A SPEECH MADE BY CAPTAIN Audley Mervin to the Upper House of Parliament in Ireland, March 4. 1640. Together With certain Articles (of high Treason) against Sir Richard Bolton Lord Chancellor, John Lord Bishop of Derrie, Sir Gerard Lowther, Lord chief Justice of the Common-Pleas, and Sir George Radcliffe Knight. Unto which is added an humble and just Remonstrance of the Parliament.  
Printed for HUGH PERRY, Anno Dom. 1641.   

CAPTAIN AUDLEY MERVIN, his Speech to the Lords in the Upper House of Parliament, March 4. 1640. concerning the impeachment of the Right Honourable Sir Richard Bolton Knight, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John Lord Bishop of Derry, Sir Gerard Lowther, L. chief Justice of the Common-pleas, and Sir George Radcliffe Knight with high Treason, by the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the Commons' House.  
My Lords:  
I Am commanded by the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the Commons house, to present unto you Ireland's tragedy, the gray-headed common Law's funeral, and the active Statutes death and obsequies, this dejected spectacle answers but the prefiguring type of Caesar's murder wounded to death in the Senate, and by Brutus his bosom friend, our Caesar's Image, by reflection, even the fundamental Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom, the sole means by which our estates are confirmed, our Liberties preserved, our lives secured, are wounded to death in the Senate, I mean in the Courts of Justice, and by Brutus too, even by those persons that have received their beings and subsistence from them, so that here enters first those unseparable twins, Treason and Ingratitude.  
In a plain phrase (my Lords) I tender unto you Treason, high treason, such a treason that wants nothing but words to express it.  
To counterfeit the King's Seal, to counterfeit the King's Money it is treason, but this dies with the Individual party.  
To betray a Fort is treason, but it dies with a few men.  
To betray an Army is treason, but it dies with a limited number, which may be reinforced again by politic industry.  
To blow Up both Houses of Parliament is treason, but succeeding Ages may replant branches by a fruitful posterity.  
But this high Treason which I do now again in the name of the house of Commons charge and impeach Sir Richard Bolton Knight, Lord Chansellour of Ireland, and Sir Gerard Lowther Knight, Lord chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas, John L. Bishop of Derry: Sir George Ratcliff Knight, is in its nature so far transcending any of the former, that the rest seem to be but petty Larcines in respect of this. What is it to subvert the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom? High Treason.  
What is it with a contumacious malice to trample under feet the rich Legacies of our forefather's purchased with sweat and expense, I mean the Statute Laws, what is it but high Treason?  
What is it through an Innate antipathy to their public good to incarcerate the liberties of the Subject, under the Jron and weighty chains of an arbitrary government? High Treason.  
What is it (since his Majesty the most aimiable and delightful portraiture of flourishing and indulgent Justice to his Subjects) to present him personated in their extrajudicial censures & judgements, but to possess (if possible) the hearts of his loyal Subjects of this Kingdom, that he is a bloody and devouring Tyrant, & to provoke their never dying allegiance into a fatal & desperate Rebellio.  
What is it to violate the sacred grants of many of his Majesty's Progenitors Kings and Queens of England confirmed under the broad Seal being the public faith of this Kingdom, by an extrajudicial breath grounded upon no record?  
What is it to insert a surreptitions clause forged by some servile brain in the preamble of our last Act of Subsidies, by which the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Earl of Strafford are placed in one and the same Sphere, allowing them but equal influences to nourish the allegiance of this Kingdom, what is this but to extol other then regal authority, and to crucify the Majesty of cur most gracious Sovereign betwixt the two Thiefs of government: Tyranny and Treason.  
My Lords, having such a full & lasting gale to drive me into the depth of these accusations, I can hardly steer & confine my course within the compass of patience, since I read in the first volumes of their brows, the least of these to be the certain ruin of the Subject, &, if proved, a most  Prologue to usher in the Tragedy of the Actors, Counselors, & abetters herein. What was then the first & main question? It was the subversion of the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom. Letthen Magna Charta, that lies prostrated, besmeared and roaling in her own gore discount her wounds as so many pregnant and undeniable proofs mark the Epithet magna; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirmed by 30. Parliaments in the succession of 18. Kings, the violation of which hath several times engaged the Kingdom of England in a voluntary sacrifice; a Charter which imposeth that pleasant and well be coming Oath upon all Sovereignty to vindicate & preserve the immunity there of before the Crown encircle their royal Temples, in this Oath of so high consequence and general Interest, his Majesty doth in a manner levy a fine to his Subjects use, for avoiding all fraudulent conveyances in the administration of Justice, & this oath is transplanted unto the Judges as the Feoffees in trust appointed between his Majesty & the Subject, & sealed by his Majesty's provident care, with that emphatical penalty, that their estates and lives shall be in the King's mercy, upon the violation of the same, either in whole or in part, neither hath the deserved punishment, for the breach of this oath been enacted, as Fulgura ex vitro, as Bugbears to enforce the obedience of Children; No my Lords, the just execution of it upon their predecessors, though in breaches not so capital, might have warned them to have strangled their ill-borne resolutions in the cradle, before they should now proclaim their infamy, and petition for their punishment: witness Sir Tho: Wey land his banishment, confiscation of his goods and lands, only for his mercenary Justice contrary to his Oath, who was chief Justice of the Common-Pleas, in the time of Ed. 1. witness Sir Will: Thorpe chief Justice of the Kings-Beach, in the time of Edw. 3. who was adjudged to be hanged, because he had broken the King's oath, made unto the people where with he was entrusted, for so was the interpretation of the reason entered in the roll.  
Yet my Lords, though Magna Charta be so sacred for antiquity, though its confirmation be strengthened by Oath, though it be the proper Dictionary that expounds meum and tuum, and assigns every Subject his Birthright, it only survives in the Rolls; but is miserably rend and torn in the practice.  
These words Salvo contenemento, live in the Rolls, but these are dead in the Castle Chamber.  
These words; Nullus liber hujus ejiciatur e libero suo tenemento, in praejudicium parium, live in the Rolls, but they are dead where property and freehold are determined by paper Petitions.  
These words; Nulli vendemus, nulle differemus justitiam, live in the Rolls, but they are dead when the suits, judgements, and execution of the Subject are wittingly & illegally suspended, retarded & avoided.  
Shall we desire to search the mortal wounds inflicted upon the Statute Laws, who sees them notlying upon their death bed stabbed with Proclamations, there Primitive and genuine tenors escheated by Acts of State, and strangled by Monopolies.  
Will you survey the liberties of the Subjects, every prison spews out illegal attachments & commitments, every pillory is died with the forced blood of the Subjects, and hath ears, though not to hear, yet to witness this complaint.  
Do you doubt of the defacement of the aymiable Offices of his Majesty's most transplendent and Renowned justice, and grace, let then that Microcosm of Leters Patents confirmed under his Majesties and his predecessors broad Seal of the Kingdom, being the public faith thereof, and yet unchristened by frivolous & private opinions, rise up in judgement, let the abortive judgement of the tenure in Capite, where no tenure was expressed, nay let the Heretical and Traitorous opinions where the Tenure was expressed, yet to draw in all by Markets and Fairs granted in the same Patents rise up in judgements. What glass hath this unhappy divided Kingdom from his Majesty's presence and audience, to contemplate the fair and ravishing form of his royal intentions in, but in the clear and diaphanous administration of his Justice, and what do these traitorous & illegal practices aim at but in affront to his Majesty (which we most tenderly resent) and discontent to his Subject, to multiply as by a Magic glass the royal dispensation of his favours into the ugly and deformed visage of their suppression of the liberties, devastation of the estates, & the deprivation of the lives of his loyal Subjects, so that it may be said; Regali Capiti cervicem consul equiaam Jungere sic vellet variasque inducere plumas.  
My Lords, these aught to be considered with as serious an care, as they were practised by mischievous experiments.  
Inquire of the Netherlands why their fields are grown fertile, by the inundation of blood, why the pensive Matrons solemnize too too frequent Funerals of their Husbands and issue, and they will answer you it was for the preservation of their hereditary Laws, which Tyranny would have innovated.  
This Kingdom personated in the sable habit of a Widow with dissheveled hairs seems to Petition your Lordships, that since she is a Mother to most of us, yet certainly a Nurse unto us all, that you would make some order for redress of her Tyrannical oppression.  
These persons impeached, resemble the opacious body of the Earth interposed to eclipse that light and vigour, which the solar aspect of Majesty would communicate unto his Subjects.  
They imitate the fish Sepia, that vomits a dark liquor out of her mouth to cloud the waters for her securer escape.  
They are those to whom the keys have been committed, yet they have barred the door to them that knocked.  
They are these unnatural Parents, that give their children stones, in stead of bread, and scorpions for fish. Was it for this purpose that the royal authority situated them in these eminent places, that, like Beacons upon high Hills, they should discover and proclaim each innovation and stratagem against the public weal; whilst they in the mean time employ therein fire to a public Incendiary, or, like Ignes fatui, seduce the easy and believing Traveller into pits and unexpected Mires?  
Were they sworn to seal their damnation, and not the confirmation of our liberty, ostates, & lives? Shall a man be censured for perjury, in that breach of his private Faith, & these be justifiable in Treason, aggravated by perjury against the dignity of the Crowns, and public faith of the Kingdoms? No my Lords, the grave, judicious, and mature examination, and deserved punishment of these traitorous proceed, will speak these times as glorious to posterity in their information, as they are now lamented in their persecution.  
The bloud-thirsting sword of an hostile enemy, by a timely union, and a defensive preparation may be prevented.  
The thin ribbed Carcase of an universal famine, may have his consumption restored by a supply from our neighbouring Nations.  
The quick spreading venom of infectious pestilence may be prevented by antidotes and qualified by physical remedies. But this Catholic grievance, like a snake in the most verdant walks, (for such are the unblemished laws truly practised) stings us to death, when we are most secure; and like the King's evil, can only be cured by his Majesty's free and gracious premission of our modest and gentle proceedings, for his vindication and our preservation therein included.  
Spencer and Gamston who have left their names monumentally odious for the evil counsel they fed the King's ear with, yet did possibly advantage their own friends, while these dart their envy and treason for a common Centery, equal touching the bounds of every superficies: for as concerning the valide estates they have illegally overthrown, when the laws by your Lordship's industry receive their native vigour, they will reassume their confirmation: but the estates happily in themselves legal, that they have in an extrajudicial form established, will haste as speedily to their dissolution so that judas like they betray their best friends with a kiss.  
My Lords I cannot find any surviving Chronologie of times, this season to be paralleled with all circumstances, which makes me view the Records, amongst the infernal spirits to find, if matched there I might extenuate their facts; where ● they appear like the false spirits sent into the mouth of the Prophet Ahab to speak delusions to subvert the host of God.  
The most vehement and traitorous encounter of Satan, is lively deciphered in the true example of job: where first, I observe the disavalogie, he overthrows not jobs Magna Charta, he disseizes him not of his Inheritance, nor dispossesses him of his Leases; but only disrobes him of some part of his parsonal estate: when he proceeds to infringe jobs liberty, he doth not pillory him, nor cut off his ears, nor bore him through the tongue; he only spots him with some ulcers; here Satan stains, when these persons by their traitorous combinations, envy the very blood that runs unspilled in our veins; and by obtruding bloody Acts, damned in the last Parliament: will give Satan size ace, and the Dice at Irish, in inthralling the lives of the Subjects by their arbitrary Judicature.  
I would not my Lords, be understood to impute to the Judges: an iufallibility of errors: nor in impeaching these, to traduce those, whose candour and integrity, shine with more admired lustre, than their white furs, who like trophies of virgin-justice, stood fixed and unmoved in the rapid torrent of the times, while these like straws & chips played in the streams, until they are devolved in the Ocean of their deserved ruin.  
No my Lords, humanum est errare, and the Law allows Writs of Error, and Arrest of Judgement: but where there is crassa ignorantia against their Oath, against the Fundamental, Elementary and known Laws of the Kingdom: Nay (my Lords where it is rather praemeditata malitia, where there is an emulating policy who should raze & embesell the Records in the practic, that are for the tender preservation of our liberties, estates, and lives, seeking only to be glorious in a national destruction, as if their safety were only involved in our ruin, there I have command to pity, but not excuse them.  
To kill a Judge, quatenus a Judge, is not Treason, but to kill a judge sitting in the place of judicature, is treason; not for that the law intends it, out of any malice against the party, but for the malice against the Law: where then can an intensive or an extensive malice be expressed or employed against the Law, than the practical dialect of these persons impeached, speaks with a known and crying accent.  
The Beniamites slang stones with their left hands, yet they would not miss a hair's breadth; these extrajudicial proceed are slung with the left, I mean they are sinistrous, and imprint their black and blue marks, more certain, and more fatal; for that they may say, Quae regio in terris nostri non plena labour is? Though these things be familiar unto us, yet I cannot but admire how this unproportionable body of judicature should swell up into such a vast and ulcerous dimension, but why should I considering this eccentric motion of the body of the law had his birth obscure, resembling the tares that were sowed in the night time, but here is the difference; they were sown by the enemy in the absence of the Master: but these are sown by the Grand-masters themselves, purposely to overtop and choke the expected Harvest.  
Innovations in Law, and consequently in government, creep in like heresies in Religion, slily and slowly, pleading in the end a saucy and usurped legitimacy, by uncontrol'd prescription.  
My Lords, this is the first sitting, and I have only chalked out this deformed body of high Treason: I have not drawn it at length, lest it might fright you from the further view thereof: In conclusion, it is the humble desire of the Commons, that the parties impeached, may be secured in their persons, sequestered from this house, from the Counsel table, and all places of judicature, as being Civiliter mortui; that they may put in their answers to the Articles ready now to be exhibited against them; and that all such further proceed may be secretly expedited, as may be suitable to Justice, and the precedents of Parliaments, so his Majesty may appear in his triumphant goodness, and indulgency to his people; and his people may be ravished in their dutiful and cheerful obedience, and loyalty to his Majesty: your Lordships may live in Records to posterity, as the instrumental reformers of these corrupted times, and that the Kingdom and Commonwealth may pay an aymiable sacrifice in retribution, and acknowledgement of his Majesty's multiplied providence for our preservation herein.   

Articles of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in the Parliament assembled, against Sir Richard Bolton, Kt. Lord Chancellor of Ireland, john Lord Bishop of Derry, and sir Gerard Lowther Kr, L. chief Justice of his Majesty's Court of Common Pleas, & Sir George Radcliffe Kt. in maintenance of the accusation, whereby they and every of them stand charged with high Treason.  

FIrst, that they the said Sir Richard Bolton Kt. Lord Chancellor of Ireland, john L. Bishop of Derry, Sir Ger. Lowther Kt. L. chief justice of his Majesty's Court of Common Pleas, and Sir George Radcliffe, Knight, intending the destruction of the Commonwealth of this Realm, have traitorously confederated and conspired together, to subvert the fundamental Laws & government of this Kingdom, and in pursuance thereof, they and every of them, have traitorously contrived, introduced, and exercised an arbitrary and tyrannical government against Law throughout this Kingdom, by the countenance and assistance of Thomas Earl of Strafford, then chief Governor of this kingdom.   

II.  
That they and every of them, the said sir Richard Bolton, Kt. L. Chancellor of Ireland, john L. Bp. of Derry, Sir Gerard Lowther, Kt. L. chief Justice of the Common Pleas, & Sir George Radcliffe Kt have traitorously assumed to themselves, & every of them, regal power over the goods, persons, lands, & liberties of his Majesty's subjects of this Realm; and likewise have maliciously, perfidiously and traitorously given, declared, pronounced, and published, many false unjust & erroneous opinions, judgement Sentences, & Decrees, in extrajudicial manner against law, and have perpetrated, practised, and done many other traitorous and unlawful acts and things, whereby as well divers mutinies, seditions and Rebellions have been raised, as also many 1000 of his Majesty's liege people of this Kingdom, have been ruined in their goods, lands, liberties, & lives, & many of them being of good quality and reputation have been utterly defamed, by Pillory, mutilation of Members, and other infamous punishments: By means whereof his Majesty & the Kingdom have been deprived of their service in juries, and other public employments, and the general trade and traffic of this Island for the most part destroyed, and his Majesty highly damnified in his Customs and other Revenues.   

III.  
That they the said sir Rich. Bolton, john L. B. of Derry, sir Ger. Lowther, Kt. and sir G. Radcliffe, & every of them the better to preserve themselves, and the said Earl of Strafford, in these & other traitorous courses, have laboured to subvert the rights of Parliament and the ancient course of Parliamentary proceed: all which offences were contrived, committed, perpetrated, and done at such time, as the said Rich. Bolton, Sir Gerard Lowther: & Sir George Radcliffe Knights, were privy Counsellors of state within this Kingdom, and against their and every of their Oaths of the same, at such times as the said Sir R. Bolton K. was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, or chief Baron of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer within this Kingdom, & Sir Gerard Lowther K●. was L. chief Justice of the said Court of Common Pleas, & against their Oaths of the same, & at such time as the said john L. B. of Derry was actual Bp. of Derry within this Kingdom, and were done and speciated contrary to their & every of their allegiance several and perpetrative oaths taken in that behalf.   

iv  
For which the said Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, do impeach the said Sir Richard Bolton, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, john Lord B. of Derry, Sir Gerard Lowther Knight, Lord chiefe Justice of his Majesties said Court of Common Pleas, & Sir George Radcliffe Kt. aforesaid, and every of them of high Treason, against our Sovereign Lord the King, his Crown and Dignity.  
The said Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, by protestation saving to themselves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter, any accusation or impeachment against the said Sir Rich. Bolton, john L. Bishop of Derry, Sir Gerrard Lowther, & Sir George Radcliffe aforesaid, & every of them, & also of replying to them, & every of their answers which they, & every of them, shall make to the said Articles, or any of them, & of offering proof also of the premises, or of any other impeachment, or accusation, as shall be by them exhibited; as the case shall according to the course of Parliament require.  
And the said Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, do pray, that the said Sir Richard Bolton Knight, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John Lord Bishop of Derry, Sir Gerard Lowther, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties said Court of Common Pleas, and Sir George Kadcliffe, Knight, and every of them, be put to answer all and every of the premises, and that all such proceed, examinations, Trial, & Judgement, may be upon them and every of them, had and used, as is agreeable to Law and justice.   
Copia vera. Signed PHILIP PHERNESLY. Cler. Parliamenti.