A KEY TO THE CABINET OF THE PARLIAMENT, BY THEIR REMEMBRANCER.  
Printed in the Year, 1648.   

A KEY TO THE CABINET OF THE PARLIAMENT, By their Remembrancer.  
NOw since it is my fate to take upon me this office; I think it not amiss if I begin to show the manner of their coming in to that( once) renowned House.  
First, they bring with them a Certificate from the Sheriff of the County, or bailiff of the burrow, for what place they serve; and this they produce to the clerk of the House of Commons, or his under-Clerkes, who then procure a Commissioner to give them the two oaths, viz. the Oath of Allegiance, and the Oath of Supremacy, so paying their Fees are admitted into the House: Let them remember what great obeysances they had use to make to the chair, which shows that they are but persons put in trust by their Country to make Intercession by an awful compliance with their King; and they were no sooner set there, but they fell on with such Gigantine blows, as that they made even Majesty itself afraid of their passionate fury, 
* In the first week of their sitting, that worthy Gent: Sir Thomas Jermine said unto the Pages that were playing the wags upon the stairs, Boyes be ye tempeate this will prove a whipping Parliament.  and then cunningly and fauningly gloze and Court their Country Masters, and if any quarrels arose in respect of Elections( as indeed there were very many, and tis observable the most factious among them all, and I wish they were not the greater part of the House) they ordinarily referred the debate to a Committee of privileges, where after a great deal of do the party most fit for their turns right or wrong commonly carried it, a thing not out of fashion stil, or else there could not be so many of the Army get in, some of them such inconsiderate fellows, both in endowments of minds, and fortunes, that it s no wonder we see no better daies nor more accommodation: for tis observable that the chief sticklers in all these grand designs, are for the most part men who have been forward Committee men in the Country, to raise and extort moneys from their fellow Subjects; or else Souldiers of fortune, that for their cruel murdering, plundering, and robbing, have been chosen by the industry of their Jesuited Priests, as Peters, the late Saltmarsh, del, and others, who upon the taking in of any town that sand Members to the Parliament, if it were a hundred miles off, Peters would not sail to be there; and be sure to fall in with all the Faction of that place: and by Preaching and seducing them, obtaineth such a one to serve as may be most fit to promote their ambitious party. Then Peters comes riding up to the town in all hast, happy are they that first met with him, is called into the House, and tells them of his good service, and of their success, and they with a bountiful hand bestow upon him 100. l. at a time:( liberal Masters, that can tell how to cut large thongs out of other mens hides) and Ile undertake that by his roguery in those ways, he has gotten in these distracted times Thousands of pounds, which he cannot deny no more then he may the distracting of a poor woman at the English house in Roterdam; who while he was Preacher there to the English Congregation, Preached such close Doctrine into this woman, that out of the sense of that abominable sin, she did despair and fell mad, to her everlasting shane; and then this Rogue ran away thence, and so for New England, then to Ireland, then to England again: for there's not a part either beyond Seas, or at home, where the anabaptistical faction reigns but he has influence upon very highly, and so propagates the seed of the Saints, that he is a mere Stallion to the Sisters, and I think you'l aclowledge him a fit Chaplain for such a Parliament as now we have, for be there any State bawdry to do, be it to make a marriage between both Houses and the City( as he himself calls it) Oh how he bestirs himself, Christ Church can scarce hold him, there we must have a whole herd of Citizens so formally gathered together in their gowns, lifting up the yolks of their eyes in an hypocritical posture of Devotion, a man would bless himself to see so much vilainy harboured in such a house as that is, which was consecrated for Divine worship; to be thus made a theatre to act and mould the State villainies ' as hell itself can invent; and then forsooth the Parliament Members, and the mayor, Aldermen and Citizens, must feast together at the poor common Citizens charge: there must be no healths, no, these are but shoeing horns to drunkenness, but feed and taste abominably of the creature, then throwing the glasses and pots up and down the room, and laughing and fooling like so many Gypsies or Mummers, and by and by at a Grace half an hour long, and then a psalm, after that an Exhortation which must be freighted with malicious and traitorous ingredients for the de-throning of the King, or keeping Him from coming home. So that we can have no peace, and then bethinking themselves of such a rich Malignant or the like, who is not so forward in Gods cause, how they may bring them unto a Committee of Examinations at Westminster, and then to Cambden house and so to Goldsmiths Hall; and tell me are not these fine kind of Holly-dayes? and have not they reason to suppress all Holly-dayes instituted formerly by the Church for the service of God, and for some refreshment to young people? What need is there of any plays? will not these serve well enough, especially when they have gotten Hillyar Swansted the Player to be one? I dare say these sorts of meetings have cost the City since this blessed time of Reformation at the least 2000. l. at several times. But if the Citizens entertain the King but once in half a score years at the most; if He doth not grant them what they list, He shall be sure to be  told of it in a public Declaration, as He was served the last meat they publicly gave Him: Oh how courteous were they to Him when He came to Guild-Hall to demand the Members, were they not ready to pull him in pieces out of His Coach? did not Bard and brown in Cheapside, Mainwaring that broken Rascall, Ven that cruel tiger that hath eaten up Windsor, it is unspeakable what wrong he hath done the Inhabitants of that town; besides the irreparable prejudice to the Kings royal Castle there, and was there not some reason think you, for such kind of vermin as these to make all this stir? was it not known how all these fellows were ready to fall into Newgate or some other Gaole either for debt or other nefarious Crimes? and have they not been well rewarded for these their good affections? did not Mainwaring receive large rewards, when besides Colonel of a Regiment of Red-coates at the beginning, was made Ticket-master? worth the best part of a 1000. l. per annum, which lasted for several years, then a place in the Custom-house, after that another place at Dover, yet for all this, this Religious Gentleman lies a prisoner in Execution for above 10000. l. debt in the Kings Bench; his conscience not permitting him to pay his debts, saying, he holdeth not himself bound to pay his debts out of the moneys he hath gotten in the times of War; have you heard of such arch knavery? view but the rest of them, there's brown, must have his Coach, and truly a Cart would better become him, he and Bard were partners, commonly called Horse-stealers, I mean Horse Lysters, mark these fellowes, how glorious they are; how they glitter in apparel; what houses they dwell in, while other moderate men sit down by extreme loss, finding themselves much exhausted of their Estates, and still must expect to bleed as often as our Grand chirurgeons at Westminster please to open their veins.  
And now I hold it fit to remember the Parliament, how at the beginning a little before these Wars, that they or some of them employed Mr. John Lilburne, and others at Wapping and other places thereabout to stir up the Seamen, and mad multitude to come up to Westminster and abuse the King in his own house, using such base language as no private man( much less the person of so gracious a Prince) could endure: this is that which begot all the misery, this made the King forsake the Parliament when his life was in such hazard: here begun our evil daies: I had not mentioned this had it not lain so much in my way, and had I not known that Mr. Lilburne himself has spoken it, and will justify it when they dare to question him. From hence proceeds a deadness of Trade; Shops shut up on purpose to enrage the poorer sort of people, and all must be then construed as if the King had a mind to overthrow the Parliament; Straffords head they had hurried off before; the manner of that proceeding against him hath been spoken already by others.  
Then let me tell them at Westminster how they laid aside all private businesses, here they begun to shut up the Committee of Grievances when they had received thousands of Petitions,( no where reliefable but by a Parliament) and deny it( if they can) how many times since that they have opened and shut this Committee, as if it were good manners to play at boe peep with their fellow Subjects in the administration of justice, and how many Chairemen have they made since that; causing continual attendance to the vast charge and unsupportable burden of the Common-wealth. Their Grand Committee of Religion they then shut, & set up another in the room, which they call a Committee of Plundering Ministers, & well may you call it so, for there was never such Plundering, Robbing, and ruineing of so many orthodox Divines in the greatest persecution that I ever red of, and why all this but because they would not take the Covenant, and become involved in their traitorous State net, perjuring themselves, and dishonouring and destroying the face and beauty of that reverend Government, which no Church in christendom could( before they laid on their Sacrilegious hands) in any measure parallel: I tremble they dare to remember how many of these poor Ministers have heen wrecked by their Serjeants at arms, putting their Deputies to work to haunt these men, who although for the most part are more merciful then their selves, yet they allow them no fees but what they are forced to extort from these poor Gentlemen, while they sell, give or dispose of their livings for their own ends, and is it not their fashion to countenance all the complaints, let them come from never so mean and evil bread Raschals, where upon the bare averment of two such like fellows, they out them of their benefice, and what do they with these Livings, do not they inquire after the worth of them, & then bestow them upon such who can best advance their cause? do not they Cloath their mock Synod of Divines with these stolen garments, and give the best unto such as can promote their cause? so that dulness and profaneness in a great measure abounds: have they not by this means, by the setting up of these thunderbolts, cheated the people out of their Allegiance, and taught them more heretical Seditious principles then ever was heard of? we need not talk any more of John of Layden, the Anabaptists of Munster, New-England, or Amsterdam, they maintain one Minister John Goodwin in Colemanstreet, who of his Congregation( as he calls it) can hold forth such new principles, or rather indeed old heresies, and broach them in every Sermon that for ought I see he is able to cudgle all your Assembly into as much silence as your new Vice-Chancell or of Cambridge was in the other day, 
Hill Master of Trinity college.  who being to preach a Sermon in St. Maries, and having name his Text and talked a while was not able to go forward, nor backward, and so came down, and the Novices mist that dayes portion, which perhaps might have poisoned them for the time of all their ages. And is it not their custom when they are at a stand that their State chariot wants wheels, to set these fellowes at work, as they did by your London Ministers at Sion college, on Tuesday last past where the main matter in charge to them was that they must the next Sunday be sure to admire the Parliaments wisdom, their great care in the preserving our Liberties, their great bounty in giving the City a new Militia, the restoring of the Aldermen from the Tower, and to glue the two factions together against the royal party, and you Mr. Alderman Culham, are not you a pretty pigeon to whine so pig-like in your several Petitions, acknowledging your errors at first, and so was spared from going to the Tower, which indeed was too much honour for you, to be so near to the society of so many Heroes, so many gallant men; who for their love to their King and Country lie there and laugh at them; whom you fall upon your knees to: and are not you a very fool to buy your Liberty so dear as you did? when had you but stayed a little, two or three Counties Petitions had struck off the shackles, and the Prison doors had opened to you; Oh what a harmony will there be on Sunday next amongst the Godly Ministers all of one tune, that will be a day indeed, and in faith if that daies work do not take, their condition will abate very much, their supercilious looks will be humbled: they will be glad to hear their fellow Subjects without Petitions, I say without Petitions that must be stuffed with such particulars as may most conduce to their ends, which they call the peace and welfare of the kingdom; for if there be any thing that savours of any regard to the King, Oh how mad they are, they grin, how they stink like Polecats in a Gyn; your blood boils, your hearts prick you, your Consciences accuse you, their nefarious villainies fly in their faces, what a terror is the Law to them? think you not that all men well in their wits laugh at them to see how they eat their words, how they Vote and un-Vote, constant to no one principle they ever declared, and are they not every day inventing some new Jigge or other to make the poor swains dance after, and when they have pumpt their selves dry, Oh how convenient a thing it is that they have a Fast, and their Pulpies and their Presses admire their unwearied and indefatigable pains, Oh what balsam, what oil is this to their tender consciences; if this be not true, why are we  told on it so often by their Mercuries and Stage-players, for indeed we need not any more stage-plays, we thank them for suppressing them, they save us money; for Ile undertake we can laugh as hearty at Foxley, Peters, and others of their godly Ministers, as ever we did at Cane at the read Bull, Tom: Pollard in the humorous Lieutenant, Robins the Changeling, or any humorist of them all.  
And now let me cast about and see what kind of instruments they employ to do their business, are not the Committee men in the several Counties of the kingdom of their own setting up? are they not the fire-brands of all the people in the kingdom? who have they not Cheated, Robbed, Imprisoned, or Plundered, if they could be but guessed to be any whit loyal? Nay Ile put it further, have they not dealt so by their own friends, those that have contributed to their shirts to serve them? are not the people ready to cut the Committee mens throats, and if they did, do you imagine any honest man would be sorry? have not they for these actions occasioned all our late and present fears? have not the Parliament while now heard of their insolency? were they never  told of it? surely yes, by thousands: but it is just that at length their hearts should be troubled; for I wonder who( if honest, truly Religious, fearing God and his Anointed) that have escaped their claws; and now I think it not amiss if I tell you of a true story of that particular Committee of Kent, which is as followeth: Francis Owens a Merchant Stranger of London, about this time four years having received at Maidstone in Kent the sum of 200. l. in Silver, and coming to the crown inn at Rochester, to refresh himself and horse: The Committee was as it seems then and there sitting he a stranger born, and scarce able to speak any English at all, the Committee would needs know of him where he had this money; he Answered them as well as he could speak, at Maidstone, but desired them that some one of them would speak to him in French, they answered him nothing,( yet Ile be deposed there were hardly six of sixteen of the Committee but could speak it, and I think old Sir Henry Vane that was then there is not to be excused) they got out of him by his innocency that he had received this money of one Turner; which Turner as it seemed was then a servant to the Lord Tenham & a Papist, and was Imprisoned at Maidstone for Recusancy, upon this apprehension, the Committee would suggest that this money was the money of the Lord Tenham( who was then in France, and a Cathoilke, but went to travail with leave, and so a Delinquent no more then by the known Law) and would sequester the money, and so very fairly took him into a withdrawing room with three musketeers, they preached him for more money, captain Lee one of them said, itis probable you have gold about you as well as so much silver, they then pulled off his doublet, preached under his shirt, under his arms, the coller of his doublet, between his legs, may they searched all places about him, I cannot civilly name the places, but never Midwifes could be more private; they took away from him his Watch, and very bountifully allowed him seven or eight shillings, which was in his little pocket to carry him home, and so with many scissors and scorns let him go. There was then of that Committee many of those that are the grand Authors of this Combustion, as Blunt, Lee, Weldon, Lucey, Godfrey Walsingham, and many more, who I have now forgotten.  
By this very one act you may perceive what a deal of humanity there is amongst these fellows, what strange and dangerous businesses might have ensued upon this, when a stranger and a Merchant cannot at noon day go about his business, but he must be Robbed of his money, by them that would be thought the great preservers of the Common Interest, and might have made very dangerous fractures abroad in other parts, had not this Gentleman been a patient man; if you desire to know the truth hereof, the party dwelleth in St. Thomas the Apostles parish, and is every day upon the Exchange. Three years and more he was out of his money, made several journeys for a year & a halfs time to Westminster, solicited all the Clerkes, and made all the friends his money could purchase to be righted in this business, procured honest Sir Simon D'ewes, to move it in the House, shewed two several Affidavits made in Chancery, besides Mr. Owens own, touching the propriety: The Deputy Lieutenants, as captain Lee, and Sir Thomas Washingham was then by,( as the devil would have it) and opposed Noble Sir Simon, and that snarling Cur Sir Henry Mildmay, perceiving that the House were well pleased that Owens must be cheated out of his money; began to question Sir Simon for moving on the behalf of a Papist; a base and sorrel fellow who has no more Religion then a Redshanks in him, nor so much humanity; wherer's thy Religion Sirrah, thou jewel of Traytors? Thou that betrayest thy Master our gracious King every day; thou that art the perfectest villain above all the rest of the Covent, where was your Religion when you were found— with one of your Maids? remember how your wife scratch't your face, and you durst not show your head for a moneths time in the House of Commons, but he is so base that my pen cannot speak him: But Ile leave it to you my Country men, if you are not in a miserable condition, when your lives and fortunes are under the disposal of such men as these are. Awake, awake, why sleep you? remember how they govern, even as the great turk doth; even by force, by an Army, nay but they were so just, I may safely avow that since they hunted the King away from White-hall, there hath been more horrid actions committed by them, then have been by the Turkes in their Empire for the space of forty years, 'tis not unknown unto Merchants what a strict course they take there with those that attempt to violate the honour of the grand signior, the bowstring, smothering, boreing through the nose, striking off heads, quick work there, yet here we have a company of Saints that point-blanke dare declare against the Person and Government of the King: but see the book entitled the regal Apology answering their Declaration, I say see how they are bassled, how their impostures are unfolded and refuted; behold their hellish malice to their dread sovereign, compare the Answer with the Declaration, and then if thy conscience be not convinced, I must say, thou art blind; thy heart is hardened, thy God thou hast not served, his holy spirit( I am afraid) thou hast rejected; but if thou shalt satisfy thyself herein, Oh then what canst thou think of these men; how canst thou account them, are they a people fit to command thee, lay thy hand upon thy heart, and think whether ever English men thus suffered under such inferior men, having nothing to countenance these kind of actions more then the word Parliament; look ye Citizens about ye, see how at Sea they desert them, no less then ten of His Majesties own Ships have delared for Him, and three Castles in the downs Likewise, see how the poor welsh have struggled their share and continue still; see Kent their Loyalty, I wish they had more discretion then to meddle without a head, a Commander in chief, a wise company of solid Soldiers for a council of War would do well; behold Essex although betrayed and retarded by Warwick, and by Sir William Hicks, and Sir William Martin( since run away) yet are the royal party up still, and are at the least this day 5000. of them, 2000. Horse, remember Yarmouth, and norfolk, you will quickly hear of them; behold how pettily they keep the Committee in Essex still in prison, now let them Vote themselves out, as they had wont to Vote their neighbours out of their moneys, goods, and fortunes: Remember Cambridge shire horse, and their motions, Sir Lewis Dives in Huntingdon shire, a 1000 Horse under him, and Kimbolton Castle to boot, lincoln Declare for the King, and a goodly and brave Army in the North, under the Command of those two brave twins of true Chevalry Sir Marmaduke Langdale, and Sir Thomas Glenham, & if you stir not now I shall ere long tell you your own as well as I have the foresaid Saints, and know Ile be your Remembrancer too by Will: Pullens leave, and shall tell you more truth at once, then he shall in a whole year for his fee,( although though he thirsts so much after the morning Lectures.)  
The ship the Antilop being summoned( whereof Bowin is captain) by the Earl of Warwick at Portsmouth, the captain came a shore, and while Warwick was treating and seducing him with the Ordinance of indemnity, the Ship went into the downs and Declared for the King. Three small Ships at Portsmouth secured, by the E. of Warwick, several ships abroad suspected to join, with the revolted ships. The Kings party incite them to it, and expect Letters of Mart from the Duke of york to take Merchants good, and ships; and my Lord says he's come into these parts to try whether he can do more service then he could do there, being the half way to the downs.  
FINIS.