THE VINDICATION OF JUDGE JENKINS Prisoner in the TOWER, the 29. of April, 1647.  
I Was convened upon Saturday the 10. of this month of April before a Committee of the House of Commons, wherein Master Corbet had the Chair; and I was there to be examined upon some Questions then to be propounded to me; to which Questions I refused to give any other answer than that which was set down in a paper I then delivered to the said M. Corbet, which followeth in these words:  

Gentlemen,  
I stand committed by the House of Commons for high Treason, for not acknowledging, nor obeying the power of the two Houses, by adhering to the King in this War. I deny this to be Treason for the supreme and only power, by the Laws of this Land is in the King. If I should submit to any examination derived from your Power, which by the Negative Oath stands in opposition to the King's Power, I should confess the Power to be in you, and so condemn myself for a Traitor, which I neither ought nor will do.  
I am sworn to obey the King, and the Laws of this Land: you have not power to examine me by those Laws, by the King's Writ, Patent, or Commission; if you can produce either thereof, I will answer the questions you shall propound; otherwise I cannot answer thereto, without the breach of my Oath, and the violation of the Laws, which I will not do to save my life.  
You yourselves, all of you this Parliament, have sworn that the King is our only and supreme Governor: your Protestation, your Vow and Covenant, your solemn League and Covenant, your Declarations, all of them publish to the Kingdom, that your scope is the maintenance of the Laws; those Laws are and must be derived to us, and enlivened by the only supreme Governor, the Fountain of justice, and the life of the Law, the King. The Parliaments are called by his writs; the Judges sit by his Patents, so of all other Officers; the Cities and Towns corporate, govern by the King's Charters; and therefore since by the Law I cannot be examined by you, without a power derived by His Majesty, I neither can, nor will, nor ought you to examine me upon any questions. But if as private Gentlemen, you shall be pleased to ask me any questions, I shall really and truly answer every such question, as you shall demand.  
April 10. 1647. David jenkin's.   
This paper hath been misrepresented to the good people of this City by a Printed one, styling it my Recantation, which I own not; and besides is in itself repugnant (just like these times) the Body falls out with the Head. To vindicate myself from that Recantation, and to publish to the world the reality of the Paper then delivered to Mr. Corbet, and the matter therein contained, I have published this ensuing discourse.  

No person who hath committed Treason, Murder, or Felony, hath any assurance at all for so much as one hour of life, Lands or Goods, without the King's gracious pardon, 27 Hen. 8. Cap, 24.  
The King is not virtually in the two Houses at Westminster, whereby they may give any assurance at all to any person, in any thing, for any such offence.  
1. The House of Commons hath declared to the Kingdom in their Declaration of the 28 of November last to the Scots Papers, pag. 8. That the King at this time is not in a condition to govern. No person or thing can derive a virtue to other men, or things, which itself hath not: and therefore it is impossible that they should have a virtue from the King to govern, which they declare he hath not himself to give.  
2. The Law of the Land is, 
5. Elizab. Cap. 1.  That no person in any Parliament hath a voice in the House of Commons, but that he stands a person to all intents and purposes as if he had never been elected or returned, if before he sit in the House, he take not his Oath upon the holy Evangelists, that the King's Majesty is the only and supreme Governor over all persons in all Causes. All the Members of the said House have taken it, and at all times as they are returned do take it; otherwise they have no colour to intermeddle with the public Affairs. How doth this Solemn and Legal Oath agree with their said Declaration, That the King is in no condition to govern? By the one it is sworn, He is the only supreme Governor; by the other, that he is not in a condition to govern.  
3. The Oath is not, that the King was, or aught to be, or had been, before he was seduced by ill Council, our only and supreme Governor in all Causes, over all persons; but in the present tense, that he is our only and supreme Governor, at this present, in all Causes and over all persons. So they the same persons swear one thing, and declare to the Kingdom the contrary of the same thing, at the same time, in that which concerneth the weal of all this Nation.  
4. The Ministers in the Pulpits do not say, what they swear in the House of Commons. Who ever heard since this unnatural War, any of their Presbyters attribute that to his Majesty which they swear? The reason is, their Oath is taken at Westminster amongst themselves: that which their Ministers pray and preach, goes amongst the people. To tell the people that the King is now their only and supreme Governor in all Causes, is contrary to that the Houses do now practise, and to all they act and maintain. They, the two Houses forsooth, are the only and supreme Governors in default of the King, for that he hath left his great Council, and will not come to them, and yet the King desires to come, but they will not suffer him, but keep him prisoner at Holmby: so well do their Actions and Oaths agree.  
5. They swear now King Charles is their only and supreme Governor; but with a resolution at the time of the Oath taking, and before and after, that he shall not be only or supreme Governor, or only and supreme, but not any Governor at all: For there is no point of Government, but for some years passed they have taken to themselves, and used his name only, to abuse and deceive the people.  
6. That this virtual power is a mere fiction, their Propositions sent to Oxford, to Newcastle, to be signed by the King, do prove it so. What needs this ado, if they have the virtual Power with them at Westminster.  
7. To affirm that the King's power (which is the virtue they talk of) is separable from his person, is high Treason by the Law of the Land; which is so declared by that learned man of the Law, Sir Edward Cook; so much magnified by this present Parliament, who in the 7 part of his Reports in calvin's case, fol. 11. saith thus. In the reign of Edward the second, the Spencers, the Father and Son, to cover the Treason hatched in their hearts, invented this damnable and damned opinion, that homage and Oath of Ligeance was more by reason of the King's Crown, (that is, of his politic capacity) then by reason of the person of the King upon which opinion they inferred 3. execrable and detestable consequences. 1. If the King do not demean himself by reason in the right of his Crown, his liege's are bound by Oath to remove the King. 2. seeing that the King could not be reform by suit of Law, that aught to be done per aspertee that is by force. 3. That his liege's be bound to govern in aid of him, and in default of him: All which were condemned by two Parliaments, one in the reign of Edw. 2. called exilium Hugonis le Spencer; and the other in Anno 1. Edw. 3. cap. 2.  
And that the natural body and politic makes one indivisible body, and that these two bodies incorporate in one person make one body, and nor divers, is resolved as the Law of England. 4. Eliz. Ploydon Com. fol. 213. by Sir Cobert Catlin, Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir james Dier, Lord chief Justice of the Common Please, the Lord Sanders, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and by the rest of the Judges, viz. Justice Rastall, Justice Browne, Justice Corbet, Justice Weston, Baron Frevyll, Conne and Pewdrell, Sergeant Gerrard Attorney General; carel Atturry of the Dutch: Plowdon the learnedest man of that age, in the knowledge of the Law, and Customs of the Realm.  
8. The Law in all ages without any controversy is and hath been: That no Act of Parliament binds the Subjects of this Land without the assent of the King, either for Person, 
9 Hen. 3. Magna Charta. So in every age till this day, & in every King's time, as appears by the Acts in Print 1 part of the Instit Sect. 234. in fine where many of the Law-Bookes are cited. 7 Hen. 7. 14. 12. of Hen. 7. 20.  Lands, Goods, or Fame. No man can show any syllable, letter, or line to the contrary in the books of the Law, or printed Acts of Parliament, in any age in this Land. If the virtual Power be in the Houses, there needs no assent of the Kings. The styles of the Acts printed from 9 Hen. 3. to 1. Hen. 7. were either, The King ordains at his Parliament, etc. or the King ordaineth by the advice of his Prelates and Barons, and at the humble Petition of the Commons, etc. In Hen. 7. his time the Style altered, and hath since continued thus, It is ordained by the King's Majesty, & the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled. So that always the Assent of the King giveth the life to all, as the soul to the body; and therefore our Law-Bookes call the King, the Fountain of Justice, and the life of the Law.  
9 Mercy as well as Justice belongs by the law of the Land only to the King. 
2 Hen. 4. Cap. 22. 4 pars instit. 42. Mr. Prin in his Treatise of the great Seal Fol. 17. 27. Hen. 8. ● Chap. 24.  This is confessed by Mr. Prynn, and it is so without any question: The King can only pardon, and never more cause to have sufficient pardons then in such troublesome times as these, and God send us pardons & peace. None can give any pardon, but the King by the Law of the Land: the whole and sole power of pardoning Treasons and Felonies belongs to the King, are the words of the Law, and it is a delusion to take it from any other and utterly invalid. 27. H. 8. Cap. 24.  
10. Queen Elizabeth summoned her first Parliament, to be held the 23 of Jan. in the first year of her Majesty's Reign. The Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same writ, the 23 day the Queen fell sick and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day, and therefore prorogued it until the 25. of the same Month of January. Resolved by all the judges of England, 
3 of Eliz. Dier. 203.  that the Parliament began not the day of the return of the writ, viz. the 23 of january, when the Lords and Commons appeared, but the 25 of the said month when the King came in person: which showeth evidently that this virtual presence is a mere deluding fiction that hath no ground in Law, reason, or sense. They have the King now a prisoner at Holmby, with guards upon him, and yet they govern by the virtual Power of their Prisoner. These are some few of the causes & reasons which moved me to deliver that paper to M. Corbet, which I am ready to justify with my life, and should hold it a great honour to die for the honourable and holy Laws of the Land: That which will save this Land from destruction, is an Act of Oblivion, and His Majesty's gracious general pardon, the Soldiers their Arriers, and every man his own, and Truth and Peace established in the Land, and a favourable regard had to the satisfaction of tender Consciences.  
April 29. 1647. David jenkin's.