A Legal Vindication Of the Liberties of ENGLAND, AGAINST ILLEGAL TAXES And pretended Acts of Parliament, Lately enforced on the PEOPLE: OR, Reasons assigned by WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick in the County of Somerset, Esquire, why he can neither in Conscience, Law, nor Prudence, submit to the New illegal Tax or Contribution of Ninety thousand pounds the Month; Imposed on the Kingdom by a pretended Act of some commons in (or rather out of) Parliament, April 7 1649. (when this was first penned and printed) nor to the One Hundred Thousand pound per Mensem, newly laid upon England, Scotland and Ireland, Jan. 126. 1659. by a 〈◊〉 of the old Commons. House, secluding the whole House of Lords, and Majority of their hellow Members, by armed violence against all rules of Law and Parliament precedents.  Esay 1. 7. 
He looked for Judgement, but behold Oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.  Psal. 12. 5. 
For the Oppression of the Poor, for the sighing of the Needy; new will I arise (saith the Lord) and will set him in safety from him that would ensnare him.  Exod. 6. 5. 6. 
I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bandage; and I have remembered my Covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the Burdens of the Egyptians; and I will rid you out of their Bondage; and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great Judgements.  Eccles. 4. 1, 2. 
So I returned and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun, and beh●ld the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and in the hand of their Oppressors there was power, but they had no Comforter: Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive.  
The second Edition enlarged.  
London, printed for Edw. Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain, 1660.   

ERRATA.  
PAge 4. l. 33. to, read by. p. 8. l. 1. Seclusion. l. 29. dele in. l. 31. extended. p. 41. l. 10. on. p. 47. l. 2. only. p. 54. l 18. and, r. as. p. 57 l. 4. it is. p. 62. l. 4. obsta. p. 71. l. 35. to. p. 71. l. 1. resolved. l. 8. and, r. as. p. 79. l. 15. and, r. of.  
Margin. P. 9 l. 9 12, r. 17.   

To the Ingenuous Reader.  
THe Reasons originally inducing and in some sort necessitating me to compile and publish this Legal Vindication, against Illegal Taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament, imposed on the whole English Nation, in the year 1649. by a small remnant of the Commons House, sitting under an armed Force, abjuring the King and House of Lords, and unjustly secluding the Majority of their Fellow-Commoners, against the very tenor of the Act of 17 Caroli, c. 6. by which they pretended to sit, the letter of the Writs by which they were elected, and those Indentures by which they were returned Members, the Oaths of Supremacy, and Allegiance, Protestation, Solemn National League and Covenant which they all took as Members; the very first Act of Parliament made and printed after their first sitting, 16 Caroli, c. 1. and many hundreds of Declarations, Remonstrances, Orders, Ordinances, Votes, from Nov. 3. 1640. to Dec. 5. 1648. have constrained me now to reprint it with some necessary and useful Additions in the year 1659. above ten years after its first Publication: Those very Rumpers, who on the 7th. of April 1649. imposed a Tax of Ninety thousand Pounds the Month on England alone, having on the 26. of January, 1659. presumed to lay a new Tax of no less than One hundred thousand pounds the Month, for six months' next ensuing, on England, Scotland, and on Ireland too, (never taxed in former Ages by entire undubitable English Parliaments) when as by their former Order, they advanced and paid in before hand a heavy Tax (illegally imposed on them by a Protectorian Conventicle) during those very Months for which they are now taxed afresh far higher than before, though totally exhausted with former incessant Taxes, freequarter, Militia expenses, Imposts of all sorts, and utterly undone for want of Trade; and all to keep them in perpetual Bondage under armed guards, and Iron yokes, under pretext of making them a New Free-State and commonwealth, of the Jesuits projection, perpetually to subvert our ancient hereditary Monarchy, Kingdom, and true old English 
* See Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliae, and Sir Thomas Smith De Republica Anglicana 16 Car. c. 1.  commonwealth, under which we formerly lived, and flourished with greater freedom, splendour, honour, peace, safety, unity, and prosperity, than we can 
See Rastal, Title Taxes, Tallages, The Acts for Subsidies of the Clergy and Temporalty.  ever expect under any new Form of Government or Utopian republic whatsoever our whimsical Innovators can erect.  
When our Parliaments under our ancient and late Kings granted any aids, Subsidies, Imposts, to supply the public Necessities, as they were always moderate, and temporary, not exceeding the present Necessities, and the people's abilities to pay them; so they ever received some Acts of Grace and Retribution from our Kings, and New Confirmations of their Great Charters, and Fundamental Laws and Liberties, recorded in our Parliament Rolls and Statutes at large.  
But our New Republicans, worse than the old Egyptian Pharaoh's and Tax-Masters, double our Bricks, Taxes, yet deny us straw and materials to make or defray them redressing none of all our public Grievances, nor easing us of any unjust burdens or oppressions whatsoever, nor indulging any Graces or Favours to us, nor yet so much as preserving, or confirming our old Grand Charte●s, Fundamental Laws, Statutes, for the preservation of our Lives, Liberties, Properties, Franchises, Freeholds but violating them all in a far high: and more presumptuous degree, than Strafford, Canterbury, the shipmoney Judges, or any of our Kings, whom they brand for Tyrants, and that after all our late wars and contests for their defence.  
Upon which account, I held it my bounden duty, to enlarge and reprint this Vinaication, nor out of any Factious or Seditions design, but from the impulse of a true heroic English public spirit, and Zeal to defend my Native Countries undubitable Hereditary Rights, against all arbitrary Tyrannical Usurpations and Impostors whatsoever▪ though arrogating to themselves the Title and power of The Parl. of England, when their own Judgements, Consciences, as well as all our ancient Statutes, Parliament Rolls, Laws, Judges, Law-Books and Treatises of English Parliaments, resolve them, to be no Parliament at all, but an 
* See My Memento to the p●esent unparliamentary Juncto, Prynne the Member reconciled to Prynne the Barreste●, and True and perfect Narrative, May 7. & 9 1659.  Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle. If I now lose my life (as I have formerly done my Liberty, Calling and Estate) for this public cause, I shall repu●e it the greatest earthly Honour and 〈◊〉 to die a Ma●●●● for my dying Country, & to redeem her lost Liberti●s, with the loss of my momentary life, which will be more i●ksome to me, than the 〈◊〉 Death, if protracted only to behold those ruins and desolations, which some Grandees Tyrannies, and Bedlam exorbitances are like speedily to bring upon her, unless God himself, by his Miraculous Provi●●n●●s reflrain their Fury, abate their Power, and confound their Destructive Des●gns beyond all human expectation as he hath done of late, and I trust he will s●dainly do again, to the rejoicing and reviving of all good men. Which is the hope and expectation,  
of thine and his Native Countries true Friend and Servant William Prynne. Lincoln's inn, Feb. 12. 1659.   

A Legal Vindication of the Liberties and Properties of all ENGLISH FREEMEN Against ILLEGAL TAXES: OR, REASONS Assigned By WILLIAM PRYNNE, &c.  
BEing on the 7th. of this instant June, 1649. informed by the Assessors of the Parish of Swainswicke, that I was assessed at 2 l. 5 s. for Three months' Contribution, by virtue of a (pretended) Act of the Commons assembled in Parliament, bearing date the seventh of April last, assessing the Kingdom at Ninety thousand pounds Monthly, beginning from the 25 of March last, and continuing for Six months' next ensuing, towards the maintenance of the Forces to be continued in England and Ireland, and the paying of such as are thought fit to be disbanded, that so freequarter may be taken off; whereof 3075 l. 17 s. 1 d. ob. is monthly imposed on the County, and 4 l. 5 s. 3 d. on the small poor Parish where I live; and being since on the fifteenth of June required to pay in 2 l. 5 s. for my proportion; I returned the Collector this Answer, That I could neither in Conscience, Law, nor Prudence in the least measure, submit to the voluntary payment of this illegal Tax, and unreasonable Contribution, (after all my unrepaired losses and sufferings for the public Liberty) amounting to six times more than SHIP-MONEY, (the times considered) or any other illegal Tax of the late beheaded King, so much declaimed against in our three last Parliaments, by some of those who imposed this. And that I would rather submit to the painfullest death and severest punishment the Imposers or Exactors of it could inflict upon me by their arbitrary power (for legal they had none) than voluntarily pay, or not oppose it in my place and calling to the uttermost; upon the s●me, if not better reasons, ●● I oppugned 
a See my Humble Remonstrance against Ship-money.  Ship-money, Knighthood, and other unlawful Impositions of the late King and his council heretofore. And that they and all the world might bear witness, I did it not from mere obstinacy or sullenness, but out of solid real grounds of Conscience, Law, Prudenoe, and public affection to the weal and liberty of my native Country (now in danger of being ensl●ved under a new vassalage, more g●ievous than the worst it ever yet sustained under the late, or any other of our worst Kings) I promised to draw up the Reasons of this my resusal in writing, and to publish them, so soon as possible, to the kingdom for my own Vindication, and the better Information and satisfaction of all such as are any ways concerned in the imposing, collecting, levying or paying of this strange kind of Contribution. In pursuance whereof, I immediately penned these ensuing Reasons, against that tax in 1649. which I augmented with some new additions▪ against the hundred thousand pound Tax each month imposed on us, by our worse than Egyptian 
Jan. 26. 1659.  Tax-Masters now; for those very six ensuing months space, they paid in long since, before they became due, by their forced Exactions and Distresses, against all rules of Justice, Law, Conscience, and precedents of former times; which I humbly submit to the impartial Censure of all conscientious and judicious Englishmen: desiring either their ingenuous Refutation, if erroneous; or candid Approbation, if substantial and irrefragable, as my conscience and judgement persuade me they are, and that they will appear so to all impartial Perusers, after full examination.  
First, By the fundamental Laws, and known Statutes of this Realm, No Tax, Tallage, aid, Imposition, Contribution, Loan or assessment whatsoever, may or aught to be imposed or levied on the free men and people of this Realm of England, but by the WILL and COMMON ASSENT of the EARLS, BARONS, Knights, Burgesses, Commons, and WHOLE REALM in a free and full PARLIAMENT, by ACT OF PARLIAMENT: All Taxes, &c. not so imposed, levied (though for the common defence and profit of the Realm) being unjust, oppressive, inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject, Laws and Statutes of the Realm; as is undeniably evident by the express Statutes of Magna Charta, cap. 29, 30. 25. E. 1. c. 5, 6. 34. E. 1. De Tallagio non concodendo, c. 1. 14 E. 3. Stat. 1. c. 21. Stat. 2. c. 1. 15. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 1. Stat. 3. cap. 5. 21. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 16. 25. E. 3. c. 8. Rot. Parl. n. 15. 27. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 2. 36. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 26. 38. E. 3. c. 2. & Rot. Parl. n. 40. 45. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 42. 51. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 25. 11 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 10. 1. R. 3. c. 2. The Petition of Right, and Resolutions of both Houses against Loans, 3. Caroli: The Votes and Acts against Ship-money, Knighthood, Tonnage and Poundage, and the Star-chamber this last Parliament, Ann. 16. & 17. Car. c. 8. 12. 14. 20. And fully argued and demonstrated by Mr. William Hackwell in his Argument against Impositions, Judg Hutton and judge Crook in their Arguments, and Mr. St. John in his Argument and Speech against Ship-money, with other Arguments and Discourses of that subject: Sir Edward Cook in his 2 Instit. (published by Order of the Commons House) pag. 59 60▪ &c. 527, 528, 529, 532, 533, &c. with sundry other Records and Law-books cited by those great rabbis of the Law and Patriots of the people's Liberties. But the present Tax of Ninety Thousand pounds a month, now exacted of me, An. 1649. and this of an Hundred thousand pounds each month now demanded, was not thus imposed. Therefore it ought not to be demanded of, or levied of me; and I ought in conscience, law and prudence to withstand it as unjust, oppressive, inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject, Laws and Statutes of the Realm; even by the juncto's Knack of Oct. 11. 1659.  
To make good the Assumption, which is only questionable.  
First, This Tax was not imposed in, but out of Parliament, the late Parliament being actually dissolved above two months before this pretended Act, by these Tax-imposers taking away the King by a violent death, as is expressly resolved by the Parliament of 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. N. 1. by the Parliament of 14 H. 4. and 1 H. 5. Rot. Parl. N. 26. Cook 4. Institutes p. 46. and 4 E. 4. 44. 
b See 1 E. ● cap. 7. Cook 7. Report. 30, 31. Dyer 165. 4 Ed. 4. 43, 44, 1 E. 5. 1 Book Commission. 10, 21.  and I have largely and irrefragably proved: in my true and perfect Narrative, 1659. For the King being both the Head, beginning, end and foundation of the Parliament (as Modus tenendi Parliamentum: and Sir Edward Cook's 4 Instit. p. 3. resolve) which was summoned and constituted only by his writ, now actually abated by his death: and the Parliament (as is evident by the clauses of the several Writs of Summons to 
c crompton's Jurisdiction of Courts. fol. 1. Cook 4. Instit. c. 1.  the Lords, and for the election of the Knights and Burgesses, and levying of their wages) being only PARLIAMENTUM NOSTRUM, the King's Parliament that is dead, not his Heirs and Successors; and the Lords and Commons being all summoned and authorized by it to come to OUR PARLIAMENT, there to be personally present, and confer with US (NOBISCUM, not Our Heirs and Successors) of the weighty and urgent affairs that concerned (NOS) US and OUR KINGDOM of England; and Knights and Burgesses receiving their wages for, Nuper ad NOS ad PARLIAMENTVM NOSTRUM veniendo, &c. quod sommoneri FECINUS, ad tractandum ibidem super diversis & arduis Negotiis NOS & Statum REGNI NOSTRI t●ngentibus, as the tenor of the 
d 5 E. 3. m. 6. part. 2. Dors. Claus. Regist. f. 192. 200.  Writs for their wages determines. The King being dead, and his Writs and Authority by which they were summoned, with the ends for which they were called (to confer with US, about US and OUR KINGDOMS affairs, &c. being thereby absolutely determined, without any hopes of revival; the Parliament itself must thereupon absolutely be determined likewise (especially to those who have disinherited HIS HEIRS and SUCCESSORS, and voted down our Monarchy itself) and they with all other Members of Parliament, cease to be any longer Members of it, being made only such by the Kings abated Writ; even as all Judges, Justices of peace, and Sheriffs made only by the King's Writs or Commissions, not by his Letters Patents, cease to be, Judges, Justices, and Sheriffs by the King's death, for this very reason, because they are constituted Justiciarios & Vicecomites NOSTROS, ad Pacem NOSTRAM, &c. custodiendam; and he being dead, and his Writs and Commissions expired by his death, they can be Our Judges, Justices, and Sheriffs no longer, to preserve OUR Peace, &c. (no more than a wife can be her deceased husband's Wife, and bound to his obedience, from which she was loosed to his death, Rom. 7. 2, 3.) And his Heirs and Successors they cannot be, unless he please to make them so by his new Writs or Commissions, as all our 
e 4 Ed. 4. 44. 1 E. 5. 1. Brook Commissions. 19 21. & Officer, 25. Dyer. 165. Cook. 7. Report, 30. 31. 1 E. 6. c. 7. Dalton's Justice of Peace, c. 3. p. 13 Lambert. p. 71.  Law-books and Judges have frequently resolved upon this very reason, which equally extends to Members of Parliament, as to Judges, Justices and Sheriffs, as is agreed in 4 E. 4. f. 43, 44. and Brook, Office and Officer, 25, Therefore this Tax being clearly imposed not in, but out of, and after the Parliament ended by the King's decapitation, and that by such who were then no lawful Knights, Citizens, Burgesses, or Members of Parliament, but only private men, their Parliamentary Authority expiring with the King, it must needs be illegal, and contrary to all the forecited Statutes; as the Convocations and Clergies Tax and Benevolence granted after the Parliament dissolved in the year 1640. was resolved to be, by both Houses of Parliament, and those adjudged high Delinquents who had any hand in promoting it, as the Impeachments against them evidence, drawnup by some now acting.  
2. Admit the late Parliament still in being, yet the House of Peers, Earls, and Barons of the Realm were no ways privy nor consenting to this Tax imposed without, yea, against their consents, in direct affront of their 
* See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers.  most ancient undubitable Parliamentary Right and Privileges, (these Taxmasters having presumed to vote down and null their very House, by their new encroached transcendent power) as appears by the title and body of this pretended Act, entitled by them, An Act of THE COMMONS assembled in Parliament: Whereas the House of Commons alone, though full and free, have no more lawful Authority to impose any Tax upon the People, or make any Act of Parliament or binding Law without the Kings or Lord's concurrence, than the Man in the Moon, or the Convocation, Anno 1640. after the Parliament dissolved (as is evident by the express words of the forecited Acts, the Petition of Right itself; the Acts for the Triennial Parliament; and against the proroguing or dissolving this Parliament, 16 Car. c. 1, & 7. with all our printed Statutes, 
f 14 R. 2. n. 15. 11 H 4. n. 30. 13 H. 4. n. 25.  Parliament-Rolls, and 
g 4 H. 7. 18. b. 7 H. 7. 27. Fortescue, c. 18. f 20 Dyer, 92. B●ook Parliament, 76, 197. Cook's 4. Institut. p. 25.  Law-books: they neither having nor challenging the sole Legislative power in any age; and being not so much as summoned to, nor constitutive members of our 
h See the Freeholders grand Inquest. My Plea for the Lords.  ancient Parliaments, (which consisted of the King, Spiritual and Temporal Lords, without any Knights, Citizens or Burgesses, as all our Histories and Records attest) till 49 H. 3. at soonest; they having not so much as a Speaker or Commons House, till after the beginning of King E. the third's reign, and seldom or never presuming to make or tender any Bills or Acts to the King or Lords, but Petitions only to them, to redress their grievances and enact new Laws, till long after R. the seconds time, as our Parliament Rolls, and the printed Prologues to the Statutes of 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 20, 23, 36, 37. and 50 Edw. 3. 1 Rich 3. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 Hen. 4. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 9 Hen. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 
The 1, and 2, Part of my Register of Parliamentary Writs, and exact Ab. idgement of the Records in ●●e Tower, my Historical Collection, part 1, 2. c. 3.  9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 29, 28, 29. 39 Hen. 6. 1, 4, 7, 8, 12, 17. 22 Ed. 4. and 1 Rich. 3. evidence (which run all in this form, At the Parliament holden, &c. by THE ADVICE and ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL and TEMPORAL, and at THE SPECIAL INSTANCE and REQUEST OF THE COMMONS OF THE REALM, (BY THEIR PETITIONS put in the said Parliament, as some Prologues have it.) Our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained, or ordained certain statutes, &c.) Where the advising and assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords; the ordaining of them to the King; and nothing but the requesting of, and petitioning for them to the Commons, and that both from King and Lords, in whom the Legislative power principally, and before 49 H. 3. originally and solely resided, as is manifest by the printed Prologue to the Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. 3. The Statute of Mortemain, 7 E. 1. 31 E. 1. De Asportatis Religiosorum, the Statute of Sheriffs, 9 Ed. 2. and of the templars, 17 Ed. 2. to cite no more. Therefore this Tax imposed by the Commons alone without King or Lords, must needs be void, illegal, and no ways obligatory to the Subjects.  
3. Admit the whole House of Commons in a full and free Parliament had power to impose a Tax, and make an Act of Parliament for levying of it without King or Lords; (which they never once did, or pretended to in any age) yet this Act and Tax can be no ways obliging, because not made and imposed by a full and free House of Commons, but by an empty House, packed, swayed, overawed by the chief Officers of the Army, and their Confederates in the House, who having presumed by mere force, and 
See my Speech, Dec. 4. 1648. and a full Declation of the true state of the Case of the Secluded Members.  armed power, against Law and without precedent, to seclude the major part of the House (at least eight parts of ten) who by Law and Custom are the House itself, from sitting or voting with them, contrary to the Freedom and Privileges of Parliament; readmitting none but upon their own terms of renouncing their own form, Votes touching the King's Concessions, and taking their new treasonable Engagements, against the King, Kingship, and House of Lords. An usurpation not to be paralleled in any age, destructive to the very being of Parliaments; 
i i. Cook's 4. Institutes p. 1. 5 R. 2. Stat. 2. c. 4.  Where all Members of both Houses are ex debito Justitiae, wi●h equal Freedom to meet and speak their mind●: injurious to all those Counties, Cities, Borough●, whose Knights, Citizens and Burgesses are secluded, and to the whole Kingdom; yea, contrary to all rules of reason, justice▪ policy, conscience, and their own Agreement of the people, which inhibit the 
* Populi Minor pars, Populum non obigit. Grotius de Jure Belli. l. 2. c. 15. sect. 3. Alexander ab Alexandro. Gen. dierum. l. 4. c. 11.  far lesser part of any council, Court or Committee, to oversway, seclude or fore-judge the major number of their Assessors, and fellow-members, over whom they can no ways pretend the least jurisdiction; it being the high way to usher Tyranny and confusion into all counsels, and Realms, to their utter dissolution; since the King alone without the Lords and Commons, or the Lords alone without the King or Commons, may by this new device make themselves an absolute Parliament to impose Taxes and enact Laws without the Commons, or any other forty or fifty Commoners meeting together without their companions, and secluding them by force, do the like, as well as this remnant of the Commons make themselves a complete Parliament without the King, Lords, or Majority of their fellow-Members, if they can but now or hereafter raise an Army to back them in it, as the Army did those sitting 1648. and 1649. and those sitting in 1659. have done, secluding the majority of their old fellow-Members by mere armed Violence.  
4. Suppose this Tax should bind those Counties, Cities, and Burronghs, whose Knights, Citizens and Burgesses sat and consented to it when imposed, (though I dare swear much against the minds and wills of all or most of those they represent; who by the (k) Armies▪ new Doctrine, may justly question and revoke their 
(a) Declarat. Nov. 28. & 30. 1648.  authority for this high breach of Trust; the rather, because the Knights and Burgesses assembled in the first Parliament of 13. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 8. did all refuse to grant a great extraordinary subsidy demanded of them (though not comparable to this) for the necessary defence of the kingdom against foreign Enemies, till they had conferred with the Counties and boroughs for which they served, and gained their assents:) Yet there is no shadow of Reason, Law or Equity, it should oblige any of the Secluded Members themselves, whereof I am one; or those Counties, Cities, boroughs, whose Knights, Citizens and Burgesses have been secluded or scared thence by the Armies or sitting Members fraud, force, violence, or illegal Votes for their seculsion; who absolutely disavow this Tax and Act as unparliamentary, illegal, and never assented to by them in the least degree; since the only 
l 39 Ed. 3. 7. 4. H. 7. 10. Brook Parl. 26. 40. Cook 4. Instit. p. 1. 25, 26. 1 Jac. cap. 1.  reason in Law, or equity, why Taxes or Acts of Parliament oblige any Member, County, Burrough or Subject, is, because they are parties, and consenting thereunto either in proper person, or by their chosen Representatives in Parliament; returned and authorized by Indentures under their Seals, it being a received maxim in all Laws, 
m Claus. 23. E. 1. m. 24. dorso.  Quod tang it omnes, ab omnibus debet approbari. Upon which reason it is judged in our 
n 49. E. 3. 18, 19 21. H. 7. 4. Brook Customs 6. 32.  Law-books, That By-Laws oblige only those who are parties, and consent unto them, but not strangers, or such who assented not thereto. And (which comes fully to the present case) in 7. H. 6. 35. 8. H. 6. 34. Brook Ancient Demesne 20. & Patl. 17. 101. it is resolved; That ancient Demesne is a good plea in a Writ of Wast, upon the Statutes of Wast, because those in ancient Demesne were not parties to the making of them, FOR THAT THEY HAD NO KNIGHTS NOR BURGESSES IN PARLIAMENT, nor contributed to their expenses. And Judge Brook Parliament 101. hath this observable Note, It is most frequently found, that Wales and County palatines, WHICH CAME NOT TO THE PARLIAMENT (in former times, which now they do) SHALL NOT BE BOUND BY THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND: for ancient Demesne is a good Plea in an action of Wast, and yet ancient Demesne is not excepted; and it is enacted 2. Ed. 6. cap. 28. That Fines and Proclamations shall be in Chester, for the former Statutes did not extend to it: And it is enacted, That a Fine and Proclamation shall be in Lancaster. 5. & 6. Ed. 6. c. 26. And in a Proclamation upon an e●igent is given by the Statute in Chester, and Wales, 1 E. 6. c. 20. And by another Act to Lancaster. 5. & 6. E. 5. c. 26. And the Statute of Justices of Peace extented not to Wales, and the County palatine; and therefore an Act was made for Wales and Chester, 27. H. 8. c. 5. who had Knights and Burgesses appointed by that Parliament, for that and future Parliaments, by Act of Parliament, 27. Hen. 8. cap. 26. since which they have continued, their wages being to be levied by the Statute of 35. H. 8. c. 11. Now, if Acts of Parliament bound not Wales and Counties Palatines, which had anciently no Knights nor Burgesses in Parliament to represent them, because they neither personally nor representatively were parties and consenters to them; much less than can or aught this heavy Tax, and illegal Act, 1649, or those of 1659. to bind those Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, or the Counties, Cities and boroughs they represent, who were forcibly secluded, or driven away from the Parliament by the confederacy, practice, orders, commands, or connivance at least, of those now sitting, who imposed these Taxes, and passed these strange Acts, as the recited Lawbooks, and the later Clauses in all Writs for electing Knights and Burgesses resolve, much less to oblige Scotland & Ireland, who have 
* The 1. part of the Parliamentary writs p. 411, to 422. Cook's 4 Instit. 75, 76, 1 Iac. c. 1, 2. Iac c. 3, 4. 7 Iac. c. 1. 12 Car. c. 17.  Parliaments of their own, and have, yea ought to have no Members sitting for them in the English Parliaments, who seldom or never imposed Taxes on Scotland or Ireland heretofore, whose taxes were only imposed by their own Parliaments, as is evident by claus. 46 E. 3. m. 25. & claus. 47 E. 3. m. 3. My Plea for the Lords, p. 426, 427, 2 R. 2 f. 11, 12. Brook Parliament 98. 20 H. 6. f. 8. Fitz. Prescription 7. and Brook Prescription 4. They being not so much as a Parliament of England, much less of Scotland & Ireland, (as they style themselves) and having no authority by their writs of Elections and Indentures, to treat or consult of any businesses, but only such as touch and concern the Kingdom of England, not the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, not mentioned in the Writs or Indentures of their Elections: Especially, because those Taxes, are thus imposed by them for the support and continuance of those Officers and that Army, who traitorously seized and secluded the Members from the House, and yet detain some of them Prisoners, against all Law and Justice, and have oft secluded them since: and because the secluded Members are the far major part (above six times as many as those that sat and shut them out by force) and would no ways have consented to these illegal Taxes, or the undue manner of imposing them, without the Lord's concurrence, had they been present. And, I myself, being both an unjustly imprisoned and secluded Member, and neither of the Knights of the County of Somerset, where I live, present or consenting to these Acts or Taxes, (both of them being forced thence by the Army, and sitting Members, and one of them now dead, and the other excluded) I conceive neither myself nor the county where I live, nor the Borough for which I served, nor the people of these Kingdoms, in the least measure bound by these Acts or Taxes, but clearly exempted from them, and obliged with all our might and power effectually to oppose them.  
If any here object, That by the custom of Parliament, forty 
Object.  members only are sufficient to make a Commons House of Parliament, and there were at least so many present when this Tax was imposed: Therefore it is valid, obligatory both to the secluded Members and the kingdom.  
I answer: First, That though regularly it be true, that forty members are sufficient to make a Commons House to begin 
Answ.  prayers, & businesses of lesser moment, in the beginning of the day, till the other Members come, and the House be full; yet 40. were never in any Parliament reputed a competent number to grant Subsidies, Taxes, pass or read Bills, or debate or conclude matters of greatest moment; which by the constant Rules, and usage of Parliament, were never debated, concluded, passed, but in a free and sull House, when all or most of the Members were present, as the Parliament Rolls, Journals, Modus tenendi Parliamentum, Sir Edward Cook's 4 Institutes, p. 1. 2. 26. 35. 36. crompton's Jurisdiction of Courts, f. 1. &c. 39 E. 3. 7. Brook Parliament. 27. 1 Jac. c. 1. and the many Records I have cited to this purpose in my Levellers jevelled, my Plea for the Lords, and Memento p. 10. the exact Abridgement of the Records in the Tower, p. 11. 13 14. 19 31. 36. 43. 46. 50. 51. 66. 69. 73. 74. 78. 90. 92. 96. 105. 120. 144. 152, 154. 167. 169. 173. 182. 188. 193. 195. 202. 281. 286. 287. 290. 298. 308. 318. 318. 331. 335. 371. 373. 392. 426, 427. 428. 430. 439. 440. 450. 454. 555. 464. 465. 665. 750. abundantly prove beyond contradiction; for which cause the Members ought to be fined, and lose their wages, if absent without special Licence, as Modus tenendi Parliamentum, 5 R. 2. Par. 2. c. 4. 9 H. 8. c. 16. and A Collection of all Orders, &c. of the late Parliament, p. 224. 357. with the frequent summoning and fining absent Members evidence.  
Secondly, though forty Members only may peradventure make an House in case of absolute necessity, when the rest through sickness, and public or private occasions: are voluntarily or negligently absent; and might freely repair thither to sit or give their Votes if they pleased: yet forty Members never yet made a Commons House by custom of Parliament (there being never any such case till now) when the rest (being above four times their number) were forcibly secluded or driven thence by an Army raised to defend them, through the practice, connivance or command of those forty or fifty sitting, of purpose that they should not over nor counter-vote them; much less an House to sequester or expel the other Members, or impose any Tax upon them. Till they show me such a Law, custom or precedent (not to be found in any age) all they pretend is nothing to purpose, or the present case.  
3ly. The visible horrid, armed force upon both Houses of Parliament, suppressing and secluding the whole House of Peers, 
a See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers, and Historical Collection of the Great Councils and Parliaments, and Fundamental Rights, Laws, and Liberti●● of all English Freemen.  against their undoubted hereditary and most ancient right to sit and vote in all Parliaments of England, ratified by the first Act made this Parliament, 16 Car. c. 1. and the Act for the continuance thereof, 17 Car. c. 7. by pretext whereof the Members now sit; their forcible seclusion of the far greatest part of the House of Commons only for their Vote of Dec. 5. 1648. to settle the peace of the Kingdoms, after a long-lasting intestine war, upon most safe and honourable terms, by the Army raised for their defence to sit and vote in safety; as it totally subverts all the rights, privileges, and Constitution of our Parliaments, so it utterly nailss all their Votes, Orders, Ordinances, Taxes, and Impositions whatsoever to all intents; as I shall evidence beyond contradiction.  
1. By 
b Printed by itself, and in a Declaration of the Engagements and Remonstrances, &c. of the General, and General council of Officers of the Army. London 1647 p. 107. 108.  the Declaration of WILLIAM LENTHAL Esquire, SPEAKER of the Honourable HOUSE OF COMMONS, Printed July 29. 16 7. by his direction then; and rising up in Judgement 'gainst him and all his sitting Conventicles, ever since the forcible exclusion of the most of their fellow-Members, and the Lords, by their express order and confederacy.  

A Declaration of William Lenthall Esquire, Speaker of the honourable House of Commons.  
ALthough it may happily be contrary to the expectation of some, that I attend not the service of the House of Commons at this time, as I have constantly done for 7. years' last. past, yet can it not be reasonably expected by any that well consider the 
1 Is there not a greater, longer, force and violence offered to both Houses ever since Dec 1648. by aimed soldiers, than that by the unarmed Apprentices, but for a few hours?  violence offered to both Houses of Parl. and to myself in particular on Monday last; insomuch that I can safely take it upon my conscience, and so I doubt not may all the Members of both Houses also, they sat in continual fear of their lives, and by terror thereof, were compelled to pass such Votes as it pleased an unruly multitude to force upon them; which as I did then openly declare in the House, so I cannot but believe, that they are all void, and null, being extorted by force and violence, and in that manner that they were; and 
2 How can you dispense with yourself, to fit since Dec. 6. & passing Votes, to seclude & exclude the Lords & your fellow Members, and to Tax them at your pleasure, & not believe them void & null?  I cannot any longer dispense with myself to be an instrument in passing such Votes, or to give any colour or shadow of Parliamentary authority unto them, which are not the Votes of the representative body of the Kingdom, but of a tumultuous multitude; as those must needs be accounted, that seemed to pass the House on Monday last, and which shall pass hereafter, until better provision be made for the safe and free sitting of the Houses of Parliament; there being no effectual 
* Nor yet by those now sitting against the Lords and our forcible exclusion, but new votes in justification thereof?  course taken by the City since the last adjournment of the Houses, to prevent the like tumults for the future, no nor so much as a Declaration from them to show their dislike thereof. But on the contrary, it is generally voiced in the Town, that there will be a far greater confluence of Apprentices, Reformadoes, and others, on Friday at the Parliaments doors; and particularly notice was given to me that after they 
3 The Army could not with all their power and menaces, enforce the s●cluded Members to Vote against their Judgements & Consciences? ec. 4. 1648.  had made the House Vote what they please, they would destroy me. I had likewise information given me, that there would be a great number of Apprentices of a contrary Opinion and affections to the other, about the Parliament doors on Friday morning, which I foresaw must of necessity cause a great combustion, and in probability occasion much bloodshed; the preventing of which mischiefs, together with the considerations aforesaid, have weighed more with me than any thing which may concern my particular, and especially having served the House faithfully and diligently for the space of very near seven years, 
4 Why have and do you yet serve the Juncto in a false and Anti-Parliamentary way near as many years more, to abuse and deceive them?  in a true and Parliamentary way of proceedings, that I might not now be made a servant to such a multitude to transfer upon them the colour of Parliamentary authority, there withal to abuse and deceive the minds, and to 
5 Have you not done it since in the highest degree by High Courts of Justice, securing, secluding, imprisoning, banishing, disanheriting thousands, and imposing Taxes and Excises on them against all our Laws?  destroy the lives, liberties, and estates of the people of this Kingdom; And having taken a 
6 Have you nor conscientiously observed them, by secluding, ejecting the Lords, and your fellow Members? by subverting all Rights, Privileges of Parliament, and Liberties of the Subject?  solemn Protestation & Covenant in my place and calling, to maintain the privileges of Parliament, and the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects, I could not now satisfy myself, but by 
7 Why do you not now much more absent yourselves upon the same account?  absenting myself at this time, rather than by my presence to give any shadow or countenance of the authority of Parliament to such apparent violations thereof. Neither can the omission of a circumstance, or some formality in the adjournments of the House, (when through force and violence it cannot meet and sit in any sort as a Parliament) be any prejudice to the future meetings and proceedings thereof, when it may meet and sit again as a free Parliament, it being well known, that nothing can dissolve this Parliament but an Act of Parliament.  
When a company of Apprentices, Reformadoes and others, shall call the Ordinances of Parliament, pretended Ordinances; shall 
8 If it was so great a crime to lock and keep them in the House? Was, yea is it not a far worse and g●eater crime in you and your Juncto, to lock the Lords and your fellow Members, and keep them forcibly o●t of the Houses for so many years till you have passed what new Vores, and set up what new Government, and imposed what Tixes you please upon them against their wills?  lock the doors of the Houses upon them, shall swear, not to let them out till they had passed what they pleased concerning the Militia of London, and other things, (though the Houses had immediately before voted otherwise,) shall threaten the Houses in case they did not instantly satisfy their demands; shall knock, hoot, and hollow continually at the Parliament door, that the 
9 And is it not a greater breach of ptivilege for you to vote out most of the Members without hearing them?  Members could not be heard to speak or debate; & after that the House of Commons had passed a Vote concerning the Militia of London, and that the Speaker by the Vote had judged the 
10 The Major Vote therefore Dec. 4. 1648 aught to carry it as well as then.  major part to be for the Negative, shall not suffer the House to be divided, but in a thr eatning way require those that 
11 Did you not far worse in seeuring, ●●cluding, imprisoning, ejecting the majority of your fellow-Members, only for voting against the minority, Dec. 4?  gave their votes againstth 'em, to corn out to them if they would; when after the House was adjourned, they shall by main force thrust back the Speaker again into the House, and force the Members in their presence and sight (divers of them thrusting into the House) to vote what they demanded: when they shall justle pull and hale the Speaker all the way he went down to his Cosch, and force him to avoid their violence to betake himself to the next Coach he could get into, for Refuge: when they shall breathe forth bloody threats against the Members as they came out of the House, and since against me in particular at the next meeting of the House (as I am credibly informed) and where there is no appearance, but that they will continue to do as formerly they have done, or far worse on Friday, 
12 And can you discharge them by sitting now, when the Majority of the Members & Lords are secluded, and sorcibly kept out by your Orders, and not permitted to sit with freedom & safety?  I couldnot in discharge of my Trust, Protestation and Covenant, sit in the Chair of the House of Commons whilst it shall be in such a condition: but so soon as it may sit again in freedom and safety, I shall be ready to attend she service thereof; but till then, as I have upon the forementioned grounds, fully satisfied my own Conscience, so I doubt not but I shall give the whole kingdom (whose interest is most concerned in it) ample satisfaction in the necessity of my absence.  
William Lenthall, Speaker,   
2ly. By the Engagement of those Lords and Commons that went to the Army after the Apprentices transitory forc●, upon the Army-Officers invitation) who subscribed their names thereto, with some others who continued sitting in the Houses.  

Die Mercurii quarto Augusti 1647.  
WE the Members of both Houses of Parliament who absent ourselves from the service of the Parliament, 
1 Was not the armea source, secluding and keeping away most of the Members since 1648. sar worse than this?  by reason of the force and violence offered thereunto, by a tumultuous multitude; having received from his Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, a Declaration, entitled, a Declaration of his Exceliency Sir Thomas Fairfax, and his council of War, on the behalf of themselves and the whole Army, showing the grounds of their present advance towards the City of London; and having perused the same, we look upon it as a Declaration full of truth, the matter of fact being well known unto most of us, who have been eye and ear witnesses thereof; full of Christian, noble, and public affection to the good, peace and prosperity of the kingdom, and full of integrity and faithfulness to the tru● interest of the English Nation; and 
2 Why have not the Army-Officers, & most Members subscribing this Engagement, and making and commending this resolution kept this resolution, but apostatised from it ever since December 6. 1648. and acted quite contrary to it?  full of undaunted and generous resolutions to assert the Honour and freedom of the Parliament, and effectually to vindicate it from the force and violence, whereby it hath been of late trampled under the foot of a Rabble of people, unto which force 
3 Therefore now much more by the Members acting and continuing force upon the majority.  it is still exposed, so as it may be exercised upon them at pleasure: and whilst the Parliament remains in such a condition, although it be not dissolvable but by Act of Parl yet it is suspended from acting as a Parliament In all these things, and generally throughout, our sense so fully agreeth with what is expressed in that Dcelaration of the Army, that we cannot but receive it with much approbation, and also with great thankfulness to God in the first place, and next under him, 
4 They have been faithless more than once or twice to the secluded Members, and the Iuncto too since this.  to this ever faithful Army, for that tender sense expressed therein of our honour and security, who absent ourselves from the Parliament in regard of that force: And for that high Eugagem. of the army to live & die with us in this cause. Whereupon we cannot but 
5 Did you really perform this Engagement by ordering the Army to secure and seclude the Majority of you● fellow-members, and whole House of Lords heret●fore & twice of late?  mutually engage ourselves, as hereby we do, to live & die with Sir The. Fairfax and the Army, in the vindication of the honour and freedom of the Parliament: And we cannot but observe the special providence of God in holding up so extraordinarily 
6 Have not the army & most of those subscribers since Dec. 6. 1648. laid the greatest reproach 〈◊〉 source upon the Nation, & brought & offered greater contempts to the Honour, 〈◊〉 esteem, Privileges, Members of parliament, than the Apprentices or the 〈…〉 men in any age?  this Army, & reserving it to take off the scorn of this Nation, and to raise up again from the depth of contempt, that once so much honoured, and high esteemed name of a Parliament.  
And whereas in the said Declaration, it is desired, that we as persons upon whom 
7 Is not this the case of the secluded and excluded Members in respect of their Electors and the Kingdom?  their public trust still remaineth, (though for the present we cannot exercise the same in a parliamentary way) would advise his Excellency and his council os Wa● in such things as may be for the good of the kingdom; and for the attaining the ends aforesaid; We do declare, that we shall be ●ver ready to do it upon all occasions, in such a capacity as we may, 
8 Is not this the speech and answer of the secluded Lords & Commons to the Kingdom and people?  till we shall be enabled to discharge our trust in a free Parliament, which we conceive we can never do, until the Houses of Parliament may be absolute Judges, and Masters of their own securities, and such 
9 Is not this the true stile and Character of all th●se, since forcibly secluding the Lords and their fellow Members?  traitorous, audacious offenders, as have endeavoured with so high a hand to destroy the highest Authority (as by the particulars so fully & clearly expressed in the Declaration of the army may appear) shall receive condign punishment, or at least the Parliament put in such a condition, as that they may be able to bring them thereunto: And 
10 The secluded Lords and Commons now t●ust so too.  we trust in God, through his accustomed blessing up●n this Army and their Assistants, in their honest and just undertakings, the Parliament shall speedily be put into a condition to sit like a Parl. of England; and we hope, that 
11 Most Counties now begin to do it for their secluded Members restitution, or a New Free Parliament without limitation.  every true hearted Englishman will put his helping hand to so necessary, so public, and so honourable a work, as is the vindicating the freedom and honour of Parliament, wherein the freedom and honour of all the free born people of this Nation are involved.  

Manchester, Speaker of the House of Peers.  

* Now sitting as a Commoner.  Sarisbury  
Denbigh  
Northumberland  
Gray of Wark  
Mulgrave  
Kent  
Howard  
Say and Seal.   

1 William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons.  
2 Lord Lisle  
Tho. Gray  
Will. Pierpoint  
3 Henry Mildmay  
Nathaniel Fiennes  
John Fiennes  
4 Arthur Haslerig  
William Armyn  
5 James Temple  
Edm. Prideaux  
6 Miles Corbet  
John Danvers  
Francis Allin  
John Evelin  
7 George Fleetwood  
George Fennick  
John Blackstone  
8 Tho. Scot  
Tho. Scot Major  
9 Roger Hill  
10 Henry Martin  
11 Cornelius Holland  
12 Oliver Saint-johns'  
13 William Lemmon  
14 William Mounson  
Humphrey Edwards  
15 John Weaver  
16 John Corbett  
17 Thomas Lister  
18 Henry Smith  
19 Nich. Love  
Francis Pierpoint  
Henry Lawrence  
20 Tho. Ougain  
Godfrey Boswell  
21 Henry Darley  
22 Tho. Boon  
23 Peter Temple  
24 Philip Smith  
25 Michael Livesey  
Henry Hamond  
Gregory Norton  
Thomas Jarvice  
William Constable  
26 William Say  
27 Edward Ludlow  
28 Edward Dunce  
29 John Bingham  
30 Augustine Skinner  
31 John Trenchard  
32 Sam. main  
Benjamin Weston  
Francis Thurnow.  
Rowland Wilson  
Laurence Whitacr●  
John Crowder  
33 George Piggots  
John Bamfield    
In all but 58.  
Some 10 or more of which sat in the House in the Speakers absence, and went not to the Army. Of these, 33. are yet living, and sitting now and then, excluding the Majority of the House by force, and voting them out; 5. of them now living are secluded, who subscribed this engagement, the rest since dead. How these Subscribers and secluders can look God or men in the face, or justify Taxes, Knacks and Proceedings to be legal and Parliamentary, whiles most of the Members are kept out by force, after this their subscription and publication to the contrary, under their own hands, let themselves resolve.  
It will be also worth the inquiry, who was the penman and Contriver of this Engagement.  
Whether it be not more dangerous and treasonable in those Members who have since confederated with the Army to seclude the Lord's House, and their own Members, than that Engagement of the Citizens, which the subfcribers hereof voted to be Treasonable?  
And whether it makes not these sitting Members who subscribed it, preingaged parties, and incompetent Judges of the secluded, ejected, and imprisoned Members, who continued sitting in the House, according to their trust and duty; and of the accused and imprisoned Citizens, who did but defend the Parliament then sitting, according to their own Votes, Ordinances, Covenant, and their duty?  
3ly. By Sir Thomas Fairfax Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Maior, Aldermen, and Common-council of the City of London.  
My Lord and Gentlemen,  
YOu may please to remember the former compliance of this Army with your desires, to remove to this distance, and that upon the assurance you gave them of your concurrence with their declared desires, for the settling the liberty and peace of the Kingdom, (against which you never yet offered us one exception, or any ground of dissent) as also of your great tenderness and resolution to secure the Parliament and their privileges, from any violence or attempt; the reason given us of your late listing of new forces, and wherein we did most acquiesce.  
That upon this confidence we had disposed the army into several parts of the Kingdom; for the ease of the whole, to above 100 miles' distance: we had given up ourselves to the effecting of such Proposals as might tend to the comfortable settlement of this poor Kingdom, and a hopeful way for the speedy relief of Ireland.  
We cannot then but be deeply sensible of the 
1 That on Dec. 6, 7. 1648 and since that till now, hath been worse, longer, and more unparalleled.  unparalleled violation acted upon the Parliament, upon Mondy last, by a rude multitude from your City, because therein, the Guards sent from the City did not only neglect their duty for the security of the Parliament from such violence, and the whole city to yield any relief to the Houses in that extremity, but I am assured from eye and ear-witnesses, that divers of the Common-council gave great encouragement to it, which doth not only 
2 And doth it not gainsay the Armies & Officers Professions, Commissions, Protestations, Declarations, and other Obligations to protect the Parl. and Secluded Lords & Commons?  gainsay your former professions, but doth violence to those many Obligations that (by your Charter, Protestation, and sundry other ways) lie upon you to protect the Parliament.  
For my part, I cannot but look on yourselves (who are in authority) as accountable to the Kingdom, for your present interruptions of that hopeful way of peace and settlement, things were in for this Nation, and of relieving Ireland, occasioned by the late Treasonable and destructive Engagement: Especially the lately prodigious and horrid force done upon the Parliament, 
3 The force since on the Houses hath effected it.  tending to dissolve all Government; upon which score, we and the whole Kingdom shall have cause to put every thing of the like nature that may happen to the Parliament, or to any who are friends to them, and this army, except by your wisdom, care, and industry, the chief actors may be detected, 
4 Do not the Officers & Members deserve to be so served, for securing & secluding us?  secured and given up to the procuring of justice for the same, and the best endeavours used to prevent the like for the future. And so I rest,  
Your most assured friend to serve you, Tho. Fairfax. Bedford, 29 July, 1647.  
4ly By a Declaration of Sir Tho. Fairfax, 
* The army's Declaration, p. 120, &c.  and his Council of War, August 3. 1647. concerning the Apprentices force upon the Houses; wherein are these observable passages,  
Monday July the six and twentieth, the Common-Council of the City presents their Petitions to both Houses for changing the Militia, whereon the House of Lords refuse to alter their resolutions; the House of Commons answered, they would take it into consideration the next morning. Notwithstanding which, the City and kingdom cannot be ignorant with what rage and insolency the tumult of Apprentices, the same day forced both Houses. They (1) blocked up their doors, swearing, they would keep them in, till they had passed what Votes they pleased; they 
woe) Is it not Arrse for the Mmy and sitting bloembers to dock up the thors against me Lords and most of the Comisons? and to oeep them fut of the houses or sundry years?  threatened the Houses, if they granted not their desires, knocking, whooting, and hallowing so at the Parliament-doors, that many times the Members could not be heard to speak or debate, not suffering the House of Commons to divide for determining such Questions, as w●●e put, crying out, 
2 Was not the Armies seizing, secluding, pulling and keeping those out who gave their Votes against their Designs, Dec. 6. 1648. shutting them out ever since, & imprisoning some of them sundry years, far worse than this?  That those that gave their Votes against them, should be sent out to them; very often and loudly saying. Agree, agree, dispatch, we'll stay no longer; and in this outrageous manner, they continued at the House door above eight hours together, the City-Guards there present nor the City relieving them; by reason whereof the House was forced to Vote what that rude multitude would demand, and then adjourned the House till the next morning; After which the House rising, the Speaker and many Members going out of the House, they (3) forced them back again into the House: Many of the Apprentices pressing in with them, where they stood with their hats on their heads, and compelled the Speaker to take the Chair, and the House to vote in their presence what they pleased; committing many other insolences, as is published by the Speaker of the House of Commons in his Declaration, and is too well known by all then present; and during the time of this execrable violence done by the said Apprentices, 
4 It was far worse to fill them with Soldiers & Troopers, Dec. 6, & 7. and since, to seelude the most of the Members by force.  Westminster Hall and the Palace yard was filled with Reformadoes, and other ill-affected persons designed to back them:  
After this the Houses being adjourned till Friday following, upon the Thursday, the Apprentices printed and posted a paper in several places of the City, requiring all their fellows to be early at the Parliament the next morning, for that they intended to adjourn by seven of the clock, and that for a month. Thus the Speakrs 
5 And now six times more of them are driven away by the Army.  with many of the Members of both Houses were driven away from the Parliament.  
These things being seriously considered by us, we have thought fit in the name of the Army to declare, that all such Members of either House of Parliament as are already with the Army for the security of their persons, and for the ends aforesaid, are forced to absent themselves from Westminster, that 
5 Do not the people esteem the secluded Members su●h, and are not they the supreme Authority by the Armies & sitting Members own Votes, Jan. 4. 1648?  we shall hold and esteem them as persons in whom the public trust of the Kingdom is still remaining, though they cannot for the present sit as a Parliament with freedom and safety at Westminster, and by whose advice and counsels, we desire to govern ourselves, in the managing these weighty affairs; and to that end we 
* They went not to them till thus ●●●ited.  invite them to make repair to this Army, to join with us in this great cause, we being resolved, and do hereby faithfully oblige ourselves to stand by them therein, and to live and die with them against all Opposition whatsoever. And in particular, we do hold ourselves bound to own that honourable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who upon the grounds he himself expressed in his Declaration sent unto us, hath actually withdrawn himself; and hereupon we do further 
6 And ought not the Army and English Nation, thus to engage, much more to the now secluded Lords and Members?  engage to use our utmost & speedy endeavours, that he and those Members of either House, that are thus enforced away from their attendance at Westminster, may with freedom and security sit there, and again discharge their trust, as a free and a legal Parliament: and in the mean time we do declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster, as 
7 It is usual and legal in the Speakers absence or sickness.  contrary to all right Reason, Law, and Custom; and we professs ourselves to be 
8 And a●e you not and the Kingdom too, now much more convicted of this truth?  most clearly satisfied in all our Judgements, and are also confident the Kingdom will herein concur with us, that as things now stand, there is no free nor legal Parliament sitting, being through the aforesaid violence at present suspended: And 
9 And are not all since Dec. 6. 1648. till now much more null and void, for the same reason?  that the Drders, Votes, or Resolutions, forced from the Houses on Monday the 26. of July last, as also all such as shall pass in this Assembly of some few Lords and Gentlemen at Westminster, under what pretence and colour soever, are unto and null, and aught Hot to be submitted unto by the freeborn Subjects of England.  
And that we may prevent that slavery designed upon us and the Nation, that the Kingdom may be restored to a happy State of a visible Government, now eclipsed and darkened; we hold ourselves bound by our duty to God and the Kingdom, to bring to condign punishment the Authors and Promoters of that 
* Is not yours of Dec. 27. & Jan. 5. 1659. far more unparalleled, to the Parliament, and all the freeborn Subjects?  unparalleled violence done to the Parliament; and in that to all the freeborn Subjects of England, that are or hereafter shall be; and therefore we are resolved to march up towards London, where we do expect, that the well-affected people of that City will deliver up unto us (or otherwise put into safe Custody, so as they may be reserved to a legal Trial) the 
10 Much more than now the excluding Members?  eleven impeached Members that have again thrust themselves into the management of public affairs, by this wicked design.  
And that all others will give us such assistance therein, 
11 And ought not the Army and ● Monk n●w to do the like?  that the Members of both Houses may receive due encouragement to return to Westminster, there to sit with all freedom, and so to perform their trust, as shall condues to the settlement of this distracted Kingdom; and to inflict such punishments upon these late Offenders, as shall deter any for the future to make the like attempt.  
Our lives have not been dear unto us for the public good, and being now resolved by the assistance of God, to 
12 Are not the sitting secluders of the Lords and majority of the Commons, far greater Delinquents, deserving greater punishment?  bring these Delinquents to their deserved punishments, as that, than which, there cannot be any thing of more public concernment to the Kingdom, we trust (if it shall come to that) our blood shall not be accounted too dear a price for the accomplishment of it. And if any in the City will engage themselves against us to protect these Persons, and so put the Kingdom again into a new and miserable War, The blood must be laid to the account of such persons, as are the Authors thereof.  
It is our chief aim to settle Peace with Truth and righteousness throughout the Kingdom, that none may be oppressed in his just freedom and Liberties, 
13 Remember and fulfil these Promises, now at least, to the Parliament, King & Kingdom, which cross your Engagements. Abjurations of King and Kingship, to set up an Utopian Commonwealth.  much less the Parliament itself: which things being duly settled, we shall be as ready also to assure unto the King his just Rights and Authority, as any that pretend it never so much, for the better upholding of an ill cause, and the countenance of tumultuous violence against the Parliament: the which our honest, just, and necessary undertakings, as we are resolved to pursue with the utmost hazard of our lives and fortunes, so we doubt not, but we shall find God's accustomed goodness and assistance with us therein, till we have brought them to a good and happy conclusion, for this poor distracted & languishing Kingdom.  
5ly. By the Ordinance of both Houses, eagerly promoted by all the fugitive Members engaging with the Army, and now sitting, as well as others remaining, who condemned and passed Votes against the Apprentiees tumult during their absence, and never countenanced it in the least degree, as 
* Ne dhams Interest will not (but) lie.  some scandalously, and falsely suggest.  

Die Veneris, 20 Aug. 1647.  
An Ordinance for declaring all Votes, Orders, and Ordinances passed in One or Both Houses since the force on Both Houses, July 26. until the 6. of this present August 1647. to be Null and void.  
WHereas there was a visible, horrid, insolent and actual Force upon the Parliament on Monday the 26. of July last: Whereupon the Speakers and 
* And more since their secluding and securing Dec. 6. & 7. 1648.  many Members of Both Houses of Parliament, were forced to absent themselves from the service of the Parliament; And whereas those Members of the House, could not return to sit in safety, before Friday the 6. of August. It is therefore declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, that the Ordinance of Monday the said 26. of July, for the repealing and making void of the Ordinance of the 23. of the said July, for the settling of the Militia of the City of London, being gained by force and violence; And all Votes, Orders, Ordinances, passed in either or both Houses of Parliament, since the said Ordinance of the 26. of July, to the said 6. of Aug. 
* Therefore all since Dec. 6. till now are void by the selfsame reasons.  are null and void, and were so at the making thereof, & are hereby declared so to be, the Parliament being under a force and not free. Provided always, and be it ordained, that no Person or Persons shall be impeached for his or their actions by, or upon, or according to the foresaid Votes, Orders or Ordinances, unless he or they shall be found guilty of contriving, acting or abetting the aforesaid visible or actual force; or being present at, or hearing of the said force, did afterwards Act upon the Votes so forced, &c.  
John Brown Cler. Parliamentorum.   
This force mentioned in all these 5. Declarations, Engagements, and Protests against it, by the Army-Officers, & fugitive Members, was far inferior and no ways comparable to the force upon the secured and secluded Members, but far inferior thereto in these respects. 1. That force was only by a few unarmed tumultuous London Apprentices, who had neither Sword, nor musket, nor Pike, nor Stick in their hands; This upon the secluded Members, was by whole Regiments, Troops, Companies of Horse and Foot, armed with Swords, muskets, Pikes, Pistols. 2. That force was upon this account; only to press the Houses to repeal an Ordinance surreptitiously procured to settle the Militia of London, without their privities, to the disservice of the City and Parliament, passed but 3. days before: Theirs to prevent a settlement of the Peace of the Kingdom, upon our vote touching the King's Answer to the Propositions of both Houses, for the public Peace, Safety, and honour of the Parliament, and three Kingdoms. 3. Their tumult and force lasted but a few hours, and part of one day, and then vanished: That secluding and securing the Members, continued sundry years, and ever since the juncto's two last sittings till this present. 4. That force neither secluded, nor secured, not drove away any one Member from the Houses during its continuance, but only kept them tumultuously in the House till the Ordinance of July 23 was repealed by them, and then vanished: This was purposely employed to secure above 40. and seclude the Majority of the Members of the Commons House, and whole House of Peers by violence, against their Privileges, Trusts, and our Laws; and is still continued for that end. 5. That force caused some few eminent Members, only to absent themselves from the Houses, and repair to the Army, 3. or 4. days after the force was ended, upon the army's invitation, being the far lesser part of both Houses; This force secured, imprisoned and actually kept out and drove away 5. parts of 6. from the House, and that by practice and combination of some Members of the House, to seclude the rest, lest they should over-vote them; and since by their express Orders and Commands, kept out by armed guards for that end. 6. This force was by such who were never raised, commissioned, waged to preserve the Houses and Members from violence, that they might freely sit and vote without disturbance. This by soldiers, specially raised, commissioned, entrusted, paid to defend their persons and Privileges, freely to sit and vote without interruption or seclusion. 7. That force was condemned, disowned, by all the Members of both Houses, as well those who remained sitting, or those who absented themselves. This justified, approved, commanded even by those now sitting, though they condemned it as Treasonable and Criminal, in these Apprentices, and in Cromwell, Lambert, and other Army-Officers since, in their own cases. 8. This inconsiderable force, nulled and made void all Votes, Acts, Ordinances passed not only during the continuance of this horrid actual, visible force upon the Houses on July 26. but likewise from that day till the 6. of Aug. only because those few Members (invited to the Army) were forced, as they affirmed, to absent themselves from the service of the Parliament, and could not return to sit in safety before that day, though there was neither force nor guards during that space upon either House to deter or drive them thence. Therefore upon all these Considerations, The Ordinance, made for this first Tax of 90000. (and now for 100000. l. a month) during the forcible securing, secluding, of the whole House of Peers, and Majority of the Commons House, must much more be null and void, and were so at the time of their making to all intents, the Parl. and Houses being under a more horrid insolent, visible and actual force, before and at the making of them, keeping out the Major part of the Members, than ever the Apprentices, or any age were forme●ly guilty of; and so no ways obliging the excluded Lords, Members, or any others whatsoever, our secluders themselves, and these their Resolutions being Judges, which do all justify the Protestation, published in their names (though not owned by them) Dec. 11. 15, 8. to be no j●st cause ●●t their Ejection by the pretended Ordinance of Dec. 5. made by 3. Lords, and 45. Commoners only, whiles both Houses were under the army's force, and so be null and void to all intents.  
Fourthly, Neither forty Members, nor a whole House of Commons were ever enough in any age, by the Custom of Parliament, or Law of England, to impose a Tax, or make any Act of Parliament, without the King and House of Lords, as I have already proved, and largely and irrefragably evidenced, in my Plea for the Lords, and House of Peers; My Levellers leveled; The 1. and 2. Part of my Register and Survey of Parliamentary Writs; My true and perfect Narrative; and full Declaration of the state of the Case of the secluded Members; much less can they do it after they ceased to be Members by the Parliaments dissolution through the Kings beheading; Neither were they ever invested with any legal power to seclude or expel any of their fellow Members (especially, if duly elected) for any Vote wherein the Majority of the House concurred with them, or for voting against, or differing in their consciences and judgements from them; nor for any other cause, without the Kings and Lord's concurrence, (in whom the ordinary judicial power of the Parliament resides) as I have undeniably proved by precedents and reasons in my Plea for the Lords, p. 305, to 428. and Ardua Regni, which is further evident by Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. M. 32. & Mr. Selden's Titles of Honour, p. 737. Banneret Camoys Case, discharged from being Knight of the Shire by the King's Writ and judgement alone, without the Commons vote, because a Peer of the Realm; the practice of expelling Commons by their fellow Commons only, being 
* See my P●ea for the Lords p. 371, to 419.  a late dangerous, unparliamentary usurpation (unknown to our Ancestors) destructive to the Privileges and Freedom of Parliaments, and injurious to those Counties, Cities, Boroughs, whose trusties are secluded; the House of Commons it self-being no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or final Sentence, and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members, than any 
* Par in pa●em non habet Imperium, vel Jurisdictionem, Bracton, l. 5. c. 15. f. 412.  Judges, Justices of the peace, or Committees have to disjudge, disjustice, or discommittee their fellow-Judges, Justices, or Committee-men, being all of equal authority, and made Members▪ only by the King's Writ and people's Election, not by the Houses, or other Members Votes; who yet now presume both to make and unmake, seclude and recall, expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure, contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages, to patch up a factious Conventicle, instead of an English Parliament. Therefore this Objection, no ways invalids this first Reason; why I neither can, nor dare submit to this illegal Tax in conscience, law, or prudence, which engage me to oppose it in all these Respects.  
If any Object, That true it is, the Parliament by the common Law and Custom of the Realm determines by the King's death; but by the Statute of 17 Caroli, c. 6. which 
Object.  enacts, That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unless it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose; continues the Parliament still in being, notwithstanding the Kings beheading, since no Act of Parliament is passed for its dissolution. The only pretext for to support this continuance of the Parliament since the King's violent death.  
To this I answer, That it is a maxim in Law, That every 
Answ.  Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it, and the mischiefs is intended only to prevent, as is resolved in 4 Edw. 4. 12. 12 Edw. 4. 18. 1 H. 7. 12, 13. ploughed. Com. fol. 369. and Cook's 4. Instit. p. 329, 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act, and the end of enacting it, was not to prevent the dissolution of this Parliament by the King's death, (no ways intimated nor insinuated in any clause thereof, being a clear unavoidable dissolution of it to all intents, not provided for by this Law) but by any Writ or Proclamation of the King, by his Regal power, without consent of both Houses; which I shall manifest by these Reasons.  
First, From the principal occasion of making this Act. The King (as the COMMONS in their 
* Exact Collection, p. 5, 6.  Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom, 15 Decemb. 1641 complain) had dissolved all former Parliaments during his Reign, without and against both Houses approbation, to their great discontent and the kingdom's prejudice, as his Father King James had dissolved others in his Reign: and during their continuance adjourned and prorogued them at their pleasure. Now the fear of preventing of the like dissolution, prorogation, or adjournment of this Parliament after the Scotish Armies disbanding, before the things mentioned in the Preamble were effected by the King's absolute power, was the only ground and occasion of this Law (not any fear or thoughts of its dissolution by the King's untimely death, than not so much as imagined, being before the Wars or Irish Rebellion broke forth) the King very healthy, not ancient, and likely then to survive this Parliament, and many others, in both Houses judgement, as appears by the Bill for triennial Parliaments. This undeniable Truth is expressly declared by the Commons themselves in their foresaid Remonstrance; Exact Collection, p. 5, 6, 14, 17. compared together; where in direct terms they affirm, The abrupt dissolution of this Parliament is prevented by another Bill, by which it is provided, it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses: In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament, there seems to be some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments; not to take it out of the Crown, but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion only; which was so necessary for the Kings own security, and the public peace, that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges, but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion, and the whole Kingdom to blood and rapine.  
In which passages we have a clear resolution of the Commons themselves, immediately after the passing of this Act: that its scope and intention, was only to provide against the King's abrupt dissolution of the Parliament by his mere royal power, in suspending the execution of it for this time and occasion only, and that for the Kings own security, (not his Heirs and Successors) as well as his people's peace and safety. Therefore not against any dissolution of it by his natural (much less his violent) death; which can no ways be interpreted, an Act of his Royal power, (which they then intended hereby, not to take out of the Crown, but only to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion, and that for his security:) but a natural impotency, or unnatural disloyalty, which not only suspends the King's power for a time, but utterly destroys and takes away him and it without hopes of revival for ever.  
Secondly, the very title of this Act (An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the UNTIMELY adjourning, proroguing or DISSOLUTION of this present Parliament) intimates as much, compared with the body of it, which provides, as well against the adjourning and proroguing of both or either Houses without an Act of Parliament, as against the dissolution of the Parliament without an Act. Now the Parliament cannot possibly be said to be adjourned or prorogued in any way or sense, much less untimely, merely by the King's death, (which never adjourned or prorogued any Parliament) but only by his Proclamation, writ, or royal command, to the Houses or their Speakers, executed during his life, as all our Journals, 
¶ 61. 3 Parl. 2. Rot Parl. n. 3. 6. 5 R. 2 n 64, 65. 11 R. 2. n 14, 16, 20. ● H. 4. n. 2, 7. 27 H. 6. n. 12. 28 H. 6. n. 8, 9, 11. 29 H. 6. n. 10, 11. 31 H. 6 n. 22, 30, 49.  Parliaments Rolls and 
* Cook's 4. Institut p. 25. Dyer, f 203.  Lawbooks resolve, though it may be dissolved by his death, as well as by his Proclamation, Writ, or royal command. And therefore this title and Act coupling adjourning proroguing and dissolving this Parliament together, without consent of both Houses, by Act of Parliament, intended only a Dissolution of this Parliament by such Prerogative ways and means by which Parliaments had been untimely adjourned and prorogued as well as dissolved by the King's mere will without their assents; not of a dissolution of it by the King's death, which never adjourned nor prorogued any Parliament, nor dissolved any formerly sitting Parliament in this King's reign, or his Ancestors since the death of King Hen: the 4th. and King James, the only Parliaments we read of dissolved by death of the King since the Conquest; and so a mischief not intended nor remedied by this Act.  
Thirdly, The prologue of the Act implies as much; Whereas great sums of money must of necessity be speedily advanced and procured for the relief of his majesty's Army and People (not his Heirs or Successors) in the Northern parts, &c. And for supply of other his majesty's present and urgent occasions (not his Heirs or Successors future occasions) which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite, without credit for raising the said moneys; which credit cannot be attained, until such obstacles be first removed, which are occasioned by Fears, jealousies and Apprehensions of divers of his majesty's Royal Subjects, that the Parliament may be adjourned, prorogued or dissolved (not by the King's sudden or untimely death, of which there was then no fear, jealousy or apprehension in any his majesty's loyal Subjects, but by his royal Prerogative and advice of ill Counsellors) before Justice shall be duly executed upon Delinquents, (then in being, not sprung up since) public Grievances (Than complained of, not others introduced since this Act,) redressed; a firm peace betwixt the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland concluded, and before sufficient provisions be made for the repayment of the said moneys (not others since borrowed) so to be raised: All which the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having duly considered, do therefore humbly beseech your majesty, that it may be declared and enacted, &c. All which expressions, related TO HIS late majesty only, not to his Heirs and Successors; and the principal scope of this Act, being to gain present credit to raise moneys to disband the Scotish and English armies then lying upon the Kingdom, many years since accomplished; yea Justice being since executed upon Strafford, Canterbury, and other Delinquents then impeached; the public Grievances they complained of (as the Star-Chamber, High-Commission, shipmoney, Tonnage and Poundage, Fines for Knighthood, Bishops Votes in Parliament, with their Courts and Jurisdictions, and the like) redressed by Acts soon after passed, & a firm peace between both Nations concluded before the Wars began; and this preamble's pretensions for this Act all fully satisfied divers years before the Kings beheading: it must of necessity be granted, that this Statute never intended to continue this Parliament on foot after the King's decease: especially after the ends for which it was made were all fully accomplished: and so it must necessarily be dissolved by his Death.  
Fourthly, This is most clear by the body of the Act itself: And be it declared and enacted by the King our sovereign Lord, with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That this present Parliament, now assembled, shall not be dissolved, unless it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose; nor shall any time or times during the continuance thereof, be prorogued or adjourned, unless it be by Act of Parliament, to be likewise passed for that purpose. And that the House of Peers shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned, unless it be by Themselves; or by their own order. And in like manner that the House of Commons shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned, unless it be by Themselves; or by their own order. Whence it is undeniable, 1. That this act was only for the prevention of the untimely dissolving, Proroguing and adjourning of that present Parliament then assembled, and no other. 2. That the King himself was the Principal Member of his Parliament, yea, our sovereign Lord, and the sole declarer and enacter of this Law, by the Lords and Commons assent. 3. That neither this Act for continuing, nor any other for dissolving, adjourning or proroguing this Parliament, could be made without, but only by and with the King's Royal assent thereto; which the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, in their 
* Exact Collect. p. 69, 70, 736, 709, 722.  Remonstrance of the 26. of May 1642. oft in terminis acknowledge, together with his Negative voice to Bills. 4ly. That it was neither the King's intention in passing this Act to shut himself out of Parliament, or create both or either House a Parliament without a King, as he professed in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. 5. p. 27. Nor the Lords nor Commons Intendment to dismember him from his Parliament, or make themselves a Parliament without him; as their foresaid Remonstrance testifies, and the words of the Act import: Neither was it the Kings, Lords or Commons meaning by this Act, to set up a Parliament only of Commons (much less of a remnant of a Commons House selected by Colonel Pride, and his Confederates of the Army to serve their turns, and vote what they prescribed) without either King or House of Peers; much less to give them any super-transcendent authority to vote down and abolish the King and House of Lords, and make them no Members of this present or any future Parliaments, without their own order or assent, against which so great usurpation, and late dangerous unparliamentary encroachments this very Act expressly provides in this clause, That the House of Peers (wherein the King sits as sovereign when he pleaseth,) shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned (much less then dissolved, excluded, or suspended from sitting or voting, which is greater, and that by their inferiors in all kinds, a Fragment of the Commons House, who can pretend no colour of Jurisdiction over them, before whom they always stood bareheaded, like so many Grand-Jury-men before the Judges, and attended at their Doors and Bar to know their pleasures:) unless it be by Themselves, or by their own Order. 5. That neither the King, Lords nor Commons intended to set up a perpetual Parliament, and entail it upon them, their heirs or successors for ever, by this act, which would cross and repeal the Act for triennial Parliaments made at the same time, and on the same 
* Brook parliament 80. Relation 85. Dyer 85.  day in Law; but to make provision only against the untimely dissolving of this, till the things mentioned in the Preamble were accomplished and settled; as the Preamble, and these oft repeated words, any time or times during the continuance of this present Parliament, concludes; and that during His majesty's reign and life, not after his death; as these words, coupled with The Relief of his majesty's Army and People; and for supply of his majesty's present and urgent occasions in the Preamble, manifest. Therefore, this Act can no ways continue it a Parliament after the Kings beheading; much less after the forcible exclusion both of the King and Lord's House, and majority of the Commons out of Parliament by those now sitting, contrary to the very letter and provision of this act; by which device the King alone, had he conquered and cut off, or secluded by his forces the Lords and Commons Houses from sitting, might with much more colour have made himself an absolute Parliament, to impose what Taxes and Laws he pleased, on the people; without Lords or Commons, or any 40. of the Commons House, or any 7. or 8. Lords concurring with him, secluding all the rest by armed power, make themselves an absolute standing Parliament, for him, his heirs and successors, by virtue of this act, than those few Commons sitting since his trial & death do, or can do. 6. The last clause of this act; And that all and every ●●ing or things whatsoever done, or to be done, (to wit, by the King or His Authority) for the adjournment, proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament, contrary to this present Act, shall be utterly void and of none effect. Now death, and a dissolution of this Parliament by the King's death, cannot (as to the King) be properly styled, a Thing done, or to be done (by Him) for the adjournment, proroguing or dissolving of this Parliament, contrary to this present Act; which cannot make the King's death utterly void and of none effect, by restoring him to his life again. Therefore the dissolution of the Parl. by the King's death, is clearly out of the words and intentions of this Act, especially so many years after its Enacting. 7. This present Parl. & every Member thereof, being specially summoned by the King's Writ, by the particular name of Carolus REX, not REX in general, only to be His Parliament and Council, and to confer personally with Him, of the great and urgent affairs concerning Him and His Kingdom, not his Heirs and Successors; and these Writs, and the Elections upon them, returned unto Him and His Court by Indentures, and the persons summoned and chosen by virtue of them, appearing only in His Parliament, for no other ends but those expressed in His Writs; it would be both an absurdity and absolute impossibility to assert, that the King, or both Houses, intended by this Act, to continue this Parliament in being after the Kings beheading or death: unless they that maintain this paradox, be able to inform me and those now sitting, how they can confer and advice with a dead beheaded King, of things concerning Him and His Kingdom; and that even after they have abjured his Heirs and Successors, and Royal line, and extirpated Monarchy itself, and made it Treason to assert or revive it; and how they can continue still His Parliament and Council, whose head they have cut off; and that without reviving or raising him from his grave, or enstalling His right Heir and Successor in His Throne, to represent His Person; neither of which they dare to do, for fear of losing their own Heads and Quarters too, for beheading him. This Tax therefore being imposed on the Kingdom long after the Kings beheading, and the Parliaments actual and legal dissolution by it, must needs be illegal, and merely void in Law to all intents; because not granted nor imposed in, but totally out of Parliament, by those who were then no Commons nor Members of a Parliament, and had no more authority to impose any Tax upon the Kingdom, than any other forty or fifty Commoners whatsoever out of Parliament, who may usurp the like Authority, by this precedent, to Tax the Kingdom or any County what they please, (yea the whole 3. Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as they now presume) and then levy it by an Army or force of arms, to the people's infinite, endless oppression and undoing. This is my first and principal exception against the Legality of this Tax, and others they shall impose, which I desire the Imposers and Levyers of it most seriously to consider, and challenge them all to Answer if they can, for our 3. Kingdoms present, and posterities satisfaction, by other Arguments than Imprisonments, close Imprisonments, Pistols, Swords, and armed violence, and that upon these important considerations from their own late Declarations.  
First, themselves in their own Declaration of the 9th. of February, 1648. have protested to the whole Kingdom: That they are fully resolved to maintain, and shall and will uphold, preserve, and keep the fundamental Laws of this Nation, for, and concerning the preservation of the Lives, Properties and Liberties of the people, with all things incident thereunto: Which how it will stand with the former, and this new Tax imposed by them out of Parliament, or in a thin House under force, or their Act concerning New Treasons; I desire they would satisfy the Kingdom, before they levy the one, or proceed upon the other against any of their fellow-Subjects, by mere arbitrary armed power against Law and Right.  
Secondly, Themselves in their Declaration expressing the grounds of their late proceedings, and settling the present Government in way of a Free-State, dated 17 Martii, 1648. engage themselves: 1. To procure the well-being of those whom they serve: to renounce oppression, arbitrary power, and all opposition to the Peace and Freedom of the Nation: And to prevent to their power, the reviving of Tyranny, Injustice, and all former evils (the only end and duty of all their Labours) to the satisfaction of all concerned in it. 2. They charge the late King for exceeding all his Predeoeessors in the destruction of those whom he was bound to preserve; To manifest which they instance in The Loans, unlawful Imprisonments, and othec Oppressions which produced that excellent Law of the Petition of Right; which were most of them again acted, presently after the Law made against them, which was most palpably broken by him, almost in every part of it, very soon after his Solemn Consent given unto it. 
1 Is not this the Armies and their own late and present practice?  His imprisoning and prosecuting Members of Parliament, for opposing His unlawful Will: and of divers 
2 Alderman Chambers the eminentest of them, is yet since this Declaration discharged by you for his loyalty and conscience only.  worthy Merchants for refusing to pay Tonnage and Poundage, because not granted by Parliament; yet 
3 And is it not so by you now, and t●ansmirted unto the Exchequer to be levied?  exacted by HIM expressly against Law; & punishment of many 
4 And do not you now the same, ye●, some of them very good Patriots?  good Patriots for not submitting to whatsoever he pleased to demand, though never so much in breach of the known Law. The multitude of Projects and monopolies established by Him. His design and charge to bring in 
5 Are not the Generals and Armies Horses and Foot too, kept up and continued among us for that purpose, being some of them Germans too?  German-Horse, to awe us into slavery: and his hopes of completing all by His grand project of 
6 Not one quarter so g●ievous as the late and present Taxes, Excises, Customs, imposed by you for the like purpose.  shipmoney, to subject every man's Estate to whatsoever Proportion He pleaseth to impose upon them. But above all the English Army was laboured by the King to be engaged against the English Parliament. A thing of that 
7 And is it not more unnatural in those now sitting, to engage the English Army, raised by the Parliament of England, and convenanting to defend it from violence, against the very Parliament of England and its Members, to seclude, exclude, and eject the majority of their Fellow Members, and whole House of Peers, by their Votes and Commands, and that successively twice after one another, and yet to own and support this Army without ●ighting those Members?  strange impiety and unnaturalness for the King of England, to sheathe their swords in one another's bowels, that nothing can answer it but his own being a foreigner: neither could it have easily purchased belief, but by his succeeding visible actions in full pursuance of the same. As the Kings coming in person to the 
8 Was not Pride's and the Armies coming thither to seize, and actually seizing above Forty, and secluding above two hundred Members, with Thousands of a●med Horse and Foot; And their suppressing the House of Lords, and re secluding the Members by armed Guards on May 7, & 9 & Dec. 27. 1659. a thousand times a greater offence, especially after so many Declarations of the Houses against this of the Kings?  House of Commons to seize the five Members, whither he was followed 
9 Was not Humphrey Edwards now sitting, (an unduly elected Member,) one of them thus armed?  with some hundreds of unworthy debauched persons, armed with Swords and Pistols, and other Arms; and they attending at the Door of the House, ready to execute whatsoever their Leader should command them. The oppressions of the Council-Table, Star-Chamber, High-Commission, Court-Martial, Wardships, Purveyances, Afforestations, and many others of like nature, (equalled, if not far exceeded now by sundry arbitrary Committees and Sub-Committee, to name no others, in all manner of Oppressions and Injustice) concluding thus: upon all these and many other unparalleled offences, upon his breach of Faith, of Oaths and Protestations; upon the cry of the blood of England and Ireland: upon the tears of Widows and Orphans, and childless Parents, and millions of persons undone by him, let all the world of indifferent men judge, whether the Parliament (you mean yourselves only which made this Declaration) had not sufficient cause to bring the King to justice? And much more the whole Kingdom, and secluded Lords and Members, to bring you to public Justice; since you not only imitate, but far exceed him in all and every of these, even by your own verdict.  
3. Themselves charge the King with profuse Donations of Salaries and Pensions to such as were found, or might be made fit Instruments and Promoters of Tyranny: which were supplied not by the legal justifiable revenue of the Crown, but by Projects and illegal ways of draining the people's purses. All which mischiefs and grievances they say will be prevented in their free State, though the quite contrary way; as appears by the late large Donations of some thousands to Mr. 
* Henry Martin is accountable to the State for above 8700 l. which the Committee of Accounts in two years' time could never bring him to account for, and yet hath 3000 pound voted him lately for moneys pretended to be di●bursed; to whom and for what quae●e.  Henry Martin, the Lord Lisle, Commissary General Ireton, Cromwell, and others of their Members and Instruments, upon pretence of arrears, or service, and that out of the moneys now imposed for the relief of Ireland, and other public Taxes, Customs, Lands and Revenues. And must we pay Taxes to be thus prodigally given away and expended?  
4. They therein promise and engage, That the good old Laws and Customs of England, the badges of our Freedom, (the benefit whereof our Ancestors enjoyed long before the conquest, and spent much of their blood to have confirmed by the great Charter of the Liberties) and other excellent laws which have continued in all former changes, and being duly executed, are the most just, free, and equal of any other laws in the world, shall be duly continued and maintained by them; the liberty, property and peace of the Subject being so fully preserbed by them, and the common interest of those whom they serve. And if those laws should be taken away, all Industry must cease; all misery, blood and confusion would follow, and greater Calamities, then fell upon us by the late King's misgovernment, would certainly involve all persons, under which they must inevitably perish. How well they have performed this part of their Remonstrance, let their proceedings in their High Courts of Justice, the long Imprisoments and close Imprisonments of myself, and other their Fellow-Members, their acts for new Treasons and Delinquents, and ejecting their Fellow-Members and Lords out of Parliament, without the least Impeachment, trial, Accusation, their Imprisonment of Sir Robert Pye, the Kentish Gentlemen, and others, for demanding a Free Parliament, fair and free elections, restitution of the secluded Members, &c. determine.  
5. They therein expressly promise, p. 26. To order the revenue in such away, That the public charges may be defrayed, The soldiers pay justly and duly settled, That freequarter may be wholly taken away, and the People eased of their burdens and Taxes: And is this now all the ease we feel; to have all burdens and Taxes thus augmented, doubled, trebled, paid in near a year before hand, and then new and greater Taxes imposed on them for those very Months they have paid in their old proportion before hand, beyond all precedents of Tyranny and oppression in any age, and that by pretended acts made out of Parliament, against all these good old Laws and Statutes, our Liberties and Properties, which these worse than Egyptian Tax-Masters have so newly and deeply engaged themselves to maintain and preserve without the least diminution and violation?  
6. That this very Juncto, in their Act (as they style it) made and published, Octob. 11. 1659. entitled an Act against the raising of moneys upon the people, without their common consent in Parliament; enact and declare, That no Person or Persons, shall after the XI. of October, 1659. assess, levy, collect, gather or receive any customs imposts, excise, assessment, contribution, tax, tallage, or any sum or sums of money, or other Imposition whatsoever, upon the People or Commonwealth, without their consent in Parliament, or as by Law might have been done before the 3. of November 1640. And it is further enacted and declared, that every Person offending contrary to this Act, shall be, and is hereby adjudged guilty of High Treason, and shall suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason. Which 
* In their p●rliament● P. a, p. 5, 6, 7.  some of them have declared, to be the Fundamental and old Law of England, against which no By-Law is to be made, and one of the main birthrights of England. Therefore themselves by assessing and imposing many former Customs, Imposts, Excises, assessments and contributions on the people; and this of one hundred thousand pounds a Month, for 6. Month Jan. 26. 1659. 
See A Full Declaration of the true state of the Case of the secluded Members p. 55, &c.  without Common consent in Parliament, when and whiles 26. of the greatest Counties in England, and 11. Shires in Wales, 14. whole Cities, and most Boroughs in England, have not so much as one Knight, Citizen or Burgess sitting with them to represent them, and 9 English Counties no more but one Knight, and but 4. Counties, and 2. Cities alone, and not above 3. or 4. Boroughs their full numbers of Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, sitting with them to represent them; all the rest to the number of 420. Members, besides the whole House of Lords, being forcibly excluded or dead; by the tenor of their own Act and Decl. are adjudged guilty of High Treason, and aught to suffer and forfeit as in case of Treason, and all those Commissioners named in their Act, amounting to above one thousand, and all Assessors, Collectors and Treasurers under them, who shall assess, levy, collect, gather or receive the same, shall incur the guilt of Treason, and suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason; and their real and personal Estates, be confiscated to pay the public debts, and soldiers arrears.  
7. That this Anti-Parliamentary Convention, in their late Declaration of Jan. 24. have published and declared to the world, That they are resolved to remain constane and immovable, that the people of these Nations may be governed from time to time by Representatives of Parliament, chosen by themselves. That they should be governed by the Laws, That all proceedings touching the Laws, Liberties and Estates of the free-people of the Commonwealth, shall be according to the Laws of the Land; It being their principal care to provideagainst all arbitrariness in Government. And that it is one of the greatest cares they have upon them, how to give the people that ease, from their present burdens, which their (undone) condition calls for. Which how well and faithfully they have performed, and not rather most notoriously violated, let the whole world, God, Angels, Men, determine, by their imposing a Monthly Tax of one hundred thousand pounds a Month, for the 6. next Months, they had paid and advanced before hand: By ordering Gen. Monk by a Vote of their Council of State, at Whitehall (afterwards ratisied by a Vote, at Westminster when executed) the 9 of this instant February, to march with all his Forces into the City of London, to seize and imprison 2. of their Aldermen, and sundry of their Common-Council men in the Tower, to pull down and destroy the Gates and portculliss of the City; To discontinue, null and void the Common-Council of the City of London for this year, by ordering a Bill for the choice of another Common-Council, with such Qualifications as the Juncto shall think fit; which was accordingly executed, and then ratified and approved by their Votes; and by commanding him afterwards to demand the City Arms, & to disarm them by force, if they deliver them not upon demands s and all because the Common-Council upon a Petition of the Citizens, and Remonstrance of the Gentlemen, Ministers and Freeholders of Warwickshire, and other Counties Febr. 8. voted and resolved; That no Person or Persons whatsoever, might impose any Laws or Taxes upon the City and Citizens, until the Authority thereof be derived from their Representatives in a full and free Parliament. And all this without and before the least hearing or examination of the City and Common-Council: a Tyranny, Indignity, Dishonour and Ingratitude not to be paralleled, and never offered in any age to the City and Citizens before by any of our Kings, for the highest Treasons against them, at least before hearing and convicti●●; much less only for demanding and claiming the benefit of those Fundamental Laws and Privileges, for whose defence they had so lately expended so many Millions of Treasure, and Thousands of their lives, to defend them according to these their fresh Declarations, and Acts encouraging them thereunto; (and that after all their former Obligations and endearments to the City upon all occasions, and the beheaded Kings free Confirmation of all their former Charters, Liberties, Privileges, Militia, and enlargements of the same, at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight, notwithstanding their taking up arms against him in the Parliaments defence) may now justly irritate and engage the City of London, and all other Cities, Boroughs, Corporations and Counties of this Realm, unanimously to oppose the present and all other Taxes and Excises whatsoever, imposed on them by these Oppressors, and put their own Act in vigorous execution against them, as the worst of Tyrants, and Invaders of their Liberties.  
Thirdly, Both Houses of Parliament jointly, and the House of Commons severally in the late Parliament, with the approbation of all, and consent of most now sitting, did in sundry 
¶ Exact Collection, p. 5, 6, 7, 14, 342, 492.  Romonstrances and Declarations, published to the Kingdom, not only Tax the King and his evil Counsellors, for imposing illegal Taxes on the Subjects, contrary to the forecited Acts; the maintenance whereof against all future violations and invasions of the people's Liberties and Properties they made one principal ground of our late bloody expensive war; but likewise professed 
* Exact Collection, p. 28, 29, 214, 263, 270, 491, 492, 495, 496, 497, 600.  That they were specially chosen and entrusted by the Kingdom in Parliament, and owned it as their duty to hazard their own lives and estates, for preservation of those Laws and Liberties, and use their best endeavours that the meanest of the Commonalty MIGHT ENJOY THEM AS THEIR birthrights, as well as the greatest Subject. That every honest man, (especially those who have taken the late Protestation, and Solemn League and Covenant since) is bound to defend the Laws and Liberties of the kingdom against Will and Power, which imposed what payments they thought fit to drain the Subjects Purses, and supply those Necessities (which their ill Counsel had brought upon the King and Kingdom.) And that they would be ready to live and die with those worthy and true-hearted Patriots of the Gentry of this Nation and others, who were ready to lay down their lives and fortunes, for the maintenance of their Laws and Liberties: with many such like expressions. Which must needs engage me (a Member of that Parliament, and Patriot of my Country) with all my strength and power to oppose this injurious Tax, imposed out of Parliament, though with the hazard of my life and fortunes; wherein all those late secluded Lords and Members who have joined in these Remonstrances are engaged by them to second me, under pain of being adjudged unworthy for ever hereafter to sit in any Parliament, or to be trusted by their Counties and those for whom they served. And so much the rather to vindicate the late Houses honour and reputation from those predictions and printed aspersions of the beheaded King, now verified as undeniable experimented truths by the Antiparliamentary sitting Juncto; 
* Exact Collect. p. 285, 286, 298, 320. 32a, 378, 379, 381, 513, 514, 515, &c. 618, 619, 623, 647, &c. 671, 679, &c. A Collect. &c. p. 100, 102, &c. 117.  That the maintenance of the Laws, Liberties, Properties of the People, were but only gilded Dissimulations, and specious pretences to get power into their own hands, thereby to enable them to destroy and subvert both Laws, Liberties and Properties at last, and not any thing like them; to introduce Anarchy, Democracy, Parity, Tyranny in the Highest degree, and new forms of arbitrary Government, and leave neither King nor Gentleman: all which the people should too late discover to their costs, and that they had obtained nothing by adhering to and compliance with them, but to enslave and undo themselves, and to be at last destroyed. Which royal Predictions many complain, and all experimentally ●ind too truly verified by those who now bear rule, under the Nam● and visor of the Parliament of England, since its dissolution by the King's decapitation, and the Armies imprisoning and seclusion of the Members and Lords, who above all others are obliged to disprove them by their Actions, as well as Declarations to the people, who regard not words but real performances from these new Keepers of their Liberties, especially in this FIRST YEAR OF England's FREEDOM engraven on all their public Seals, which else will but seal their Selfdamnation, and proclaim them the Archest Impostors under Heaven; and now again in their 3. Session, after their two sudden and forcible Dissolutions.  
Secondly, Should I voluntarily submit to pay this Tax, and that by virtue of an Act of Parliament made by those now sitting, (some of whose Elections have been voted void; others of them elected by new illegal Writs under a new kind of Seal, without the King's Authority, style or Seal, and that since the Kings beheading, as the Earl of Pembroke, and Lord Edward Howard, uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common-law or Custom of Parliament, being Peers of the Realm (if now worthy such a Title) as was adjudged long since in the Lord Camoy's case, Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. m. 32. asserted by Mr. Selden in his Titles of honour, part 2. c. 5. p. 737. seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4. Institut. p. 1, 4, 5, 46, 47, 49. and I have proved at large in my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers,) As I should admit these to be lawful Members, and their unlawful void Writs to be good in Law; so should I tacitly admit, & ex post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledge, judgement, conscience, Oaths of Supremacy, Allegiance, P●otestation, and Solemn League and Covenant, taken in the presence of God himself, with a sincere heart and real intention to perform the same, and persevere therein all the days of my life, without suffering myself directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion or terror to be withdrawn therefrom. As first, That there may be and now is a lawful Parliament of England actually in being, and legally continuing after the King's death, consisting only of a few late Members of the Commons House, without either King, Lords, or most of their Fellow-Commons: which the very Consciences and Judgements of all now sitting, that know any thing of Parliaments, and the whole Kingdom if they durst speak their Knowledge, know and believe to be false, yea against their Oaths and Covenant. Secondly, That this Parliament (so unduly constituted, and packed by power of an army combining with them) hath a just and lawful authority to violate the Privileges, Rights, Freedoms, Customs, and alter the Constitution of our Parliaments themselves; imprison, seclude, expel most of their Fellow-Members for voting according to their Consciences; to repeal what Votes, Ordinances and Acts of Parliament they please, erect new Arbitrary Courts of War and Justice to arraign, condemn, execute the King himself, with the Peers and Commons of this Realm by a new kind of Martial law, contrary to Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and Law of the Land: disinherit the King's posterity of the Crown, extirpate Monarchy, and the whole House of Peers, change and subvert the ancient Government, Seals, Laws, Writs, legal proceedings, Courts, and coin of the Kingdom; sell and dispose of all the Lands, Revenues, Jewels, Goods of the Crown, with the Lands of Deans and Chapters, as they think meet; absolve themselves (like so many Antichristian Popes) with all the Subjects of England and Ireland, from all the Oaths and Engagements they have made TO THE King's MAJESTY, HIS HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS: yea, from their very Oath of Allegiance, notwithstanding this express clause in it (which I desire may be seriously and conscientiously considered by all who have sworn it) I do believe and in Conscience am resolved, that neither the Pope, nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath, or any part thereof, which I acknowledge by good and full authority to be lawfully ministered unto me, and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary; and to dispense with our Protestations, Solemn League and Covenant so lately and 
* A Collect. &c. p. 327, 358, 359. 399, 404, 416, 420, &c. 694, 751, 768, 769, 798, 802, 806, &c. 879, 889.  zealously urged and enjoined by both Houses on Members, Officers, Ministers, and all sorts of People throughout the Realm; to dispose of all the Forts, Ships, Forces, Offices and Places of Honour, Power, Trust or Profit within the Kingdom to whom they please; to displace and remove whom they will from their Offices, Trusts, Pensions, Callings, at their pleasures, without any legal cause or trial: to make what new Acts, Laws, and reverse what old ones they think meet, to ensnare, enthrall our Consciences, Estates, Liberties, Lives: to create new▪ monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before; and declare real Treasons against King, Kingdom, Parliament, to be no Treasons, and Loyalty, Allegiance, due Obedience to our known Laws, and conscientious observing of our Oaths and Covenants (the breach whereof would render us actual traitors, and perjurious Persons) to be no less than High Treason, for which they may justly imprison, dismember, disfranchise, displace and fine us at their wills (as they have done some of late) and confiscate our Persons, Lives to the Gallows, and our estates to their new Exchequer; (a Tyranny beyond all Tyrannies ever heard of in our Nation, repealing Magna Charta, c. 29. 5 E. 3. c. 6. 25 Ed. 3. c. 4. 28 Ed. 3. c. 3. 37. E. 3. c. 18. 42 E. 3. c. 3. 25 Ed. 3. c. 2. 11 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H. 4. c. 10. 2 H. 4. Rot. Par. N. 60. 1 E. 6. c. 12. 1 Mar. c. 1. The Petition of Right, 3 Caroli, the Statutes made in the beginning of the Parliament, 16 Caroli c. 1, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 20. and laying all our 
* See Cook's 3 Instit. p. 1. 21, 22, 23.  Laws, Liberties, Estates, Lives in the very dust, after so many bloody and costly years' wars, to defend them against the Kings and others invasions) raise and keep up what forces they will by Sea and Land, impose what heavy Taxes they please, and renew, increase multiply and perpetuate them on us, and on Scotland and Ireland too, which no English Parliament ever did before, as often and as long as they please, to support their own encroached, more than Regal, Parliamental, Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us, and all that is ours or the Kingdoms, at our private and the public charge, against our wills, judgements, consciences, to our absolute enslaving, and our three Kingdoms ruin, by engaging them one against another in new Civil wars; and exposing us for a prey to our foreign Enemies. All which, with other particulars, lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax, and sundry others since by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it, I must necessarily admit, acknowledge to be just and legal by my voluntary payment of it, on purpose to maintain an Army, to justify and make good all this by the mere power of the Sword, which they can no ways justify and defend by the Laws of God or the Realm, or the least colour of reason, justice, honesty, religion, conscience, before any Tribunal of God or Men, when legally arraigned, as they may one day be. Neither of which I can or dare acknowledge, without incurring the guilt of most detestable Perjury, and highest Treason, against King, Kingdom, Parliament, Laws and Liberties of the people; and therefore cannot yield to this assessment.  
Thirdly, the principal ends and uses proposed in the pr●tended Acts and Warrants thereupon for payment of this Tax, and other Taxes since, are strong obligations to me, in point of conscience, Law, Prudence, to withstand it; which I shall particularly discuss  
The First is, the maintenante and continuance of the pr●sent Army and Forces in England under the Lord Fairfax, Cromwell, and other Commanders since. To which I say, First, as I shall with all readiness, gratitude and due respect, acknowledge their former Gallantry, good and faithful Services to the Parliament and Kingdom, whiles they continued dutiful and constant to their first Engagements, and the ends for which they were raised by both Houses, as far forth as any man; so in regard of their late monstrous defections, and dangerous apostasies from their primitive obedience, faithfulness, and engagements in disobeying the Commands, and levying open war against both Houses of Parliament, keeping an horrid force upon them at their very doors; seizing, imprisoning, secluding, abusing, and forcing away their Members, printing and publishing many high and treasonable Declarations against the Institution, Privileges, Members and Proceedings of the late, and being of all futur● Parliaments; imprisoning, abusing, arraigning, condemning and executing our late King, against the Votes, Faith, and Engagements of both Houses, and disinheriting His posterity, usurping the Regal, Parliamental, Magistratical, and Ecclesiastical power of the Kingdom to their General-Council of Officers of the Army, and Anti-Parliamentary Conventicles, as the supreme swaying Authority of the Kingdom, and attempting to alter and subvert the ancient Government, Parliaments, Laws, and Customs of our Realms. And upon serious consideration of the ordinary, unsufferable Assertions of their Officers and soldiers uttered in most places where they Quarter, and to myself in particular, sundry times, 
* Can or will the expulsed King himself or his Heirs say more, or so much as these, if he invade and conquer us by foreign forces? And were it not better for us then to submit to our lawful King, than to so many thousand perfidious usurping pretended Conquerors of us, who of late pretended only they were no other but our Servants, not Lords and Conquerors?  That the whole Kingdom, with all our Lands, Houses, Goods and whatsoever we have, is theirs, and that by right of Conquest, they having twice conquered the Kingdom: That we are but their conquered Slaves and Vassals, and they the Lords and Heads of the Kingdom: That our very lives are at their mercy and courtesy: That when they have gotten all we have from us by Taxes and freequarter, and we have nothing left to pay them, than themselves will seize upon our Lands as their own, and turn us and our Families out of doors: That there is now no Law in England (nor never was, if we believe their lying Oracle Peter's) but the Sword; with many such like vapouring Speeches and discourses, of which there are thousands of witnesses: I can neither in Conscience, Law, nor Prudence assent unto, much less contribute in the least degree, for their present maintenance, or future continuance, thus to insult, enslave, and tyrannize over King, Kingdom, Parliament, People at their pleasure, like their conquered Vassals. And for me in particular to contribute to the maintenance of those, who against the Law of the Land, the privileges of Parliament, and liberty of the Subject, pulled me forcibly from the Commons House, and kept me Prisoner about 2. months' space under their marshal, to my great expense and prejudice, and since that, close Prisoner near 3. whole years in Dunster, Taunton and Pendennis Castles, and thrice forcibly excluded me and other Members out of the House, May 7. and 9 and Decemb. 27. 1659. without any particular cause pretended or assigned, only for discharging my duty to the Kingdom, and those for whom I served in the House, without giving me the least reparation for this unparalleled injustice, or acknowledging their offence (and yet detain some of my then fellow-Members under custody by the mere power of the Sword, without bringing them to Trial) would be, not ●●ly absurd, unreasonable, and a tacit justification of this h●rrid violence, and breath of Privilege, but monstrous, unnatural, perfidious, against my Oath and Covenant.  
2. No Tax ought to be imposed on the Kingdom in Parliament itself, but in case of necessity, for the common good, and defence thereof against foreign Enemies, or domestic traitors and Rebels, as is clear by the Stat. of 25 E. 1. c. 6. all Acts for Taxes, Subsidi●s, Tenths, aids, Tonnage and Poundage, & Cook's 2 Instit. p. 528. Now it is evident to me, that there is no necessity of keeping up this Army for the Kingdoms common Good, but rather a necessity of disbanding it, or the greatest part of it, for these reasons: 1. Because the whole Kingdom with Scotland and Ireland are generally exhausted by the late 18. years' Wars, Plunders and heavy Taxes; there being more moneys levied on it by both sides, during these 18. last years, than in all the King's Reigns since the Conquest, as will appear upon a just computation: all Counties being thereby utterly unable to pay it. 2. In regard of the great decay of Trade, the extraordinary dearth of cattle, corn, and provisions of all sorts; the charge of relieving a multitude of poor people, who starve with famine in many places, the richer sort (eaten out by Taxes and freequarter) being utterly unable to relieve them. To which I might add, the multitude of maimed soldiers, with the widows and children of those who have lost their lives in the Wars, which is very costly. 3. The heavy Contributions to support the Army, which destroy all Trade, by forestalling, engrossing most of the moneys of the Kingdoms, and enhancing their prices, keeping many thousands of able men and horses idle, only like moths, and locusts to consume other labouring men's provisions, estates, and the public Treasure of the Kingdoms, when as their employment in their Trades and Callings, might much advance trading, and enrich the Kingdoms. 4. There is now no visible Enemy in the field or elsewhere, and the fitting Members boast there is no fear from any abroad, their navy being so Victorious. And why such a vast Army should be still continued in the Kingdom to increase its debts and payments, when charged with so many great Arrears and Debts already, to eat up the Count●y with Taxes and freequarter, only to play, drink, whore, steal, rob, murder, quarrel, fight with, impeach and shoot one another to death as traitors, Rebels, and Enemies to the Kingdom, and people's Liberties, as of late the Levellers, and Cromwellists did, (when this was written) and the Lambardists and Rumpists since, for want of other employments, and this for the public Good, transcends my understanding. 5. When the King had two great Armies in the Field, and many Garrisons in the Kingdom, this whole Army by its primitive Establishment, consisted but of twenty two thousand Horse, Dragoons and Foot, and had an Establishment only of about forty five thousand pounds a month for their pay, which both Houses than thought sufficient, as is evident by their 
o A Collect. &c. p. 599, 876.  Ordinances of Febr. 15. 1644. and April 4 1646. And when the Army was much increased without their Order, sixty thousand pounds a month was thought abundantly sufficient by the Officers and Army themselves, to disband and reduce all super-numeraries, maintain the Established Army and Garrisons, and ease the Country of all freequarter; which Tax hath been constantly pain in all Counties. Why then this Tax to the Army should now be raised above the first Establishment, when reduced to twenty thousand, whereof sundry Regiments are designed for Ireland, (for which there is thirty thousand pounds a month now enacted, beside the sixty for the Army) and this for the common good of the Realm, and that the Taxes since should be mounted to 120. thousand pounds each month and now again to one hundred thousand pounds for those 6. months, for which they have paid in 35. thousand pounds, 9 months since before hand; only to murder our Protestant Brethren, and Allies of Scotland and Holland, destroy and oppress each other, and keep up an Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle of Tyrants and usurpers, to undo, enslave and ruin our Kingdoms, Parliaments, and their Privileges, against all their former Oaths, Protestations, Declarations, Covenants, is a riddle unto me, on rather, a Mystery of Iniquity▪ for some men's private ●●●re, 〈…〉 than the public weal. 6. The Militias of every County (for which there was so great contest in Parliament with the late King) and those Persons of interest and estates in every Shire or Corporation who have been cordial to the Parliament and Kingdom heretofore, if put into a posture of defence, under Gentlemen of quality, and known integrity, as they were under Sectaries, Quakers, and Anabaptists of late, would be a far greater, safer, fitter Guard to secure the Kingdom & Parliament against foreign Invasions, or domestic Insurrections, than a mutinous mercenary Army of Sectaries, or Persons and soldiers of no fortunes, and that with more general content, and the tenth part of that charge the Kingdom is now at to maintain this Army, & a costly Militia besides, and prevent all danger of the undoing pest of freequarter. Therefore there is no necessity to keep up this Army, or impose any new Tax for their maintenance, or defraying their pretended Arrears: which I dare aver, the freequarter they have formerly taken in kind, and levied in money, if brought to a just account, as it ought, will double, if not treble most of their ancient Arrears, and make them much indebted to the Country. And no reason they should have full pay and freequarter too, and the Country bear the burden of both, without full allowance of all the Quarters levied or taken on them against Law, out of their pretended Arrears.  
And if any of the sitting tax-makers' here object, That 
Objct.  they dare not trust the Militia of the Cities and Counties of the Realm with their own or the kingdom's defence: therefore there is a necessity for them to keep up the Army, to prevent all dangers from abroad, and Insurrections at home.  
I answer, 1. That upon these pretences these new Lords may entail and enforce an Army, and Taxes to support 
Answ.  them, on the three Kingdoms till doomsday. 2. If they be real Members who make this Objection, elected by the Counties, Cities and Boroughs for which they serve, and deriving their Parliamental Authority only from the People, (the 
* See their Votes Jan. 4. & declaration, 17 March, 1648. p. 1. 27.  only new fountain of all Power and Authority, as themselves now dogmatise) than they are but their Servants and trusties, who are to allow them wages, and give them Commission for what they act. And if they dare not now trust the people, and those persons of quality, fidelity, and estate, who both elected, entrusted and empowered them, and are their Lords and Masters, not Slaves or Vassals, yea the primitive and supreme power; it is high time for their Electors and Masters, (the People) to revoke their authority, trusts, and call them to a speedy account for all their late exorbitant proceedings, in ejecting the Majority of their faithful Fellow Members, in whom the people most confided, and for their mispence of the kingdom's Treasure; and no longer to trust those with their purses, liberties, safety, who dare not now to confide in them, and would rather commit the safeguard of the Kingdom to mercenary, indigent soldiers, than to those Gentlemen, freeholders, Citizens, Burgesses, and persons of Estate who elected them, whose trusties, Servants, and Attorneys only they profess themselves, and who have greatest interest both in them and the kingdom's weal, and are those who must pay these mercenaries, if continued.  
3. The Gentlemen and freemen of England have very little reason any longer to trust the Army with the Kingdoms, Parliaments, or their own Liberties, Laws, and Privileges safeguard, which they have so oft invaded; professing now, 
* See their Declaration, Nov. 20. & proposals, Dec 6. 164● and Cromwel● Inst●ument & Speeches.  that they did not fight to preserve the Kingdom, King, Parliament, Laws, Liberties and Properties of the Subject; but to conquer and pull them down, and make us conquered slaves instead of freemen: averring, All is theirs by conquest (which is as much as the King and his Cavaliers, or any foreign enemy could or durst have affirmed, had they conquered us by battle:) And if so, than this Army is not, cannot be upheld and maintained for the Kingdoms and people's common good and safety, but their enslaving, destruction, and the mere support of the usurped power, authority, offices, wealth and absolute domination only of those Generals, Officers, juncto's, (as we have found by sad experience) who have exalted themselves for the present, above King, Parliament, Kingdoms, Laws, Liberties, and those who did entrust them, by the help of this trus●breaking Army, who have 
* Ezek. 18 24.  lost and stained all the glory of their former noble Victories and heroic Actions, by their late degenerate unworthy treacheries, practices, and a●e become a reproach to the profession of a soldier, the Protestant Religion, and the English Nation in all Christian Kingdoms and Churches.  
The second end of this heavy Tax of April 7. 1649. is the support and maintenance of the Forces in Ireland, for which there was only twenty thousand pounds a month formerly allowed, now mounted unto thirty thousand.  
To which I answer in the first place, That it is apparent by the printed Statutes of 25 E. 1. c. 6. 1 E. 3. c. 5, 7. 18 Ed. 3. c. 7. 25 Ed. 3. c. 8. 4 H. 4. c. 13. Cook's 2. Institutes, p. 528. and the Protestation of all the Commons of England in the Parliaments of 1 Hen. 5. num. 17. and 7 H. 5. num. 9 That no freeman of England ought to be compelled to go in person, or to pay any Tax for or toward the maintenance of any foreign War in Ireland, or any other parts beyond the Sea, without their free consents in full Parliament. And therefore this Tax to maintain soldiers and the War in Ireland (neither Imposed in Parliament, much less in a full and free one, as I have proved) must needs be illegal, and no ways obligatory to me, or any other. 2. Most of the ancient Forces in Ireland (as the British Army, Scots and Inchiqueen's, towards whose support the twenty thousand pounds a month was designed) have been long since declared Rebels, traitors, Revolters, and are not to share in this Contribution: and those now pretending for Ireland, being Members of the present Army, and to be paid out of that Establishment, there is no ground at all to augment, but to decrease this former monthly Tax for Ireland, over what it was before. 3. Many of those now pretending for Ireland, have been the greatest obstructers of its relief heretofore: and many of those designed for this service by lot, have in words, writing and print protested they never intend to go thither, and dissuade others from going, yet take freequarter on the Country and pay too under that pretext. And to force the Country to pay Contribution and give Free quarter to such Cheaters and Impostors, who never intend this service, is both unjust and dishonourable. 4. If the relief of Ireland be now really intended, it is not upon the first, just and pious grounds, to preserve the Protestant party there from the forces of the bloody, Popish, Irish Rebels, with whom (if report be true) these sitting Anti-Monarchists seek and 
* see the 2d. part of the History of Independency.  hold correspondence, and are now actually accorded with Owen Roe-Oneal, and his party of bloodiest Papists (declaring For their New jesuitical commonwealth, and joining with them in an offensive and defensive war, against the King and Kingship:) but to oppose the King's interest and Title to that Kingdom (
* See Selden's Titles of Honour.  settled on Him, his Heirs and Successors for ever by an express Act of Parliament made in Ireland, 23 H. 8. c. 1. and by the Statute of 1 Jac. c. 1. made in England, yet unrepealed,) and the Protestant remaining party there, adhering to, and proclaiming, acknowledging him for their sovereign; lest his gaining of Ireland should prove fatal to their usurped sovereignty in England, or conduce to his enthroning here: And by what Authority those now sitting can impose, or with what Conscience any loyal Subject who hath taken the Oaths of Supremacy, Allegiance, and Covenant, can voluntarily pay any Contributions to deprive the King of his hereditary right, and undoubted Title to the Kingdoms and Crowns of England and Ireland, and alter the frame of the ancient Government and Parliaments of our Kingdoms, 
* See A Collect. p. 94, 95 99, 698, 700, 877, 878.  Remonstrated so often against by both Houses, and adjudged High Treason in Canterbury's and Straffirds cases, for which they were beheaded; and by themselves in the Kings own case, (whom they decolled likewise) without incurring the guilt of perjury and danger of high Treason, to the loss of his life and estate, by the very laws and Statutes yet in force, transcends my understanding to conceive: Wherefore I neither can, nor dare in conscience, law, or prudence, submit to this Contribution.  
The 3d. end of this Tax, (and more particularly of this new Tax of Jan 26. 1659. of one hundred thousand pound the Month for 6 months' space, after a former Tax levied before hand for the selfsame Months) is the maintenance of the Armies and navies raised, and continued for the defence of the twice dissipated anti-parliamentary Conventicle, and their Utopian commonwealth, and the necessary and urgent occasions thereof, now propounded and insisted on by the sitting Members, as the only means of Peace and Settlement both in Church and State: when as in truth it hath been, is and will be the only means of Unsettlement, and new divisions, wars, oppressions, confusions in both, to their utter ruin and desolation if pursued. Which I shall evidence beyond contradiction.  
1. This project to metamorphoze our ancient Hereditary famous, flourishing Kingdom into an Helvetian and Utopian commonwealth, by popular Tumults, Rebellion, and a prevalent party in Parliament, was originally contrived by Father Parsons, and other Jesuits in Spain in the year of our Lord 1590. recommended by them to the King of Spain to pursue, and was principally to be effected by Jesuits, to destroy and subvert our Protestant Monarchs, Kingdoms, and subject them to the Tyranny and vassalage of the Jesuits, and Spaniards, as you may read at large in William Watson his Quodlibets, printed 1602. p. 92, 94, 25, 286, 389, 310, 330, 332, 333, 334, 322, 323, in his Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman, printed at Rheims, 1601. and in William Clarke (both Secular Priests) his Answer to Father Parsons Libel, p. 75, 76, &c. 2ly. After this it was particularly and by name recommended by Thomas Campanella (an Italian Monk, and Arch-Machivilian) to the King of Spain, in the year 1600 as the principal means to sow the seeds of Divisions and dissensions amongst the English themselves, and to engage England, Scotland and Ireland in inextricable wars against each other, to divert the English from the Indies, and his Plate Fleet, and reduce them under his universal Temporal and the Pope's Spiritual Monarchy at last; as you may read at large in his Book De Monarchia Hispanica, c. 25. now translated into English. 3ly. It was again set on foot and vigorously prosecuted by the Jesuits and Cardinal Richelien of France, in the years 1639, & 1640. as you may read in my Rome's masterpiece, and Epistle to A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication, &c. of the good old fundamental Liberties, Laws, &c. of all English Freemen, printed 1655. And specially recommended to the French King, and Cardinal Mazarin his Successor at his death, Anno 1642. vigorously to pursue, and accomplish by the Civil Wars raised between Scotland and England, and the late King and Parliament; as 
a See my Jus Pationatus, and New Discovery of Free-State tyranny, and the Good Old Cause truly stated.  Historia Conte de Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, part 3. Venotiis, 1648. p. 175, 176. and was accordingly prosecuted by the Spanish and French Agents, and the Jesuits and Popish Priests, and their seduced Proselytes of the Juncto and Army, as I evidenced at large in my Speech, Dee. 4. 1648. and the Appendix to it; my soresaid Epistle, and True and Perfect Narrative, May 1659. by evidences past all contradiction. 4ly. It is evident, That the Jesuits, and Jesuited Papists in England, Scotland and Ireland, with all the 
b See the Coffin for the Good Old Cause, John Rogers, and Nedham his Interest will not lie, My true and perfect Narrative, and conscientious Quaenes, where this is fully proved.  Sectarian Party of Anabaptists, Quakers Enthisiasts, and Sectaries of all sorts (headed by disguised Jesuits, Monks, friars, and Popish Priests▪) have been the chiefest Sticklers of all others for this New projected Commonwealth against the King and Monarchy, and the only means to extirpate our established Protestant Ministry, with their Maintenance, Tithes, Glebes, and embroil us in endless confusions and revolutions of Governments, Wars, Distractions, till we be beggared, destroyed, and made a prey to our foreign Enemies. 5ly. The King of Spain, was the first of all foreign Kings and States, who owned, cou●ted and ent●ed into a League of Amity with our new commonwealth after the Kings beheading, as a Creature of his own, in opposition to our King and Kingship, and engaged us in a war against the Dutch, to make himself Monarch over us both, according to Campanella his advice, De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25, & 27. which our Republicans punctually pursued from 1649, till 1653. almost to the ruin of us both, by the Spaniards Gold and policy. 6ly. That the French Cardinal Mazarin, and other Popish Kings and States, complied and confederated with our Republicans and late Protectors, in opposition to our Hereditary Protestant King and Kingship, purposely to ruin us and our Religion at home, and the Protestant Churches abroad, engaged by their policies in unchristian wars against each other. 7ly. That we have all visibly seen and sensibly felt by twelve years woeful experiment, that this Jesuitical project and chimaera of a Free-state and commonwealth, was propounded by the 
c In their several Agreements of the people, ●heir D●cla●ation of Nov. 10. Their Proposals, Decemb. 6. And Declaration of March 17. 1648.  Army-Officers, and the sitting Juncto, as the only means of our present and future peace and settlement, both in Nov. 1647, 1648, 1649. and yet it hath proved (as I then predicted in my Speech and Memento) a perpetual seminary of new Wars, Tumults, Combustions, Changes, Revolutions of Government, and governors, anti-parliamentary Conventicles, Factions, Schisms, Sects, Heresies, Confusions, and endless Taxes, Oppressions, Ataxies ever since; both in Church, State, Court and Camp, almost to our inevitable destruction; and of necessity it will and must do so still. And is it not then a worse than Bedlam folly and frenzy for our anti-parliamentary Juncto, Swordmen, and Republicans, to enforce and impose it on us by mere armed violence against our Judgements, Reasons, Consciences, Experiments, and compel us to maintain Armies and Navies by this New insupportable Tax, to set up this Romish Babel, which hath been, is, and will be the most certain Remora and Obstacle of our Peace and Settlement, and most apparent Jesuitical, Romish, Spanish engine, to create more and greater Confusions, Distractions than before, and effect our inevitable destruction both as men and Protestants? 8ly. That this pretence of erecting a commonwealth was first pretended by Cromwell, and carried on with specious pretexts to blind the credulous people, only to make way for his own tyrannical and ambitious usurpation of a more than Regal and Monarchical power over our Kingdoms, and settle it on himself and his posterity in conclusion; which he effected by degrees. And what intelligent person discerns not the selfsame design now couched under it, in other ambitious Grandees now in power, most eagerly crying up a Free-state and commonwealth upon the same account? 9ly. The Anti-parliamentary, Unchristian, Atheistical, if not Diabolical means, by which this Utopian republic was at first endeavoured to be erected, established, and now again re-edified, must needs draw down the full vials of God's wrath and fury upon it, and all its Projectors, and our 3. Nations too, if they voluntarily submit unto it. It was first ushered in by ambitious, treacherous, perjurious, rebellious Army-Officers, seduced by Romish Emissaries, and their Confederates in the Commons House, forcibly secluding, securring, and ejecting the majority of their Fellow-Members, (4. parts of 5. at least) only for their Vote, to proceed to settle the peace of the Kingdom, upon the King's Concessions, after 7. years intestine wars: By the close imprisonment of sundry of them in remote Castles for divers years without examination, hearing, or cause expressed; by their suppressing & voting down the whole House of Lords, without hearing or impeachment, over whom they had no Jurisdiction: by murdering their Protestant King in a strange Court of Highest injustice; by exiling and disinheriting his royal Issue, and right Heir to the Crown, to make way for their own Usurpation of sovereign Power; by subverting the fundamental Government of the Kingdom, and the constitution, rights, privileges of English, Scotish, Irish Parliaments, and their Members: by seizing upon, disposing and dissipating all the Crown Lands, Revenues, Customs, Forts, Forces, Navies of our three Kingdoms: by imprisoning, disinheriting, sequest●ing, exiling, destroying, murdering many thousands of their Protestant Brethren and allies of England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, merely for their Loyalty and Allegianee: by keeping a perpetual Army to over-awe our 3. Nations as conquered Vassals, bondslaves, and governing them by armed lust, tyranny, military Committees, High Courts of Justice, Major Generals, and flaying off their very Skins: by giving a boundless liberty to all Religions, Sects, Heresies, Blasphemies, Jusque datum se●leri, &c. against all laws of God and Man, the fundamental Laws, Statutes, Liberties, Franchises of the Realm, the Oaths of Homage, Fealty, Supremacy, Allegiance, the Protestations, Vows, Solemn League and Covenant, they had frequently taken themselves, and prescribed to others; yea against many hundreds of Votes, Orders, Ordinances, Acts, Declarations, Remonstrances they had successively made and published to the World, and all sorts of civil and sacred Obligations to God, their King, Country, the Trusts reposed in them by their Indentures and Commissions as Members or soldiers, by exercising a more lawless Tyranny, and boundless Military power, than the worst of all our Kings in any age: & exacting vaster sums of money from the exhausted people in less than 10. years' space, than all our Kings since the Norman Conquest. And it now carried on again (after so many sudden, strange & admirable demonstrations of God's indignation against our new Babel-Builders and their Posterities, by his various and successive Providences beyond all human apprehensions) by the selfsame violent, exorbitant, unrighteous courses, unbeseeming Englishmen or Christians; and now by re-excluding and ejecting all the old secured and secluded Members by armed force and injurious Votes, without accusation, hearing, crime or impeachment, against all rules of Law, Justice, and parliamentary precedents, and of the whole House of Lords, against the express Letter of the Act by which they pretend to fit: By bidding open defiance to the Addresses and Desires of the generality of the Nobility, Gentry, Ministry, Freeholders, Commoners, Citizens, Burgesses of most Counties, Cities and Boroughs of England, declaring for a Free-Parliament, or restitution of all the Secluded Members; by imprisoning some 
* Sir Robert Pye & others  Gentlemen & soldiers of Quality, for delivering such Addresses to their Speaker; by putting far higher affronts and force upon the City and Common-Council of London, after all their former Obligations to them, than ever they received from the worst of our Kings in any age, before the least hearing or legal conviction of them as Delinquents; by moving in the House, That all who have declared or made Addresses for a Free Parliament, shall be disabled to elect or be elected Members: By taking away the people's freedoms of Election, by prescribing new illegal Qualifications (against 
* 3 E. 1. c. 5. See Rastal's Abridgements, Tit. Elections and Parliament.  all Laws and Statutes concerning Elections and all forms of ancient Writs) both for the persons electing and to be elected to recruit their empty House, of which themselves alone (not the people) will be the only Judges before they shall be admitted when chosen: whereby they will (like Cromwell, and his Council of State) keep out any the people shall elect, that is not of their confederacy, and admit none but when and whom they please, to perpetuate the Parliamentary Power, and all places of Trust and Gain in themselves and their Creatures. And because few or none but Novices shall sit amongst them in parliamentary affairs, (whom they can easily overreach and rule at their pleasure, being Strangers to each other, and Parliament proceedings) they have voted out all the old Secluded Members (though twice their number) and disabled them to be new elected; or if elected to be readmitted, unless they will fully submit to the Test of their new 
* Febr. 18. 1659.  Qualifications and Engagements. Which will reseclude all or most of them, if elected, and prove fatal to the people's freedom in their Elections, and to all Parliaments and Members in succeeding Ages, if submitted to.  
For if a combined Majority of the Commons House, who have violated all their primitive Oaths, Trusts, Protestations, Covenants, Remonstrances, Declarations, and so 
* Cook's 11 Reports, f. 98.  disabled, and disfranchised themselves from sitting any more as Members, or the people's trusties, may without any new election at all by the people, after their renuciation and nulling of their first elections, by destroying, and engaging against, that Regal power, by which they were first elected, and sitting only by power of the Sword, without any Qualifications prescribed to themselves (which they impose on others, and would seclude most of them from being Electors or Elected Members) having gotten forcible possession of the Commons House by armed Tyranny and Usurpation, after so many Declarations, and bloody wars for the defence of the Privileges, Rights and Members of Parliament, shall be quietly permitted without any legal impeachment, hearing, trial, or cause alleged (but only for one just single Vote, Decemb. 4. 1648. carried in a full House after long debate, without any division) forcibly to seclude and Vote out the greatest part of their Fellow-Members of greatest integrity, interest, ability and faithfulness to the public, against all rules of Law, Justice, and parliamentary proceedings, and their Electors wills; and by new heterogeneal Writs derived from another power, and varying in form, from those by which themselves were chosen, to enforce whole Counties, Cities, and Boroughs to elect new Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, to recruit their empty House, upon such pernicious Qualifications and Engagements as themselves prescribe both to the Electors and Members to be elected; (of which themselves will be the only Judges, ere they admit them to sit when chosen) on purpose to carry on their own private designs, and force what Government they please upon the people, against their public Interest, and desires, to perpetuate our Confusions, Oppressions, Unsettlements, and to disable whom they please to elect or be elected, without any public opposition by the secluded Members and people then endeavoured; then farewell Parliaments, Laws and Liberties for ever.  
Fourthly, The coercive power, and manner of levying this contribution, expressed in the Act, is against the law of the Land, and liberty of the Subject, which is threefold.  
First, distress and sale of the Goods of those who refuse to pay it; with power to break open their Houses (which are their Castles) doors, chests, &c. to distrain; which is against Magna Chart. c. 29. The Petition of Right, 3 Car. The Votes of both Houses in the case of shipmoney, 1 R. 2. c. 3. and the resolution of our Judges and Law-books, 13 Edw. 4 9 20 E. 4. 6. Cook 5 Report, f. 91, 92. Semains case, and 4 Inst. p. 176, 177.  
Secondly, Imprisonment of the body of the party till he pay the Contribution; which is contrary to Magna Charta, c. 29. The Petition of Right, The resolution of both Houses in the Parliament of 3 Caroli, in the case of Loans; and 17 Caroli, in the case of shipmoney, the judgement of our Judges and law-books, collected by Sir Edward Cook in his 2 Inst. p. 46, &c. the Statute of 2 H. 4▪ rot. parl. n. 6. 16 Car. c. 1, 8, 10, 12, 14, 20. most express in point.  
Thirdly, Levying of the contribution by soldiers and force of arms, in case of resistance, and imprisoning the person by like force, adjudged High Treason, in the case of the Earl of trafford, and a levying of war within the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. by the last Parliament, for which he lost his head: and proved to be High Treason, at large by Master St. John, in his Argument at Law at the passing the Bill for his attainder, Printed by order of the Commons House.  
Fourthly, (which heightens the illegality of these illegal means of levying it) if any person whose goods are distrained, or person imprisoned for these illegal caxes, shall bring his Action at Law, or an Habeas Corpus for his relief, or action of false imprisonment, as he may justly do, not only those who now stile themselves Judges, forgetting the cases of Judge Thorp, Tresilian, and others, of old, and the impeachments of the late shipmoney Judges in the beginning of this Parliament, with Mr. St. John's Speech and Declaration against them, worthy their perusal, will deny, or delay to right and release them; (for which they deserve Thorp's and Tresilians punishments) but if these fail them, at least wise the new illegal Committee of indemnity will stay his legal proceedings, award costs against him, commit him anew till he pay them, and release his Sut es at Law, and upon an Habeas corpus their own sworn Judges (created by them, without any Oath to do equal Justice, &c. to all: but only to be true and faithful to their new ere●ted State, and sitting amongst them as Members) dare not bail, but remand him against Law; An oppression and Tyranny far exceeding the worst of the Beheaded Kings; under whom the Subjects had Free-Liberty to sue and proceed at Law, both in the cases of Loans, shipmoney and Knighthood, without any Council-Table, or Committee of indemnity, to stop their suits, or force them to release them; and therefore in all these respects (so repugnant to the Laws and Liberty of the Subject) I cannot submit to these illegal Taxes, but oppugn them to the uttermost, as the most Destructive to our Laws and liberty, that ever were.  
Fifthly, The time of the imposing of this illegal Tax, with these unlawful ways of levying it, is very considerable, and sticks much with me; it is (as the imposers of it declare and publish in many of their new kind of Acts and devices) in the first year of England's Liberty, and redemption from thraldom, & this last after its new revival after 6. years' interruption and inter-regnum by Oliver & his Son Richard. And if this unsupportable Tax, thus illegally to be levied, be the first frui●s of our first years freedom and redemption from thraldom, as they style it; how great may we expect our next years thraldom will be, when this little finger of theirs is heavier by far than the Kings whole loins, whom they beheaded 
2 Chron. 10. 10.  for Tyranny and Oppression?  
6ly. The Order of this (first) Tax (if I may so term a disorder) or rather newn●ss of it, engageth me, and all lovers of their country's Liberty, unanimously to withstand the same. It is the first, I find, that was ever imposed by any who had been Members of the Commons House after a Parliament dissolved, the Lord's House voted down, and most of their fellow Commoners secured or secluded by their connivance or confederacy with an undutiful Army at first: and this latter, the first doubled Tax upon the people, for the very months they advanced, & ● aid in beforehand, by the express command and orders of the sitting Members, to exclude the secluded ones, not only out of the House itself, but Lobby too, into which the meanest footboys, and Porters have free access. Which if submitted to, and not opposed as illegal, not only the King, or Lords alone without the Commons, but any forty or fifty Commoners, who have been Members of a Parliament, gaining Forces to assist and countenance them, may out of Parliament, now, or any time hereafter, do the like, and impose what Taxes and Laws they please upon the Kingdom, and the secluded Lords and Commons that once sat with them, and on Scotland, and Ireland too, being encouraged thereto by such an unopposed precedent. Which being of so dangerous consequence and example to the constitution and Privileges of Parliament, and liberties of the people, we ought all to endeavour the crushing of this new Coc●atrice in the shell, lest it grow up to a Fiery Serpent, to consume and sting us to death, and induce the imposers of it, to l●de us with new and heavier Taxes of this kind, when these expire (which we must expect, when all the Kings, Bishops, Deans and Chapters Lands are shared amongst them, sold and spent as they will quickl● be) if we patiently submit to this leading Decoy: since 
q Mat. Paris 517.  Binus Actus inducit consuetudinem; as our Ancestors resolved, Auno 1240. in the case of an unusual Tax demanded by the Pope● whereupon they all unanimously opposed it at first;  

r Ovid. de remed. Amoris.  Opprime dum nova sunt subiti mala semina morbi:  
Principiis oqsta; serò medicina paratur  
Cum mala per longas invaluêre mora●.  
B●ing the safest rule of state-physic we can follow in such new diseases, which endanger the whole body-politic. Upon which grounds the most conscientious Gentlemen and best Patriots of their country opposed Loans, Shipmovy, Tonnage, Poundage, Knighthood, and the late illegal Impositions of the King and his council in the very beginnings of them, and thought themselves bound in Conscience, Law, Prudence so to do, though there were some colourable reasons and precedents of former times pretended to countenance them. And if thief Worthies conceived themselves thus obliged to oppose those illegal Impositions of the King and his council, though countenanced by some judge's opinions as jegal, to their immortal honour, and high esteem both in country and Parliament, who applauded them as the 
* Exact Collections, p. 5. 6. And their own Declarations, 17. March 1648. p. 7 &c.  principal maintainers of their country's Liberties; then much more ought I, and all other tenderes of their own and country's Freedom, to oppose this illegal dangerous Contribution imposed on us by a few of our fellow Subjects only, without, yea against all Law or precedent to countenance it, being of greater consequence and worser example to the Kingdom, than all or any of the King's illegal projects or Taxes.  
Seventhly, the excessiveness of this Tax, much raised and increased, when we are so much exhausted, and were promised and expected ease from Taxes, both by the Army in their Remonstrance November 20. 1648. and by the 
* In their Declarations March 17. 1648. p. 26.  Imposers of it, (amounting to a sixth part, if not a moiety of most men's estates) is a deep Engagement for me to oppose it; since Taxes, as well as 
s Magna Chart. c. 14. 14 E. 3. c. ●. Cook 2. Instit. p. 26, 27. 169. 170.  Fines and Amerciaments, aught to be reasonable; so as men may support themselves and their Families, and not be undone, as many will be by this, if forced to pay it by Distress or imprisonment. Upon this ground, in the Parliament Petitions of 1 Edward the third, we find divers freed from payment of Tenths, and other Taxes lawfully imposed by Parliament, because the people were impoverished and undone by the Wars, who ought to pay them. And in the printed Statutes of 31 Henr. 6. c. 8. 1 Mariae c. 17 to omit others, we find Subsidies mitigated and released by subsequent Acts of Parliament, though granted by p●ecedent, by reason of the people's poverty and inability to pay them. Yea sometimes we read of something granted them by the King, by way of aid, to help pay their Subsidies, as in 25 Edward 3. Rastal Tax 9 and 36. Ed. 3 c. 14. and for a direct precedent in point: when 
t Mar. Paris p. ●60.  Peter ruby the Pope's legate in the year 1240. exacted an excessive unusual Tax from the English Clergy; the whole Clergy of Berkshire (and others) did all and every of them unanimously withstand it, tendering him divers Reasons in writing of their refusal, pertinent to our time and present Tax; whereof this was one, That the Re●venues of their Churches scarce sufficed to find them daily food, both in regard of their smallness, and of the present dearth of their Corn, and because there were such multitudes of poor people to relieve, some of which died of famine, so as they had not enough to suffice themselves and the poor; Whereupon they ought not to be compelled to any such Contribution: which many of our Clergy may now likewise plead most truly, whose Livings are small and their Tithes detained; and divers people of all ranks and callings too, who must sell their stocks, beds, and their household▪ stuff, or rot in prison, if forced to pay it.  
Eighthly, the principal inducement to bring on the payment of this Tax, is a promise of taking off the all-devouring and undoing Grievance of freequarter: which hath ruined many Countries and Families, and yet they must pay this heavy Tax to be eased of it for the future, instead of being paid and allowed for what is already past, according to 
u A Collection, &c. p ●71.  former Engagements; and yet freequarter is still taken. Against which I have these just exceptions.  
1. That the taking of freequarter by soldiers in men's houses, is a grievance against the very Common law itself, 
Semains Case. 7 Rep. Sendel's Case. Lambe●t f. ●7●. Dalton's Justice of Peace, ●24. 24 H. 8. c. 4.  which defines every man's House to be his Castle and Sanctuary, into which none ought forcibly to enter against his will; and which, with his Goods therein, he may lawfully 
x See Cook 5 Report. f, 9 P 92.  fortify and defend against all intruders whatsoever, and kill them without any danger of Law: Against all the Statutes concerning 
y See Rastal Title purveyors.  purveyors, which prohibit the taking of any men's goods or provisions against their wills, or payment for them, under pain of Felony, though by Commission under the great Seal of England. Against the express Letter and Provision of the Petition of Right, 3 Caroli. Condemned by the Commons House in their 
z An Exact Collecti, on p. 7.  Declaration of the State of the Kingdom of the 15. December, 1641. and charged as an Article against King Richard the second when deposed, in the Parliament of 1 H. 4. nu. 22. Yea, it is such a Grievance, as exposeth our houses, goods, provisions, moneys, servants, children, wives, lives, and all other earthly comforts we enjoy, to the lusts and pleasure of every domineering Officer, and unruly common soldier: Therefore absolutely to be abolished without any compensation: And to impose an unjust, heavy Tax, and induce people to pay it upon hopes of freeing them from freequarter, is but to impose one Grievance to remove another.  
2. There have been many former promises, Declarations and Orders of both Houses, and the General, for taking off freequarter, upon the people's paying in their Contributions before hand, and then non● should afterward free quarter on them, under pain of death: Yet no sooner have they paid in their Contributions, but they have been free-quartered on as much or more than formerly: the soldiers, when we tell them of any Orders against free quarter, slighting them as so many waste papers, and carrying themselves more unruly: And when complaint thereof hath been made to the Officers, Members, or the Committee for the Army, or in the House; answer hath still been made, That as long as there is an Army on foot, there will be freequarter taken, and there can be no prevention of it, there being a necessity for it: and when any have craved allowance of it, they have found so many put-offs and delays, and such difficulties in obtaining it, that their expenses have equalled their allowance; and after allowances made, the moneys allowed have been called for again. So as few have had any allowance for quarters, and most have given over suing for t●e●, being put to play an aftergame, to sue for them after all their contributions first paid, and not permitted to deduct them out of their Contributions, as in Justice and reason they ought, which they are still enforced to pay without deduction. This pretext therefore of taking away freequarter, is but a shoo-horn to draw on the payment of this Tax, and a fair pretext to delude the People, as they find by sad experience everywhere, and in the County and Hundred where I resid●. For, not to look back to the last years freequarter taken on us (though we duly paid our Contributions) In April and May last past, since this very Tax imposed for taking away freequarter, Colonel Harrison's Troopers under the command of Captain Spencer, (who quartered six days together in a place, and exacted and received most of them 3 s. others 3 s. 6 d. and the least 2 s. 6 d. a day for their Quarters, telling their Landlords, that their Lands, and the whole Kingdom was theirs) have put Bathwick, Bathford, Claverton, Combe, Hampton, Soust●ck, Walcot and Widcombe, small parishes in our Hundred and Libertle, as they will prove upon Oath, and given it me under their hands, to 94 li. 4 s. 3 d. charge; beside their quarters in other parishes of the Hundred. Sir Hard●esse Waller's soldiers, upon pretext of collecting arrears of Contribution not due from the Hundred, put it to at least 30 li. charge more for freequarter, they being very rude and disorderly; and no sooner were we quit of them, but on the 22. and 23. of May last, Col, Hunks his Foot under the conduct of Captain Flower and Captain Eliot, pretending for Ireland, but professing they never intended to go thither, marching from Minehead and Dunster (the next Western Ports to Ireland) surther from it, to oppress the Country, put Bathwick, Langridge, Wolly, Batheaston, Katherine and Ford to 28. li. 7 s. and Swainswick (where I live) to about 20 li expenses for two days' freequarter (by colour of the general's Order dated the first of May) being the rudest and deboislest in all kinds, that ever quartered since the Wars, and far worse than the worst of gore's men, whereof some of them were the dregs, and their Captain Flower, a Cavalier heretofore in arms (as i● reported) against the Parliament. Their carriage in all places was very rude, to extort money from the people, drawing out their Swo●ds, ransacking their houses, beating and threatening to kill them, if they would not give them two shillings six pence, three shillings, three shillings six pence, or at least two shillings a day for their quarters, which when extorted from some, they took freequarter upon others, taking two, three, and some four quarters a man: At my house they were most exorbitant, having (as their quartermaster told me, who affirmed to me they had twice conquered the Kingdom, and all was theirs) directions from some great ones above, from some others in the Country (intimating some of the Committee) and their own Officers (who absented themselves purposely, that the soldiers might have none to control them) to abuse me. In pursuance whereof, some thirty of them coming to my house, shouting and hollowing in a rude manner on May 22. when their Billet was but for twenty, not showing any authority, but only a Ticket, [Mr. Prynne— 20.] climbed over my Walls, forced my doors, beat my servants and workmen without any provocation, drew their Swords upon me, (who demanded whose soldiers they were? by what authority they demanded freequarter, my house being neither inn, nor Ale house? and freequarter against Law, Orders of Parliament, and the Generals) using many high provoking speeches, broke some of my windows open, forced my strong-beer cellar-door, and took the key from my servant, ransacked some of my chambers under pretext to search for Arms, taking away my servants clothes, shirts, stockings, bands, cuffs, handkerchiefs, and picking the money out of one of their pockets; hollowed, roared, stamped, beat the Tables with their Swords and Muskets like so many Bedlams, swearing, cursing, and blaspheming at every word; broke the Tankards, Bottles, Cups, Dishes wherein they fetched strong beer, against the ground, abused my maid servants, throwing beef and other good provisions at their heads, and casting it to the dogs, as no fit meat for soldiers, and the Heads and Conquerors of the Kingdom, as they called themselves; searched the outhouses for turkeys, which they took from their eggs and young ones, Veal and Mutton being not good enough for them: They continued drinking and roaring before, at and aftor Supper, till most of them were mad-drunk, and some of them dead drunk under the Table. Then they must have fourteen beds provided for them (for they would lie but two in a Bed) and all their linen washed: My Sister answering them, that there were not so many spare beds in the house, and that they must be content as other soldiers had been, with such beds as could be spared; they thereupon threatened to force open her Chamber door, and to pull her and her children out of their beds, unless she would give them three shillings a piece for their beds, and next day's quarters; and at last forced her for fear of their violence (being all drunk) to give them eighteen pence a piece, as soon as they were forth of doors, and six pence a piece the next day, if they marched not; whereupon they promised to trouble the house no more. Upon this agreement all but eight (who were gone to bed) departed that night, and the rest the next morning. But I going to the Lecture at Bath, some thirty of them, ● my absence, came about ten of the clock, notwithstanding the moneys received of my Sister for their Quarters, reentered the house, and would have Quarters again, unless she would give them three shillings a piece; which she resusing, they thereupon abused and beat the servants and workmen, forced them to drink with them all that day and night, swearing, cursing, roaring like so many Devils, broke open my Parlour, Milk-house, & Garden-doors, abused my Pictures and broke an hole in one of them; hacked my Table-boards with their Swords from one end to the other, threw the chairs, stools, meat, drink about the house; assaulted my Sister, and her little children and Maid servants with their naked swords threatening to kill them, and kick them to jelly, shot at them with their muskets, and forced them out of the house to save themselves: which I hearing of, repaired to my house, and finding them all so Bedlam mad, that they would not harken to any reason, nor be quieted, thereupon rode to seek their Captain and Officers at Bath, who purposely absented themselves, and not finding them till the next morning, I acquainted the Captain then by speech (as I had done the first night by Letter) with all these unsufferable outrages of the soldiers (contrary to the general's Order to carry themselves civilly in their Quarters, and abuse none in word or deed) which would render him and them odious not only to the country and Kingdom, but to all Officers and soldiers who had any civility in them, and be a disparagement to the General, by whose Proclamation he ought to be present with his Company, to keep them in good order, under pain of cashiering: And therefore I expected and required Justice and Reparations at his hands; the rather, because I was informed by some of his own soldiers and others, that they had not been so barbarously rude, but by his encouragement; which if he refused, I should complain of him to his superiors, and right myself the best way I might. After some expostulations, he promised to make them examples, and cashier them; and to remove them forthwith from my house: but the only right I had, was, that more of his Company repaired thither, making all the spoil they could, and taking away some brass and Pewter, continued there till near four of the clock; and then marched away only out of fear I would raise the Country upon them; many of whom proffered me their assistance: but I desired them to forbear till I saw what their Officers would do; who instead of punishing any of them, permitted them to play the like Rex almost in other places where they quartered since, marching but three or four miles a day, and extorting what moneys they could from the Country by their violence and disorders. Now, for me, or any others to give moneys to maintain such deboist Bedlams and Beasts as these (who boasted of their villainies, and that they had done me at least twenty pounds' spoil in Beer and Provisions, drinking out five barrels of good strong Beer, and wasting as much meat as would have served an hundred civil Persons) to be Masters of our Houses, Goods, Servants, Lives, and all we have, to ride over our heads like our Lords and Conquerors, and take freequarter on us, amounting to at least a full years' contribution, without any allowance for it, and that since the last Orders against freequarter, and Warrants issued for paying in this Tax, to prevent it for the future; is so far against my Reason, Judgement and Conscience, that I would rather give all away to suppress, discard them, or cast it into the fire, than maintain such graceless wretches with it, to dishonour God, enslave, consume, ruin the Country and Kingdom; who everywhere complain of the like insolences; and of taking freequarter since the ninth of June, as above two hundred of Colonel Cox his men did in Bath the last Lord's day; who drew up in a Body about the mayor's house, and threatened to s●ise and carry him away for denying to give them freequarter, contrary to the New Act for abolishing it. Lastly, This pr●tended Act implies, that those who refuse to pay this contribution without distress or imprisonment shall be still oppressed with freequarter; And what an height of oppression and injustice this will prove, not only to distrain and imprison those who cannot in Conscience, Law or Prudence submit to this illegal Tax, but likewise to undo them, by exposing them to freequarter, which themselves condemn as the highest pest and oppression, let all sober men consider; and what reason I and others have to oppose such a dangerous, destructive precedent in its first appearing to the world. In few words; As long as we keep an Army on foot, we must never expect to be exempted from freequarter or Wars; or to enjoy any peace or settlement: and as long as we will submit to pay contributions to support an Army, we shall be certain our new Lords and Governors will continue an Army to over-awe and enslave us to their wills. Therefore the only way to avoid freequarter, and the cost and trouble of an Army, and settle peace, is to deny all future contributions.  
Ninthly, The principal end of imposing this Tax to maintain the Army and Forces now raised, is not the defence and safety of our ancient and first Christian Kingdom of England, its Parliaments, Laws, Liberties and Religion, as at first; but to disinherit the King of the Crown of Engl. Sootl. and Irel. (to which he hath an undoubted Right by the Laws of God and Man; as the Parliament of 1 Jacob. ch. ●. resolves) and to levy War against him, to deprive him of it: To subvert the ancient Monarchical Government of this Realm, under which our Ancestors have always lived and flourished, to set up a new-republic, the oppressions: and Grievances whereof we have already felt (by increasing our Taxes, setting up arbitrary Courts and Proceedings to the taking away the lives of the late King, Peers, and other Subjects, against the fundamental Laws of the Land, creating new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before, and the like;) but cannot yet enjoy and discern the least ease or advantage by it: To overthrow the ancient constitution of the Parliament of England, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons, and the Rights and Privileges thereof: To alter the fundamental Laws, Seals, Courts of Justice of the Realm, and introduce an Arbitrary Government at least, if not Tyrannical, contrary to our Laws, Oaths, Covenant, Protestation, 
a See an Exact Collection: and a Collection of public Orders, &c. p. 99, 698, 700, 877, 878.  public Remonstrances and Engagements to the Kingdom and foreign States, not to change the Government, or attempt any of the Premises. All which being no less than High Treason by the Laws & Statutes of the Realm, as Sir E. Cook in his 
* Lib. 3. c. 1, 2.  Inst. & Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law, upon passing the Bill of Attainder of the E. of Strafford (both printed by the Commons special order) have proved at large by many precedents, reasons, records; and so adjudged by the last Parliament in the Cases of Strafford and 
* See Canterbury's Doom, and Straffords Trial.  Canterbury, who were condemned and executed as traitors by judgement of Parliament, and some of those now sitting, but for some of these Treasons upon obscurer Evidences of guilt, than are now visible in others, I cannot without incurring the Crime and Guilt of these several High Treasons, and the eternal, if not temporal punishments incident thereunto, voluntarily contribute so much as one penny or farthing towards such Treasonable and disloyal ends as these, against my Conscience, Law, Loyalty, Duty, and all my Oaths, Covenants and Obligations to the contrary.  
Tenthly, The payment of this Tax for the premised purposes, will (in my poor judgement and conscience) be offensive to God and all good men, scandalous to the Protestant Religion, dishonourable to our English Nation, and disadvantageous and destructive to our whole Kingdom, hindering the speedy settlement of our peace, the re-establishment of our King, Laws, the revival of our decayed Trade, by renewing and perpetuating our bloody uncivil Wars; engaging Scotland & Ireland, with foreign Princes and Kingdoms in a just War against us, to avenge the death of our late beheaded King, the disinheriting of his Posterity, and to restore his lawful Heirs and Successors to their just, undoubted Rights, from which they are now sorcibly secluded; who will undoubtedly molest us with continual Wars (Whatever some may fondly conceit to the contrary) till they be settled in the Throne in peace upon just and honourable terms, and invested in their just possessions. Which were far more safe, honourable, just, prudent, and Christian for our whole 3. Kingdoms voluntarily and speedily to do themselves, than to be forced to it at last by any foreign Forces; the sad consequences whereof we may easily conjecture, and have cause enough to fear, if we now delay it, or still contribute to maintain Armies to oppose their Titles, and protect the Invaders of them from public Justice. And therefore I can neither in conscience, piety nor prudence, ensnare myself in the guilt of all these dangerous treasonable consequences, by any submission to this illegal Tax.  
Upon all these weighty Reasons, and serious grounds of Conscience, Law, Prudence, (which I humbly submit to the Consciences and Judgements of all conscientious and judicious persons, whom they do or shall concern) I am resolved by the Assistance and strength of the Omnipotent God (who hath miraculously supported me under, and carried me through all my former sufferings for the people's public Liberties with exceeding joy, comfort, and t●e ruin of my greatest Enemies and Opposers) to oppugn these unlawful Contributions, and the payment of them o● the uttermost, in all just and lawful ways, I may; And if any will forcibly levy them by distress or otherwise, without and against all Law or Right (as thieves and Robbers take men's Goods and Purses) let them do it at their own umost peril; being declared all traitors, and to be proceeded against capitally as traitors by the juncto's own late Knack and Declaration. However, though I suffer at present, yet I trust God and men will in due time do me justice upon them, and award me recompense for all injuries in this kind, or any sufferings for my country's Liberties. However, fall back, fall edge, I would ten thousand times rather lose my Life, liberty, and all that I have, to keep a good Conscience, and preserve my own and my Countries native Liberty, than to part with one farthing, or gain the whole World, with the loss of either of them; and rather die a Martyr for our ancient Kingdom, than live a Slave under any New republic, or remnant of a broken, dismembered, strange Antiparliamental House of Commons, without King, Lords, or the major part of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of the Realm, in being subject to their illegal Taxes, and what they call Acts of Parliament, which in reality are no Acts at all to bind me, or any other Subject, in point of Conscience or Prudence, to obedience, or just punishment for nonobedience thereunto, or nonconformity to what they style, the present Government, of the Armies modeling, and I fear of the Popes, Spaniards, Campanellaes, Father Parsons, and other Jesuits suggesting, to effect our Kings, Kingdoms and religion's ruin, as I have 
* In my Speech 4 Dec. See Rome's masterpiece, the Epistle to my Jus Patronatus; A true and perfect Narrative, 1659. the Epistle to the 1. part of my Historical Vindication and Collection 1655.  elsewhere clearly evidenced, beyond all contradiction.  Psalm 26. 4, 5. 
I have not sat with vain Persons, neither will I go in with Dissemblers: I have hated the Congregation of evil Doers, and will not sit with the wicked.  
WILLIAM PRYNNE. SWAINSWICK, June 16. 1649.  
FINIS.   

A POSTSCRIPT.  
SInce the drawing up of the precedent Reasons, I have met with a printed Pamphlet, entitled. An Epistle written the 8th day of June. 1649. by Lieut. Colonel John Lilbourn, to Mr. William Lenthal Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights, Citizens and Burgesses that Col. Thomas Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster, (as most fit for his and his Master's designe●, to serve their ambitious and tyrannical ends, to destroy the good old Laws, Liberties and customs of England (the badges of our Freedom as the Declaration against the King of the 7th of March 1648. p. 23. calls them) and by force of Arms to rob the people of their lives, estates, and properties; and subject them to perfect vassalage and slavery, &c. who (and in truth no otherwise) pretendedly style themselves. The Conservators of the peace of England, or the Parliament of England entrusted and authorised by the consent of all the people thereof, whose Representatives by Election (in their Declaration last mentioned p. 27. they say) they are; although they are never able to produce one bit of Law, or any piece of a Commission to prove, that all the people of England, or one quarter▪ tenth▪ hu●dred or thousand part of them authorised Thomas Pride, with his Regiment of soldiers to choose them a Parliament▪ as indeed he hath de facto done by his PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAM●NT: and therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or people's Parliame●t: but Col. Prides and his Associates, whose really it is: who although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant, yet walk in his oppressi●g●st steps, if not worse and higher. This is the Title of his Epistle.  
In this Epistle, this late great champion of the House of Commons, and fitting juncto's Supremacy, both before and since the Kings beheading, who with his Brother 
a His Petition and Appeal, & his Arrow of Defiance. See Mr. Edward's Gangrena, 3. part. p. 154. f. 204. See My 〈…〉 for the 〈…〉 to  Overton and their Confederates, first cried them up as, and gave them the Title of, The supreme Authority of the Nation: The only supreme Judicatory of the Land: The only formal and legal supreme Power of the Parliament of England, in whom alone the power of binding the whole Nation by making, altering, or abrogating Laws, without either King or Lords, resides, &c. and first engaged them by their Pamphlets and Petitions, against the King, Lords, and Personal Treaty, (as he and they print and boast in b● this Epistle, and other late Papers) 
Pag. 11, 29  doth in his own and his party's behalf (who of late so much adored them, as the only earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation) now positively assert and prove  
First, That 
c Pag. 34, 35.  Commissary General Ireton, Colonel Harrison, with other Members of the House, and the General council of Officers of the Army, did in several Meetings and Debates at Windsor, immediately before their late march to London to purge the House, and after at Whitehall commonly style themselves, the pretended Parliament (even before the Kings beheading) A MOCK PARLIAMENT, a MOCK POWER, a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT,; and NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL: And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOTS, and not so much as to leave a shadow of it; yea, and had done it, if we (say they) and some of our then FRIENDS in the House, had not been the principal Instruments to hinder them: We judging it then of two evils the least, to choose rather to be governed by THE SHADOW OF A PARLIAMENT, till we could get a real and a true one (which with the greatest protestations in the world they then promised and engaged with all their might speedily to effect) then simply solely and only by the will of swordmen, whom we had already found to be men of no very tender conscience. And do not the Speaker and all Lawyers and others now sitting in their own judgements and Consciences, and to their friends in private, believe, say, and confess as much, that they are no Parliaments? and yet have the impudence and the insolency to sit, act, and Tax, yea seclude and imprison us at their pleasures, as a real, legal and absolute Parliament? O atheism! O Tyranny, and Impiety of the worst Edition!  
If then these leading, swaying members of the new pretended purged Commons Parliament and Army, deemed the Parliament even before the Kings beheading, a Mock-parliament, a mock-power, a pretended Parliament, yea, no Parliament at all; and absolutely resoved to pull it up by the roots as such, than it necessarily follows, First, That they are much more so after the King's death, and their suppression of the Lord's House, and purging of the Commons House to the very dregs, in the opinions and consciences of those now sitting, and all other rational men. And no ways enabled by Law to impose this or any other new Tax or Acts upon the Kingdom, or to create any new Treasons, Confiscations, Sequestrations and Penalties; and being themselves in truth the worst and greatest of all traitors and Tyrants. Secondly, that these grand Saints of the Army and Steersmen of the pretended Parliament, and all gownsmen confederating with them, knowingly sit, vote and act there against their own judgements and consciences, for their own private, pernicious ends. Thirdly- that it is a baseness, cowardice, and degeneracy beyond all expression, for any of their fellow-members now acting, to suffer these Grandees in their Assembly and Army, to sit or vote together with them, or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army under them, or to impose any Tax upon the people to maintain such Officers, Members, soldiers, who have thus vilified, affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority, and thereby induced others to contemn and question it: and forcibly excluded and imprisoned the greatest part of the Members and whole House of Peers, in order to their own future exclusion, and as great a baseness in them and others for to pay it upon any terms.  
Secondly he there affirms, that 
d P. 26, 27.  Oliver Crumwel by the help of the Army, at their first Rebellion against the Parliament, was no sooner up, but like a perfidious, base, unworthy man, &c. the House of Peers were his only white boys, and who but Oliver (who before to me had called them in effect, both Tyrants and Usurpers) became their Proctor, where ever he came; yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also; insomuch that at some meetings, with some of my friends at the Lord Warton's Lodgings, he clapped his hand upon his breast, and to this purpose, professed in the sight of God upon his conscience, THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE 
Note.  and JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS, AS HE HAD TO THE COAT UPON HIS BACK, and he would procure a friend, viz. Master Nathaniel Fiennes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England. And not only so, but did he not get the General and council of War at Windsor (about the time that the Votes of no more addresses were to pass) to make a Declaration to the whole world, declaring THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE Lords' HOUSE, and THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN and UPHOLD IT? which was sent by the General to the Lords by Sir Hardresse Waller: and to endear himself the more unto the Lords, in whose house without all doubt he intended to have sat himself, he required me evil for good; and became my enemy to keep me in Prison, out of which I must not stir, unless I would sloop and acknowledge, the Lord's jurisdiction over Commoners; and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do it: yet now they themselves have suppressed them.  
Whence it is most apparent. 1. That the General, Lieutenant General Cromwell, Col. Ireton, Harison, and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members, and overruling all the rest, 
* See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers, (yea & all other Lawyers, Members, sitting with them.  have wittingly acted against their own knowledges, Declarations, judgements, Consciences, in suppressing the Lord's House, and depriving them of their Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power, by presuming to make Acts, pass sentences, and impose Taxes without them, or their assents in Parliament, contrary to the express Acts of 16 & 17 Caroli. c. 1. 7, 8, 12, 14, 20. and hundreds of Ordinances, Remonstrances, Declarations, the Protestation, Vow and Solemn League and Covenant made this Parliament, by the Votes of most now sitting. 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom, for their own particular advantage, pay and enrichment, and to suppress the House of Lords, is in their own judgements and conscience, both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm, being not assented to by the Lords: and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all the Lords and other Englishmen who love their own or country's Liberties, or have any Nobility, or Generosity in them.  
Thirdly, he 
e Pag. 34. 39, 40. 56, 47.  there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf, and his confederates; That the purged Parliament now sitting, is but a pretended Parliament, a mock-Parliament; yea, and in plain English, NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL, but the shadow of a Parliament. That those Company of men at Westminster that gave Commission to the high Court of Justice to try and behead the King, &c. were no more a Parliament by Law, or Representatives of the people by the rule of Justice and Reason, than such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People, that a company of armed Thieves choose and set apart to try, judge, condemn, hang or behead any man that they please, or can prevail over by the power of their Sword, to bring before them by force of arms, to have their lives taken away by pr●tence of JUSTICE, grounded upon rules merely flowing from their wills and Swords. That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters, or to give a Law unto them, or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power, and set themselves down in it; which is the army's case with the Parliament, especially at Thomas Pride's late purge, which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons; to set up indeed a mock-power, and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT; by purging out all those, that they were any way jealous of would not Vote as they would have them; and suffering and permitting none to sit but (for the Major part of them) a company of absolute schoolboys, that will, like good Boys, say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters, and vote what they would have them: and so be a screen betwixt them and the people, with the name of a Parliament, and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority, to pick their pockets for them by Assesements and Taxations; and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees (the best of which is now become a perfect. Star-chamber, High Commission, and council-board) make them their perfect slaves and vessals. With much more to this purpose.  
If then their principal admirers, who confederated with the Army, and those now sitting, in all their late proceedings; and cried them up most of any, as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England before, at, and since the late force upon the House, and its violent purgation, do thus in print professedly disclaim them, for being any real Parliament, or House of Commons, to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people: or set up High Courts of Justice to try and condemn the King, or any Peers or English Preemen; the secluded Lord; Members, Presbyterians, Royalists, and all others, have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority, and illegal Taxes, Acts, as not made by any true English Parliament, but a Mock-Parliament only.  
Fourthly, He therein further avets: 
f Pag. 52. 53. 56. 57 58. 59  That the death of the King, in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament, ipso facto, though it had been all the time before never so entire and unquestionable to that very hour. That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it; the rather, because the men that would have it continue so long as they please, are those who have created these necessities on purpose, that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent. That the main end wherefore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither, was, To treat and confer with King Charles and the House of Peers, about the great Affairs of the Nation, &c. And therefore are but a third part, ot third estate of that Parliament, to which they were to come and join with, and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation. And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to join with to make Laws, the end both in reason and law of the people's trust, is ceased: for a Minor joined with a Major for one and the same end, cannot play Lord paramount over the Major, and then do what it please; no more can the Minor of a Major; viz. one Estate of three, legally or justly destroy two of three, without their own assent, &c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within its limited time, in all its splendour of glory, without the awe of armed men, neither in Law, nor in the intention of their Choosers, were a Parliament; and therefore of themselves alone have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments, &c. concluding thus: For shame let no man be so audaciously or sottishly void of Reason, as to call Tho. Pride's pitiful Juncto A PARLIAMENT, especially those that called, avowed, protested and declared again and again those TO BE NONE that sat at Westminster, the 26: 27, &c. of July 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army, by a few hours tumult of a company of a few disorderly Apprentices. And being no representative of the People, much less A PARLIAMENT, what pretence of Law, Reason, Justice or Nature can there be for you to alter the constitution of Parliaments, and force upon the people, the show of their own Wills, lusts and pleasures for laws and Rules of Government, made by a PRETENDED EVERLASTING, NULLED PARLIAMENT, a council of State, or Star-Chamber and a council of War, or rather by Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton?  
Now; if their own late confederates and creatures argue thus in print against their being and continuing a Parliament, their Jurisdiction, Proceedings, Taxes, and arbitrary pleasures, should not all others much more do it, and jointly and magnanimously oppose them to the utmost, upon the selfsame grounds, for their own and the public ease, Liberty, Safety Settlement, and restoring the Rights, privileges, freedom, splendour of our true English Parliaments?  
Fifthly, He there likewise affirms, 
g P. 53. 54. 59 41.  that those now fitting at Westminster have perverted the ends of their trusts more than ever Strafford did: 1. In not ceasing the people of, (but increasing) their grievances. 2. In exhausting their estates to maintain and promote pernicious designs to the people's destruction. The King did it by a little shipmoney and Monopolies; but since they began, they have raised and extorted more money from the People and Nation then half (nay all) the Kings since the Conquest ever did; as particularly: 1 By Excise, 2 Contributions. 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value. 4 Fist part. 5 Twentyeth part. 6 meal-money. 7 Sale of plundered good. 8 loans. 9 Benevolences. 10 Collections upon their fast days. 11 New imposittions or customs upon merchandise. 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men. 13 Fifty Subsidies at one time. 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value. 15 Sale of Bishops lands. 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters lands: and now after the wars are done, 17 Sale of Kings, Queens, Princes, Dukes, and the rest of the children's revenues. 18 Sale of their rich goods which cost an infinite sum. 19 to conclude all, a Taxation of ninety thousand pounds a month: (since that of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a month; and lately of a whole years Tax within three months, and now of one hundred thousand pound a a month, for the same six months they have paid their Taxes, besides Excise, customs, Frequent new intolerable militias, Payments to increased swa●ms of poor, sequestrations, Highway money, and other charges, now all Trade is utterly lost, and the three kingdom's beggared and undone.) and when they have gathered it pretendingly for the commonwealth's use, divide it by thousands and ten thousands a piece amongst themselves, and wipe their mouths after it, like the impudent Harlot, as though they had done no evil; and then purchase with it public Lands at small or trivial values: O brave trusties! that have Protested before God and the world again and again in the day of their straits, they would never seek themselves, and yet besides all this, divide all the choicest and profitablest Places of the kingdom among themselves. Therefore when I seriously consider, how many in Parliament and elsewhere of their Associates (that judge themselves the only Saints and Godly men upon the earth) that have considerable (and some of them vast) estates of their own inheritance, and yet take five hundred, one, two, three, four, five thousand pounds per annum Salaries, and other comings in by their places, and that out of the too much exhausted Treasury of the Nation, when thousands not only of the people of the world, as they call them, but also of the precious redeemed lambs of Christ, are ready to starve for want of bread; I cannot but wonder with myself, whether they have any conscience at all within them or no; and what they think of that saying of the spirit of God, That who so hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him (which he absolutely doth that any ways takes a little of his little from him) how dwelleth the love of God in him? 1 John 3. 17. These actions and practices are so far from being like the true and real children of the most High, that they are the highest oppression, theft and murder in the world, to rob the poor in the day of their great distress by Excise, Taxations, &c. to maintain their pomp, superfluities and debauchery; when many of those from whom they take it, do perish and starve with want and hunger in the mean time, and be deaf and add mant-hearted to all their TEARS, cries, LAMENTATIONS, MOURNFUL HOWLINGS, groans. Without all doubt, these pretended Godly Religious Men, have got a degree beyond those Atheists or Fools, that say in their hearts, there is no God. Psal. 14. 1. and 13. 1, 3. In quite destroying the people's essential Liberties Laws and and freedoms, and in leaving them no Law at all (as M. Peter's their grand Teacher averred lately to my face we had none) but their mere will and pleasures; saving felons Laws, or Martial Law, where new Butchers are both Informers, Parties, Jury men and Judges, who have had their hands embrued in blood for above these seven years together, having served an apprenticeship to the killing of men for nothing but many, and so are more bloody than Butchers that kill ●●eep and calves for their own livelihood; who yet by the Law of England, are not permitted to be of any jury for life and death; because they are conversant in the shedding of blood of beasts, and thereby through a habit of it may not be so tender of the blood of men, as the Law of England, Reason and Justice would have them to be. Yea, do not these men by their swords, being but servants, give what Laws they please to their Masters, the pretended lawmakers of your House? now constituted by as good and legal a power as he that robs and kills a man upon the high way?  
And if this be the Verdict of their own Complices and partisans concerning them and their proceedings, especially touching their exhausting our Estates by Taxes, and sharing them among themselves in the time of famine and penury (as the great Officers of the Army and Treasurers who are Members now do: who both impose what Taxes they please, and dispose of them, and all power, honour, profit, to themselves and their creatures, as they please, without rendering any account to the Kingdoms, contrary to the practice of all former ages, and the rules of reason and justice too) are not all others in the three Nations, especially the secluded Lords, and Members, bound by all bonds of conscience, Law and Prudence, to withstand their impositions and Edicts unto death, rather than yield the least submission to them?  
Sixthly, He there avers, proves, and offers legally to make good, before any indifferent Tribunal, that the 
h Pag. 2. 15▪ 27, 29. 33. 34. 35. 41. 53. 57, 58, 59, 64, 65. 75.  Grandees and overruling Members of the House and Army are not only, a pack of dissembling, juggling Knaves and Machevillians amongst whom in consolation hereafter he would ever scorn to come, for that there was neither faith, truth nor common honesty amongst them: but likewise murderers; who had shed men's blood against Law, as well as the King, whom they beheaded; and therefore by the same Texts and arguments they used against the King, their blood ought to be shed by man, and they to be surely put to death, without any satisfaction for their lives, as traitors, Enemies, Rebels to, and 
i See Pag. 39 52.  conspirators against the late King (whom they absolutely resolved to destroy though they did it by martial Law) Parliament, kingdom, and the people's Majesty and sovereignty; That the pretended House and Army are guilty of all the same crimes in kind, though under a new Name and notion, of which they charge the King in their Declaration of the 17. of March 1648. That some of them more legally deserve death, than ever the King did: and considering their many oaths, Covenants, Promises, Declarations, and Remonstrances to the contrary (with the highest promises and pretences of good for the people and their declared Liberties that ever were made by men) the most perjured, pernicious, false, Faith and Trust-breakers, and Tyrants, that ever lived in the world: and ought (as many of you have been, and now are) by all rational honest men to be most detested and abhorred of all men that ever breathed, by how much more under the pretence of friendship and brotherly kindness, they have done all the mischief they have done in destroying our Laws & liberties; there being no treason like Judas his Treason, who betrayed his Lord and Master with a kiss, &c. And shall we then submit to their Taxes and new Acts, or trust them with our estates, lives, liberties, and the supreme power, or acknowledge them for our legal Parliament and sovereign Lords of the three kingdoms, if such now in their own late adorers eyes?  
Seventhly, He there asserts, 
k P. 57 34.  That whosoever stoops to their new change of Government and tyranny, and supports it, is as absolute a traitor both by Law and Reason, as ever was in the world; If not against the King PRINCE CHARLES, (heir apparent of his father's Crown and Throne) yet against the people's Majesty and sovereignty. And if this be true, as it is, that this purged Parliament IS NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL; then there is neither legal Judges nor Justices of peace in England. And if so, than all those that are executed at Tyburn &c. by their sentence of condemnation are merely murdered, and the 
* Let our Gownmen sitting at Westminster and other places, & in high courts of Justice too, & there condemning and executing men consider it.  Judges and Justices that condemned them are liable in time to be hanged (and that justly) therefore, for acting without a just and legal Commission, either from TRUE REGAL, OR TRUE PARLIAMENTARY POWER (except in corporations only where they proceed by ancient Charters in the An●ient Legal form).  
And if this be Law and 
l Luk. 19 14. 27. c. 12. 13. 14.  Gospel too (as no doubt it is) then by the same reason, not only all legal proceedings, Indictments, Judgements, Verdicts, Writs, trials, Fines, Recoveries, recognizances, and the like, before any Judges and Justices since the Kings beheading in any Courts at Westminster, or in their Circuits, assizes, or quarter Sessions, held by new Commissions, with all Commissions and Proceedings of Sheriffs, are not only merely void, illegal, & coram non judice to all intents, with all Bills, Decrees, and Proceedings in Chancery, or the Rolls; and all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs now acting, and Lawyers practising before them in apparent danger of High-treason both against King and Kingdom, they neither taking the Oaths of Judges, Supremacy or Allegiance as they ought by Law; but only to be true and faithful to the new erected State without a King; but likewise all votes and proceedings before the pretended House or any of their Committees, o●sub-Committees in the Country, with all their Grants and Offices, Moneys, Salaries, Sequestrations, Sales of Lands or Goods, Compositions▪ &c. mere Nullities and illegal acts, and the proceedings of all active Commissioners, Assessors, Collectors, Treasurers, &c. and all other Officers employed to levy and to collect this illegal tax to support that usurped Parliamentary Authority, and Army, which hath beheaded the late King, disinherited his undoubted Heir, levied war against and dissolved the late Houses of Parliament, subverted the ancient Government of this Realm, the constitution and Liberties of our Parliaments, the laws of the kingdom, with the Liberty and property of the people of England, no less than High-treason in all these respects, as is fully proved by Sir Edward Cook in his 3 Institutes, ch. 1. 2. and by Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law at the attainder of the Earl of Strafford, and Declaration and Speech against the ship-money Judges, published by the late Commons House order; which I desire all who are thus employed, to consider; especially such Commissioners who take upon them to administer a new unlawful Ex-officio Oath to any, to survey their Neighbours and their own estates in every parish, and return the true values thereof to them upon the new prouned rate for the 3 last months contribution, & to fine those who refuse to do it (a mere diabolical invention to multiply perjuries to damn men's souls, invented by Cardinal Woolsey, much enveighed against by Father Latimer in his sermons; condemned by the express words of the Petition of Right, providing against such oaths; and a snare to enthrall the wealtheir sort of people by discovering their estates, to subject them to what future taxes they think fit) when as the whole House of Commons in no age had any power to administer any Oath in any case whatsoever, much less than to confer any authority on others, to give such illegal oaths, and fine those who refuse them: the highest kind of Arbitrary tyranny both over men's Consciences, Properties, Liberties; to which those who voluntarily submit, deserve not only the name of traitors to their Country, but to be 
m Exod. 21. 5. 6.  boared through the ear, and they and their posterities to be made Slaves for ever to these new Tax-masters and their successors; and those who are any ways active in imposing or administering such Oaths, yea treasonable Oaths of the highest degree, abjuring and engaging against King, Kingship, kingdom and House of Lords, and that with constancy and perseverance, against their former oaths of Homage, Fealty, Supremacy and Allegiance, the Protestation, Vow, Solemn League, and National Covenant (the most detestable Perjury and High treason that ever mortal men were guilty of) or assistant in imposing, assessing, collecting, and levying illegal taxes by distress or otherwise, may and will undoubtedly smart for it at last; not only by Actions of trespass, false imprisonment, account, &c. brought against them at the Common▪ Law, when there will be no Committee of indemnity to protect them from such suits, but likewise by Indictments of High treason, to the deserved loss of their Estates, Lives, and ruin of their families (and that by the juncto's own Votes and Declaration Octob. 11. 1659.) when there will be no Parliament of purged Commoners, nor Army to secure, nor legal plea to acquit them from the guilt and punishment of traitors both to their King and Country; pretended present forbid fear of imprisonment, loss of Liberty, Friends, Estate, Life or the like, being no 
n See 1. H. 4. Rot. Par. n. 97.  excuse in such a case and time as this, but an higher aggravation of their crime: nor yet to exempt them from Hell itself and everlasting Torments in it, for their Perjuries Treasons, Oppressions, Rebellions, and actings against their Consciences out of fear of poor inconsiderable mortals, who can but kill the body at most, nor yet do that but by God's permission, contrary to the express commands of God himself. Ps. 3. 6. Ps. 27. 1. Ps. 56. 11. Ps. 112. 7, 8. Isa. 44. 8. c. 51. 7. 12. ler. 1. 8. Ezek. 2. 6. & 12. 4. 5. Mat. 10. 28. 1. Pet. 3. 4. Heb. 13. 6. the 
o Rev. 21. 8.  FEARFUL being the first in that dismal list of Malefactors, who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death; even by Christ's own sentence.  JOHN 18. 34. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. 
FINIS.