A DECLARATION OF THE WELL-AFFECTED In the County of Buckinghamshire.  
BEING A Representation of the middle sort of Men within the three Chilterne Hundreds of Disbrough, Burnum, and Stoke, and part of Alisbury Hundred, whereby they Declare their Resolution and Intentions, with a Removal of their Grievances.   printer's or publisher's device 
May 10th Printed in the Year. 1649.   

A DECLARATION OF THE Well-affected in the County of BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.  
WE have for this eight years waited with much patience, and great expense of Treasure, besides the loss of many our dear friends, in the pursuance of our just Rights, and Freedoms, which God had invested us withal, and the whole Nation, and kept from us by the Arbitrary Powers, & tyrannical Factions of the Nobility, Courtiers, Episcopal Priests, and wicked cheating Lawyers, besides Impropriators, Patentee-men, Lords of Manors, and all illegal Courts, etc. and other diabolical Interest parties, that had all their Licences, Patents, Grants, Commissions, from the late King, whose first Predecessor was that outlandish Bastard, William the Norman Conqueror; from whence doth proceed the original of all our slavery, both in Tenors, Terms, tyrannical Laws, Customs, etc. whereby we, the lower sort of People, are made slaves to the wills of Tyrants, by reason the Law, being in an outlandish Tongue, and withal bought and sold by the Lawyers, who judge the Causes according to the Purse, and will do no Justice without money; so for filthy lucre, will stand to justify and maintain any unjust, and wicked, and tyrannical Custom, or illegal persecutions of any Tyrants whatsoever, although to the utter deprivation and undoing of the poor widows, fatherless, etc. and to the advancing the Wills of merciless Tyrants; and which said parties, especially the Lawyers, was the chief instruments of procuring all that miserable effusion of bloodshed, and ruin in this Nation, by the Judges giving their Verdict for ship-monies, and other Monopolies over all sorts and trades, and which doth still strive to hinder all good, and godly, honest and just Reformation, they striving rather to uphold their own theft and deceit, then admitting any just composure and agreement of the People, lest all trials should be by twelve men of the neighbourhood in every Hundred; without expense and charge, which would be the ruin of their needless Calling, and a full ease to the People, who are now vexed and undone by their Removes, Demurs, and needless journeys to their Terms, whereby they live upon the only Dissensions, and Differences of the People, and by whose Subtleties, Counsels, and Delusions, the whole Nation hath been enslaved ever since the foresaid Conquest, by whose stratagems all the middle sort, and poor People hath been pursued by merciless Privileges, great men, as Lords, Gentlemen, and extorting Lords of Manors, whereby all wicked Customs, as Fines; Hariots, Quitrents, and Headsilvers, with all slavish and base Tenours, Tyths, Impropriations, and Patents, Prerogative Charters; the said Lawyers being always Judges and Stewards of those Arbitrary Courts, and are chosen by those Prerogative Borough towns to be Burgesses of Parliament, which have been the great obstructors and hinderers of all our Liber●ies, Freedoms, and natural Rights.  
But when we received so many Promises, Declarations, and Remonstrances from the Parliament, that so soon as God should make them capable, and overthrow their ene●ies that were in arms against them, they would make us the absolute freest People in the world, removing all Oppressions; all which did engage us to assist them: and finding them to apostatise from their principles in their Treaties, the Army promising to stand by us that we might have our Freedoms; but finding both the Parliament and Army to break their promises and to be as Arbitrary as those that were before them, in maintaining all the foresaid oppressions upon us, with new vexations, as Excise, Taxes, Freequarter, etc. suffering their Committees to domineer over us, the same Terms, Lawyers, Courts, remain as corrupt as formerly, Tithes, slavish Tenors, Tolls, Patents, etc. still in force, our friends most unjustly, and Starchamber-like imprisoned by a new Committee, called the Council of State, which was never desired to be set up or allowed to tyrannize over the People, yet no less than four of our worthy friends, as Mr. Lilburn, Mr. Walwin, Mr. Prince, Mr. Overton, must be by them sent to the Tower at their pleasure, for not answering Interogatories; the Parliament approve of it, some of our friends cast into other prisons, as Captain Bray, and an honest faithful soldier murdered, and shot to death by the audacious and perfidious proud Officers of the Army, who in a Council of War condemus him, the General refusing to pardon or repleeve him, the Janisary soldiers murder him, so that even the old conquest of William the Norman is now revived again; the forenamed Lawyers, with the Impropriators, Lords of Manors, Patentee men, and chief Officers of the Army, with the Judges, wicked Peers, etc. being compacted all in one, and minding utterly to betray, enslave, and undo us, more than those former Tyrants before them, doth still keep up the Kingly power, altering the title, and all that Diabolical Interest that doth belong unto it, etc. so that Quitrents, Fines, and Hariots, Tolls and Customs are still forced upon us, and the Impropriators suing us for Tithes; no right Justice to be had for the meaner and poor people, many undone, ready to famish and starve, yet no effectual course taken for them, as their need requires, all our honest Petitions slighted, and disregarded.  
All which tyranny, oppression, and arbitrary proceed of theirs, makes us doubt of any true Reformation, or just Freedom and Liberty to come from them, so long as those wicked Lawyers and impropriators, etc. are amongst them, and until all those Lawyers and Impropriators be purged out from amongst them it will be to little purpose to make any more addresses to them.  
Likewise finding the Grandees of the Army to be the men that hinder both the honest soldiery, that stands for absolute Freedom, and doth imprison, and put them to death, that are for just principles of common Right and Equity, so that those honest men are by those proud Commanders persecuted by the name of Levellers.  
By all which, we see those chief Commanders are grown to an extreme height of avarice, pride, hypocrisy and apostasy, mere arbitrary Politicians preferring their filthy lucre's, and diabolical interests, gain and ugly honour, more than the common Freedom of us and the soldiery, for a great part of them to be so barbarous, as to subject themselves to those Commanders wills, although it be to murder their fellows that are godly, honest, and conscientious, etc.  
All which, both by Parliament, and Grandees of the Army, there can be but little good expected from them, and bootless for us any longer to wait for their delivering us, notwithstanding their flattering delusions, and hypocritical Fasts, making us believe they would take off our oppressions, when they lay more on us, not at all removing the Roman power, but allowing Law to be bought and sold still, and yet will not suffer our imprisoned friends to have it for their money, but to lie in prison during pleasure, etc. inventing new ways to try them; others tried, sentenced, condemned, killed, etc. even by a Court Martial, contrary to the diabolical Norman Laws themselves.  
ANd therefore we declare our intentions, that the World may take notice of our Principles, which are for common right and freedom. And therefore, 

1. We do protest against all Arbitrary Courts, Terms, Lawyers, Impropriators, Lords of Manors, Patents, Privileges, Customs, Tolls, Monopolizers, Incroachers, Inhancers, etc. or any other interest-parties, whose power are Arbitrary, etc. as not to allow, or suffer ourselves to be enslaved by any of those parties, but shall resist, as far as lawfully we may, all their Arbitrary proceed.  
2. We protest against the whole Norman power, as being too intolerable a burden any longer to bear.  
3. We protest against paying Tithes, Tolls, Custom, etc.  
4. We protest against coming to Westminster Terms, or to give any money to the Lawyers, but will endeavour to have all our controversies ended by 2, 3, or 12 men of our own neighbourhood, as before the Norman Conquest.  
5. We protest against any trial by a Martial Court, as Arbitrary, Tyrannical, and Wicked; and not for a free people to suffer in time of Peace.  
6. We shall help to aid and assist the poor, to the regaining all their Rights, deuce, etc. that do belong unto them, and are detained from them by any tyrant whatsoever.  
7. And likewise will further and help the said poor to manure, dig, etc. the said Commons, and to fell those woods growing thereon to help them to a stock, etc.  
8. All well-affected persons that join in community in God's way, as those Acts 2. and desire to manure, dig, and plant in the waste grounds and Commons, shall not be troubled or molested by any of us, but rather furthered therein.  
9 We desire to go by the golden rule of equity, viz. To do to all men as we would they should do to us, and no otherwise; And as we would tyrannize over none, so we shall not suffer ourselves to be slaves to any whosoever.     
FINIS.