shew an expresse grant of it that he is above both Parliament and People and when that 's done which we think is impossible to be done for we beleeve the King never durst propose it in plain terms but rather aimed at insinuating it in by degrees and circumstances that so it might insensibly steal into our understandings to avoid disputes and controversies thereupon However we say Admit the worst that the King can produce such a Commission made to some of his Predecessors and successively conveyed to him wherein he was so erected from the equal Flat whereon he with the rest stood for the strongest Royalists allow us at first equal yet there is this further to prove that this power was so alienated as not to be assumed and more than that that the preceding people in matters of Power and Liberty can so bind their successors as that it is not in their power to free themselves notwithstanding never so apparent necessity thereof or dangers that compel them thereunto This is the great point the Royalists fail in They suppose and take it for granted and build upon it But prove it not Besides we conceive that the Kings power is a Trust as all power must needs be that is not primitive especially over others of the same line and dignitie as we must needs be granted to be before the Assignation of such a power Now a power in Trust implies Conditions mutual agreement compact and an inferiority in the betrusted a liberty of revocation of caling to account all which are implied in the relative Trust Now that the Kings power is a Trust is undenyably evident unlesse you will say that Kings are born such and had from the beginning inherent Characters of their Royalty without any deputation from others which is so absurd that no reasonable man will assert it Again suppose former Parliaments made the King supream not only over every one singly but over all collectively we say they either did it for his sake or their own good and safety for his sake it is not imaginable grant them to be of sound minds especially if you consider what is implyed in Supremacy viz. the Legislative power the Sword the dispose of every mans person and estate If then they did it conditionally as conceiving it most conducing to their good and welfare and find afterwards by thousand experiments that it proves otherwise their end being frustrate What hinders but that they may re-assume and mannage their so much abused power themselves All this and much more we have to argue the case being stated to the greatest disadvantage of the House of Commons But let us tell you we judge the pretended supremacy of Kings in this Country never to have been fairly granted by a free and un-packt Parliament but either forcibly usurpt or politickly gaind by the practice of that King-craft which every Prince hath endeavoured to make himself Master of whose ultimate end is to encroach upon the Peoples Rights and establish its own absolutenesse We mentioned packt-Parliaments and the truth is much hath been gaind that way to the Peoples greatest dis-advantage since all intrenchments so gotten seem to have the face of consent and allowance But yet here Kings have been more modest as dealing with some adversaries at least for though by the potency of his Dependencies by the interests of his Lords Officers and Courtiers by his conferring Barronies and making of Burrough Towns he hath usually corrupted that Fountain which is the only orderly means of our Preservation yet hath there at all times in every age some been found whose honest hearts have engaged them to oppose the respective Kings for which though they have afterwards suffered for that 's a stratagem Kings never fail'd in yet have they thereby lest notable Memorandums to the People of the unjust seizures of their Liberties That the two Houses are called His as you urge is an expression not derived from a just Right but imposed and customarily used to beget a false opinion of it in the hearts of weak people So has the Militia been car'd His the Forts and Magazins the Ships yea and the very High-way for they that would usurpe the Right must insinuate Expressions agreeable thereunto and in this trifle as one would think they have been very punctual for though there is nothing in it to convince the sound yet is there much to seduce the weak Whereas you urge that the House of Commons was instituted by the Kings Predecessors it s a foul mistake t is true indeed Henry the first reviv'd what his Predecessors William the first and second had purposely disused and what he then reviv'd and cal'd a Parliament according to the Norman expression was before entituled Commune Concilium Regni The Common Councel of the Kingdom a name both more proper for us English and not as the other importing our Norman bondage But there is this further considerable in it that as that King reviv'd it so he might model and frame it best for his advantage both in the Expression of the Writ and manner of the elections That the King is the chief Officer is not indeed agreeable to the exercise of what he hath usurpt upon us for an Officer is tyed to his rules and bounded by the Laws But Kings have known no such Bondaries witness their Proclamations and Arbitrary Impositions in which their Will onely was their rule by which though they have done much injury to us yet they might do more even ad infinitum for what have they according to your principles to restrain them Now that the exercise of his usurpations should be an Argument to the Parliament to establish them we see no reason but rather on the contrary a motive to their speedy abolition and therefore do we stile him in our Petition the Chief Publike Officer which is both honour enough for any one man and by which he may do as much good as his heart can wish and cannot do that hurt that hath bin usual with Kings and is likewise an appellation most properly signifying the nature of his dignity importing a Trust and deputation of Power which may be an effectual means to keep succeeding Kings from those exorbitancies the best of them have through the encouragement of their Place and usurped power lanched into You say The King is not accountable because he hath not received his Office from the People but from God You are strangely mistaken as well in your Assertion as in the Reason of it In the reason of it first for who of your wifest Clerks the greatest supporters of Regality allow not that Fundamental Maxime That all Government is by Consent since it is a restriction of that liberty for mutual and common good that every man is born withal Hear but one of the ablest and greatest Champions for the King and Church Mr Hooker l. 1. Eccl. Pol. p. 28. The lawful power of making Laws to command whole Politick Societies of
A REPLY To the House of COMMONS Or rather to an IMPOSTOR Giving answer in their Names to the LONDONERS PETITION presented to the said Honourable House Sept. 11. 1648. LONDON Printed for William Larnar at the signe of the Black-moor within Bishopsgate 1648. A REPLY To the House of COMMONS OVr being continual losers and sufferers by the War is an Argument sufficient that we are for Peace since war in it self is of all humane things the most unwelcom except to such as blinded with the honour or commodity it brings them and well secured by others from the dint and danger thereof care not how long the Tempest lasts since what is cast out of the ship is received into the gulph of their Ambition and Avarice And as we have bin continual losers and sufferers so do we not admit any hopes to make up our fortunes or enrich our selves by the prolongation of the war but propose as we ever did to get our livings by our Trades and honest Industry and esteem a good Peace the Crown of our earthly happiness A good Peace we say for we are not so in love with it as to wish it upon any terms in a Dungeon in the Galleys under the most insufferable Tyrannie there may be peace but we would willingly that that we are in expectation of may be linkt with such a measure of just Freedom as should make some recompense for the former war that it should likewise be lasting which it cannot be unless it be sound And that it may be so we presented our Petition to the House of Commons containing such things as are not of any particular behoof to our selves as such or such a people but of a diffusive and common concernment importing an universal good to every honest man And truly we will not count it our boasting because it is but our duty in these self-seeking daies especially to manifest a greater measure of self-denyal Hence do we in our publike motions as we ought bear both in the heart and front of them a communicative happiness of which the greatest the meanest may partake And though the establishment of those things we desire may haply dis-relish the sickly appetites of lordly and avaritious men yet we are well assured that even such upon a settl ment would quickly find that they have bin mistaken in their way to felicity and that it is much more easily attainable and will prove less disturbed and more lasting by these expedients that we propose than any that we have yet seen For the scruples and objections which are raised against our Petition in the name of the House of Commons which had bin proper enough if the pretended one at Oxford had bin now sitting we will reduce the weight and material circumstances thereof to certain heads which if we can cleer we question not but the whole frame and fabrick of that answer will fall to the ground First therefore Concerning the Kings Supremacy over the House of Commons We yeild that the stile of many of our Laws the traditional exercise and belief thereof are strong on your part and from hence certainly many of you Royalists we mean were perswaded even to your very great prejudice to assist him in its vindication and the Parliament likewise and their Adherents though excessively abused and trampled upon by him did timorously and but faintly engage themselves against him so that at first the superstition being strong and our understandings mis-guided with the delusions of above 500. yeers practise upon us every King making it his business not only by power but by Law and Parliament to rivet the opinion of his Prerogative and Supremacy in our hearts and having all the advantages that could be thought upon to accomplish the same as the Scholers to preach it and mix it even with the most sacred mysteries the Lawyers to plead it the Officers and Power of the Kingdom to support it the custody of all Records of the embezelment whereof every Age hath complained the Licensing of Books whereby nothing but what made for it had publike view and a thousand more particular advantages that might be recited all which considered we say it is no wonder if at first both Parliament and People looked upon the King as Recusants upon the Pope on whom the superstition is not more strong for we esteemed him a thing Sacred Inviolable as the Breath of our Nostrils the Apple of our eies in all causes and over all Persons next and immediate under God Supreme Head and Governour Gods Vicegerent accountable only to him and thereupon declared the war for him Then were we likewise entangled with our oaths that slylie and politickly were at first insinuated and have bin since customarily and Traditionally taken without regard to the end or suspect of the designe in imposing them which was purposely to ensnare the weak and bind us to the adoration of an Image our fancies and follies have erected But when we came to consider the freâ—ness of the times administring means and matter thereunto and good men dayly writing for our Information the King on the one side persisting in his Tyranny and endeavouring by force of Arms to establish that power we had so smarted under before the Parliament Hereupon by degrees the clouds vanisht the mists of error and deception began to scatter and the shine of Truth to appear the eys of both Parliament and People began to open and though at first when the Parliament at Oxford was mixt with the Parliament at Westminster we professed absolutely and without conditions in May 1641. to defend the Kings person yet afterwards in the Vow that absurditie was omitted and in the Covenant the condition was wisely inserted in the defence of true Religion the Lawes and Liberties of England And not only so but in time the Parliament altered their Commissions that to our present renowned General making no mention of the defence of the Kings persons Afterward in their last message to him at Oxford they charge him with the guilt of all the blood that has bin shed in this War and tell him that before they treat with him he must make satisfaction to the Kingdom calling it in their Declaration of the 11 of February 1647. a destructive Maxime or Principle viz. That he oweth an account of his actions to none but God alone and voting no more addresses to him but that they will of themselves settle the present Government so as may best stand with the Peace and Happinesse of the Kingdom So that we hope according to your own rule you will not preferre those unripe expressions that at first past from the Parliament before those that after long debates and the wisdom of much experience did maturely proceed from them The Kings Supremacy was at first believed because not considered as Turkish children beleeve the divinitie of Mahomet because bred up to it but good Sir Let it be convased a little To make it good the King must
the oppressions brought upon us truly as there was a general conjunction of them both with the King in bringing in the same so could not we dis-joyn them in our expression and though it be an usual fault to asperse an order or whole Society for the Personal escapes of a few yet here we can discern no crime in it since it was not a few but almost all that partook in the Tytannie and the very nature and dependency of the order it self upon the Prerogative is such that it very much inclines them thereunto For taking away some of the Laws establisht which you count hainous in us so it be done in an orderly way by the House of Commons as we intend it we can see no crime in it It being the business and constant work of Parliaments and at this time as needful as ever since this House hath found that all kind of tyrannie and those Prerogatives which they have judged most destructive to the Common-wealth have very much support and countenance from the present Laws and Baâ—icadoes made up by them against those just means and expedients which necessity and the Peoples welfare enforce them to make use of For that excellent Maxime The safety of the People is above all Law which you say we mis-understand and mis-apply in using it to shake off obedience and in making the People Judges of safety Truly Sir we think you have mis-understood us for we make the House of Commons Judges of Safety which they themselves declared to be endangered by the Kings setting up his Standard before we engaged in the War The Maxime we do but suggest and would have them make use of and we know they have frequently done it where the Law doth not provide sufficient remedy You tell us The House of Commons have not denyed the Kings Negative voice And yet Sir they have waged a War without him and the People that part I mean that have assisted them have judged themselves sufficiently obliged by their Orders And though hitherto they have yeilded to that customary formality mistaking a Ceremony for a Fundamental a Complement for a necessary requisite to the essence of our Laws yet do they begin to see through it as appears by their Vores of no more Address and their manner of proceeding in the Treaty where they allow not the King that liberty which a Negative voice implies but insist upon the passing their Propositions in their own way and terms And though we think they have even in this yeilded the King too much considering the disproportion betweem them and his being conquered yet by this little they give us to understand that they allow not his Negative voice in that latitude he hath claimed it Thus by degrees you see all usurpations are like to be seen through amongst which this is one of the greatest most conducing I mean to establishment of Tyranny for by it it is at the pleasure of Kings who have ever studied themselves and their own elevation above the People to admit the passing of no Laws unlesse fore'd thereunto by the subjugation of Strength as at this time but what conduce thereunto And though at the beginning of this Parliament he yeelded to the taking away of many oppressions yet they were but such as he had brought upon us and that in policy too for the stopping of the Peoples mouths and to prevent the questioning of that power by which he fore'd them in for the maintaining where of he hath since sought and had he conquered all on our parts had been 〈◊〉 and Parliaments must either have no longer been or been as heretofore chiefly serviceable to his Designes 'T is to be considered too that Kings have upon the yeelding to the taking away of Oppressions demanded allowance So many Subsidies for example twelve for the taking away of Ship-mony or some other satisfaction in 〈◊〉 thereof as at this time Consideration is demanded for the Court of Wards 100000. l. per annum So that what was unduly brought upon us and for the doing whereof amends ought to be made to the persons damnified shall yet at their very removal give us one gird more to put us in mind were we by any injuries to be awaked of the notorious injustice of such usages Lastly To this Negative Voice I will ad only this That what was at first in Kings but as the Lord Majors setting to the Seal or as Acts passing in Holland in the name of the Earldom of Holland or in Venice in the name of S. Mark for in some name they must passe has been by craft and the advantages of times crept into a liberty of Will a Power of passing or not passing and to this the King thought to bring it in Scotland but that they had courage to tell him that he was bound to pass those Laws they brought which the King then wisely did to avoid the Dispute and that England might not take example and insist upon the time here Where we desire that all should be alike subject to the Laws you say nothing thereunto but bring in a consequence of your own from thence altogether forraign from our meaning telling us that our desire tends to have all alike and to destroy all Civil Subordination This is the usual sophistry of the times to blast that which is just and by all good men desirable by scandalizing us with an opinion we as much condemn as your self wise men should decline such foul play as if there were no difference between â—â—onomy and Community between all mens being subject alike to the Laws and all mens being alike for order and degree Our desire imports distinction of Conditions since it makes mention of the several degrees we would have equally subjected to the Laws As if a Lord could not be a Lord because he is liable to be arrested or impleaded at Law For shame leave such ridiculous inferrences and see your aptnesse to abuse us which yet we have no reason to advise you to for such weaknesses turn to our advantage You tel us We are not the whole People We easily grant it but all that notwithstanding though we were by many thousands fewer then we are that approve that Petition we hope we have that liberty which we think every single man has to present Petitions to the Legislative power for the alteration addition or substraction of any thing our Laws abound or are defective in And though many haply may dissent from us yet is it lawful for us to desire the foresaid Power to take what we present them into consideration which is not only not unlawful but our duty to which we are obliged by our gratitude and affection to our Country of the welfare whereof every good man ought to be considerative For our seeking Indempnity of the House of Commands for what we have done in order to their Commands and the necessitie of the Service and for the good of the Common-wealth no further we desire