An Examination of Several Votes of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament, concerning such as take up Arms against the Parl: of England, or assist in such War. Wherein is declared, that all such persons are Traitors by the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, and aught to suffer accordingly, which the 20 of June 1648. are Ordered by the Commons Assembled in Parliament, to be Printed and Published by the Sheriffs in every Market Town.  
AMong the many irregularities of the Houses this Parliament, they have taken up an use of printing their Votes, which though of no legal efficacy, yet were the conduits to convey their seditious plots to the people, and prepare them by Traitorous ifusions to assist their attempts: the force of them dependinng on the reputation of the contrivers: and it's somewhat likely that the present Houses find some diminution of their Authority among the people, and rely on that of their first leaders; and therefore they now the 20 of June 1648. make use of Votes made the 20 of March 1642.  
It must be acknowledged that the 20 of March 1642. the People of England had a great opinion of the Honour, Wisdom, and Integrity of the two Houses of Parliament, upon whose words (rather than their own sense) they did believe that there were things amiss in Government, and that from them must come the remedy: but they long since found how far their actions and deeds differed from their pretences; and now the 20 of June 1648. its evident to all of the meanest understanding, that the burdens of the people are multiplied, & that the moderate Levies of Monies complained of by the two Houses, to be done by the King, in prejudice of their Liberty, are turned into intolerable exactions; these Houses seeking not to ease any grievances, but to gain power to lay them; and they tell the people by their Actions, that their little finger must be heavier than the King's Loins.  
The people now see, that the reverence and zeal they bore to these Houses, was to a false & imaginary deity; and the service they performed to them, abominable to God, and odious to all Good men, making their sons and daughters pass through the fire, the Subjects of England to endure all kind of misery to please this Idol: They now see, that there is no Injustice and Oppression equal to that of their two Houses of Parliament; their Government Arbitrary, and their proceed Tyranny, their pretences hypocrisy, their cruelties and merciless deal with the King and fellow-Subjects, showing them rather inhuman Cannibals than Christians; and their multiplied falseshoods and perjuries exceeding the most professed deceivers: but it is like they think that the Votes that deceived once, are still of force upon the people, and therefore its necessary to discover what truth their Votes contain, that are thus relied on after the many proofs of the uningenuity of those that contrived them. p1 1. We observe in the Title, that the Votes have the stile of the Lords & Commons Assembled in Parliament, concerning such as take up Arms against the Parliament of England, or assist in such War, wherein is declared, that all such Persons are Traitors by the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, and aught to suffer accordingly.  
If the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament, were the Parliament of England, the stile need not have been varied, but either the Votes might be called the Votes of Parliament, or the War they mention against the Parliament, might have been called a War against the Lords and Commons; but themselves well know that the two Houses are not the Parliament, and then to what end are these Votes, for they Vote not that War against the two Houses are Treason, and War by the King against himself they intent not.  
But the two Houses being (vulgarly called the Parliament) to abuse the people, have industriously laboured to implant a belief in them, that the two Houses without the King, are the Parliament, and that there is a Majesty in it, and Treason may be committed against it; and whatever efficacy the Acts of the King in Parliament have, they arrogate to their own Acts without the King; and would have all power (annexed to His Person in Parliament, & elsewhere) to belong to themselves, without, nay, against Him, because He exerciseth His Supreme, power in Parliament: Thus these vipers devour their Parent; and being called by the King to be His Council, (which Title they assume in their Declarations) and by the duty of their place to Council Him only, they most Traitorously take Council against Him, and Council His people to Rebel against Him, which is the sum of these Votes; a Treason unparalled in former Ages, and contrary to their former professions and practice; for in all Commissions of this Parliament, (desired by themselves for the passing of Laws) its expressly affirmed, that no Act or Ordinance of both Houses, can binds, or be in force without the King's consent; and consequently can be no Act of Parliament, nor can the two Houses in judgement of Law be the Parliament.  
In their Barbarous proceed against persons that have borne Arms against them, they have styled their offence a Levying of War against the King; and the attempt of Captain Burley to deliver the King out of Prison, is made by them a Levying War against the King, well knowing there is no War else Treason by Law. And we ask of them, whether the attempt of Sir Thomas Fairfax in removing their Speaker Pelham, and other Members, and placing Lenthall, and others, were not a War against the Parliament? it must needs be by their grounds, or nothing is; for they made Orders to revoke what passed in pelham's time, which needed not, if it were not a Parliament in their sense; and than it must follow, that his Excellency is a Traitor by their own rule, and themselves that assisted him.  
There is no levying War, Treason, but such as is made against the King, though it be Acted upon His Subjects in Parliament, or in any other capacity; and that which makes a War Treason, and against the King, is the want of his Command. Mrs. John declared in his Speech against the Earl of Strafford, that levying of War upon the King's Subjects is Treason, for its War against Him, and are not they all then Traitors which made this War upon the King's Subjects, not only upon such as assisted the King, but Neutures? All War that is made upon his dominions, by His Subjects without His Command, is Treason; but it's a madness therefore to say that a War by His Command is Treason, for than if He be overcome by Rebels, such as assisted Him must be Traitors, for Levying War upon the King's Subjects: A senseless assertion, and would make good that scoff at Law, that Victory only makes Traitors; an axiom never owned by Law nor Religion, but drawn from the lewd practice of Rebels; the making of War being the King's peculiar prerogative, and is matter of Supreme power, not Jurisdiction, and belongs not to any Court or Counsel, and the two Houses can claim no more than belongs to a Court or Counsel.  
The House of Commons have Ordered the printing of these Votes and 'tis like they expect Obedience, as if it were an Act of Parliament, though without the King and Lords; Never did one or both Houses of Parliament presume to print before this, and we may as well believe they had this Privilege by the fundamental Laws, (which was never known before these seven years last passed) as that the Lords and Commons are the whole Parliament; or that a War made by the King can be Treason. But come now to the Votes.  
The first Vote, that it appears, that the King (seduced by Wicked Council) intends to make War against the Parliament, who in all their consultations and actions, have proposed no other end unto themselves, but the care of Kingdoms, and the performance of all duty and loyalty to His Person.  
It seems these men had taken such pleasure in their power of judging, that they fell to judicial Astrology, and would tell fortunes, for they adventure to tell the intentions of their King, though Solomon saith, the King's heart is unsearchable; doubtless in point of Duty, Subjects ought not to pry into it; and we may surely conclude, that as they may be deceived in their conjectures of His intentions, so they have certainly broken their Loyalty by making such a Vote, and run into certain Rebellion upon certain suspicions; but their case is worse, for they had resolved (before this pretence) on their violence against the King, and had in a great part Acted it, raising Tumults against Him, Threatening Him with popular furies, unless He consented to mischievous Laws of their contriving; They had Levied an Army for the guarding of Persons against an Accusation of Treason; they had caused divers Members of both Houses of Parliament to be assaulted & menaced, whereby they were enforced to leave the Houses, they had seized the Navy, disposed the Militia, fortified Towns: and now to blear the eyes of the poor multitude, tell them the King intends to make War upon the Parliament; never King had greater cause to right himself, nor ever people less cause to make war on him: They would persuade the people, that if their war be defensive against their King, its lawful, and if that they say it's so, it's then out of question.  
If self defence be lawful in Subjects against Supreme power, than they are not bound to assist their King against Malefactors or Rebels, unless they first know the cause, whereby all Government is at an end, and obedience must follow private persuasion, not public Authority; and the King doth in vain proclaim an enemy abroad, or Rebels at home, and then he cannot hope long to wear a Crown; and if Subjects adhere to an enemy, the King may not make War upon them, but first send for a Judge to Indite them, and a Malefactor may as well use force against the sentence of the Judge, upon pretence of Injustice; as Subjects against their King, upon pretence of want of just cause of making of War, it being as essential to Supreme power (which these men swear to be in the King) as civil decisions to any Judicatory; and if it were not (as most certainly it is) the foundation of all Government, yet by Law, and practise most undeniably, in the King of England; we cannot hope to find modesty, where we see disloyalty and Rebellion, and in these men's reiterated Remonstrances, they take it for a ground in Law, that the King cannot do evil, and if the Law will not suppose he can do evil, can there be any Law to make War upon Him upon pretence of doing evil? and if by the policy, and constitution of any Kindgome the Supreme Governor be exempt from punishment by Law as of necessity He must, it is a most absurd opinion, that He should be subject to private violence; and if the Members of Parliament be corrupt, and entertain negotiations with foreign Princes, their King's enemies, and adhere to them, as is more than possible, and the King declare a War against such persons, may they take Arms against Him to defend themselves? then all Rebellions will be self defences, and none that have force will submit to Law, and so it must follow, that if any commit Treason, the force that the King useth for His own preservation, or their punishment, shall be called War against the Parliament, or War against the Subject; but when ordinary ways of Justice are shut up by force, the King hath recourse to His Regal power; and if His Counsel in such a case should not advise Him to make War upon such persons, it might well be judged of them, that they were an unfaithful and wicked Counsel, and though the King had taken no resolution of War, notwithstanding the great violence offfered Him, as He made appear by many witnesses, & reasons, yet these men reproach Him to his face, with these Traitorous Votes, and add, that (the King seduced by wicked Counsellors) so odious an expression in the mouths and pens of Subjects, as cannot consist with duty and Loyalty, and their professions of their care of the Kingdoms, and performance of all duty, and Loyalty to His Majesty's Person, so contradictory to these Votes can get no belief, but were devised to give colour only to their courses, being no part of their purposes; and these Houses consisting of a great number, who for age, education, or parts, being no way qualified to judge of Counsels, and being seduced by wicked counsels to reproach their King; and seek His ruin, are no more to be trusted for their care of the Kingdom, (which they have brought to shame, impotency, and beggary,) then for performance of their duty to their King, whom they have abused with all immaginable contumelies, deposed from Government, shut up in Prison, and out of horror of their guile and fear of punishment, have plotted how they may take away his life by poison, or assassination; and these shameless wretches would have it believed, that making War upon Him, attempts to kill and depose Him, imprisoning of Him, and offering of violence to His Person, are no Treason; but that endeavouring to defend Him, free Him from Imprisonment, preserve His life are Treason; Prodigious impudence, and they might as well Vote He were no King, and that England never had a King by Law.  
That whensoever the King maketh War upon the Parliament, it is a breach of the trust reposed in Him upon His people, contrary to His Oath, and tending to the dissolution of this Government.  
It's apparent that the King may justly make War upon all or any Members of Parliament for Disloyal and Traitorous Acts, when ordinary justice is shut up, and that it is neither breach of trust reposed in Him by His people, contrary to His Oath, nor tending to the dissolution of this Government; and if the King charge either any, or all of them with such offences, they must not stand upon their Guard, but submit to legal Trial. It's a known truth they ought to be Tried by the ordinary Courts of Law, and their own Votes to the contrary, have neither weight nor credit, being against all Law, which alloweth not a Malefactor to be his own judge, or to testify in his own cause. It's one of the usual frauds of these men to weakon the opinion and duty of the people of, and towards their King, to tax Him with a breach of Trust reposed by the People in the King; If they should express the time when this Trust was reposed, their answer is that it must be supposed so, when the Monarchy was first constituted; and they speak as if all hereditary Monarchies were no other than elective, and every of them came in upon trust. A perfidious piece of Sophistry; No doubt all Kings have a duty to perform, and all Subjects hope and pray for their King's performance of it, but the constitution of hereditary Monarchies includes no trust, but in the frame and constitution of that form of Government, and they in the beginning could not but foresee that there might come evil Kings, yet they resolyed not to break the order, but depended rather on God's providence then open a way to faction and domestic broils, which they esteemed worse than the accidental evil of a single Prince, and which states of another constitution often find by sad experience; and their imaginary trust hath no more ground than the prosecution of Traitors by the King hath to be a breach of it, or a War against the Parliament; There are duties of parents to children, but they are not trusts; and in hereditary Monarchies, the King is Rex natus, non datus, and the people cannot upon pretence of any crime precedent, refuse their admission of Him, much less can they withdraw their obedience for any crime subsequent; and as the Kings making War against all or any Members of Parliament, is no War against the Parliament; so were it applicable to such a sense, it were not contrary to any title of His Oath, when he hath such cause as was formerly expressed.  
For the dissolution of Government. War by Princes against Rebels is necessary to preserve it, but Rebellion against the King dissolves all Government, for thereby the KING is made a Subject; all His Power despised, His Subjects Governed by another Power, the submission whereunto is of no less guilt, then to any foreign Power, for it's as destructive to that of the KING'S; and we now see apparently, all Law, Liberty, and Property is lost, and all is arbitrary at the will of Power, and no man by Law or Conscience bound to submit to any Magistrate, whose power is derived from the KING; and it is an odious usurpation to use a pretended derived Power, when they suppress the supreme; and the exercise of the Sovereign power by the two Houses, making Commissions in the KING'S Name, is all one, as if it were their own; and if it be Murder to judge to death by Commissions in their Names, is it less when they make a Commission in the KING'S? They cannot pretend to have any such Power derived to them, nor can the Kingly power be possibly in the two Houses, for they may differ in Vote, which is a condition the Kingdom cnnnot endure, nor any Law or Reason allow; and if these men had any thought of that misery that comes by dissolution of Government, they would not have cut asunder all the ligaments of it, striving to get the King's consent to establish such a confusion in this poor Kingdom, as may never be set in order in any Generations to come; seeking to distract the Subjects, and pretend that obedience to them, is loyalty to their KING, though it be against Him, and to make War for the KING, equally penal to war against Him; Such as make these Votes, and such as practise such a Power, are guilty of the breach of Trust reposed in them by their Countries and Towns that sent them, of the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy taken at their entrance into the House, of all the blood and miseries that have ensued from that damnable position and practice.  
3. That whosoever shall serve or assist Him in such War, are Traitors by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, and have been so adjudged by two Acts of Parliament, and aught to suffer as Traitors, 11 Ric. 2.1 Hen. 4.  
And why do they not express against whom it is Treason to assist the KING? they know there is no Treason but against the King, and if they had told all, it must cut the throat of their Votes; That War by the KING is Treason against the KING, which is legible only by these bloody Votes, for if the KING have power to make War, He may judge of the cause of it; and if He err in the justice of the cause, such as assist Him cannot be punished for doing their duty, which is to assist Him in any War within the Kingdom, 11 Hen. 7. But these men should have done well to have told what, or where these fundamental Laws were, that men might see them, and not be mistaken. If the Statute of the 25 Edw. 3. be a fundamental Law, this is no Treason within that Statute. And if 1 Mar. be a fundamental Law, nothing is Treason but what is mentioned in that Statute of 25 Edw. 3. so as if there had been such judgement, as they pretend, the force is wholly taken away. We may not imagine that many of these that made these Votes understood the disserence of fundamental and not fundamental Laws, nor that any of them knew such fundamental Laws as they herein suppose, but it was the perfidious contrivance of some of the Leaders of this rout, to invent words of an unknown known sense, that they might style any actions crimes against imaginary Laws, that were done by any Persons that they had a mind to destroy, and have thereby made the Land guilty of blood, judging by Laws they know not, and crimes they understand not.  
Martin, Lilburne, and others, will have fundamental Law right reason, and no reason right but their own; and it's most probable, the first Inventors of this term now in Parliament, had that reserve to their own reason, for none of the Judges (or men learned) could ever yet find what they meant by fundamental Laws.  
But they say, it hath been so judged by two Acts, of Parliament, the first is, 11 of Rich. 2.  
It hath happened to Parliaments in England, as is incident to all Assemblies, to have some, whose actions are not for imitation: There are Records of disorderly and traitorous Assemblies in Parliament, and of wicked Decrees made by them; and no honest man will think the Judgements or Acts of Parliament in the time of Hen. 8. touching His Wives and Children, and the many sad Executions of Innocent persons, are of Authority; and these men have declared in this Parliament, That they hold the Parliament that Deposed this Ric. 2. or any other King, were no lawful Parliaments, which must be intended in regard they were unlawfully called, or their traitorous Acts; and this Parliament of 11 Rich. 2. was assembled by a traitorous and prevailing Faction in War, as that was, and its Authority was only Force, and its Acts disloyal and extorted, and were the groundwork of the distractions of that KING'S Reign, and of His traitorous Deposition and execrable Murder; and these Voters choose to tread in their steps and no man may doubt if they be not prevented, will arrive to the same end; and yet so desperate is thein case, that it cannot be maintained from this odious example: These men having exceeded the worst of Traitors, and though they pretend they have not yet killed their KING, it wanted not their will, as appears by the manner of their proceed against ROLFE, upon the discovery of the practice against His Life.  
That unhappy Prince, Rich. the 2. came young to His Crown, and was checked and over awed by the power of His Uncles, and other great Princes of His blood, and embroiled with the factions of a potent Nobility, who made the then assemblies of Parliament to act all their ambitious projects, & forced the KING to entrust powers to some of them, who thereby became Masters of Him, and raised Forces against Him, and prevailed over Him; killed and destroyed divers of the KING'S most faithful Subjects, enfonced Him to call this Parliament of 11. and proceeded tumultuously and rebelliously in it, and threatened to Depose the KING, unless he consented to make an Act to attaint and punish divers men that they accused of a Conspiracy to destroy the KING (a known untruth,) but there is no mention that they were accused for assisting the KING, making a War against the Parliament, there being no such case; for it were a madness to think the KING would make a War upon the Parliament (understood the Houses) that He could Dissolve them with His breath; nor any mention of fundamental Laws whereby such case was Treason, so lewdly false are these Men in their Quotations: and in the same Parliament they got likewise a general Pardon from the KING for their proceed upon this reason, That it was done for the Weal of the Kingdom, (that is in their opinions:) let any honest or knowing man that reads those Records judge where the Treason lies, either in these that were thus pardoned, or in others that were illegally destroyed: And when Henry the 4. being one of the chief Conspirators against Him, and Deposing Him, confirms in his Parliament after he had Imprisoned his lawful KING, the acts of that lawless Parliament, no man can think it other, than a means to assure his wicked Usurpation and former Treason, and of no more authority, but of no use at all in the present question.  
And if we had no clearer demonstrations of those men's corruptions, the use they make of this odious example might sufficiently instruct all men of their intentions; and the sad story of the success of that detestable usurpation may warn us to prevent the progress of these men; for from that year of the 11 of Richard the second, the Kingdom had no rest for almost an hundred years, constant faction among the Nobility; bloody executions of such persons as the jealousy of the Usurper made him fear of; continual Tumults and civil broils at home, or war abroad, and which ended not but in the final extirpation of the numerous Male Line of our Kings, the destruction of the very Famisies of the greatest part of the Nobility; besides, the great change that fell on the minds of men, the Nation was grown barbarous, and the many inhuman cruelties and injustices that daily occurred, may strike horror into any man of Honour, Piety, or Honesty to think on such a condition, which these Voters have in a great measure now introduced.  
And for conclusion, they agree to the former Votes, and think that it is a double testimony, as the Stature of 11 Richard the 2. and, Henry the 4. and having served themselves of ridiculous complaints of the KING'S intentions, rumours of jealousies and fears to begin this War upon Him, continue the same shameless exclamations, when they have Imprisoned and Dethroned Him; and they may as well be believed, if they Vote that the KING is not in prison, and that they have made no War against Him, as in Voting a War against them to deliver the KING, is a War against the Parliament. If they had made conscience of Treason, these Votes had never been, nor this War. But they have gotten Force, and that's their Law; however it's to be hoped, that their Kingdom gotten by falsehood; and exercised by tyranny will end suddenly, and then they will be as odious to themselves, as they have been insolent over others; and as they have Cain's curse, will wish for his mark, lest every one that meets them should prove their Executioner.   

Printed at Paris, and reprinted at London. 1648.  
FINIS.