence or any other humane Powers whatsoever nor once adventure with united Spirits now at last so much as confidently boldly to ask these your unquestionable Birthrights at the Thrones of any mortal Grandees your Fellow-Subjects when God Almighty himself commands you to come with boldnesse to his coelestial Throne of Grace that you may obtain not meer right as here but Mercy it self and Grace to help in time of need Heb. 4. 16. Qui timide rogat docet negare you can neither hope for nor ever obtain them for the future but deserve eternally to forfeit them and you and yours to be made slaves for ever However I though these Collections prove successless shal carry this as a comfortable Cordial with me to my grave That I have faithfully discharged my Conscience and bounden Duty to my degenerous Native Country by endevouring all I could both to make and preserve it free indeed to detect and prevent all Jesuitical Plots and Practises to undermine imbroyl divide subvert ruine it and used my utmost sincerest constant endeavours in my place and calling herein But if through the Malice Tyranny or Injustice of any prevailing Enemies of publick Freedom or Jesuitical Agents I shall chance to suffer for it in any kind as I have formerly done for most of my publick services of this nature be it close-imprisonments Fines Pillories Stigmatizings or Death it self I shall onely say beforehand as Gregory the Great did heretofore Indict 2. Epist 78. In causa qua Deo placeâ—e cupio homines non formido and as noble Heroick Esther did in a like publick case for her endangered captivated Nation If I perish I perish and this my unrighteous suffering shall be a new Glorious permissive ordering over-ruling Providence doth no wayes justify nor extenuate the guilt of any Traytors Rebels Murderers Conspirators sinnes Treasons Rebellions Murders Regicides Conspiracies Rapines Oppressions or Wicked Devices which he permits them to plot act accomplish so it doth in no wise exempt them in Gods or Mens esteem from being the true Original Plotters Contrivers and immediate instrumental Actors of them nor from the divine or humane Punishments which they in justice demerit as is most evident by Gen. 50. 15. to 21. Psal 37. 7. 9. Prov. 24. 10 21 22. Iob 20. 5 6 c. 1 Kings 12. 12. to 25. c. 15. 23. to 30. c. 16. 1. to 30. specially ver 7 8. 2 Kings 11. 1. to 17. c. 14. 5 6. c. 15. 8. to 32. c. 17. 21 22. 1 Sam. 8. 2 Sam. 1. 2. to 17. c. 4. throughout Hos 1. 4. c. 8. 4 5. Isay 29. 15 16 c. 10. 5 6 7 c. Acts 1. 16. to 21. c. 2. 23. 1 Thess 2. 14 15 16. Mat. 27 3 4 5. compared together And if we should look upon all our late Changes Revolutions in our Kingdoms Government Church Parliaments Religion Laws wrought by the Iesuites and their Instruments as the meer wonderfull immediate Productions and Glorious Operations of God himself in the world and upon the instruments imployed in them only as Gods own precious chosen Saints and Servants accomplishing nothing but his own determinate Will Providence Councel though to satisfie their own ambition covetousnesse malice rapine blood-thirstinesse lusts as many now proclaim them and not as Conspirators Treacherous Perfidious Pernicious Malefactors in the highest degree as well as Iack Cade Wat Tyler Strafford Canterbury or the murderers of our Saviour Joash Ishbosheth with other Kings heretofore and of Henry the 3. and 4. of France of late there should then be no Traytors Conspirators Murderers Sinners Treasons Conspiracies Murders Sinnes in the world being all perpetrated by Gods permissive Providence no Law nor Hell to punish them and it would be no less than a direct resisting fighting against God and his Providence for any Christians Kingdoms Kings or Loyal Subjects to pray against resist oppose the Treasons Murders Conspiracies Vsurpations Rebellions Innovations Plots of any Iesuites or Romish Emissaries or their under-Agents against our Kings Kingdoms Governors Parliaments Laws Liberties Government and Religion which would be professed Blasphemy or Frenzy at least for any man to affirm 2. That this Iesuite Parsons in his â—oâ—ks of the Reformation of all the States of England as he prescribed Reformations to the Prince Court Counsellors Noblemen Bishops Prelates Pastors Universities Lawyers Laws in which he will have STRANGE METAMORPHOSES so likewise THE COVRT OF PARLIAMENT HE WILL HAVE BROVGHT TO BETTER FORM as W. W. a secular Priest in A Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay-Gentleman printed at Rhemes An. 1601. p. 95. Watson in his Quadlibets p. 92. to 96. 320. to 334. William Clark a sâ—cular Priest in his Answer to Father Parsons Lâ—bel p. 75. c. in direct terms attest And may we not then justly suspect that the late New-models and Reformations of our Kingdoms Parliaments Government Laws c. originally promoted by our Army Counsels and Officers proceeded primarily from the Iesuites Projections Plots against them if the Statutes of 23 Eliz. c. 1. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 35 Eliz. c. 2 3. Iac. c. 1 2 4 5 7. 7 Iac. c. 6. and the manifold Declarations of both Houses of Parliament Exact Collection p. 491 492 497 498 616. 631 666 698 813 to 828. may be judges 3. That the Iesuites drift directly is immediatly by means of CONQUEST intended for England to bring it and all Christendom into an uproar FOR COMMON SOVLDIERS TO EXAMINE THEIR SOVERAIGNS WHAT TITLE THEY HOLD BY that thereupon themselves by craft money and multitudes gathered together through their Policy may bring England and then Spain and all the rest under their subjection and Monarchy And that principally by this Iesuitical Position That every Precopie or Tartarian multitude getting once the stile and title of a PUBLICK STATE or HELVETIAN COMMON-WEALTH may alter change and innovate the course of inheritances and succession TO CROWNS AND KINGDOMS and also to every private Persons heritage holden in Fee-sâ—mple as William Watson assures us in these very terms And whether the Jesuites have not instructed our Army Officers and Common Souldiers upon this pretext and for this very end to examine their Soveraigns yea our
Parliaments Titles Priviledges and Powers too of late and dispose of reject suppress them at their pleasure let themselves the whole Nation with all in present power in the fear of God most seriously consider without passion or affection before it be over-late 4. That the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance which all Members of Parliament ought by Law to take before they can sit or vote as Members specially made and prescribed by our most wise zealous Protestant Parliaments to prevent the Treasonable plots and designs of Popes Iesuites and Papists against our Protestant Princes Realms Parliaments Religion though confirmed by many Statutes and containing in them only the Declaration of such a Duty as every true and well-affected Subject not only by the bond of Allegiance but also by the COMMANDMENT OF GOD ought to bear to the King his Heirs and Successors and none but persons infected with Popish Superstition formerly oppugned as the Prologue of the Statute of 7 Iacobi c. 6. positively resolves have by late State innovators not only been discontinued suspended but declaimed against and repealed as much as in them lay as VNLAWFUL OATHS the old Lawes against Iesuits and Popish Seminaries discontinued abrogated or coldly executed The New Oath for abjuration of Popery with all Bills against Iesuites and Papists presented to the late King by both Houses the last Parliament and by him consented to in the Isle of Wight wholly laid aside and quite buried in oblivion The Solemn Protestation League and Covenant prescribed by the last Parliaments taken by all the well-affected in all the 3 Kingdoms to prevent the dangerous plots of Papists Iesuites and our common enemies to destroy our Religion Churches Realms Government Parliaments Laws Liberties quite antiquated decâ—ied detested and a New Engagement forcibly imposed under highest penalties and disabilities upon all men diametrically contrary to these Oaths Protestations and Covenants which have been by a new kind of Papal power publickly dispenced with and the people absolved from them to become sworn Homages to other new self-created Lords and Masters And are not all these with the late Proclaimed Universal Toleration and Protection of all Religions to considerate zealous Protestants strong Arguments of the Jesuites Predominancy in our late counsels transactions and changes of publike Government 5. That the Notion of THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT in my weak apprehension derived its original from the Iesuites late-invented PRESENT CHURCH the onely Supream Power and Judge of Controversies which all men must submit unto by a meer absolute blind Obedience and implicit faith without dispute by their determination as they must do by a like Iesuitical blind obedience newly taught and obtruded on us to that present Republican Government and new Optimacity and Popularity lately set up instead of our Monarchy Which two forms of Government and want of a King and Monarchy as they are the punishment of a peoples Sins and the Transgressions of a Land by Gods own resolution not a Mercy Hosea 10. 3. c. 1. 4. Ier. 18. 7. Prov. 28. 2. Ezâ— 19. 14. Lam. 4. 20. c. 5 7 8 12. so they were the inventions of Factious Grecians at first wâ—ch put all their Cities into Combustions fury frenzy and civil wars against each other to their utter overthrow in conclusion witness these verses of Heniochus a Greek Comedian Tum geminae ad illas accesserunt Mulieres TITAS QUAE CUNCTA CONTURBARUNT OPTIMAEst nomen alteri alteri POPULARITAS RUNT Quarum incitatis PRIDEM EXTERNATAE FUâ— So the Iesuits Parsons Campanella Car. Richelieu designed to introduce set them up among so us in Engl. Scotl. and Ireland of purpose to divideâ— destroy us by civil wars and combustions and bring us under their Jesuitical power at last as the marginal Authorities declare to all the world And if this be undeniable to all having any sence of Religion Peace or publick Safety left within their brests is it not more than high time for us to awake out of our former lethargy fordid selfish stupidity to prevent our ruine by these and other forementioned Jesuitical practises Of can any Englishman or real Parl. be justly offended with me for this impartial discovery of them Or for my endeavours to put all the dislocated Members and broken bones of our old inverted fundamental body Politick into their due places joints and postures again without which there is no more possibility of reducing it to its prâ—stine health ease settlement tranquility prosperity or of preserving it from perpetual pain inquietation consumption and approaching death than of a natural body whose principal members continue dis-joynted and bones broken all in pieces as all prudent State-Physicians must acknowledge These five Considerations together with the Premises will I presume sufficiently wipe off all the malicious scandalous Imputations which Militiere and other Papists have injuriously cast upon the Principles and chief Professors of our Reformed Religion in relation to the late exorbitant Proceedings against the King Parliament the publike Revolutions Confusions Ataxies both in our Church Kingdoms and retort them on the Iesuitical Papal seditious Treasonable Antimonarchical Principles and Professors of their Religion especially the Iesuits and French Cardinals Militiere his late Lords and Masters the original Contrivers and chief clandestine Promoters of them as every day more and more discovers to the world And withall abundantly justifie this my undertaking impartial discovery of Jesuitical plots to ruin our Church Religion Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Government against all malicious Enemies Accusers Maligners whatsoever before all the Tribunals of God or Men where I shal be ready to justifie them upon all occasions In perpetual testimony whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and by Gods Grace shall ever be ready to seal them and the truth of God with my blood if called out to do it Swainswick Aug. 12. 1654. William Prynne A Seasonable Legal and Historicall VINDICATION and Chronologicall Collection of the good Old Fundamental Liberties Franchiseâ— Rights Laws of all English Freemâ—n their best Inheritance Birth-right Security against all Arbitrary Tyranny Aegyptian Slavery and Burdens of late years most dangerously undermined oppugned and almost totally subverted under the specious feigned Disguise of their Defence Enlargement and future Establishment upon a sure Basis IT is an universall received Principle and experimentall truth beyond all contradiction That no naturall structure no artificial building no Civil or Ecclesiastical Corporation Realm Republike Government or Society of men no Art or Science whatsoever can possibly be erected supported established preserved or continued in their being or well-being without FOVNDATIONS Whereon as they were at first erected so they must necessarily still depend or else they will presently fall to utter ruine Hence it is to wave all Humane Authorities in so clear a verity that in Gods own sacred unerring word of Truth we finde frequent mention of the naturall
Foundations of the the vast natural Fabrick of the Earth Heavens and world it self of the Artificial Material Foundations of the Material Temple Wals City of Gods own most famous Jerusalem and of private Houses of the spirituall Foundations of the Spiritual Temple City Jerusalem and whole Church of God even Jesus Christ himself of Doctrinal Foundations and first Principles of Religion Christianity Salvation yea of the Politicall Foundations of Kingdomes Republicks Churches Governments States Which being once shaken undermined subverted razed or dâ—stroyed bring unavoidable ruine and desolation upon them Psal 11. 3. Psal 82. 5. Jer. 50. 15. 51. 25 26. Micah 1. 6 7 9. Even as we daily see Castles Walls Houses to fall instantly to the ground and become an heap of Confusion when their Foundations are blown up decayed or demolished Upon which consideration those publike Laws which establish fence fortifie support the Fundamental Constitutions Rights Liberties Priviledges of any Nation Kingdome Republike essentiall to their being and subsistence as a free or happy people against the Invasions underminings enchroachments of any Tyrants Vsurpers Oppressors or publike enemies are usually stiled Fundamental Laws and have ever been reputed so sacred inviolable immutable in all ages upon any pretences of necessity or publike safety that most Nations and our own English Ancestors above others have freely chosen to hazard yea lose their estates lives in their just defence against such exorbitant tyrannical Kings and other Powers who by force or policy have endeavoured to violate alter or subvert them rather than out of a Cowardice Sottishnesse Carelesnesse or want of cordial love to the Publike to suffer the least infringment repeal or alteration of them to the inthrawling of themselves or their posterities to the arbitrary wils of such domineering Tyrants and Vsurping Powers Now because after all our Old and New many years bloody costly dangerous Contests and Wars for the maintenance of our good Old Fundamental Liberties Laws â—ights Priviledges against all secret or open underminers of them I clearly behold with grief of heart that there is a strang monstrous generation of new Tyrannical State-Hereticks sprung up amongst us who are grown so desperately impudent as not only to write but publikely to assert in print in Books printed by AUTHORITY even in Capitals in every Title page That the Freemen and People of England have no such unalterable Fundamental Laws and Liberties left them by their forefathers as our Ancestours heretofore contested for both in the Field and parliament-Parliament-House with William the Conqueror Henry the first King John Henry the third Edward 1. 2. 3. Richard 2. with other Kings and Princes and our late Parliamentâ— and Armies too with King James and King Charls That neither Magna Charta nor the Petition of Right nor the Laws for trying Malefactors by Juries of their Pears are Fundamental or unalterable but that the State Physitians or rather Mountebanks of our time who are not tied up to them but left free unto themselves may lay them quite aside either in part or whol as they see cause Yea have now attained to such a super-transcendent Authority that they may as they assert lay aside all Parliaments Parliamentary wayes appoint something else as more seasonable and proper to us and as Providence makes way for it if they see it more conducing to the safety and good of the Commonwealth that is to their own privat Interests Honors Profits Securities Designes Oppressions Rapines gilded over with this specious pretext And then peremptorily conclude That to plead for these and other fundamental laws and liberties as unalterable though the only Bulwarks Badges of our Freedome is nothing else but to enslave the Nation for by such a Principle people do not only lose their Liberty but are brought under such a kinde of Tyranny out of which AS BEING WORSE THAN THE AEGYPTIAN BONDAGE there is no hope of deliverance An absurd Tyrannical Paradox transcending any I ever yet met with in any Author stripping us naked of all our long enjoyed Laws Liberties Franchises great Charters at once tending onely to reduce and perpetually inthrall us under such an absolute AEGYPTIAN BONDAGE and Tyranny without any hope of future deliverance from it which some now endeavour to entaile on us and our posterities for ever by an Iron law and Yoke of Steel in stead of restoring to us that glorious Freedome which we have so long expected from them in vain And because I finde the generality of the Nobility Gentry Clergy Commonalty of our Nation after all their late years expensive bloody wars and Parliamentary Disputes for the defence and preservation of these our ancient Hereditary Fundamentall Charters Laws Liberties Priviledges so strangely degenerated both from themselves and their Heroick prudent Ancestors as that they are more readily inclined upon every occasion out of a base unchristian unmanly un-english fear or sottish cowardise and stupidity wittingly to desert betray surrender them al up into the hands of any invading Vsâ—rpers without the least Publike Claim Dissertation Defence Dspute then diligently or couragiously to coÌ„tend or suffer for them of late they did So as that which Paul once taxed in the â—lavish besotted Corinthians 2 Epist 11. 20. may be most truly averred of our degenerated infatuated English Nation Ye suffer if a man bring you into bondage if a man deâ—â—ur you if a man take of you if a man exâ—lt himself above your Laws Liberties Franchises Parliaments Kings Nobles Properties Lives Consciences and all that is called God or warshipped if a man smite you on the face notwithstanding all their manifold late Protestations Vows Covenants Remonstrances Declarationâ— and Publike Engagements to the contrary And withall after diligent enquiry discovering scarce one man of Eminency or Power in the Nation nor so much as one of my degenerated temporizing Profession of the Law even when the whole body of our laws and all its Professors are violently assaultâ—d and devoted unto suddain ruine by many lawlesse spirits who hath so much courage magnanimity honesty zeal or cordial love to his Native Country remaining in his brest as manfully to appear in publike for the strenuous necessary defence of these our Hereditary fundamentall laws liberties rights franchises though their own and every other English Freemans best inheritance and security for fear of being persecuted imprisoned close imprisoned exiled condemned destroyed as a Traytor Rebell Seditious person enemy to the Publike or disturber of the Kingdomes peace by those who are truly such I thereupon conceived I could not undertake or performe a more necessary seasonable beneficiall service for my Country and ingrate unworthy Nation who are now ashamed afraid for the most part to own visit or be seen in the company of those Gallant men much lesse to assist defend and stick close unto them in their dangers according to the sixth Article of their late Solemn League and Covenant
greatest pretenders to publike Liberty Law and the â—heifest inveighers against Arbitrary Regal Tyranny and Power which never publikely established such arbitrary illegal Tryals and new Butcheries of Christian English Freemen by any law and may fall to imitate them in future Ages by their example Each of these I intend to prosecute in distinct Chapters in their order CHAP. 1. 1. For the first of these That the Kingdome and Freemen of England have some ancient Hereditary Rights Liberties Priviledges Franchises Laws and Customs properly called FVNDAMENTAL and likewise a FVNDAMENTALL GOVERNMENT no wayes to be altered undermined subverted directly or indirectly under pain of High Treason in those who shall attempt it especially by fraud force or armed power I Shall confirm the first part of it by these ensuing punctual Authorities of moment against those traiterous late published Pamphlets which professedly deny it and endeavour a totall abrogation of all former Lawes to set up a New modell and Body of the law to rule us for the future according to their pleasures The first is the expresse words of the great Charters of the Liberties of England granted by King John Anno 1215. in the 16 year of his Reign Regranted and confirmed by King Henry the third in the 9 year of his Reign and sundry times afterwards and by King Edward the first in the 25 and 28 years of his reign Wherein these three Kings successively by their several grand Charters under their great Seals did grant give and confirm to all the Nobility is and ever shall be far from the thoughts and intents of all good Kings Governours and Parliament who bear a sincere care and affection to the Subjects of England to alter or innovate them 3. That by these ancient good Laws Priviledges and customs not only the Kings Regall Authority but the peoples Security of lands livings and priviledges both in general and particular are preserved and maintained 4. That by the abolishing or altering of them it is impossible but that present confusion will fall upon the whol state and frame of this Kingdom Which I wish all Innovators and New Modellers of our Lawes and Government would now at last lay seriously to heart and the whole Kingdome and English Nation sadly consider who have found it an experimental truth of late years and no imaginary seigned speculation 3. The third is The Remonâ—trance of the whole House of Commons in Parliament delivered in Writing to King James in the Parliament of 7. Jacobi Anno 1610. which begins thus To the Kings most Excellent Majesty Most Gracious Soveraign Whereas we your Majesties most humble Subjects the Commons assembled in Parliament having received first by Message and since by speech from your Majesty a Command of restraint from debating in Parliament your Majesties Right of imposing upon your Subjects Goods exported out of or imported into this Realm yet allowing us to examine the grievance of these Impositions in regard of quantity time and other circumstances of disproportion thereto incident We your humble Subjects nothing doubting but that your Majesty had no intent by that command to infring the ancient and fundamentall Rights of the Liberty of PARLIAMENT in point of exact discussing of all matters concerning them and their Possessions Goods and Rights whatsoever Which yet we cannot but conceive to be done in effect by this Command Do with all humble Duty make this Remonstrâ—nce to your Majesty First we hold it an Ancient general and undoubted Right of Parliament to debate freely all matters which do properly concern the Subject and his Right or Estate which freedome of debate being once fore-closed the essence of the Liberty of Parliament is withall dissolved c. Here the whole House of Commons in a speciall Remonstrance to King James printed and published by Order of a Committee of the House of Commons for licensing of Books dated 20 Maii 17. Caroli 1641. Declare resolve vindicate and maintain one principal ancient fundamentall general undoubed right of the Liberty of Parliament against the Kings intrenchment on it Of which should they be but once fore closed the Essence of the Liberty of Parliament is withall dissolved And peradventure it may not be unworthy the most serious disquisition of the next ensuing nominal or real Parliament to examine whether some clauses and restrictions in the 9. 12. 14. 16 17. 21. 22. 24 25. 27. 30. 32 33. 36 37 38 39 40. Articles or strings of the New Instrument intituled The Government of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging as it was publikely declared at Westminster the 16. day of December 1653 c. do not as much nay far more intrench upon the ancient Fundamental General undoubted Rights and Liberty of Parliament and parliamentary free debates to the dissolution of the Essential liberty of all future Parliaments as this Command of King James did or as the Bishops late Canons imposed on the Clergy in and by the Convocation Anno 1640. ever did and this clause in their c. Oath then made now imitated by others who condemned it I. A. B. do swear that I will never give my consent to alter the Government of this Church by Arch-bishops Bishops Deans and Arch-Deacons c. as it stands now established and as by right it ought to stand Which clause and Oath imposed onely on the Clergy-men Resolved by the whole House of Commons and Peers too in Parliament without one dissenting voice December 16. 1640. to be a most dangerous illegal Oath contrary to the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and to the Fundamental Laws and Statutes of the Realuâ— c. and of dangerous consequence the contriving whereof was objected to the late Archbishop of Caterbury in his original Articles of High Treason for which amongst other things he lost his head The fourth is the notable Petition of Grievances of the whole House of Commons in Parliament presented to King James in the seventh year of his Reign after their Vote against his Right to levy Impositions on goods imported or exported without assent and grant of Parliament in these ensuing words The Policy of this your Majesties Kingdomes appropriates unto the Kings of this Realm with assent of Parliament as well the Soveraign power of making Laws as that of taxing or imposing upon the Subjects Goods or Merchandises wherein they have justly such a property as may not without their consent be altered or changed this is the cause that the people of this Kingdome as they have ever shewed themselves faithfull and loving to their Kings and ready to aid them in all just occasions with voluntary contributions so have they been ever careful to preserve their own Liberties and Rights when any thing hath been done to prejudice or impeach the same And therefore when their Princes either occasioned by war or by their own bounty or by any other necessity have without consent of
to settle Religion in the purity thereof TO MAINTAIN THE ANCIENT and FUNDAMENTALL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME TO PRESERVE THE RIGHTS and LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT to lay hold on the first opportunity of procuring a safe and well grounded peace in the three Kingdoms and to keep a good understanding between the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland according to the grounds expressed in the Solemn League and Covenant And lest these generals should not give a sufficient satisfaction we have thought fit to the end men might no longer be abused in a misbelief of our intentions or a misunderstanding of our actions to make a further enlargement upon the particulars And first Concerning Church-Government c. because we cannot consent to the granting of an Arbitrary and unlicensed Power and Jurisdiction to neer ten thousand Judicatories to be erected within this Kingdome and this demanded in such a way as is not consistent with the FVNDAMENTAL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF THE SAME c. Our full resolutions still are sincerely really and constantly to endeavour the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdome of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and according to the Covenant WE ARE SO FARRE FROM ALTERING THE FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME BY KING LORDS and COMMONS that we have onely desired that with the consent of the King such Power may be settled in the TWO HOVSES without which we can have no assurance but that the like or greater mischiefs than those which God hath hither to dilivered us from may break out again and engage us in a second and more destructive war whereby it plainly appears Our intentions are not to change the Antient Frame of Government within this Kingdome but to obtain the end of the Primitive Institution of all Government The safety and weal of the People not judging it wise or safe after so bitter experience of the bloody consequence of a pretended Power of the Militia in the King to leave any colourable authority in the same for the future attempts of introducing AN ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT OVER THIS NATION We do declare That we will not nor any by colour of any Authority derived from us shall interrupt the ordinary course of Justice in the severall Courts of Judicatories of this Kingdome nor intermeddle in the cases of private interest other where determinable unlesse it be in case of male-Administration of Justice wherein we shall see and provide that Right be done and punishment inflicted as there shall be occasion ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOME Lastly Whereas both Nations have entred into a Solemn League and Covenant we have and EVER SHALL BE VERY CAREFULL DULY TO OBSERVE THE SAME that as nothing hath been done SO NOTHING SHALL BE DONE BY US REPUGNANT TO THE TRUE MEANING AND INTENTION THEREOF c. WHO WILL NOT DEPART FROM THOSE GROUNDS AND PRINCIPLES upon which it was framed and founded Though the generality of the afterwards secured and secluded Majority of the House of Commons endeavoured constantly to make good this Declaration in all particulars yet how desperatly the garbled Minority thereof continuing in power after their Seclusion prevaricated apostatized and falsified their Faith herein in every particle in the highest degree we cannot but with greatest grief of heart and detestation remember to the subversion ruine of our King Lords Commons Kingdome Parliaments Fundamentall Laws Government and the peoples Liberties c. almost beyond all hopes of restitution or reparation in humane probability without a miracle from heaven The Lord give them grace most seriously to consider repent of and really sincerely reform it now at last and to make it the principle subject of their prescribed publike Humiliations Fasts and Lamentations as God himself prescribes Isa 58. 5 6 7 8. Jer. 34. 8. to 22. Ezech. 19. 1. 14. Hos 10. 3 4. and not still to adde drunkennesse to thirst lest they bring them to temporall and eternal condemnation for it in Gods own due time and engender endlesse Wars Troubles Taxes Changes Confusions in our Kingdomes as they have hitherto done and will do till all be restored to their just Rights Powers Places Possessions and Liberties By this full Jury of Parliamentary Authorities to omit many others of like or inferiour nature and lesse moment it is undeniable That the people of England have both ancient Fundamentall Rights Liberties Franchises Laws and a Fundamental Government which like the Laws of the Medes and Persians neither may nor ought to be altered or innovated upon any pretence but perpetually maintained defended with greatest care vigilancy resolution and he who shall deny or oppugn it deserâ—â—s no refulation by further arguments since it is a received Maxime in all Arts Contra Principia negantem non est disputandum but rather demerits a sentence of Condemnation and publike execution at Tyburn as a Common Enemy Traitor to our Laws Liberties Nation it being no lesse than a transcendent crime and High Treason by our Laws for any person or persons secretly or openly to attempt the undermining or subversion of our fundamental laws rights Liberties Government especially by fraud treachery force or armed power and violence the later part of my first proposal which I shall now confirm by these twelve following Presidents and Evidences corroborating likewise the former part That we have such Fundamental laws liberties rights franchises and a fundamental Government too In the fifth year of King Richard the second the vulgar rabble of people and villains in Kent Essex Sussex Norfolk Cambridge-shire and other Counties under the Conduct of Wat Tyler Jack Straw and other Rebels assembling together in great multitudes occasioned at first by the new invented Tax of Poll-money granted by Parliament and the over-rigorous levying thereof on the people by the Kings Officers though nothing so grievous as our Excises Contributions new Imposts now so long exacted without any legal Grant in true free and full English Parliaments resolved by force and violence to abrogate the law of Villenage with all other laws they disliked formerly setled to burn all the Records kill and behead all the Judges Justices and men of law of all sorts which they could get into their hands to burn and destroy the Inns of Court as they did then the new Temple where the Apprentices of the law lodged burning their Monuments and Records of Law there found to alter the tenures of lands to devise new laws of their own by which the Subjects should be governed to change the ancient Hereditary Monarchicall Government of the Realm and to erect petty elective Tyrannies and Kingdomes to themselves in every shire A project eagerly prosecuted by some Anarchicall Anabaptists Jesuits Levellers very lately and though withall they intended to destroy the King at last and all the Nobles too when they had gotten sufficient power yet at first to
cloak their intentions from the people they took an Oath of all they met Quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent that they should keep Allegiance and Faith to the King Commons Yea Wat Tyler demanded a Commission from the King to behead all Lawyers Escheaters and others whatsoever that were learned in the laws or communicated with the law by reason of their Office conceiving in his minde that this being brought to passe all things afterwards would be ordered according to his own and the common peoples fancy And he made his vaunt putting his hand to his own lips That before scure dayes came to an end ALL THE LAWS OF ENGLAND SHOULD PROCEED FROM HIS MOUTH Which some of late times seem to speak not only in words but deeds by their manifold new laws and Edicts repealing or contradicting our old This their resolution and attempt thus to alter and subvert the Laws and Government upon full debate in the Parliament of 5. R. 2. n. 30. 31. was declared to be High-Treason against the King and the Law for which divers of the chief Actors in this Treasonable Designe were condemned and executed as Traitors in severall places and the rest enforced to a publike submission then pardoned Let these imitators now remember this old President 2. In the Parliament of 11. R. 2. as appears by the Parliament Rols and printed Statutes at large three Privy Councellours the Archbishop of York the Duke of Ireland and the Earl of Suffolk the Bishop of Exeter the Kings Confessor five Knights six Judges whereof Sir Robert Tresylian Chief Justice was one Blake of the Kings Councel at Law Vsk and others were impeached and condemned of High Treason some of them executed as Traitors the rest banished their lands and goods forfeited and none to endeavour to procure their pardon under pain of Felony for their endeavouring to overthrow a Commission for the good of the Kingdome contrary to an Act of Parliament by force of Arms and opinions in Law delivered by these temporizing Judges and Lawyers to the King through threats and terrour at Nottingham Castle tending to subvert the Laws and Statutes of the Realm overthrow the Power Priviledges and proceedings of Parliament and betray not all the House of Lords but only some of the Lords of Parliament Which Judgement being afterwards reversed in the forced and packed Parliament of 21. R. 2. was reconfirmed in the Parliament of 1 H. 4. c. 3 4 5. and the Parliament of 21. R. 2. totally repealed and adnulled for ever and hath so continued Read Statut. at large 3. In the Parliament of 17 R. 2. n. 20. and Pas 17 R. 2. B. Regis Rot. 16. Sir Thomas Talbot was accused and found guilty of High Treason for conspiring the death of the Dukes of Glocester Lancaster and other Peers who maintained the Commission confirmed by Act of Parliament 10. R. 2 and assembling people in a warlike manner in the County of Chester for effecting of it in destruction of the estates of the Realm and the Laws of the Kingdome 4. In the 29. year of King Henry the sixth Jack Cade under a pretence to REFORM alter and abrogate some laws Purveyances and Extortions importable to the Commons whereupon he was called JOHN AMEND ALL drew a great multitude of Kentish people to Black-heath in a warlike manner to effect it In the Parliament of 29 H. 6. c. 1 this was adjudged High Treason in him and his Complices by Act of Parliament and the Parliament of 31. H. 6. c. 1. made this memorable Act against him and his Imitators in succeding ages worthy serious perusal and consideration by all who tread in his footsteps and over-act him in his Treasons Whereas the most abominable Tyrant horrible odious and errant FALSE TRAYTOR John Cade calling himself sometimes Mortimer sometime Captain of Kent which Name Fame Acts and Feats be to be removed out of the speech and minde of every faithfull Christian man perpetually falsly and traiterously purposing and imagining the perpetuall destruction of the KINGS PERSON and FINAL SVBVERSION OF THIS REALM taking upon him ROYALL POWER and gathering to him the Kings People in great number BY FALSE SVBTIL IMAGINED LANGVAGE and seditiously made a stirring Rebellion and insurrection VNDER COLOVR OF JVSTICE FOR REFORMATION OF THE LAWS OF THE SAID KING robbing slaying spoiling a great part of his faithfull people Our said Soveraign Lord the King considering the premises with many other which were more odious to remember by advice and assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at THE REQUEST OF THE COMMONS and by Authority aforesaid Hath ordained and established that the said John Cade shall be had named and declared A FALSE TRAYTOR to our said Soveraign Lord the King and that all his Tyranny Acts Feats false Opinions shall be voided abated adnulled destroyed and put out of remembrance for ever And that all Indictments and things depending thereof had and made under the power of Tyranny shall likewise be void adnulled abated repealed and holden for none and that the blood of none of them be defiled nor corrupted but by the Authority of the said Parliament clearly declared for ever And that all Indictments in time coming in like case under power of Tyranny Rebellion and stirring had shall be of no regard or effect but void in Law And all the Petitions delivered to the said King in his last Parliament holden at Westminster the sixth day of November the 29. of his Reign against his minde by him not agreed shall be taken and put in Oblivion out of Remembrance undone voided adnulled and destroyed for ever as a thing purposed against God and his Conscience and against his Royal estate and preheminence and also DISHONORABLE and UNREASONABLE 5. In the 8 year of King Henry the 8. William Bell and Thomas Lacy in the County of Kent conspired with Thomas Cheney the Hermite of the Queen of Fairies TO OVER THROW THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF THE REALM for effecting whereof they with 200 more met together and concluded upon a course of raising greater forces in Kent and the adjacent Shires This was judged High Treason and some of them executed as Traitors Moreover it was resolved by all the Judges of England in the reign of Henry 8. that an Insurrection against the Statute of Laborers or for the inhansing of Salaries and wages or against any Statute or to remove Councellors or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own heads was TREASON and a levying war against the King BECAVSE IT WAS GENERALLY AGAINST THE KINGS LAW and the Offenders took upon them THE REFORMATION THEREOF which Subjects by gathering of power ought not to do 6. On December 1. in the 21. year of King Henry the 8. Sr. Thomas Moore Lord Chancellour of England with fourteen more Lords of the Privy Councel John Fitz-James Chief Justice of England and Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert Herbert
later times in corrupt cowardly time-serving degenerate Lawyers and Judasses rather than Judges to the disgrace of their Profession now generally spoken against their own dishonour infamy reproach the scandall of Religion which some of them have eminently professed the prejudice and subversion of the Fundamentall Laws Liberties Rights Priviledges of our Nation Peers Parliaments and of the ancient Fundamental Government of this famous Kingdome whereof they are Members and that contrary to some of their own late Judgments sciences Consciences Votes Printed Arguments Speeches Declarations against others even in and out of Parliament and their own first Charges in their Circuits repugnant to their later 4. To instruct those Jesuited Anabaptists Levellers and their Factors especially John Canne and the rest of the Compilers Publishers Abetters of the Pamphlet intituled Leiutenant Colonel John Lilburn tried and east and other forementioned publications who professedly set themselves by Words Writings Counsels and overt Acts to subvert both our old Fundamentall with all other Laws Liberties Customs Parliaments and Government what transcendent Malefactors Traitors and Enemies they are to the publique and what Capital punishments they may incurre as well as dâ—merit should they be legally prosecuted for the same and thereupon to advise them timely to repent of and dâ—sist from such high Treasonable attempts 5. To clear both my self and this my seasonable Defence of our Fundamental Laws Liberties Government from the least suspition or shadow of Faction Sedition Treason and Emnity to the publique peace weal settlement of the Nation which those and those onely who are most factious and seditious and the greatest Enemies Traitors to the publique tranquility Weal Laws Liberties Government and establishment of our Kingdome as the premises evidence will be ready maliciously to asperse both me and it with as they have done heretofore some other of my Writings of this Nature with all which they must first brand Mr. St. John Mr. Pym the whole House of Commons the two last with all other Parliaments forecited and themselves too from which they are so much changed and degenerated of late years ere they can accuse traduce or censure me who do but barely relate apply their words and judgments in their purest times without malice or partiality for the whole Kingdomes benefit security and resettlement To these punctual full Juries of Records and Parliament Authorities in point I could accumulate Sr. Edward Cook his 3. Institutes p. 9. printed and authorised by the House of Commons speciall Order the last Parliament The severall Speeches of M. Hide M. Waller M. Pierpoint and M. Hollis July 6. 1641. at the Lords Bar in Parliament by Order of the Commons House at the Impeachment of the Shipmony Judges of High Treason printed in Diurnal Occurrences and Speeches in Parliament London 1641. p. 237 to 264. M. Samuel Browns Argument at law before the Lords and Commons at Canterburies Attainder all manifesting their endeavouring to subvert the Fundamentall Laws and Government of the Realm to be High Treason with sundry other printed Authorities to prove That we have Fundamental Laws Liberties Rights and a Fundamental Government likewise which ought not to be innovated violated or subverted upon any pretences whatsoever by any power or prevailing Faction Which Fundamental Rights Liberties Laws Sr. Thomas Fairfax and the Army under his Command by their Declaration of June 14. 1647. particularly promise and engage to assert vindicate against all arbitray power violence oppression and against all particular parties or Interests whatsoever which they may doe well to remember and make good But to avoid prolixity the double Jury of irrefragable and punctuall authorities already produced being sufficient to satisfie the most obstinate opposites formerly contradicting it I shall onely adde three swaying authorities more wherewith I shall conclude this point The first is a very late one in a Treatise intituled A true State of the Common Wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging in Reference to the late established Government by a Lord Protector and a PARLIAMENT It being the Judgement of DIVERSE PERSONS who throughout these late troubles have approved themselves faithfull to the Cause and interest of God and their COUNTRY presented to the publike for the satisfaction of others Printed at London 1654. who relating the miscarriages of the last ASSEMBLY at Westminster elected nominated by the Censurers of them the Army Officers onely not the people use these expressions of them page 13 14 16 17 21 22. But on the contrary it so fell out in a short time that there appeared many in this Assembly of very contrary principles to the interest aforesaid which led them violently on to attempt and promote many things the consequence whereof would have been A subverting of the Fundamentall Laws of the Land the Destruction of Property and an utter extinguishment of the Gospel In truth their Principles led them TO A PULLING DOWN ALL AND ESTABLISING NOTHING So that instead of the expected settlement they were running into FURTHER ANARCHY AND CONFUSION As to the Laws and Civil Rights of the Nation nothing would serve them but a TOTALL ERADICATION OF THE OLD AND INTRODUCTION OF A NEW and so the good Old Laws of England the Guardians of our Laws and Fortunes established with prudence and confirmed by the experience of many Ages and Generations The Preservation whereof was a principall ground of our late quarrell with the King having been once abolished what could we have expected afterwards but an inthroning of Arbitrary power in the Seat of Judicature and an exposing of our Lives our Estates our Liberties and all that is dear unto us as a Sacrifice to the boundlesse appetite of meer Will and Power c. Things being at this passe and the House through these proceedings perfectly disjointed it was in vain to look for a settlement of this Nation from them thus constituted but on the contrary nothing else could be expected But that the Common-wealth should sink under their hands and the great cause hitherto so happily upheld and maintained to be for ever lost through their preposterous management of these affairs wherewith they had been intrusted Whereupon they justifie their dissolution and turning them forcibly out of doores by the Souldiers with shame and infamy to prevent that destruction which thereby was coming on THE WHOLE LAND by this New Powder Treason plot set on foot by the Jesuites and Anabaptists to destroy our Laws Liberties Properties Ministers and Religion it self at one blow and that in the very Parliament House where some destroyed and blowed up Kings Peers and Parliaments themselves as well as Lawes and Parliament Priviledges of late years where they had been constantly defended vindicated preserved established in all former Ages by ALL TRVE ENGLISH PARLIAMENTS The second is The Votes of the House of Commons concerning a Paper presented to them entituled An Agreement of the people for a firm present
no sooner projected by some evil Malignant Jesuited Counsellers about the late King but it was presently condemned and crushed in the very shell when first intended to be set on foot in England by King Charls with the advise and consent of his privie Council at White-Hall by a Commission under the Great Seal of England dated the last of February 3 Caroli issued to thirty three Lords of his Majesties Privie Council and others which authorized commanded them to raise monies BY IMPOSITIONS OR OTHERWISE as they in their wisdoms should finde most convenient and that only for these publike uses THE DEFENCE OF THE KING KINGDOM PEOPLE and of the Kings Friends and Allies beyond the Seas then in such imminent danger that WITHOUT EXTREAMEST HAZARD OF THE KING KINGDOM PEOPLE KINGS Friends and Allies it could admit of no longer delay In which INEVITABLE NECESSITY form and circumstance must rather be dispenced with than the substance lost The Commissioners being thereupon specially injoyned to be diligent in the Service and not fail therein as they tender his Majesties Honour and THE SAFETY OF THE KING and PEOPLE This Commission was no sooner discovered but it was presently complained of by the whole Commons House in the Parliament of 3 Caroli and upon Conference with the Lords it was immediately Voted adjudged by both Houses without one dissenting voyce TO BEE EX DIAMETHRO AGAINST LAW and CONTRARY TO THE PETITION OF RIGHT after which it was cancelled as such in the Kings own presence by his consent order and then sent cancelled to both Houses for their satisfaction before ever it was put in execution and all Warrants for and memorials of it cancelled damned destroyed the Commons further urging That the Projector thereof might be found out by strict inquiry and EXEMPLARILY PVNISHED as the Parliament Journal attests notwithstanding all the specious pretences of inevitable necessity imminent danger and the defence safety of the whole Kingdom People King and his forreign Protestant Friends and Allies then in greater real danger than any now appearing This Original Parliamentary Doom Judgement against that New Monster of Excise was ratified approved pressed by both Houses of Parliament in the Cases of Ship-money and the Commission of Array as you may read at large in Mr. Oliver St. Johns Speech and Declaration delivered at a Conference of both Houses concerning Ship-money 14 January 1640. printed by the Commons Order p. 13. to 20. and The Lords and Commons second Declaration against the Commission of Array Exact collection p. 884 885. from which they then drew this positive conclusion fit to be now considered by our New Governours and the whole Nation THAT TO DEFEND THE KINGDOM IN TIME OF IMMINENT DANGER IS NO SUFFICIENT CAVSE for the King and his Council much less then for those who condemned suppressed them for Tyrants and Oppressors of the People TO LAY ANY TAX OR CHARGE UPON THE SUBJECTS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT IN PARLIAMENT Yea the whole House of Commons was so zealous against this Dutch Devil of Excise that in their Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom 15 Decemb 1641. Exact Collection p. 3 4 6. they expresly brand censure the first Attempts to introduce it for A MALIGNANT and PERNIâ—IOUS DESIGN TO SUBVERT THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS and PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT upon which the JUSTICE OF THIS KINGDOM WAS FORMERLY ESTABLISHED as proceeding from JESUITED COVNSELS BEING MOST ACTIVE and PREVAILING yea for AN UNJUST and PERNICIOVS ATTEMPT TO EXTORT GREAT PAYMENTS FROM THE SUBJECTS Which was to be accompanied as now it is with Billited Souldiers in all parts of the Kingdom and the concomitant of German as now of English HORSE That the LAND MIGHT EITHER SUBJECT WITH FEAR or BE ENFORCED WITH RIGOVR TO SUCH ARBITRARY CONTRIBUTIONS AS SHOVLD BE REQVIRED OF THEM And when some rumours were first spread abroad that the COMMONS HOVSE INTENDED TO LAY EXCISE UPON PEWâ—ER AND OTHER COMMODITIES they were so sensible of the injustice and odiousness thereof that they thereupon published a special Declaration printed 8 Octob. 1642. Exact Collection p. 638. wherein they not only disclaim renounce any such intention but branded those Reports and Rumours for FALSE and SCANDALOVS ASPERSIONS raised and cast upon the House BY MALIGNANT and ILL-AFFECTED PERSONS TENDING MUCH TO THE DISSERVICE OF THE PARLIAMENT and Ordered That the AVTHORS OF THEM should be inquired aftèr apprehended and brought to the House TO RECEIVE CONDIGNE PUNISHMENT After which this Excise being notwithstanding this Disclaimer and much publick private opposition against it set on foot by some swaying Members upon a pretence of necessity for support of the Army to the great Oppression and Discontent of the People The Generall and general Council of Officers and Souldiers of THE ARMY themselves were so sensible of this illegal oft-condemned New grievance that in the Heads of their Proposals and particulars of their Desires in order to the clearing and securing of the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom tendred to the Commissioners of Parliament residing with the Army the first of August 1647. printed in their Book of Declarations p. 118 published by their own and the Lords House special Order they â—ade this one principall Desire to the Parliament That the EXCISE may be taken off from such Commodities whereof the poor of the Land do ordinarily live and A CERTAIN TIME TO BE LIMITED FOR TAKING OFF THE WHOLE Yet notwithstanding all these Judgements and Out-cryes against it some of those very persons who thus publickly branded it both in the Parliament House and Army by irregular paper Ordinances as they intitle them dated 24 December 1653. March 17. 1653. and May 4. 1654. have by their own Self-derived supertranscendent Authority without yea against the Peoples consents or any Authority from Parliament imposed continued Excise upon our own Inland and Forreign Commodities in very high proportions from the twenty fourth of March 1654. till the twenty fourth of March 1655. And which is most observable prescribed it to bee levied by putting the Parties to an EX OFFICIO OATH against themselves by Fines Forfeitures SEQVESTRATIONS and SALES OF THE REFUSERS OPPOSERS PERSONAL and REAL ESTATES DISSTRESSES BREAKING UP OF THE PARTIES HOVSES SEISVRES OF THEIR GOODS IMPRISONMENT OF THE PERSONS OF ALL SUCH WHO SHALL HINDER OR OPPOSE THE MINISTERS OR OFFICERS IMPLOYED IN LEVYING or distraining for the same BY LOCKING UP THE DOORS or OTHERWISE And by these their unparalleld Edicts they further order That the Officers of Excise BOTH DAY AND NIGHT shall be permitted free entrance into ALL ROOMES and PLACES WHATSOEVER THEY SHALL DEMAND in Brewers Sope-boylers and others Houses under pain of forfeiture of fifty pounds for every refusal by colour whereof all mens Houses may be robbed plundered and their throats cut by Theeves and Robbers pretending themselves Excise-men Souldiers authorised to make such Searches as many of late have been And they with all their assistants shall bee kept indenspnified in
ALL CAUSES RELATING TO THE EXCISE from time to time against all Sutes or Actions brought or other molestations against them by the Parties grieved who are usually Fined Imprisoned enforced to pay Costs of Sute only for suing for relief yea which I cannot think of without horrour and amazement ALL COVRTS OF JUSTICE OF THIS COMMON-WEALTH and ALL JUDGES and JUSTICES OF THE SAME SHERIFS COVNSELLORS ATTURNIES SOLICITORS and ALL OTHER PERSONS are thereby expresly required to conform themselves accordingly in all things WITHOVT ANY OPPOSITION OR DISPVTE WHATSOEVER as the precise words of their Ordinance of 17 March 1653. proclaim to all the Nation Which declares further That IT IS NECESSARY to provide A CONTINVAL SVPPLY for the carrying on the weighty Affairs of this Common-wealth OVT OF THIS REVENVE OF EXCISE And do not these Clauses compared with the 27. 29. Articles of their Instrument clearly discover a fixed Resolution in these new Legislators to continue and perpetuate upon the whole Nation this importable Grievance of Excise from year to year without intermission or end to be leavied by the means aforesaid to hinder all and every the Freemen of England from endeavouring to free or exempt themselves or their Posterities from it hereafter by any Sute Action Habeas Corpus or other legal remedy in any Court of Justice whatsoever yea peremptorily positively to prohibit enjoyn all Courts of Justice Judges Justices Sheriffs Counsellours Atturnies Solicitors with all other persons of this Common-wealth both for the present and future Ages to give them the least legal assistance advice or relief against the same or against any Officers or Assistants which shall forcibly lâ—aâ—ie it by distress Fines Imprisonnents Confiscation of Goods Sequestrations Sales of their personal or real Estates or otherwise I appeal then in the behalf of all the Freeborn People of England the Souls and Consciences of these new Ordinance-makers with all the Executioners of them in any kinde before all the Tribunals of Heaven and Earth whether they have not by these their Dismal Ordinances more desperately irrecoverably totally finally as much as in them lies undermined subverted and quite blown up at once all the Foundations of our hereditary Fundamentall Properties Liberties Laws for eternity and levelled them to the dust then the worst of all our Kings or former Councill-tables ever did Deprived the whole Nation and every particular Free-man in it of all future benefit of our Laws Statutes and Courts of Justice for their just relief against this intolerable Oppression and thereby reduced us to the condition of the most slavish captivated fettered Bond-slaves and conquered Vassals under heaven without any visible means or hopes of future enfranchisement under a pretext of fighting for maintaining protecting enlargeing our former properties and freedomes to a more miserable sordid servile condition than either we or our Ancestors sustained under the worst of al our Kings and their most pernicious Counsellors who never in any age attempted tither to make or impose such Extravagant enslaving Ordinances or Excises with such strange penalties Forfeitures Imprisonments Sequestrations sales most unrighteous Monstrous Inhibitions of all legal suites means for cheirrelief in Courts of Justice as they have done King Charles himself though condemned beheaded by them for the worst of Tyrants and Oppressors permitting his Subjects free Liberty to dispute the Legality of Fines for Knight-hood Ship mony Tonnage Poundage Loanes Excise and other Impositions not only in his Parliaments where they were fully debated without restraint and Laws passed against them afterwards by his own Royall assent thereto but likewise in all his other Courts where they were first brought in question Yet now in our Nâ—w Free State under these greatest pretended Patrons of our Laws and Liberties all Courts Judges Justices and other Officers must conform to these illegall Impositions and their tyrannicall waies of inforcement without any opposition or dispute whatsoever and all Counsellors Attornies Solicitors and others must neither argue nor advise nor act in any kinde against them And is this the glorious old antient English Liberty Freedome Property Law and free course of Justice wee have spent so many millions of Treasure so many years of publique Consultations warres Prayers Fasts Tears and such Oceans of precious christian Protestant English blood inviolably to maintain and perpetuate to posterity If any Free-born English men whatsoever dare publikely averre it let them do it at the perill of their infamy execration in all future ages yea of their own heads and Souls If they cannot but now absolutely disavow it let them with shame and indignation disclaim renounce such illegall Ordinances Excises as most detestable both to God and all true-born English free men The 2 is The present continuing Impositions of Customes Tonnage and Poundage upon Goods Merchandizes imported and exported without any grant thereof by Parliament by a new Printed Paper entituled an Ordinance of March 23 1653. thus peremptorily imposing them without any Prologue or Inducement to satisfy the people either in Equity or Justice much lesse in their Legality in respect of those who thus impose them for sundry years yet to come Be it ordained by his highness the Lord Protector with the advise and consent of the Councell that one Act of Parliament though no Act at all by any known Laws Statutes Law-books Records Customes or Constitutions of the Realm buâ— a meer Nullity entituled an Act for the Continuation of the Customes until the 26 of March 1653 and all clauses and powers therein contained are and ARE HEREBY CONTINUED and SHALL and DO STAND IN FULL FORCE UNTILL THE 26 DAY OF MARCH in the year of our Lord 1658. c. By which these New Legislators by their own inherent Superlative Power presume to impose this Tax upon the whole Nation without any grant in Parliament for full 5 years space not only contrary to the Presidents in all former Kings raigns who never claimed nor received it but by speciall grant in Parliament but likewise contrary to this memorable Remonstrance made by the whole House of Commons in the Parliament of 3 Caroli never yet Printed to my knowledge Most gracious Soveraign your Majesties most loyall and dutifull Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled being in nothing more carefull than of the Honour and Prosperity of your Majesty and the Kingdome which they know doth much depend upon that union and relation betwixt your Majesty and your people do with much sorrow apprehend that by reason of the incertainty of their continuance together the unexpected interruptions which have been cast upon them and the shortness of time in which your Majesty hath determined to end this Session they cannot bring to maturity and perfection divers businesses of weight which they have taken into their consideration and resolution as most important for the common good Amongst other things they have taken into especiall care the preparing of a Bill
for the granting to your Majesty such a Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage as might uphold your Profit and Revenue in as ample manner as their just care and respect of Trade wherein not only the prosperity but even the life of the Kingdom doth consist would permit But being a work which will require much time and preparation by Conference with your Majesties Officers and with the Merchants not only of London but of other remote parts they finde it not possible to bee accomplished at this time wherefore considering it will be much more prejudicial to the Right of the Subject if your Majesty should continue to receive the same without Authority of Law after the determination of a Session then if there had been a recess by Adjournment only in which case that intended Grant would have related to the first day of the Parliament and assuring themselves That your Majesty is resolved to observe that your royal Answer which you have made to the Petition of Right of both Houses of Parliament yet doubting lest your Majesty may be mis-informed concerning this particular case as if you might continue to take those Subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage and other Impositions of Merchants without breaking that Answer they are forced by that duty which they owe to your Majesty and to those whom they represent to declare THAT THERE OVGHT NOT ANY IMPOSITION TO BE LAID VPON THE GOODS OF MERCHANTS EXPORTED OR IMPORTED WITHOVT COMMON CONSENT BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT WHICH IS THE RIGHT AND INHERITANCE OF YOVR SVBJECTS FOVNDED NOT ONLY VPON THE MOST ANTIENT AND ORIGINAL CONSTITVTION OF THIS KINGDOM BUT OFTEN CONFIRMED AND DECLARED IN DIVERS STAâ—VTE LAWS And for the better manifestation thereof may it please your Majesty to understand That although your royal Predecessors the Kings of this Realm have often had such Subsidies and Impositions granted unto them upon divers occasions especially for the guarding of the Seas and safeguard of Merchants yet the Subjects have been ever careful to use such Cautions and limitations in those Grants as might prevent any Claim to be made that such Subsidies do proceed from duty and not from the free gift of the Subject and that they have heretofore limited a time in such Grants and for the most part but short as for a year or two and if it were continued longer they have sometimes directed a certain space of resensation or intermission that so the Right of the Subject might be more evident At other times it hath been granted upon occasion of Warre for certain numbers of years with Proviso that if the Warre were ended in the mean time then the grant should cease And of course it hath been sequestred into the hands of some Subjects to bee imployed for guarding of the Coasts and it is acknowledged by the ordinary Answers of your Majesties Predecessors in their assents to the Bills of Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage that it is of the nature of other Subsidies proceeding from the good will of the Subject Very few of your Predecessors had it for life until the reign of Henry 7. who was so farre from conceiving he had any right thereunto that although he granted Commissions for collecting certain Duties and Customs due by Law yet he made no Commission for receiving the Subsidy of Tunnage and Poundage until the same was granted to him in Parliament Since his time all the Kings and Queens of this Realm have had the like Grants for life by the free love and good will of the Subject and whensoever the people have been grieved by laying any Impositions or other Charges upon their Goods and Merchandizes without authority of Law which hath been very seldome yet upon complaint in Parliament they have been forthwith releeved saving in the time of your royall Father who having through ill counsel raised the Rates of Merchandizes to that height at which they now are yet he was pleased so farre to yeeâ—d to the complaint of his people as to offer that if the value of these Impositions which he had set might be made good unto him he would bind himself and his Heirs by Act of Parliament never to lay any other which offer the Commons at that time in regard of the great burthen did not think fit to yeeld unto Nevertheless your loyal Commons in this Parliament out of their especial zeal to your Service and special regard of your pressing occasions have taken into their considerations so to frame a Grant of Subsidy of Tunnage and Poundage to your Majesty that both you might have been better enabled for the defence of your Realm and your Subjects by being secure from all undue Charges be the more encouraged cheerfully to proceed in their course of Trade by the encrease whereof your Majesties profit and likewise the strength of the Kingdom would be very much augmented But not being now able to accomplish this their desire there is no course left unto them without manifest breach of their Duty both to your Majesty and their Country save only to make this humble Declaration THAT THE RECEIVING OF TONNAGE and POVNDAGE and OTHER IMPOSITIONS NOT GRANTED BY PARLIAMENT IS A BREACH OF THE FVNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES OF THIS KINGDOM and CONTRARY TO YOVR MAJESTIES ROYAL ANSWER TO THE SAID PETITION OF RIGHT And therefore they do most humbly beseech your Majesty to forbear any further receiving of the same and not to take it in ill part from those of your Majesties loving Subjects WHO SHALL REFVSE TO MAKE PAIMENT OF ANY SVCH CHARGES WITHOVT WARRANT OF LAW DEMANDED And as by this forbearance your most excellent Majesty shall manifest unto the World your ROYAL JUSTICE IN THE OBSERVATION OF YOVR LAWS so they doubt not hereafter at the time appointed for their coming again they shall have occasion to express their great desire to advance your Majesties HONOVR and PROFIT The King dissolving this Parliament on a sudden and continuing to take Tonnage and Poundage by his Royal Prerogative without any Act of Parliament sundry Merchants upon the Commons Remonstrance refused to pay the same whereupon their Goods were seised of which they complaining in Parliament 16 Caroli were Voted full Reparations against the Customers with Dammages for the same And to prevent the Kings Claim thereunto by right with all future Demands and Collections thereof from the Subject without grant in Parliament they Declared and Enacted by three special Acts of Parliament 16 17 Caroli That IT IS and HATH BEEN THE ANTIENT RIGHT OF THE SVBJECTS OF THIS REALM That NO SUBSIDY CVSTOME IMPOST OR OTHER CHARGES WHATSOEVER OVGHT OR MAY BE LAID OR IMPOSED UPON ANY MERCHANDISE EXPORTED OR IMPORTED BY SUBJECTS DENIZENS OR ALIENS WITHOVT COMMON CONSENT IN PARLIAMENT and that if any Customer Controller or any other Officer or Person should take or receive or cause to bee taken or received the said Subsidy or any other Impost upon any Merchandize whatsoever
exported or imported except the same be due by Grant IN PARLIAMENT shall incur the penalties and forfeitures OF A PREMVNIRE to the which the King gave his Royal Assent And to prevent any future prescription thereunto by the King they discontinued it for some time and then granted it specially from Month to Month or some short space with sundry limitations and the penalty of A PREMVNIRE if otherwise received by several New Acts of Parliament to which the King gave his assent These Acts the King himself in his Proclamation of the sixteenth of December in the eighteenth year of his reign stiles THE FENCES OF THE SVBJECTS PROPERTY received from Vs and understood by Vs as one of THE GREATEST GRACES THE CROWN EVER CONFERRED ON THE SVBJECT And by that Proclamation he prohibited all his Subjects both the paiment and receipt of any Monies for Customs or other Maritine Duties contrary to this Act by any Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament under pain of a PREMUNIRE and of being likewise proceeded against as ill-affected persons to the Peace of the Kingdome Whereupon the Lords and Commons in their answer to this Proclamation though they declared that the intent and meaning of that penall Clause of a PRAEMVNIRE and other Forfeitures in these new statutes which likewise disable every person Customer Officers who should take or receive or cause to be taken or received any such subsidy or imposition upon any Merchandize during his life to sue or implead any persons in any action reall mixt or personal in any Court whatsoever was only to restrain the Crown from imposing any duty or payment on the Subjects without their consent in Parliament and that it was not intended to extend to any case whereunto the LORDS and COMMONS GIVE THEIR ASSENT IN PARLIAMENT which they never did to this New White-hall Ordinance nor the pretended Act recited in it therefore the imposers and receivers of it by vertue thereof without such assent in Parliament are within the penalties of the aforesaid Statutes Yet to avoid the danger of a Praemunire in their Officers by exacting it only by an Ordinance of both Houses without a speciall Act of Parliament they did by their first Ordinances impose and demand Customes Tonnage Poundage and new Imposts not as a Legal Duty but only BY WAY OF LOANE til the Act of Parliament for their future continuance should be assented to by the King as their Declaration of 31 December 1642. and their Ordinance of the same date concerning the subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage attest By what coulor of Law Iustice Right this antient birth-right of all English Subjects so lately declared by three Acts of Parliament to which most of our late and present White-hall Grandees were parties comes to bee lost and forfeited by our contests to preserve it or how the Customes Imposts of Tonnage and Poundage can bee now imposed continued on or exacted from the Subjects by any Powers Officers or persons Whatsoever and levied by severest penalties Forfeitures Imprisonments Seisures by pretext of this White-hal Ordinance though no waies granted by common consent and Act of Parliament without incurring a Praemunire and forementioned penalties disabilities or without subverting the Fundamental Liberty Property Franchises Laws Statutes of the whole English Nation in a farre higher degree then ever in former ages I cannot yet discern and all our New Governours Merchants Customers Officers and other persons who have any Cordial affection Love Zeal to their own or the peoples hereditary Rights and Priviledges may do well to demurre in Law upon it till they can satisfy their own and other mens consciences therein to prevent the dangerous consequences of such an ill president to posterity In the Parliament of 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 32 33 34 36. These were the principall Articles of impreachment exhibited against King Richard the Second for which hee was forced to depose himself as unfit to Govern and resign up his Crown to King Henry the Fourth That whereas the King of England out of the profits of the Realm and the Patrimony belonging to his Crown might live honestly without oppression of his people so as the Kingdome were not burdened with the extraordinary expences of warre that this King during the Truces between the Realm and the Adversaries thereof gave and squandered away a great part of the Crown-Lands to unworthy persons and thereupon exacted almost every year so many Taxes and Grants of Ayde from his Subjects of the Realm that hee thereby GREATLY and TOO EXCESSIVELY OPPRESSED HIS PEOPLE TO THE IMPOVERISHING OF HIS REALM That the same King being unwilling to keep and defend the just Laws and Customes of his Realm and to do according to his pleasure whatsoever should suite with his desires frequently when the Laws of his Realm were expounded and declared to him by the Justices and others of his Council who requested him to administer Justice according to those Laws said expresly with an austere and frownning Countenance THAT THE LAWS WERE HIS more suo AFTER his own MANER and sometimes THAT THEY WERE IN HIS OWN BREAST and THAT HEE ALONE COULD ALTER and MAKE THE LAWS OF HIS REALM And being seduced with this opinion he permitted not Justice to be done to very many of his Leige people but compelled very many to cease from the prosecution of common Justice That when as afterwards in his Parliament certain Statutes were made which might always bind till they were specially repealed by another Parliament the same King desiring to enjoy so great Liberty that none of these Statutes might so binde him but that he might execute and do according to the pleasure of his own Will which hee could not do of right subtilly procured such a Petition to be presented to him in his Parliament in the behalf of the Commons of his Realm and to be granted to him in the general THAT HE MIGHT BE SO FREE AS ANY OF HIS PROGENITORS WERE BEFORE HIM By colour of which Petition and Grant he frequently did and commanded to bee done MANY THINGS CONTRARY TO THE SAID STATVTES NOT REPEALED GOING AGAINST THEM EXPRESLY and WITTINGLY AGAINST HIS OATH AT HIS CORONATION That although by the Statutes and Customs of his Realm in the summoning of every Parliament his people in every County of the Realm ought to be free to elect and depute Knights for the said Counties to sit 〈◊〉 Parliament both TO RECEIVE their GRIEVANCES and TO PROSECVTE REMEDIES THEREUPON AS IT SHALL SEEM EXPEDIENT TO THEM yet the said King that he might in his Parliament be able to obtain the effect of his rash Will frequently directed his Mandates to his Sheriffs that they should cause to come to his Parliament CERTAIN PERSONS NAMED BY THE KING HIMSELF AS KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE Which Knights verily favouring the said King he might easily enduce as he frequently did sometimes by divers threats and terrors and sometimes by gifts TO CONSENT TO THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE VERY
PREJVDICIAL TO THE REALM and VERY BVRDENSOME TO THE PEOPLE and specially TO GRANT TO THE SAID KING A SUBSIDY FOR CERTAIN YEARS TO THE OPPRESSING OF His People overmuch That although the Lands and Tenements Goods and Chattels of every Freeman by the Laws of the Realm used in all former ages past ought not to be seized unless they had forfeited Yet notwithstanding the said King purposing endeavouring to enervate these Laws in the presence of very many of the Lords and Commons of this Realm frequently said and affirmed That the Life Lands Tenements Goods and Chattles of every one of his Subjects are at his will and pleasure without any Forfeiture by the known Laws which is altogether contrary to the Laws customs of the Realm aforesaid Whether all these high Misdemeanors charged against King Richard have not been revived and acted over and over both by words and deeds in a farre higher degree than ever he was guilty of them by some late present Whitehall Grandees Army-Officers New Instrument-makers Legitors and Imposers of Excises Customs Imposts Tonnage Poundage Contributions for many years yet to come and of that constant Annual Revenue projected intended by them in their 27 Article I remit to their own judgements consciences and our whole Kingdom to resolve and what they demerit for such extravagant high offences for which he lost Crown and Regal power let others determine The 3. particular is their late incumbent Imposition of 6. Moneths new Contribution by a meer Self-enacted Whitchall Jurisdiction without any consent grant in or by the People in Parliament by that they intitle An Ordinance of the 8. of â—une 1654. beginning thus in a most imperial Stile transcending all former Acts of Parliament granting or imposing any Subsidies without any Prologue to sweeten it or court the people to its ready payment Be it Ordained and Enacted by his Highness the Lord Protector with the consent of his Council and it is hereby Ordained That towards the maintenance of the Armies and Navies of this Commonwealth An Assessement of one Hundred and Twenty Thousand Pounds per Mensem for Three Monethe commencing the 24 of Iune 1654 and ending the 29 of Sept. following shall be Taxed Levied Collected and Paid in England and Wales in such sort as is hereafter expressed The full sum of the said Three Months Assessment of One hundred and twenty thousand pounds by the Month to be at once wholly collected and paid in to the Receivers Generall at or before the tenth day of October next c. The Levying thereof upon the refusers hath been by distress of Goods by Souldiers Troopers and quartering them on the refusers till payment and double the value many times paid to and exacted by the Souldiers for their pains adjudged even by some of our New Grandees Votes who prescribe such Taxes and wayes of levying them to be No less then High Treason and levying Warre in Straffords case for which principally he was condemned and lost his head on Tower Hill as a Traytor In this New Whitehall Tax without a Parliament intended as a leading President to bind the whole Nation in perpetuity if now submitted to as the 27 Article intimates there is a double violation subversion of the Fundamental Laws and Properties of the Nation in the Highest degree The first is by the reviving imposing of Ship-mony on the whole Realm and all Inland Counties as well as Maritine for the Maintenance of the Navies by Sea which should be maintained only by the Customs and that in a farre higher proportion than the Shipmony imposed by Writs by our late beheaded King amounting to no less than Forty thousand pounds per Mensem at last by way of Contribution alone besides the Customs Tonnage Poundage and Excise paid towards it This Imposition of Shipmony by the late King though ratified with the advise and consent of his Council many colourable Presidents Records in all former ages and the precedent Resolution of all his Iudges under their hands as just and legally imposed in case of Necessity and Publike danger only without consent in Parliament together with the Iudgement and Proceedings of the Iudges in the Eschequer Chamber in justification thereof were in the last Parliament after solemne debate by the Votes and Iudgements of both Houses on the 20. Ian. and 26 February resolved Nemine contradicentâ— To be contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm contrary to the Rights and Properties of the Subjects of this Realm contrary to former Iudgements in Parliament contrary to the great Charter and to the Petition of Right and voted to be so declared by the Iudges at the Assizes in the severall Counties the same to be entred and inrolled in the severall Counties by the Clerks of the Assises After which it was for ever damned by a special Act of Parliament to which the King himself gave his Royal assent afterwards cited and enforced by both Houses Exact Collection p. 886. 887. in the case of the Array And those Iudges who argued That the King might lawfully impose Shipmony on the Subjects without a Parliament in cases of Danger and Necessity of which they affirmed him to be the sole Iudge were by all impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason for these Opinions of theirs whereby they trayterously and wickedly endeavoured to subvert The Fundamental Laws and established Government of the Realm of England and instead thereof to set up an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law of which at large before How any present Powers or Persons then can either impose justify levy enforce it upon any Pretext of Necessity or publique Danger on the whole Nation after all these late Resolutions Iudgements Votes Impeachments and a special Act of Parliament so fresh in memory especially such who were parties to them without incurring the self-same Impeachments and guilt as these Ship-mony Iudges did or a severer Censure then they sustained let their own Conscsences and those who may onâ— day prove their Iudges resolve them at leasure being past my skill to doe it The 2. is By the imposing of a direct heavy Tax Tallage and Monthly contrâ—bution and that only for the Maintenance of such a Land Army which hath offered force unto the Members of both Houses subverted destroyed that Parliament Government Laws Libertie for whose preservation they were specially raised Commissioned engaged without yea against the Peoples assent in Parliament which no King of England with the advice and consent of his Council had ever any Right or Power to doe or audacity enough to attempt no not William the Conqueror Câ—nute Henry the 4th Edward the 4th or Henry the 7th who came principally by power of the Sword to their Soveraign Regall Authorities By what Justice Power Legal Right any other person or persons whatsoever who are neither rightfull Kings nor Parliaments of England in their own or others repute can either impose levy exact such
a law to alter the property of the Subjects goods which is also against the Law In this and sundry other Arguments touching the Right of Impositions in the Commons House of Parliament by the Members of it arguing against them it was frequently averred and at last Voted and Resolved by the House 7. Jacobi That such Impositions without consent in Parliament were AGAINST THE ORIGINAL FVNDAMENTAL LAWS AND PROPERTY OF THE SVBJECT and Original Right Frame and Constitution of the Kingdome as the Notes and Journals of that Parliament evidence An expresse parliamentary Resolution in point for what I here assert 6. The sixth is A Conference desired by the Lords and had by a Committee of both Houses concerning the Rights and Priviledges of the Subject 3. Aprilis 4. Caroli 1628. entered in the Parliament Journal of 4. Caroli and since printed at London 1642. In the Introduction to which Conference Sir Dudley Digs by the Commons House Order used these expressions My good Lords whilest we the Commons out of our good affections were seeking for money we found I cannot say a â—ook of the Law but many A FVNDAMENTAL POINT THEREOF NEGLECTED AND BROKEN which hath occasioned our desire of this Conference wherein I am first commanded to shew unto your Lordships in general That the Laws of England are grounded on Reason more ancient than Books consisting much in unwritten Customs yet so full of Justice and true Equity that your most honorable Predecessors and Ancestors propugned them with a NOLVMVS MVTARI and so ancient that from the Saxons dayes notwithstanding the injuries and ruines of time they have continued in most parts the same c. Be pleased then to know THAT IT IS AN UNDOUBTED AND FUNDAMENTALL POINT OF THIS SO ANCIENT COMMON LAW OF ENGLAND THAT THE SUBJECT HATH A TRUE PROPERTY IN HIS GOODS AND POSSESSIONS which doth preserve as sacred that MEVM and TVVM that is the Nurse of Industry and the Mother of Courage and without which there can be no Justice of which MEVM and TVVM is the proper object But the VNDOVBTED BIRTH-RIGHT OF FREE SVBJECTS hath lately not a little been invaded and prejudiced by pressures the more grievous because they have been pursued by IMPRISONMENT contrary to the Franchises of this Land c. Which the Commons House proved by many Statutes and Records in all ages in that Conference to the full satisfaction of the Lords House since published in print 7. The Seventh is The Vote the whole House of Commons 16. December 1640. Nullo contradicente entered in their Journall and printed in Diurnall Occurrences page 13. That the Canons made in the Convocation Anno 1640. ARE AGAINST THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE REALM the Property and Liberty of the Subject the Right of Parliament and containe diverse things tending to Faction and Sedition Seconded in their Remonstrances of 15. December 1641. 8. The eight Authority is The Votes of both Houses of Parliament concerning the security of the Kingdome of ENGLAND and Dominion of Wales 15. Martii 1641. Ordered by the Lords and Commons in Parliament to be forthwith printed and published as they were then by themselves and afterwards with other Votes and Orders Resolved upon the Question nemine contradicente That in case of extream danger and his Majesties refusall the Ordinance agreed on by both Houses for the MILITIA to secure the Houses Members and Priviledges of Parliament and Kingdome against ARMED-VIOLENCE since brought upon them by the MILITIA of the Army doth obliege the people and ought to be obeyed by the FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THIS KINGDOME A very vain and delusory Vote if there be no such Law as some now affirm 9. The nineth punctuall Authority is a Second Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament concerning the Commission of Array Printed by their speciall Order of 12. January 1642. Wherein are these observable passages The main drift of all the answer is to maintain That the King by the Common Law may grant such a Commission of Array as this is upon this ground because it s for the Defence of the Kingdome And that the power which he hath to grant it by the Common law is not taken away by the Petition of Right or any former Statute but the King notwithstanding any of them may charge the Subject for Defence of the Kingdome so as the charge imposed come not to himself nor to his particular advantage These grounds thus laid extend not to the Commission of Array alone but to all other charges that his Maâ—esty shall impose upon his Subjects upon pretence of Defence of the Kingdome for there is the same reason of Law for any other charge that is pretended for Defence as for this If his Majesty by the Common Law may charge his Subjects to finde Arms and other things in the Commission enjoyned because they are for Defence of the Kingdom by the same reason of Law he may command his People to build Castles Forts and Bulwarks and after to maintain them with Garrisons Arms and Victuals at their own charges And by the same reason he may compel his subjects to finde Ships and furnish them with Men Ammunition and Victuals and to finde Souldiers pay Coat and Conduct money provide victuals for Souldiers and all other things NECESSARY FOR AN ARMY these things being as necessary for Defence as any thing that can be done in execution of this Commission And for that exposition of the Petition of Right and other Statutes therein noted if it should hold doth it not overthrow as well the Petition it self at all other Laws that have been made for the subjects benefit against Taxes and other charges either 〈…〉 or any other Parliaments These Positions thus laid down and maintained Do shake the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdome the ancient Birth right of every Subject both for the Property of his Goods and Liberty of his Person Nay they strike at the root of Parliaments What need his Majesty call Parliaments to provide for Defence of the Realm when himself may compell his subjects to defend it without Parliaments If these grounds should hold what need the subjects grant subsidies in Parliament for Defence of the Kingdome in time of reall danger if the King for Defence at any times when he shall onely conceive or pretend danger may impose Charges upon his Subjects without their Consent in Parliament Upon that which hath been said in this and our former Declaration we doubt not but all indifferent men will be satisfied that this Commission of Array is full of danger and inconvenience to the Subjects of England AND AGAINST THE FUNDAMENTALâ— LAWES OF THE LAND both for PROPERTY OF GOODS AND LIBERTY OF PERSON c. As it is against THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE REALM so no statute makes it good c. And the Lords and Commons do upon the whole matter here conclude That they are very much aggrieved that
Kingdome And if it hath not been put in execution as he alledgeth this two hundred and fourty years it was not for want of LAW but that all that time had not bred a man bold enough to commit such Crimes as these which is a circumstance much aggravating his Offence and making him no lesse liable to punishment he is THE ONELY MAN that in so long a time hath ventured UPON SUCH A TREASON AS THIS Thus far Mr. John Pym in the Name and by the Order and Authority of the whole Commons House in Parliament which I wish all those who by their Words Actions Counsels and printed Publications too have traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamentall Laws Liberties Government Parliaments of England and Ireland and to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against law as much as ever Strafford did yea far out stripped him therein even since his execution in all particulars for which he was beheaded would now seriously lay to heart and speedily reform lest they equal or exceed him in conclusion in capital punishments for the same or endlesse Hellish Torments 13. The next Authority I shall produce in point is The Speech and Declaration of Master Oliver St. John at a Conference of both Houses of Parliament concerning SHIPMONEY upon Judge Finches Impeachment of High Treason January 14. 1640. printed by the Commons Order London 1641. wherein he thus declares the sense of the Commons p. 12. c. That by the Judges opinions forecited concerning Ship-mony THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE REALM CONCERNING OUR PROPERTIES and OUR PERSONS ARE SHAKEN whose Treasonable Offence herein he thus aggravates page 20. c. The Judges as is declared in the Parliament of 11 R. 2. are the Executors of the Statutes and of the Judgments and Ordinances of Parliament They have made themselves the EXECUTIONERS OF THEM they have indeavoured the DESTRUCTION OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF OUR LAWS and LIBERTIES Holland in the Low Countries lies under the Sea the superfices of the Land is lower than the superficies of the Sea It is Capitall therefore for any man to cut the Banks because they defend the Country Besides our own even Forraign Authours as Comines observes That the Statute DE TALLAGIO and the other Old Laws are the Sea Wals and Banks which keep the Commons from the inundation of the Prerogative These Pioners have not onely undermined these banks but have levelled them even with the ground If one that was known to be Hostis Patriae had done this though the Dammage be the same yet the Guilt is lesse but the Conservatores Riparum the Overseers intrusted with the Defence of these Banks for them to destroy them the breach of Trust aggravates nay alters the nature of the offence Breach of Trust though in a private Person and in the least things is odious amongst all men much more in a publike Person in things of great and publike concernment because GREAT TRUST BINDES THE PARTY TRUSTED TO GREATEST CARE AND FIDELITY It is TREASON in the Constable of Dover Castle to deliver the Keys to the known enemies of the Kingdome Whereas if the House-keeper of a private person deliver possession to his Adversary it is a crime scarce punishable by Law The Judges under his Majesty are the Persons trusted with the Laws and in them with the Lives Liberties and Estates of the whole Kingdome This Trust of all we have is primarily from his Majesty and from him delegated to the Judges His Majesty at his Coronation is bound by his Oath TO EXECUTE JUSTICE TO HIS PEOPLE ACCORDING TO THE LAWES thereby to assure the People of the faithfull performance of his GREAT TRUST His Majesty again as he trusts the Judges with the performance of this part of his Oath so doth he likewise exact another Oath of them for their due execution of Justice to the people according to the Laws hereby the Judges stand intrusted with this part of his Majesties Oath If therefore the Judges shall doe wittingly against the Law they doe not onely break their own Oaths and therein the Common Faith and Trust of the whole Kingdome but do as much as in them lies asperse blemish the sacred Person of his Majesty with the odious and hatefull sin of Perjury My Lords the hainousnesse of this offence is most legible in the severe punishment which former Ages have inflicted upon those Judges who have broken any part of their Oaths wittingly though in things not so dangerous to the Subject as in the case in question Sir Thomas Wayland Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 17. E. 1. was attainted of Felony for taking Bribes and his Lands and Goods forfeited as appears in the Pleas of Parliament 18 E. 1. and he was banished the Kingdome as unworthy to live in the State against which he had so much offended Sir William Thorpe Chief Justice of the Kings Bench in Edward the thirds time having of five persons received five severall Bribes which in all amounted to one hundred pounds was for this alone adjudged to be hanged and all his Goods and Lands forfeited The reason of the Judgment is entered in the Roll in these words Quia praedictus Willielmus Thorp qui Sacramentum Domini Regis erga populum suum habuit ad custodiendum fregit malitiose falsò rebelliter quantum in ipso fuit There is a notable Declaration in that Judgement that this judgement was not to be drawn into example against any other Officers who should break their Oaths but onely against those qui praedictum Sacramentum fecerunt fregerunt habent Leges Angliae ad custodiendum That is onely to the Judges Oaths who have the Laws intrusted unto them This Judgment was given 24 E. 3. The next year in Parliament 25 E. 3. Numb 10. it was debated in Parliament whether this Judgement was legall Et nullo contradicente it was declared TO BE JUST AND ACCORDING TO THE LAW and the same Judgement may be given in time to come upon the like occasion This case is in point That it is death for any JVDGE wittingly to break his OATH in any part of it This OATH of THORP is entred in the Roll and the same Verbatim with the Judges OATH in 18 Edw. 3. and is the same which the Judges now take And let those who have taken the same Oath with the OATHES OF SUPREMACY and ALLEGIANCE too remember and apply this PRESIDENT lest others do it for them Your Lordships will give me leave to observe the differences between that and the case in question 1. That of Thorp was onely a selling of the Law by Retaile to these five persons for he had five severall Bribes of these five persons the Passage of the Law to the rest of the Subjects for ought appears was free and open But these Opinions are a conveyance of the Law by whole sale and that not
frequently universally invaded assaulted undermined by our Kings and their evil Instruments heretofore and others since and thereupon more strenuously frequently vigilantly maintained fenced regained retained by our Nobles Parliaments and the people in all Ages till of late years than any or all of the rest put together though every of them hath been constantly defended maintained when impugned or incroached upon by our Ancestors and our selves 1 That no Tax Tallage Aid Subsidy Custom Contribution Loan Imposition Excise or other Assesment whatsoever for defence of the Realm by Land or Sea or any other publick ordinary or extraordinary occasion may or ought bee imposed or leavied upon all or any of the Freemen of England by reason of any pretended or real Danger Necessity or other pretext by the Kings of England or any other Powers but only with and by their common consent and grant in a free and lawful English Parliament duly summoned and elected except only such antient legal Ayds as they are specially obliged to render by their Tenures Charters Contracts and the common Law of England 2 That no Free-man of England ought to bee arrested confined imprisoned or in any private Castles or remote unusual Prisons under Souldiers or other Guardians but only in usual or Common Gaols under sworn responsible Goalers in the County where he lives or is apprehended and where his friends may freely visit and releeve him with necessaries And that only for some just and legal Cause expressed in the Writ Warrant or Process by which he is arrested or imprisoned which ought to be legally executed by known legal responsible sworn Officers of Justice not unknown Military Officers Troopers or other illegal Catchpolls That no such Free-man ought to bee denied Bail Mainprise or the benefit of an Habe as Corpus or any other Legal Writ for his enlargement when Bailable or Mainprizable by Law nor to be detained Prisoner for any real or pretended Crime not bailable by Law longer than until the next general or special Gaol-delivery held in the County where he is imprisoned when and where he ought to be legally tried and proceeded against or else enlarged by the Justices without denial or delay of Right and Justice And that no such Free-man may or ought to be out-lawed exiled condemned to any kinde of Corporal punishment loss of Life or Member or otherwise destroyed or passed upon but only by due and lawful Process Indictment and the lawful Trial Verdict and Judgement of his Peers according to the good old Law of the Land in some usual Court of publick Justice not by and in new illegal Military or other Arbitrary Judicatories Committees or Courts of High Justice unknown to our Ancestors 3 That the ordinary standing Militia Force and Arms of the Kingdom ought to reside in the Nobility Gentry Freeholders and Trained Bands of the Kingdom not in Mercenary Officers and Souldiers receiving pay and Contributions from the people more apt to oppress inslave betray than protect their Laws Liberties and to protract than end their Warres and Taxes That no Free-men of England unless it bee by special Grant and Act of Parliament may or ought to be compelled enforced pressed or arrayed to go forth of his own County much less out of the Realm into forreign parts against his will in times of Warre or Peace or except he be specially obliged thereto by antient Tenures and Charters save only upon the sudden coming of strange enemies into the Realm and then he is to array himself only in such sort as he is bonnd to do by the ancient Laws and Customs of the Kingdom still in force 4 That no Free-man of England may or ought to be disinherited disseised dispossessed or deprived of any Inheritance Free-hold Office Liberty Custom Franchise Chattles Goods whatsoever without his own Gift Grant or free Consent unless it be by lawful Processe Trial and Judgement of his Peers or special Grant by Act of Parliament nor to be denied or delayed common Right or Justice in any case 5 That the old received Government Laws Statutes Customs Priviledges Courts of Justice legal Processe of the Kingdom and Crown ought not to be altered repealed suppressed in any sort nor any new form of Government Law Statute Ordinance Court of Judicatury Writâ— or legal proceedings instituted or imposed on all or any of the Free-men of England by any person or persons but only in and by the Kingdoms peoples free and full precedent consent in a lawful Parliament wherein the Legislative power solely resides 6 That Parliaments ought to be duly summoned and held for the good and safety of the Kingdom every year or every three years at least or so soon as there is just occasion That the Election of all Knights Citizens and Burgesses to sit and serve in Parliament and so of all other Elective Officers ought to be free That all Members of Parliament Hereditary or Elective ought to be present and there freely to speak and vote according to their Judgements and Consciences without any over-awing Guards to terrifie them and none to be forced sequestered or secluded thence by force or fraud That all Parliaments not thus duly and freely summoned elected freely held but unduly packed without due Elections or by forcible secluding securing any of the Members or not summoning all of them to the Parliament and all Acts of Parliament fraudulently or forcibly procured by indirect means ought to be nulled repealed reputed voyd and of dangerous president 7 That neither the Kings nor any Subjects of the Kingdom of England may or ought to be summoned before any Forreign Powers or Jurisdictions whatsoever out of the Realm or within the same for any manner of Right Inheritance Thing belonging to them or Offence done by them within the Realm nor tried nor judged by them 8 That all Subjects of the Realm are obliged by Allegiance Oaths and duty to defend their lawful Kings Persons Crowns the Laws Rights and Priviledges of the Realm and of Parliament against all Usurpers Traytors Violence and Conspiracies And that no Subject of this Realm who according to his Duty and Allegiance shall serve his King in his Warres for the just defence of him and the Land against Forreign Enemies or Rebels shall lose or forfeit any thing for doing his true duty service and allegiance to him therein but utterly be discharged of all vexation trouble or losse 9 That no publick Warre by Land or Sea ought to be made or leavied with or against any Forreign Nation nor any publick Truce or League entred into with Forreign Realms or States to binde the Nation without their common advice and consent in Parliament 10 That the Kings of England or others cannot grant away alien or subject the Crown Kingdom or antient Crown Lands of England to any other without their Nobles and Kingdoms full and free consent in Parliament That the antient Honours Manors Lands Rents
extravagant Heavy Taxes Contributions from the exhausted Free-born People of England especially being now pretended new Free State against all our Fundamental Lawes Statutes Franchises Charters Properties Liberties Records Parliamentary Iudgements their own late Remonstrances Declarations Votes the Presidents of all former ages yea of all our Kings coming in by the Sword to their Thrones let the Imposers of them seriously advise as they will answer it at their utmost peril to God Men and the whole English Nation who expected better things from them even a total final exemption from all such illegal Burthens after all their late Wars Agonies Expences to redeem and preserve their Lawes Liberties Estates Properties Posterities from such exorbitant Oppressions diametrically contrary to all the forecited Iudgements Resolutions Remonstrances Statutes Votes Presidents and sundry others which I shall hereafter insist on in the third Chapter of this Treatise to which I must refer you And shall we not then adventure a distresse a Prison quartering upon or any other Duresse yea Death it self rather than volutarily submit our selves and Posterities backs thereto when as we spend our Bloods Lives Treasures against lesser easier Royal Impositions How shall we answer it to God Men or our enslaved Posterities if we now most safely unworthily submit thereto in perpeâ—uity without the least legal strenuous publick oppression or debate of its legality If any here allege as some men do in Iustification of these three or rather four forecited kinds of illegal universal Taxes imposed levied on the whole Nation without consent of Parliament That they are all warranted by the Instrument of the new Gevernment Article 27 28 29. That a constant yearly revenue shall be raised setled and established for maintaining Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland for the Defence and security thereof and also for a convenient number of Ships for guarding the Seas besides two hundred thousand pounds per annum for defraying other necessary charges for Administration of Iustice and other expences of the Government which Revenue shall be raised by the Customes and such other ways and means which shall be agreed uâ—oâ— By the Lord Protector and Council and shall not be taken away or diminished nor the way agreed upon for the raising of the same altered but by consent of the Lord Protector and the Parliament That the said yearly Revenue shall be paid into the publick Treasury and issued out for the uses aforesaid That in case there shall not because hereafter to keep up so great a Defence at Land or Sea but that there be an abatement made thereof The Mony which shall be saved thereby shall remain in banke for the Publick service c. All which they in the True state of the Case of the Common-wealth p. 43 44 commend for a most excellent Provision A coâ—stant Revenue A Publike Bank or Treasury upon all occasions c. which they intend to perpetuate on the whole Kingdom without end or abatement as well in times of peace safety as of war and danger Therefore the Protector and his Counsell at Whitehall in pursuance hereof may lawfully impose by vertue of these Articles both Excise Customs Tonnage Poundage Ship-money and contributions for these ends upon our three whole Kingdoms and all the Freeborn English by printed Ordinances of their own in what Proportions and for what time they please yea and for perpetuity without consent or grant in Parliaments and restrain all future Parliaments both from taking away or diminishing them or altering the way agreed on for their raising without their Protectors consent thereto as the expresse words run and their practise yet expounds them notwithstanding all former Laws Statutes Charters Resolutions Iudgements Remonstrances Oathes Vowes Declarations Presidents either in or out of Parliament to the contrary To this I answer first that I cannot but stand amazed to hear any army-Army-Officers Souldiers Lawyers or persons in present trust or power who bear the name or hearts of English Freemen Saints Christians Lovers Patriots or Protectors of their Native Country of England its Parliaments Laws and Liberties to make such a stupendious irrational objection as this which justifies all the exorbitant Opinions Proceedings Taxes Oppressions Impositions of our late beheaded King Strafford Canterbury the Ship-money Iudges old Whitehall Council Table yea all our other former Kings and their evil Counsellors most irregular Exaction of mony in all ages from Brute till now and will render the very worst of all our Kings if compared with our late and present Tax-masters and pretended Assertors of our Liberties rather good gracious just righteous Princes Benefactors than Tyrants or Oppressors for the future seeing they never out of Parliament imposed enforced on their subjects any such heavy various perpetual Taxes Imposts Excises Ordinances or new Articles of the Governmentâ— as these forecited 2ly This Objection if admitted just or solid gives a private Cabinet â—uncto of obscure persons yet unknown by name unto our Nation a Superlative Super-Parliamentall Authority to contrive and set on foot a new devised Instrument to undermine and blow up all our former fundamental Laws Customs great Charters Liberties Franchises Properties Parliaments former frame of Government at one crake after all our late bloody costly contestations for their preservation both in the Supream Courts of Publick Iustice and fields of War without our privities or consents thereto either in or out of Parliament contrary to all their and our Protestations Oathes Covenants Commissions Trusts Promises Pretences And instead of English Freemen as we were before these contests and wars to strip us quite naked of all our former Freedoms Liberties Properties Customs Rights derived to us from our Noble Ancestors as the purchas of their dearest blood render us our Posterities for the future the most absolute Issachars Vassals slaves under Heaven inthralled to all sorts of intollerable illegal unpresidented incessant endlesse Taxes of all kinds without hopes of alteration or mitigation by any future Parliaments without their Protectors or his Successors voluntary consents which they cannot expect and to a constant standing Mercenary Army of Horse and Foot by Land and Navies of Hirelings by Sea to keep us and ours in perpetual Bondage under such New irregular Successive Tax-Masters who must elect their successors like themselves 3ly All our former antient Laws Statutes Parliaments till now in all changes Revolutions of State or Government ever constantly asserted maintained provided That no Tax Tallage Custom Contribution Impost Subsidy Charge Excise Loan or Payment whatsoever should be imposed on the Freemen of England without their common consent and grant in full free lawfull English Parliaments and if any were imposed otherwise by any Power or Pretext whatsoever out of Parliament that it was Null and void to all intents to bind the people But these Monstrous Articles quite turn the scales impowring a few private persons neither elected nor intruâ—ted by the people
for such ends by colour of this ill tuned Instrument contrived privatly by themselves alone as most conjecture for their own self-interests to impose perpetuall Imposts Excises Customes Contributions of all kinds on our whole three Kingdoms and Nations which neither they nor their Parliaments though never so grievous extravagant unreasonable or oppressive shall have power to take away diminish alter or regulate in the forecited illegall oppressing violent wayes of levying them unless their Grand Soveraign Lord Protector shall first give his consent thereto which they cannot expect nor enforce and in cale of his refusall they are utterly left remediless he having Thirty thousand armed Mercenary Horse and Foot in severall Quarters by Land and a strong numerous Navy by Sea at his command to keep them under endless Tributes to him and his Successors for ever O England England to omit Scotland and Ireland consider seriously and timely to what a blessed Liberty and long-expected freedome this New invented Instrument and the Irish Harp lately quartered with the English bloody Cross as our Free-State Arms hath now at last reduced thee if these objected Articles must remain inviolable maugre all our Laws Statutes c. to the contrary as our New Tax-masters and their Instruments both literally and practically conclude unlesse you use your uttermost lawfull present diligent joynt Endeavours to prevent it 〈…〉 4ly The whole House of Commons yea some who were parties to this Instrument lately impeached and with the Lords â—ouse by judgement of Parliament condemned beheaded the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop of Canterbury as guilty of High Treason in subverting our Fundamental Lawes Liberties and setting up an arbitrary Tyrannical Government for resolving at the Councel Table before-hand To assist the King to raise Monies on the Subjects to carry on the Warres against the Scots by extraordinary wayes in case the Parliament should prove peevish and refuse to grant such Subsidies as they demanded of them And for Straffords affirming That Ireland was a Conquered Nation and that the King might do with them what he pleased That they were a Conquered Nation and were to expect Lawes as from a Conqueror And that he would make an Act of Councel board in that Kingdom of Ireland as binding as an Act of Parliament And do not the Objectors Contrivers of this New Instrument Articles and those who now vigorously put it in execution in any kind as too many do speak out and do as much as bad as they in each of these particulars nay farre more and worse Do not they after the late violent breaches of our former Parliaments and their own Junctoes by the Army raise monies in more vast proportions by more irregular violent extraordinary wayes by longer continued Taxes Excises Impositions and constant yearly Revenues then they ever did or designed quite out of Parliament by their own arrogated Legislative Tax-imposing Power Do not they by this very Instrument proclaim to all the world that not only Ireland and Scotland but England it self is now a meer Conquered Nation that thereupon they may do with us what thâ—y please and we must not only expect but receive Lawes from them as Conquerors having already published whole Volumes of New-Laws and Ordinances of all sorts at their New-erected Councel board which the Old never did and made them as binding not only to Ireland but England and Scotland too as an Act of Parliament yea farre more binding than any Parliament Acts by binding the hands power of future Parliaments themselves and our three whole Nations as aforesaid and that in Perpetuity which no Parliaments nor Acts of Parliament can do and by repealing nulling all our former Fundamental Laws Charters Liberties Free Government made by Parliaments with our very Parliaments themselves And if so let the Objectors now seriously consider both the Treasonableness unparliamentalness sad Consequences of this Objection and what ill effects it may produce in present or future ages 5ly The Statutes of 25 E. 1. c. 2. 42 E. 3. c 2. yet in force declare All judgements given or to be given by the Justices or any other contrary to the points of the Great Charter to be void and holden for Nought and if any Statute be made to the contrary it shall be holden for none Therefore these Instrument Articles and Paper Ordinances made by colour of them in direct opposition to and subversion of the points of the Great Charter and all other Acts for their confirmation must needs be holden for nought and void to all intents to bind this whole Free-born Nation or any one Freeman of England in particular 6. If these Articles and Instrument for the premised reasons and defect of Legal power in the yet unknown Instrument-makers be not void in Law to all intents and purposes as all wise men repute them yet other clauses and Articles of this very Instrument admit it valid and obligatory to our Nations give a fatal blow to all the forementioned Excises Impositions Contributions by colour thereof and to the Objected Articles First the Prologue to the Oath at the close thereof proclaims the Government setled by it to be such as by the blessing of God might be lasting secure Property and answer The Great Ends of Religion and Libertie so long Contended for But these Articles as the Objection and premises evidence do no wayes secure but utterly subvert all Property in the highest degree and answer not but eternally frustrate abolish the Great ends of our Religion condemning all illegal unrighteous Taxes and Tyrannical Usurping Oppressing arbitrary Powers but especially of our Liberties so long contended for and are rather likely to raise new troubles and unsettlements than make the Government lasting as many late Presidents with those ancient ones in Dr. Beard his Theatre of Gods Judgements l. 2. c. 36. to 42. may perswade us Therefore it must be exploded as repugnant to the whole scope of the Instrument 2. The 6. Article of it is fatall and destructive to the objected Articles viz That the Laws shall not be altered suspended abrogated or repealed nor any New Law made Nor any Tax Charge or Imposition laid upon the People but by common consent in Parliament Save Only as is expressed in the 30th Article not 27. Now these objected 27 28 29 Articles being diametrically contrary to every word clause of this 6 Article and agreeable to our Fundamental Laws which the last clause of the Oath obligeth their Protector and his Successors to maintain and to govern the People by which Laws must be all altered suspended abrogated repealed by these Articles alone if reputed valid in giving Power to them to impose any Tax Charge Imposition upon the People without common consent in Parliament and being not within the saving of this or the 30th Article must needs be void and repealed by this very sixt Article and the Oath it self 3. The 30th Article following them diametrically contradicts repeals them in
peremptorily to withstand the firs to prevent a second customary future exaction and payment in like kind pursuing the Poet Ovids old sage Counsel wherewith I shall conclude this point Principiis obsta serò medicina paratur Cum mala per longas invaluere moras How transcendently all the other Fundamental Laws Liberties Rights of our English Freeborn Nation have by late and present Governours and their Instruments been infringed subverted in an higher avowed degree than ever in former ages by forcible tyrannical Proceedings of all kindes in breaking open mens Houses by armed Souldiers and other unsworn illegal Officers Excise-men Sequestrators both by day and night seising their Persons Horses Armes Papers Writings ransacking their Studies Truncks Cabinets upon false surmises suspicions close imprisoning their persons by multitudes without before any examination particular accusation hearing trial in unusual places and some of them in remetest Isles Garrisons under Souldiers Their pressing of men for Land and Sea service and carrying them away perforce by Soldiers Troopers Officers Mariners like so many Prisoners out of their own Counties and the Realm to unnatural unchristian Warrs against their Wills and Consciences Their disinheriting many Thousands of English Freemen of all sorts of their Freeholds Lands Offices Fraâ—chises Honors Authorities spoyling them and theirs of theirs Goods Chattles Estates Lives in and by Arbitrary Committees Martial other extravagant Courts of highest Injustice Subverting Changing our ancient Fundamental Lawes Statutes and enacting New without the Peoples free consents in Lawfull English Parliaments altering the whole Frame and Constitution of our Monarchy Government and Parliaments themselves Depriving the people of the Free election of their Parliament Members and other Elective Officers contrary to our Lawes Charters Usages securing secluding the Members of Parliament themselves by armed Force dissolving Parliaments by the Sword alone without Writ or legall power contrary to Acts and Privileges of Parliament by erecting New Legislative Tax-imposing Self-created Powers not elected by the People at Whitehall and elsewhere not to be paralleld in any age By creating New-Treasons contrary to the old ones and the Statute of 25 E. 3. and condemning sequestring imprisoning executing English Peers and Freemen only for their loyalty Duty to their lawfull Soveraigns and defence of the Rights Privileges Liberties Laws of the Kingdom Parliament Nation according to their Oathes Protestations League Covenant and Gods own Precepts against the publique Enemies Oppugners Vnderminers Subvertors of and Conspirators against them By making publick wars at Land and Sea with our Christian Protestant Brethren and other Nations and concluding Leagues Truces without common consent or advice in Parliament By alienating selling giving squandring away the ancient Demesnes Lands Honours Rents Revenues Rights Inheritances of the Crown of England yea of Scotland and Ireland likewise to Officers Souldiers of the Army and others for pretended Arrears Services or inconsiderable values which should defray all the constant ordinary Expences of the Government publique State Officers Embassadours Garrisons Navy Courts of the Kingdom and ease the People from all kind of Taxes Payments Contributions whatsoever towards them except in extraordinary emergent cases and necessities in times of war requiring extraordinary expences for their publique safety supplied by Aydes and Subsidies granted only by common consent in Parliament only and not otherwise which now must be wholly or for the greatest part defrayed by the People alone out of their own exhausted private estates by endlesse Taxes Excises Contributions as appears by the 27 28 29 30. Articles of their New ill sounding Instrument foreinsisted on whiles others without right or legal Title enjoy the old standing Demesnes Lands Rents Revenues and Perquisites of the Crown for their private advantage without any Acts of Resumption usual in all former ages to keep the Kingdom Nation from becoming Bankrupts and people from oppression which should ease the people of those intollerable constant burthens lately laid upon them against all Justice Law Conscience and make insufferable wasts and spoyles of the stately Houses Timber Woodâ— Mines Forrests Parkes of the Crown without restraint to the Kingdoms extraordinary prejudice for which they ought to give an Account and make full reparations if the Earl of Devonshires case Cook 11 Reports f. 89 90 91 be Law And by sundry other particulars requiring whole Baronian volumes to recite and specifie to the full is so well known by dayly experience and multitude of Presidents fresh in memory to our whole three Nations that I shall here no further insist upon them all which experimentally confirm the truth of our Saviours own words Iohn 10 1 10. Verily verily I say unto you He that entreth not by the Doâ—r into the Sheepfold but climbeth up some other way the same is a Theef and a Robber The Theef cometh not but steal and to kill and to destroy Whatever his pretences be to the contrary And this rule of Johannes Angelius Wenderhagen Politiae Synopticae lib. 3. c. 9. sect 11. p. 3. 10. Hinc Regulae loco notandum Quod omne Regnum vi Armata acquisitum in effectis Subditos Semper in durior is Servatutis conditiones arripiat licet a principio Dulcedinem prurientibus spirare videatur which we now find most true by sad sensible experience Ideâ— cunctis hoc cavendum Ne temere se seduci patiantur FINIS This Epistle should have been printed before the first part but was omitted through hast a See the several Epistles of Frederick the Emperor against Pope Gegory the 9 and Innocent the 4 recorded by Mat. Paris p. 332. to 693. sparsim b See Extraâ— de Majoritate Obedientia Augustinus Triumphus Bellarminus Becanuâ— and others De Monarchia Remani Pontificis Hospiniaâ— Hist Jesui l. 3 4. * Henricus de Knighton de Eventibus Angli ae l. 2. c. 14 15. c See Massaeus Vegius Petrus Ribadeniera in vita Ignatii Loyolae Heylins Micracosme p. 179. d See Lewis Owen his Jesuites Looking-glass printed London 1629. the Epistle to the Reader and p. 48 to 58. Jubilaeum sive speculum Jesuitiâ—um printed 1644. p. 307 to 213. Hospinian Hist Jesuitica l. 2. * Speculum Jesuiticum p. 210. See Romes Master-peice Conterburies Doom p. 435 c. Hiddeâ— works of Darkness 88 144. e Mercure Iesuâ—le tom 1. p. 67. Speculum Jesuitieum p. 1. 56. f See Lewis Owen his running Register his Jesuited Looking glass The Anatomy of the English Nunnery at Lisbone g De Monarchia Hispanica p. 146 147 148 149 204 234 235 236 185 186. h See Thomas Campanella de Monarchia Hispaniae Watsons quodhbets Coâ—loni Posthuma p. 91. 10 107. Cardinal de Ossets Letters Arcana Imperii Hispanici Delâ—h 1628. Advice a tous les Estat's de Europe touches les maximas Fundamentales de Government dissâ—iennes Espaginols Paâ—is 1625. i Set my Speccb in Parliament p. 107. â—o 119. and the History of Independency k Exact Collâ—ction p. 651 652 662 666 813
â—ovemb Decemb. Jan. 1648. An. 1652 1653. their True state of the case of the Commonwealth of England c. p. 4. to 35. Ann. 1654. with some other Papers Speeches since m Exact collect p. 3 4. to 16. n Exact col p. 3 4 to 16. 651 652 653. Nota. o If one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it 1 Cor. 12. 26. p See Cooks 4 Instit c. 1. p. 15 16 17. 23. 24 25 and my Plea for the Lords q Nor yet against my self and other secured secluded and long imprisoned Members * See that of Iune 14. of Aug. 2 18. 1647 and the Letters of Iuly 29. 1647. The Declarations of Nov. 16. Dec. 6. 1648. * Job 38. 11. * And are they not so now almost past hopes of any future re-planting * Modus tenendi Parliamentum Cook 4. Instit c. 1. * Exact Coll. p. 550. 595. 321 322 364. 618. 894 895. 919 920. A Collection of Ordinances p. 28 39. 116. 117. * Let those who took it remember their violations of it repent See Exact Collect. p. 497 498. * Was this verified by many of these Remonstrants * Exact Coll. P. 262. 282. 284. to 289. 297 298. 490. 424. 500 502 404 514 517 521 522 526. 528 530 531 534. 550 551 554 558 561 564 574. A Collection p. 117. 452 453. * Exact Coll. p. 688 689. 696 697. * So stiled Exact Col. p. 4. 12. 34. 61. 243. 262. 321. 500 502. in the Decl. of the Lords Commons concerning His Majesties ProclamatioÌ„ Iune 6. 1642. p. 4. besides the authorities in the 1. chap. * Exact Coll. p. 617. 631 730. * Horace * Exact Col. p. 686 to 730. * Exact coll p. 729. See their Declarations Papers of Aug. 7. 1647. D. c. 7. Jan. 3. 1648 where they thus Declare and brand them * Quod pluribus visum probatumque fuerit id in OMNIBUS REBUS-PUBLICIS VALET In Oligarchia enim Aristocratia Democratia quod eorum qui Rempublicam gerunt MAJORI PARTIS PLACUERIT i. e. RATUM AC FIRMUM Politicorum l. 4. c. 8. See 33 H. 8. c. 27. * Which now they do * See their impeachment of the xi Members the humble Answer of the Gen. Councel Officers of the Army c. Jan. 3. 1648. * Have they not lately done so since this was penned as well as heretofore * Exact coll P. 496. * And are they not so lost now * Epistola ad solitariam Vitam agentes Sir Christopher Sybthorpe his Reply to an Answer made by a Popish Adversary Dublin 1625. p. 27 28 29. * See the Declaration of the Lords and Commons June 6. 1642. concerning this Statute * Is not the quartering of Horse and Foot in or near such places to affright and overawe Parliaments and their Members a Violation of this Law Proclamation Law and Custom of all English Parliaments fit to be redressed * Exact coll p. 34. 56. 66 67 68 76 77 198 200 201 202 246 695 723. 729. * Let those observe this Impeachment who are now really guilty of it in the highest degree * Exact Coll. p. 118 195 207. to 237. 248 273 293. 523 524 525 617 631 660 695. * Exact Coll. in the pages quoted before * Exact Coll. p. 51 52 54. 66 67. and elswhere * See their Declaration of June 23. 1647. Aug. 18. Dec. 6. 1648 * And their Generals Letter from Bedford 29 July 1647. * See a Declaration of the Gen. Councel Armies Engagements c. p. 49. * Article 10 12 21 22 24 27 30 32 36 37 38 39. * See Exact Collect. p. 320 321 322. 561 the true and excellent constitution of our Parliament * Exact Col p. 723 724. 726 727 Nota. Nota. * Exact Coli p. 561. * Exact Coll. p. 696. * How much it and they have been dishonoured by the contrary let the Army Officers read at leasure in Militiere his Victory of Truth Nota. Nota. * Exact Coll. p. 730. * Who in their Letters of July 18. 1647. Propositions of Aug. 2. and other of their Declarations professed to all the world That it was fully agreeable to all their Principles should be their desires and endeavours to maintain Monarchy the Priviledges and Freedom of the Parliament and the Rights of his Majesty and Royal Family that so a lasting Peace and Agreement might be setled in this Nation c. Which otherwise they confessed then in good earnest could not be hoped for nor expected Whence they intituled their Printed Book A Declaration of the Engagements Remonstrances Representations Proposals Desires and Resolution from his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairâ—ax and THE GENERAL COUNCEL OF THE ARMY FOR SETLING OF HIS MAJESTY IN HIS JUST RIGHTS THE PARLIAMENT IN THEIR JUST PRIVILEDGES and THE SUBJECTS IN THEIR LIBERTIES AND FREEDOMES Printed by their and the Lords House special Order London 1647. Let them now seriously consider and perform it in good earnest * De Clement l. 1. c. 26. f Psal 37 7 Psal 73. 3 c. Eccles 8. 11 12. t Ezâ—k 22. 30. v See 2 King 10. 1 to 12. Esth 8. 17. x Deut. 32. 17. 1 Cor. 10. 20. Rev. 9. 20. Ephes 2. 2. y Plutarch Arrianus Quintus Curtius Suetonius Grimston in the life of Alexander and Julius Caesar Balaeus his Lives of the Popes Mornyes Mystery of Iniquity z 2 King 18. 33 34 35. c. 19. 17 18 19. Isa 10. 7. to 16. a Rev. 13. 1. to 18. c. 16. 13. 14. c. 19 20. 1 King 22. 6. to 24. b Ephes 2. 2. c Paterculus Plutaâ—â—h Suâ—tomus Antonni Chronica Grimston and others in hiâ— Life Jacobus Usserius Annâ—lium pars pâ—sterior p. 366 367. * Do not some now by words and deeds repute it and the People so * See Mat. West an 655. 1 Kings 16. 2 Kings 15. 2. Chron. 13. 17 18 19 20. and our King Richard the third * See the Turkish History in his life * See Huntingdon Mat. west An. 655. Grafton Speed Holinshed Fabian Brompton in the life of Penda d Judg. 1. 2. to 8. e See Joel 3. 6 7 8. Mat. 26. 52. Sir Walter Rawleighs Preface to his History of the World Dr. Beards Theatre of Gods Judgements on the 6 and 8 Commandements f Isa 51. 6. 12. c. 26. 13 14. Psal 82. 7. Psal 146. 354. g Rom. 8. 36. 37. Psal 3. 6. * See Part. 1. p 14 15 16. b See 1 Sam. 8. 4 to 22. ch 12. 2. 2 Sam. 18. 2 3 4. Jer. 38. 5. i Tacâ—â—us in vita Agricole k Jer. 28. 13 14. * Part. 1. ch 1. †See the Homilies against Disobedience wilfull Rebellion * A Declaration of the Egagements Remonstrances Resolutions of Sir Tho. Fanfax the General Councel of the Armie London 1647. p. 150. l 1 Cor. 16. 13. m Recorded in Livy Tully Plutarch Valerius Maximus and others Recta honesta digna Imperio digna populo Romano
laws and properties * Is there any between the late present powers and them further or longer than they please * Are they not so now * It is not so now when others who condemned and beheaded him for a Tyrant say pretendaâ—d act it over and over Nota. * Worth consideration of those of the long robe * And how mamy are guilty of this Treason See Hos 3 4 5. cap. 10. 3 4. cap. 1. 4. cap. 1. 4. Zech. 9. v. 5. Hab. 1. 10 14 15. Mic. 4. 9 10. Amos 1. 13 14 15. Lam. 5. 16. Ezech. 19. 1. 14. Isay 17. 3. c. 7. 16. Jer. 17. 25. 27. cap. 18. 7 8. cap. 22. 3. to 13. cap. 25. 8 to 38. cap. 51. 20. Proverb 28. 2. Ezech. 17. 14. cap. 29. 14 25 Isa 47 verse 5. Daniel 4. verse 17. * Are they so now and who have dissolved the Ligaments that formerly united and held them together * Have we not many counterfeit laws and Acts of Parliament of law and yet some counterfeit Judges that execute and give them in charge as true ones * See Exact Collection p. 4. 12 243 262. 321. * Surely there are sundry falshoods in it as well as some truths * If we believe themselves in their own cases * Some mens act ons since declare they had some other ground and ayms than this * Those who severe and disjoynt one house from the other and by force armed power seclude exclude and disjoyn the members of the same House one from another so many times one after another justifie it too are the greatest disjoyners of the House and Parliament and very unlikely to make any firm or reall settlement of this Nation * See my Speech in Parliament p. 100. to 108. a See Gratian Caus 2. Qu. 1. 2. Summa Angelica Rosella Hostiensis Tit. Restituito * See Speeds Hist p. 1250. c. Mr. Vicars History of the Gunpowder-Treason The Arraignment of Traytors * Judg. 5. 21. * See the Laws of King Edward the Confessor confirmed by William the Conquerour Lex 55 56 57. The great Charters of King John and Henry 3. c. 29 30. 25 E. 1. c. 5 6. 34 E. 1. De Tallagio c. 1 14 E. 3. Stat. 1. c. 21. Stat. 2. c. 1. 35 E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 1. 15 E. 3. Stat. 3. c. 5. 21 E. 3. Rot. Parl. N. 16. 25 E 3. Rot. Parl. N. 16 27 E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 2. 36 E. 3. Rot. Parl. N. 26. 38 â— 3. c. 2. 45 E. 3. Rot. Parl N. 42. 11 H. 4. Rot. Parl. N. 50. 1 R. 3. c. 2. The Petition of Right 3 Caroli the Acts against Ship-money Knighthood Tonnage and Poundage 16. 17. Caroli * See Magna Charta c. 29. Cooks Institutes on it 5 E. 3. c. 9 15 E. 3. c. 1 2 25 E. 3. c. 4 28 E. 3. c. 3 37 E. 3. c. 18 42 E. 3. c. 3 2 R. 2. c. 2 4 5 H. 4. c. 10 19 H. 7. c. 10 23 H. 8. c. 8 The Petition of Right 3 Caroli and other Acts in ch 3. 2 H 4. Rot. Parl. N. 60. 69. * 4 E. 3. c. â— 17 R. â— c. 10 * See the Laws of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror Lex 35. 55 56 58. Rasâ—â—als Abridgement Tit. Armour 35 E. 3. c. 8. Rot. Parl. N. 23 The Statures for impressing Souldiers 16 1â— Caroli 〈◊〉 E. 3. Stat. 2. c 5. 4 H. 4. c. 13. Exact collection p. 878 879. a See Magna Char. c. 29. 5 E. 3. c. 9. 15 E. 3. c. 1 2 21 E. 3. Rot. Parl. N. 28. 1â— E. 3. N 35 36 37. â—5 E. 3. c. 4 Rot. Parl. N. 16. 28 E. 3. c. 3. 37 E. 3. c. â—8 42. E. 3. c. 1. 3. 2 R. 2. Parl. 2. c. 2. 7 R. 3. c. 4. 2 H 4. Rot. Parl. N. 60. 69. 15 H. 6. c. 4. The Petition of Right 3 Car. and the Statutes against Ship-money Knighthood Tonnage and Poundage 16 17 Caroli b See 1 Sam. 7. 4 to the end c. 11. 14 15. c. 12. 1. 2 Sam. 5. 1 2 3. c. 16. 18. 1 King 12. 3. to 21. c. 16. 1â— c. 20. 7 8. 2. King 11. 1. to 21. c. 21. 24. c. 23. 30. c King Johns Magna Chaâ—ta Matth. Paris p. 247. 5 R. 2. c. 4. cookâ— 4. Instit c. 1. My Plea for the Lords My Ardua Regui The Levellers levelled and Epistle before my Speech in Parliament 4 E. 3. c. 14. 36 E. 3. c. 10. 50 E. 3. N. 151. 1 R. 2. N. 95. 2 R. 2. N. 4 5. d See 39 H. 6. c. 1. 17. E. 4. c. 7. â— H. 4. N. 21 22. 48. 1 H. 4. c 3. * See Rastals Abridgement of Statutes Title Provisionâ— Premunire Rome e Leges Edwardi Regis c. 35 Lambards Arch. F. 135 136. Cooks 7. Report Calvins Case f. 6 7. Leges Willielmâ— Regis Lex 58 59. Seldens Notae ad Eadmerum p. 191. 11 H. 7. c. 1. 18 19 H. 7. c. 1. 25 H. 8. c. 22. 26 H. 8. c. 3. 28 H. 8. c. 7. 1 Eliz. c. 1. 3. 5. 5 Eliz. 2. c. 1. 1 Jac. c. 1 2. 3. Jac. c. 1 2 4 5. 7 Jac. c. 6. The Protestation League and Covenant and the ancient Oathes of Fealty Homage Mayers Sheriffs Free-men * Daniels History p. 78 79. 80. 123. 10. 12 n. 2. r. 8. H 5. r. 9 1. 1. 6. n. 53. 31. H. 6. r. 7. 1. R. 2. n. 14â— 1. H. 4. n. 100. 6 H 4. n. 4. 15. 8. H. 4. n. 12. 33. H. 6. n. 47. 4. G. n. 3â— 12 E. 4 n. 6. a See my Declaration and Protestation against the illegal detestable oft-condemned new Tax and Extortion of Excise 1654. Exact collection p. 885. Mr. St. Johns Speech concerning Ship-money p. 15 16. * Exact Collection p. 886. Nota. Nota. * And is not this its present sad slavish condition * Do they not so on Beer Salt and other Manufactures for which they now pay Excise * Witness Mr. â—ony amongst others Nota. See the Arguments concerning them in Mr. Hambdins and others cases 2. * See Cook 4. Justi c. 1. Brooks Parliament 4. 76 42. 107. and my Plea for the Lords * See Cooks 4. Justit c. 1. and Rastal Taxes Nota. Nota. Nota. * Though he came in by the Sword as a kind of Conquerour Nota. Nota. * And are not all the Commons Merchants Freemen of England bound to use the same course and make the sâ—me Declaration now Nota. * And can our pâ—esent Grandees take it in ill part if we refuse to pay them now being demandâ—d without Warrant of a Law and the receivers of them in a Premunire by express Act of Parliamen of 16 Caroli made since this Remonstrance a Alderman Chambers Mr. Rolls and others Nota. * Exact Collection p. 790. to 797. * See Historiae Anglicanae Londini 1652. Col. 2750 2751. Halls Chronicle f. 7 8. John Trussel in 23. R. 2. p 46. Grafton p. 401. Nota. * See Mr. St. Johns Argument at his Attainder p. 36. to 52. * See Judge Crooks Judg Huttons printed Arguments my Humble Remonstrance against the Illegal Tax of Shipmony * Printed at the end of Judge Huttoes Aâ—gument amongst the staâ—utes of 16 Caroli * Chap 1. p. Diurnal Occurences Speeches p. 191. to 265. Objection Answer * See p. 12 to 20 before the 1 Proposition and Statutes Arguments thereunto specially 23 E. 1. c. 5. 6. 34. E. 1. c. 1 2 3. 14 E. 3. c. 21 and Stat. 2. c. 1. 3 Caroli The Petition of Right * See their Impeachments printed trials Mr. St. Johns Argument at Law against Strafford p. 34 35. * Cook 4 Inst p. 42. 11 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 143. 2 H. 4. c. 22. 21 R. 2. c. 4 5 6. 1 H. 4. c 7. rot Parl. n 48. 60. 68. * See Sir Edw. Cooks Preface to his 2. Institutes * Jer. 21. 12. c. 22. 3 4 5. Ps 12. 5 Ezech. 18. 5. to 14. c. 22. 12 13 27 29 30. c. 45. 7. to 10. c. 46. 18. Mich. 3. 1. to 5. c. 2. 1 2 3. c. 7. 2. Isa 58. 6. * See True c. p. 17 18. Objection Answer * Math. Paris Hist Angliae London 1640. p. 810. 818 854 875. * See Mâ— Sr. Johns Speech against the ship-money Judges p. 16 17 18 19. Exact Collect p. 885. * See Heylyns Microcosme p. 756 757 758 395 412. 507. 577. 578. 642. 672. 704. * Exact Coll. p. 7. 575. 639 640 641. 807. 836. 850. to 890. * See the Act of Resumption 28 â— 6. 11. 53. a See Cooks 4 Instâ—t c. 1. p. 33. Regal Taxes here ch 3. sect 4 5 6. * See 14 E. 3. c. 21. stat 2. c. 1. 5. R. 2. stat 2. c. 2 3 all Acts for 〈◊〉 * See Henry de Knyghton de Eventibus Angliae l. 5. col 2681. to 2690. 2 R. 2. rot Parl. n. 20 21 24. * Qâ— Curtius Hist l. 7. p. 831. * Qu. Curtius Hist l. 8. * Printed at Nuâ—â—mbergh 1521. * See Revelationum l. 4. c. 104 105. l. 7. c. 16. l. 8. c. 48. Revâ—lationes extravagantes c. 73 80. * Revelationum l. 8. c. 48. * Math Paris Hist Angl. p. 517. * De Remedio Amoâ—s l. 2. * See Mat. Paâ—â—s p. 306. 308. Grafton p. 90. 149. Daniel p. 78 79 83 123. 1 R. 2. Rot. Parl. to 148. 1 H. 4. n. 100. 6 H. 4. n. 14 15. 8 H. 4. n. 52. 1 H. 5. c. 6. 28 H. 6. rot Parl. n. 53. 31 H. 6. c. 7. 33. H. 6. n. 47. 4 E. 4. n. 39. 12. E. 4. n. 6.