A New Discovery OF FREE-STATE TYRANNY: Containing, Four Letters, together with a Subsequent Remonstrance of several grievances and Demand of Common Right, by WILLIAM PRYNNE Esquire; Written and sent by him to Mr. John Bradshaw and his Associates AT WHITEHALL (styling themselves, The Council of State) after their two Years and three Months close Imprisonment of him, under Soldiers, in the remote Castles of DUNSTER and TAUNTON (in Somersetshire) and PENDENNIS in Cornwall; before, yea without any Legal Accusation, Examination, Indictment, Trial, Conviction, or Objection of any particular crime against him; or since declared to him; notwithstanding his many former and late Demands made to them, to know his Offence and ACCUSERS.  
Published by the Author, for his own Vindication; the People's common Liberty and Information; and his Imprisoners just Conviction of their Tyranny, Cruelty, Iniquity, towards him, under their misnamed FREE-STATE.  Jer. 37. 18. 
What have I offended against thee, or against thy Servants, or against this People, that ye have put me in prison?  Acts 25. 27. 
For it seemeth unto me unseasonable, to send a Prisoner, and not with all to signify the Crimes laid against him.  Acts 28. 17. 
Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the People, or Customs of our Fathers; yet was I delivered Prisoner from Jerusalem into the hand of the Romans.  Qu. Curtius. Hist. l. 6. 
Verba Innocenti reper●●e facile est, modum verborum misero tenere difficile.  
London Printed for the Author, and are to be sold by Edward Thomas in Green Arbour, 1655.   

 
All flesh is Grass, the best men vanity;  
This, but a shadow, here before thine eye,  
Of him, whose wondrous changes clearly show,  
That GOD, not men, sways all things here below.   

To the Reader.  
Kind Reader, The memorable Speech of Philotus (imprisoned for a pretended Conspiracy against Alexander the great, upon bare surmises without any particular Accuser or Hearing) 
* Qu. Curtlus hist. l. 6. p. 262  Quanquam Vincti homines non supervacua solum, sed etiam invisa defensio est, quae Judicem non docere videtur, sed ARGVERE; tamen utcunque licet dicere, Memet ipsa non deseram, nec committam, UT DAMNATUS ETIAM MEA SENTENTIA VIDEAM. Equidem cujus criminis reus sum non video. Inter conjuratos nemo me nominat. Non cognita vero causa, liberari ab absente non possum, quia à praesente damnatus sum. May be a sufficient apology, both for the penning and publishing of these Letters, and of this Remonstrance. The Occasions, Motives, necessitating me to compile them, during my late causeless close imprisonment in Dunster Castle, and Pendennys Castle in Cornwall, are at large therein expressed. These Letters were all sent and delivered into Mr. Bradshawes own hands, by my dear since deceased Brother, Dr. Bastwicke, with several other Letters to divers of his Associates at Whitehall (which I intent to publish in due season) to neither of which I could ever receive the least Answer. As for the Remonstrance, subjoined to them, I having with much difficulty (in respect of the restraints and Spies then upon me) conferred it to paper, it pleased God to give me an opportunity, to convey it safe to London, to a special Friends hands, with a Letter, desiring him to transcribe, then to present it in my Name, to those to whom it was directed; and after that to print if for my vindication, the public Liberty, Satisfaction of the Nation, if he saw just cause: upon his receipt thereof it was transcribed; but he being over-timerous, and the times very perilous, for aught I can learn, he neither presented, nor gave me the least account of it whiles he lived; which made me suspect, it had miscarried before it came unto his hands, tomy great disappointment, having no perfect Copy thereof to publish upon just occasion. In November last, having some business to London, I occasionly met with divers of late Whithall cashiered Grandees (in greatest power at the time of these my late Commitments and restraints here complained of) who all positively disclaimed that they were privy or consenting to my imprisonments or restraints, which they confessed, to be most unjust. Whereupon I writ a Letter to Mr. Bradshaw, (whose hand alone was to the Warrants) demanding from him, an Account, both of the particular cause and Grounds thereof, with just reparations and damages for the same; who by two several Letters to, and a subsequent Conference with me, professed; that he did neither know, nor remember the special cause or information given to him and his Associates at Whitehall, for which I was thus committed, and so strictly restrained by them: and that, if upon perusal of his own Papers, or the Books at Whitehall, he could find any particulars relating thereunto, he would speedily inform me thereof; which having not since done in above 3 month's space, nor during my near 3. year Imprisonment, though oft solicited by these & other my Letters and friends thereto; I thereupon made diligent-Inquiry, after my Letters and this Remonstrance formerly directed to him and his Whitehall Associates; which my deceased Friend, to whom I sent them, by God's good Providence secured in another Friend's Custody; who very lately presented me both with the Orignals and Transcripts thereof, beyond my expectation, which divine Providence hath encouraged me to publish them to the world; both for the Vindication of my own Inocency, (against their new Free State groundless Tyranny) under which I so long suffered, as if I had been a Transcendent Malefactor) the Vindication of our highly violated Laws, Liberties; the fuller conviction of my Imprisoners, of their unchristian, unrighteous, causeless deportment towards me, (after all my former Sufferings) against their own Votes, Judgements, Consciences, all Laws of God, and the Land; and the manifestation of God's extraordinary Mercy in preserving, supporting me under all their Oppressions and 
* Psal. ●4 18. 19 32. 2 Tim. 3. 10. 11.  delivering me-out of them about 5. Months after this Remonstrance, without the least Petition, Submission to, or acknowledgement of their illegal, usurped, and soon after scornfully cashiered Tyrannical Power; or entering into any Bonds at all, not to act any thing for the future against their present Government and Commonwealth, or to their prejudice; which they endeavoured to force me to by Duresse, and I peremptorily refused; assuring them, upon the receipt of their 
* Dated Febr. 5. 1652.  first Order for my Release upon my entering into such a Bond; That I would rather die a Prisoner, then live a Bondman; and sooner resolve to rot in Prison, then go out of it, by entering into such Bonds, to the enslaving of myself and the whole English Nation, by making such an ill Precedent of Slavery, after all my Writings, Sufferings for Laws, and Public Liberty and near 3. years close Imprisonment in 3. several Garrisons without any hearing or cause yet expressed: Whereupon they sent me at last an 
* Dated Febr▪ 28. 1652.  absolute Release without any Bond or condition at all.  
Whether the Jesuits (whose 
* Jo. Cambilhonius de abstrusioribus Jesuitarum Artibus et Studijs▪ Lud. Lucius Hist Jesuitica. l. 1. c. 7. p. 17●. l. 4. c. 1. p 364. Speculum. Jesuiticum. P. 306. 307.  usual practice it is, to close imprison, persecute, banish, vex and destroy if possible, all such who discover, or oppose their secret treasonable plots, practices,) had any hand in my last close restraints, I cannot certainly resolve, seeing my Imprisoners themselves have protested to me, they know not by whose, or upon what information I was Imprisoned. But this some of my Restrainers have confessed to me, and my friends; That they believe the chief reason of my long close Restraints was, to hinder me from writing any thing against their late proceedings, and public Alterations, Laws, Liberties; which I formerly averred in my Speech in Parliament and Memento, (when they were first put them in execution) to be originally contrived and secretly fomented by the Jesuits to destroy our King, Kingdom, and Religion. That Speech of the Parliament of Paris to King Henry the fourth of France Anno. 1603. (when he resolved to restore the banished Jesuits against his Parliaments arrest and advise) being then my constant asseveration, 
* 〈…〉 Hist. 〈◊〉 l. 3. c. 2. p. 306.  Faxit Deus, ut sim falsus vates: sed prospicio animo tandem HOC REGNUM OPERA JESUITARUM IN CINERES ABITURUM; and that I verily feared, and believed the vissible Instruments most active in those dismal Proceedings, Changes, Subversions then intended, and since effected, were but the Jesuits deluded, seduced Instruments in reality. And that which may now at last convince them thereof beyond contradiction is not only the irrefragable evidences lately published in my Epistle to A Seasonable, Legal, an Historical, Vindication of the good old Fundamental Liberties, Rights, Laws, Governments of England; compared with the excellent Proclamations of 
* See that of. 18 Octob. 1591. 15. Nou. 1602.  Queen Elizabeth and King James against Jesuits; but likewise that memorable Piece 
* Thuanushist l. 138. Hospinian. Hist. Jesuit. l 3▪ and 4. Speculum Jesuiti●um. p119 and Ludovicus Lucius. Hist. Jesuitica. l. 4. c. 〈◊〉 where it is printed at large.  presented to the states and Nobility of Poland, assembled in Parliament 1607. to prevent the Seditious practices & tumults of the Jesuits in that Realm: intitutled; Consilium derecuperonda, & in posteram stabilienda Pa●a Regni Poloniae, per JESVITARUM ELECTIONEM. Which clearly demonstrated; That the Jesuits Society was purposely instituted by the Pope and Spaniard, to advance their intended universal Monarchies; and to be their principle Spies, Intelligencers, Instruments for this purpose: the general of the Jesuits being always a Spaniard by birth, or Allegiance, and keeping his constant residence at Rome: and their Order a most dangerous sharp active sword, whose blade secretly (heathed in the bowels of all other Realms, States, but the bilt thereof always held in the Popes and Spaniards hands, who wield it at their pleasure. That the Jesuits instill this Treasonable Principle into their Scholars and Auditors, 
* See Lud. Lucius Hist. Jesuitica. l. 2. c. 3. and Hospinian Hist. Jesuit. l. ●.  That all Christian Kings and Princes (as well Papists as Protestants) who shall by any means whatsoever fall under the Pope's indignation or Sentence; or in any sort hinder the Jesuits Projects, or not obey them in all things, ARE HERETICS and TYRANTS; that thereby their Subjects are actually absolved from all Oaths, Obedience and future Subjection to them? Whereupon not only the people in general, but any particular person▪ MAY LAWFULLY KILL and DESTROY THEM, not without punishmemt only, but likewise with GREATEST APPLAUSE, and MERIT, even of a CANONIZATION FOR A SAINT. By which Jesuitical Decree. THE LIFE and DE●TH OF ALL KINGS and ALL THE CIVIL MAGISTRATES OF EUROPE IS SUSPENDED ON THE JESVITES PLEASURE. If they favour them they may live and prosper; If not, THEY MUST PERISH. Which the Jesuits proclaiming of the State of Venice, through all Italy 
* See Lud. Lucius. Hist Jesuitica. l. 4. c. 8. p. 640.  for most PESTILENT HERETICS & ABOMINABLE TYRANTS, only for making laws to bridle their covetousness, and banishing them for their disobedience and Treachery to the State, though professed Roman Catholics. Their fury against Henry the 3. of France, in stabbing him to death● though never accused of Heresy, and continuing till his death in the Roman Communion, only for this reason; Quod Seeptrum Regium non ei tradere volebat quem sibi Hi Socij tanquam idoneum m●liti●num suarum administrum, gallicae Regem destinaveránt, (& branding him both for an HERETIC & TYRANT for this cause alone, after his death in several Books) REGIS BRITANNIAE PERPETVA PERICULA; the perpetual dangers of the King of great Britain (by the Jesuits) and the fear of all others, who find this Order offended with them, abundantly testify. After which ensues this considerable Passage, touching the Jesuits restless endeavours to subvert all Christian States, and the Fundamental Laws of all Kingdom's cross to their Designs; especially such as concernc the Succession of their Kings, or the Peace and Liberty of their Kingdoms and People; which I desire the Newm●dellers of our Laws, Government, and Subverters of our liberties sadly to consider. DIXI 
* Lud. Lucius. Hist. Jesuitica. l. 4 c. 5. p. 53 5.  quanta vis sit Aculei Jesuitici contrareges, statumque regium, quoties hunc molitionibus suis obstare inte Higunt; Hic autem vos notare velim EJUSDEM PESTIS non minorem efficaciam esse IN OPPUGNANDA & EXPUGNANDA REPUBLICA, ATTERENDIS LEGIBUS, quoties nempe sentiunt, se ab his, in institue â suâ venatione, impediri. Et quod AD LEGES attinet 
* And did they not corrode and devour our Laws of this Nature.  Hae politicae tineae illas praecipue arrodere consueverunt, et exedere, quibus jus successionis in regno continetur, libertasque et pax publica confirmatur. Qualem in Galliis praecipue invererunt, Legem illam Salicam, matriculam et Fundamentum illius regni: perquam stirpis regiae mascula proles, exclusis femeles, ad Regnum sola admittitur. Cujus Legis vigore successio Regni post interfectum Henricum 3. ad Henricum 4. Regem tunc Navarrae, devolvebatur. Quod ipsum cum SECTA JESVITICA suam interitum interpretaretur, Tantum efficere potuit 
* And have not they instigated the English themselves to do as much of late?  ut Galli hoc reipublicae suae fundamentum ipsimet subruere conarentur; ascitâ contra hanc legem Philippi. 2. Hispaniarum Regis Filia, quam ex Henrici. 2. Galliarum Regis filia susceperat, in Regni sui haeredem. Operis totius promotoribus & internuntiis Jesuitis. Quod autem Gallis Lex Salica praestat, hoc Polonis ad huc Regum Juramenta conferunt: per quae hactenus Reipublicae Liberae electionis jus conservatur, quam 
* And is not ours more dangerously corroded amongst us.  periculose vero Hoc etiam libertatis nostrae fulcimentum ab his cetineisarrosum sit, egomet dicere nolo, necpublicum dedecus ipsomet divulgabo. Ejusdem virtuti● illustre specimen coram oculis nostris in vicina Hungaria, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, etc. ediderunt; eo nimirum successu, Vt obtritis legibus quibus praedictarum nationum libertas nitebatur partemearum Penitus oppresserint, partem ad Extremam desperationem adegirint. Hoc quidem rumor publicus hactenus constanter affirmat, in praedictis Provincijs alicubi Illustribus et antiquissimae nobilitatis familiis, publicè diem dictum esse intra quem se aut coram Jesuitarum tribunali sistant, aut relictis patriis sedibus, alio migrent. Which a Noble Polonian Knight, in 
* Lud. Lucius Hist. Jesuitica. l. 3. c. 3. p. 329.  his Oration against the Jesuits seconded in that Parliament of Polonia; who, relating the bloody wars and tumults, raised by these Gibeanites throughout the Christian world & India, hath this memorable Passage concerning, England & Scotland. Eodem motuab istis Jesuiticis Gabaonitis excitato, impulsa est Anglia▪ & Scotia: quae Regna cum antea, externorum hostium impetum depulerunt, Nunc domesticis dissidijs debiltata, et ad interitum jam inclinata sunt. Id verò totum acceptum referrendum est istis sanctissimis patribus Gabaonitis Jesuiticis, Which he ushers in with this precedent Observation concerning their carriage in America, to subject it to the Spanish vassalage. Eisdem artibus et hoc Religionis Nomine, illas Provincias Hispanico Regi potentissimo, subjicerunt: à quo illi emissi Ut exploratores, eo consilia omnia retulerunt, Ut primum domestica dissidia excitarent deinde Hispanicos exercius in regna convulsa, & dissidiis domesticis debilitata adducerent. Quod assecuti sunt omnia caedibus & sanguine ita replent, ut non solum Consilij Capiendi, sed etiam Ne respirandi quidem spacium relinquant, illis, a quibus amanter & humaniter fuerant excepti. All which particulars being likewise more largely justified, demonstrated in that elegant Solid 
* Lud. Lucius. Hist. Jesuitica. l. 3. c. 2. Hospinian Hist. Jesuitica. l. 4.  Oration of the Parliament of Paris to King Henry 4. Anno. 1603. against the Jesuits restitution contrary to the former Parliamentary Arrest, for their perpetual banishment out of France, (which they therein predicted would prove fatal to him, as it did in truth) by their manifold attempts against, not only against the French Kings lives, Crowns, but also against the Laws and Liberties both of the Realm and Church of France, thus poetically expressed in an Epigram presented to King Henry the fourth, the same year, upon the same occasion, by a true French Philopater.  

* See Lud. Lucius. Hist Jesuitica. l. 3. c. 2. p. 318. 319.  Cui nam hominum ignotum est 
* Hath not this been their Study and Meditation of late years amongst us?  ' Jesuita nocte dieque  
‛ Nil meditari aliud, quam qua ratione modove  
‛ Prisca statuta queant patriasque evertere Lege  
Inque locum ' antiquis totum in contraria nobis  
‛ Jura dare; & sanctos privata ad commoda Ritus  
Flectere, nulli unquam, quod post mutare licebit.  
‛ Antique deflet (proh) libertatis honorem:  
‛ Auria libertas, sic, sic calcabere? Sione  
‛ Illa tibi fraenum injiciet Jesuitica pestis?  
Vltima Fex hominum, Satanaeque Excrementum:  
Quo nil terra tulit pejus, necfaedius unquam.  
Mortem norant animare,  
Et Tumultos Suscitare  
Hi submittant Proditores,  
Hi subornant Percussores,  
Excitant Seditiones,  
Nutriunt Rebelliones,  
Modo jubeat Romanus,  
Vel sic postulat Hispanus;  
Servit his Cor, Sermo, Manus.  
Adds another, In Officinam Jesuiticam.  
I now refer it to the consciences of all my late Imprisoners, and all other Subvertors▪ Underminers, New-Modellers, of our ancient Fundamental Laws, Liberties, Parliaments, Governments, Kings, and hereditary Regal Succession, (contrary to their former Oaths, Protestations, Covenants, Declarations, Remonstrances, Professions, Principles, Resolves, Commissions, Trusts, Advices, Votes of the Majority of both Houses of Parliament, and our three Kingdoms) sadly to consider, without passion or partiality: whether all our late intestine bloody wars, with their strange unparallelled Proceedings, and Changes of this Nature, (which I opposed to my power) proceeded not originally from the Jesuits projection, suggestion, and solicitation, to ruin our Protestant Kings, Kingdoms, Laws, Liberties, Churches, Parliaments, and whether they were not the very Jesuits real (though deluded▪ circumvented) Instruments, in promoting, accomplishing them with all earnestness, violence, zeal fury, against the votes of the secluded majority of both Houses and of our three Protestant Nations, to the Jesuits and Papist great content, the grief of most Zealous Protestants; the intolerable Scandal, Infamy, Dishonour of the most Zealous professors of the Protestant Religion; and the exiting of many late and present bloody persecutions against them, by Popish Princes in Bohemia, Austria, Styria, Savoy, and other parts; as a generation of Seditious, Factious, antimonarchical, turbulent, perfidious, disloyal, treacherous spirits, and dangerous Regicides, as they now repute them, and publish us, be in 
* See Militiere, his Victory of Truth. Cornelius Cornelij Praefatio, ad S. Trinitatem. Commentarlis in Minores Prophetas.  printed books; and hereupon let them now resolve their own consciences and the world, with what colour of Christianity, Law, Justice, they could so illegally, maliciously, despitefully close imprison, restrain my person, seize all my Papers, Records, etc. only to debar me from detecting, opposing these their Jesuitical Journey▪ workers with my pen; and endeavouring to translate the Odium of these their true original Architects, the Jesuits, who are so impudent and malicious: Vt etiam sua suorumque FACINORA AC PARRICIDIA EV ANGELICIS TRANSCRIBERE NON VERANTUR as (Ludovicus Lucius proves by several instances; to render the Doctrine and Persons of the Protestants odious and detestable to the whole world. And whose principal scope and design is by several stratagems, to engage all Protestant Princes, Kingdoms, States, Churches in unchristian divisions, tumults, wars between themselves and against each other; Vt continuis se vonficient et atterent viribus, ut COMMUNI MOX SUPER VENTURO HOSTI RESISTERE NEQUEANT. Sub nomine et praetextu Religionis Catholicae,▪ praesidioque & authoritate Papae & Hispaniarum Regis, ubique locorum sese insinuare; OMNIA DE NOVO PRO ARBITRIO SUO INSTITUERE, ET AD JESUITICUM FUSORIUM CONFORMARE; omnes Evangelicos, igne, ferro, veneno, pulvere tormentario BELLIS & aliis Machinationibus opprimere, & viriliter extirpare: Sicque SEIPSOS DOMINOS AC MAGISTROS TOTIUS MUNDI EFFICERE: as those who please may read at large in Johannis Cambilhonus, De abstrusioribus Jesuitarum artibus & studijs; in Hasenmullerus, Hospinian, & Ludovicus Lucius their Historia Jesuitica: Speculum Jesuiticum, watson's Quodlibets, with others, our New Statizers may do well most seriously to peruse and study, the better to countermine the Jesuits pernicious plots against us for the future: which have wrought such strange confusions, wars, alterations, various Revolutions in Church and State amongst us in few years last passed, as all former ages can▪ not parallel.  
If any of my imprisoners or others demand; why I did not during all the time of my close Restraints, sue out an Habeas Corpus to procure my Liberty in a Legal way, or why upon my Enlargement I brought not an action of false Imprisonment against my Committers, or their under-Goalers, to recover Damages for my illegal Restrains; or a Writ of Restitution to reinvest me in my Recordership of Bath, of which I was injuriously dispossessed without cause or hearing, by a Whitehall Letter, and another time-serving Member introduced, during my restraint?  
I Answer 1. That the want of 
* See Cooks 4. Instit. c. 1. 6, 7. ● 10. 11. 27. H ●8. c. 24. 26. Cromptous Jurisdiction of Courts; Brooke, Rastall, Ash. Title, Courts, justices, and Coram non judice.  a true Legal Power, Jurisdiction and Court of Justice, from whom to demand, sue and before whom to prosecute these Legal Writts, disabled me to pursue them. And to demand them from, or prosecute them under those illegal Usurped, New selfcreated Powers and Jurisdictions (of the Jesuits projection) which illegally committed, and ejected me from my Recordership; had been a real acknowledgement of, and submission to them on record as Lawful; against my Science, Conscience, Judgement, Oaths, Protestation, Vow, League, Covenant, our known Laws, Statutes and Parliamentary Declarations, which I durst not in conscience or prudence violate to save my life, much less to procure my Liberty, Damages, or Recordership. 2. Had I once moved for any of these Writts; I must either have taken their monstrous illegal Engagement, diametrically contrary to the Oaths of Supremacy, Allegiance, of a Recorder, the Protestation, Vow, League, Covenant, (all which I had several times taken upon sundry occasions, and from which none could absolve me) and to at least thirty other Oaths prescribed, 
* See The Arraihnment of the engagement Pack of old English Puritans, and other printed Treatises against the Engagement.  established by our Laws; and so have been guilty of manifold detestable perjuries, to the wounding of my conscience, reputation, and damnation of my Soul. Or else they would have presently pleaded in bar of these Writts; I had not taken their Engagement, and so by colour of their void, unrighteous, barbarous Knack of January 2. 1649. (which their Tresylians strictly executed, to their eternal infamy) they would have made me totally incapable of the benefit of those Writts, and that common Law, Right, Justice, which belonged to me both by Birthright and purchase; and by the express words of Magna Charta. c. 29. ought to be denied or delayed to no English Freeman. Which consideration induced me to sit still, till a fitter opportunity. 3. My close restraints in remotest Prisons; the general temporising Cowardice of those of the Long Robe to move for, or grant such writs as these: The fearfulness of all under Officers to execute them, if granted: And the improbability of any real Justice or Right to be done unto me on them, seeing those then and since chief Justices were either really, or virtually parties to the warrants for my restraints and Injuries complained of, being then Mr bradshaw's Associates at Whitehal; have hitherto persuaded me rather to wait with patience for Enlargement; Reparations & Restitution in a Christian, Just, Honourable, public way in Gods due season; then either preprosterously or posterously to sue for them in such a course, wherein I can take no comfort for the present, nor expect any just Reparations if pursued; and which others have experimentally found, A Remedy as bad or worse than their Disease, and a new expensive fruitless vexation, instead of a Just and Honourable, Reparation, of their Sufferings and Damages sustained for the public: which will be fully recompensed hereafter in Heaven, though never repaired, rewarded by Ingrate or unrighteous men on earth.  
If my Imprisoners or their Creatures, shall except against the Title hereto prefixed, viz. A New Discovery of Free State Tyranny; or any phrases in my Letters or remonstrance; as overharsh, I doubt not but the remonstrance of my Several pressures therein comprised, willbe a sufficient Apology for them. And that speech of holy Job under 
Job. 7. 11.  his heavy affliction. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth, I will speak in the anguish of my Spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my Soul; will be if not a justification, yet at least an equit able excuse or extenuation of the earnestness or bitterness of any expressions throughout in these Epistles or Remonstrance, which I entitled as aforesaid, because in most things parallel with, my New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny; compiled, published soon after my enlargement from my long Imprisonments and close restraints under them & the Old Council Table at Whitehall whom my last Imprisoners (there succeeding them) not only imitated, but in some particulars far exceed in Tyranny and Injustice towards me. And seeing I never yet received from any of my former or these late injurious Imprisoners, the least voted or voluntary Recompense, for all my Losses, Damages, Expenses, Sufferings under them, to the endangering of my Life, health and great impairing of my Estate; I hope they will give Loser's leave to write, and allow me Liberty in some sort to Right and Recompense my self in this their Default, to publish the groundlesnes of my Imprisonment to the world, as I did to themselves in private, to repair my Innocency and Reputation blasted in many men's Opinions, through an implicit faith of some concealed guilt and High Crimes in me, for which I was so long, so strictly restrained by them in remotest Castles, (injuriously thrust out of my power Recordership of hath) though I recover no other Recompense from them (as I may do in due season) for my extraordinary Damages thereby sustained in my person, Calling, estate. upon these accounts, I submit both them and the grounds of their publication to thy Censure, recommending them to God's blessing for the whole English Nations future benefit and enfranchisement, and to deter other Grandees from the like Extravagancies towards me or others in future ages. If thou or the public reap any good thereby, let God receive the Glory, the Author only a share in thy constant fervent prayers; That as he hath formerly (like blessed Paul) 
* 2. Cor. 11. 23.  been in Labours more abundant, in Prisons more frequent, than others; So he may for the future more abound in spiritual graces, Christian Fortitude, heavenly mindedness, inward consolations, public Services for God, Religion and his Country, than others; notwithstanding all forepast discouragements and ingrate requitals from men on earth, towards him, who expects his 
* Math. 5. 12. Rev. 22. 12.  reward from God alone in Heaven.  
March 16. 1654. William Prynne.   

Mr. Prynnes first Letter to Mr. John Bradshaw, touching his unjust apprehension, and close restraint in Dunster Castle, by his illegal Whitehall Warrant.  Hab. 1. 2, 3, 4. 
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save?  
Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.  
Therefore the Law is slacked, and judgement doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the Righteous: therefore wrong judgement proceedeth.  
To his Quondam kind Friend Mr. john Bradshaw, Sergeant at Law, at White-Hall, present these.  
SIR,  
YOur former intimate familiarity with, and pretended cordial affections towards me, before mounted up to your 
* B● means I 〈◊〉 against.  present Greatness, have emboldened, & my instant nnexpected new sufferings, necessitated me to complain, That on the 30 of june last, being the Lords day, about XI of the clock at 
* It is the ●●●perty of 〈…〉 & Robbers, ●● break up & enter men's houses in the night (being no legal time for arrests) 〈◊〉 2 〈◊〉 43. Lu. 12. 39 1 Thess. 5. 2.  Night, a party of Horse under the command of Captain ●enkins and Major Robinson, beset my House at Swainswick, in the County of Somerset (where I lived a retired Country life) and endeavoured to break open the doors thereof, whiles I and my servants were sleeping quietly in our beds; who upon their entry into it, seized my Person, searched my Study, Chambers, Rooms, with all Trunks, and Boxes therein, for Papers, Books, records, taking away such as they thought meet; and then marching with me through the City of Bristol in triumph, with Trumpets sounding, as their Prisoner, in the head of two Troops, and after that conveying me through the Country with Draggooners, brought me prisoner to Dunster Castle. And all this by the Colour of your White-Hall warrant, dated the 25 of june, directed to Major Robinson Governor of Dunster Castle, thus signed with your hand: JOHN BRADSHAW PRECEDENT. Which Warrant further enjoins him, not to suffer me to have conference with any but in his sight and hearing; nor to send, or receive, of any, Letters, but such as he shall peruse: and is accordingly executed, amounting to the strictest close Impriso●ent. These Proceedings seem to me (who am conscious of no guilt) very strange, Illegal, rigorous, yea destructive, not only to mine own, but to all the People's Liberties, and all our good Laws, for their preservation; which you and others in present Power, have of late years, more than once, solemnly covenanted, and made large Declarations, and Protestations inviolably to preserve, especially in these days of England's freedom from Tyranny, as some term, if not proclaim them.  
Strange in respect of yourself, the only visible author, of them; mine ancient Acquaintance, who formerly made so many large Professions of real Friendship, towards me; and one of mine own Robe (much contemning the King's Star-chamber Lords and Prelates illegal Warrants and Proceedings in this kind against me) from whom I expected no such unjust exorbitant Warrant or Military violeuce as this; yet Stranger, in regard of myself the Sufferer, who having been such an Eminent Martyr, both in body and Estate, suffering near 8 years' Imprisoments, close restraints, exile, 3 Pillories, Stigmatising, a ●●uble loss● of ears: & excessive Fines, for the defence of our religion, Laws, Public Wealth, & Liberty of the Nation, without receiving one penny recompense for all my losses, and snffrings, though promised, voted, many Thousands; and one of the most devoted faithful Servants, to the old Republic & late Parliament of England, in whose service I have spent my Estate, and studies, ever since my enlargement, without enjoying the least Preferment, which I was never ambitious of, or one farthing Salary or reward, (when others less meritorious, have been bountifully rewarded with great Sums, Offices, Pensions,) expected no such ungrateful Requital, as a new excessive tedious close Imprisoment from my professed Friends, before the least notice of any complaint against me, or summons to appear, or answer it. Which (all circumstances considered) is a far greater Extremity of injustice, than I ever yet suffered from my most Capital Enemies, who both in the High Commission and Star chamber, did only summon me by a messenger, but never Attach me, or begin with Execution, as you do; first citing me to appear, before them, and then heard, before they committed me, or searched my Study and Papers: and that by their Legal sworn Officers, not armed Soldiers; in the open day time, not at midnight; on the week day, not the Lord's day, and never made made me a close Prisoner, at first, but only after hearing and sentence. And indeed this cannot but seem strange to me and all men else, that I should be the first man now mewed up afresh, in all the County for a 
* If the late King's definition of the malignant party be true: Exact Collection P. 288. By ●●e Maligant party they intent all the members of both Houses, who agree not with them in their opinion, and all the Persons of the Kingdom, who approve not of their Actions: they who have stood stoutly and manfully for the Religion, the Liberties, the Laws, for all Public Intere●●: (so long as there were any to be stood for) They who have alway s been, and are as ●ealous Professors, and able and earnest Defenders of the Protestant Doctrine against Church of Rome, as any are. They to whose wisdom, courage and counsel ●●e Kingdom oweth so much as it can to subjects, and upon whose unblemished ways, ea●y ●t self can lay no imputations, than I am a malignant, else not.  new Malignant, and dangerons Person, who was one of the first appeared in it for the Parliament; when as others long in actual arms against it, now walk at large; and one who took and subscribed the King's Oath, against the Parliament, renouncing and declaring them Traitors and Rebels, with others, whose base unworthy cowardice lost and betrayed the whole County to the Enemy, (whom they durst never face or encounter) are now employed, as great Commanders, in our new raising Militia: who (as I have good grounds to suspect) are the original Contrivers of this my injurious Restraint; out of mere malice, or envy to show that they are now men of trust, and power, sufficient to Tyrannize over me as well as others, who never did them the least injury, but only reprehended them for their Injustice and Opressions, of which the whole County complained. The satisfaction of whose malicious desires, in this illegal way, will purchase you ten thousand times more dishonour, and do you more disservice, by discontenting thousands of your Friends, and giving your Enemies just occasion of rejoicing, than ever their valour or Military Service is like to do you good, either in the County or Kingdom; and render you as detestable to the People, as ever my former sufferings and Imprisoments did the Bishops or Star-chamber, the greatest occasion of their downfalls,  
Illegal, injurious, yea, Destructive to the People's Liberties, and also settled Laws, for their Defence, in divers respects; in which I must crave Liberty, a little to expatiate, for fear my present silence or slender glances thereat, should prejudice my own and the whole Nations Liberties, deeply concerned in this new Precedent of▪ Injustice on myself, so great a stickler against all Arbitrary and Tyrannical Proceedings of this nature, and one of the greatest Sufferers under them.  
Not to dispute at present the Lawfulness of your present Power; which many justly question. The utmost (I conceive) you do, or can pretend to, is only the Power of the ancient privy Council or Council Table, under our Kings; not in its utmost latitude, and exorbitances, but as regulatedby the late Act, against the Star-chamber. Which Council Table (to my best remembrance) never issued any Warrant so illegal as this, in all particulars, against myself or others, nor executed it by be mere Military Officers, on the Lords own day, as your Soldiers did this; to proclaim to all the world, how little they esteem or observ● your new misnamed Act, against travelling or arresting any on the Lords day; the penalty whereof none dare to levy on Soldiers; I shall only here briefly argue and evince the Illegality of your Warrant, à Capite ad Calcem; as well as my present restrained condition, and want of Books, and Time, will permit me; that you and others may see, what ground you have to retract and to be ashamed of it, as I hope you will upon the reading hereof.  
First, I conceive it wholly illegal in respect of the Persons to whom it is directed, and by whom it is to be, and was accordingly Executed; which are not, legal civil Officers of Justice, (as Sherriffs, justices of Peace, Mayor, Headboroughs, under Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Constables, Sergeants, sworn Messengers and the like), the 
* See B ooks Abridgement. Tit. Officers. Rascal's abridgements Tit. Sheriff's Justices of Peace, constables, 〈◊〉 Ma●ors etc. and Oath 9 E. 3. Stat. of Lincoln. 1. ●. 3. c▪ 4. 14. E. 3. c. 11. 13. E. 1. ●. 37. 13 ●. 2. c. 7. 18. H. 6. c. 11. 27. El●z. c. 12 12. E. 1. c. 10.. 14 E. 1 c. 8. 28. E. 3. c. 6.  only lawful Officers to serve, and execute all legal Writs, Process, Warrants whatsoever, by the Common Statute-Laws and Customs of this Realm; who are and aught to be known Refients in the County, where they may be always found; taking an Oath, duly to execute their respective Offices according to Law; and Persons of Estate, able to render▪ Damages to the Presons they attach, in case their Warrants be illegal or not legally pursued in the execution. But mere Soldiers of fortune, Strangers, having no constant residence, nor visible estates in the County, to render me or others Damages, in an Action of Trespass or false Imprisonment, should we sue them; and no legal Officers▪ known or allowed by out Laws to execute Processes or Warrants, from any civil Power▪ no not in times of War (especially where there is no necessity, nor precedent resistance, as in my case,) much less in times of Peace, as now, wherein the Sheriff's and Justice's only are to su●presse all force, and sumults, if there be any need, by the Posse Comitatus; in which cases Soldiers are only to assist them, as auxil ari●s▪ not as sole, as princible Officers, or Executioners, as in and by your Warrants they are now usually made, against Law, and the practices of all former ages. Which late illegal Usage of employing Soldiers, in this kind, to arrest men's Persons, break up and search their Houses (reputed 
* M. St. John's Argument at Law, at his attainder.  High Treason, and a levying of War against the King and his People, in strafford's case the very last Parliament) as it hath already occasioned many Barbarous Murders, dangerous Burglares, and Roberies in sundry places, and in the very heart of 
* Witness M. Lemot, and others, near the exchange, and Sir Edward Hales in White-Fryers.  of London itself by Soldiers and others, pretending Warrants from your New Council of State, or others in present power, to apprehend Delinquents, or search for Arms, Papers etc. so it is like to produce many more sad Tragedies and outrages of this kind, to the endangering of all men's Persons, lives, estates, thus prostituted to the violence, rapine, of every Rogue, Thief, Villain, who shall but counterfeit himself a Soldier, and pretend your Warrant for search of any man's house, study, or apprehension of any man's Person he hath a design to rob or murder▪ Which common mischief can be no otherwise prevented, but by directing all warrants, only to known Officers, according to Law & ● public Declaration, to all the Kingdom, that no Soldiers or others under Pain of death, shall dare presume to execute or counterfeit any such Warrants for the future; it being no part of their calling or employment, and a great oppression, and terror to the People, contrary to the express clause of the Commissions of the Peace, and of Oyer and Terminer, against such who ride armed in companies, to the Terrror of the King's people, who cannot easily distinguish who are Soldiers really employed, and who are Counterfeits; and have sometimes been affrighted, not only to sickness and great distempers of spirit, but even to death itself, by the sudden violent Attachments, and searches of Soldiers; of whose rudeness and incivility in their executions, others have much complained, though those who seized me, were as respective towards me, as your warrant would permit, transgressing only in the unseasonableness of the time, and illegalities you enjoined them.  
2. Your warrant is directly contrary to Law, and the Subjects Liberty, in that it commits me Prisoner, yea close Prisoner, ●efore & without the least Accusation, conviction of any particular Crime, any hearing, ●xamining● what I can say for myself; and so a mere forejudging of me, & going to execution before the fact examined▪ contrary to all forms of Legal proceedings in all criminal causes whatsoever; where the accused Persons for any 
* See dalton's & Cromptons' Justice of Peace, Poulton and others. 2 and 3. Phil. and Mac. 10. 11. H. 7. c. 7.  Trespass, Felony, or Treason, are first sent for, & examined in the presence of their Accusers, before they be committed. Contrary to the very proceedings of the most exorbitant High Commisioners, who at first only summoned, not attached me for my Perpetuity, & after that, for my Cousin's cozening Devotions, to appear & answer the same before them. Contrary to the proceeding of the Lords atthe Council Table itself, for my Histriomast ix (suggested to be Seditious and Scandalous, in the Superlative degree, to the King, Queen, Court, Council, Kingdom, Government,) who yet thereupon only summoned me by a single sworn Messenger, to appear in the Inner Star-chamber, before them, to answer such things as should be there objected against me for that Book, but never once seized or Committed my Person, until after they had examined and heard me concerning i●, such was their justice, and moderation towards me in their first Process, whereas you now commit me close Prisoner at a great distance, before, yea without any Summons, hearing or examination I know not for what pretended writings: So much do you now outstrip them in violence & injustice; Whereas if you had aught against me, you might have summoned me to appear before you, whiles I was in London the last Term, in commons, or since that residing openly, constantly at my country House, without absenting myself, or being ever yet a fugitive, and examined me, as they did, before you thus rashly committed me hand over head, in such a notorious way of violence, in the face of all the County and Kingdom; who cannot but conclude, you are more Tyrannically exorbitant herein, than ever the King or Prelates were against me, and have hereby, most notoriously infringed Magna Charta. c. 29. the Statutes of 25. E. 1. c. 1. 2. 28. E. 1. c. 1. 5. E. 3. c. 4. 37. and 42. E. 3. With other Acts, collected by (Rastall in his Abridgement, tittle accusation) the Petition of Right, the Resolation of the three last Parliaments, and all our Law-books▪ which directly enact, adjudge, and declare, That no Freeman ought to be attached or imprisoned upon any Accusation, or suggestion made to the King, or his Council (much less than unto you) unless it be by Indictment, impeachment, of his good and lawful Neighbours, or by Process made by a writ original at the common Law: And if any thing be d●ne against the same, it shall be reversed and holden for none. Which Laws you have sworn, professed, covenanted to observe, and are bound to do it, as a Lawyer, much more as a Christian; it being the very Law of the Pagan Romans, Acts. 25. 16. and of the very Jews themselves, john. 7. 44, etc. whose Officers refuse to apprehend our saviours Person, upon the High Priests warrant, because never man spoke as he did; and their Law 
* Deut. 13. 12, 13, 14, 15. Iosh. 22. 12. to 34.  judged not any man (to be apprehended, much less imprisoned) before it heard him, and knew what he doth. Wherefore, you cannot but recall and condemn this Warrant, and its execution, as most repugnant to these Statutes, and the very Law of Nature, of Nations, and 
* Gen. 11. 5, 6, 7. c. 18, 21, 22.  Gods own Proceedings with the worst of men.  
3. Every Warrant of Attachment (Sr. Edward Cook proves at large in his 2 Institutes On Magna Charta. c. 29.) ought to be, to summon, or bring the parties to be examined, before they be committed: and every Mittimus after examination, aught to express the cause justly, and time for which they are to be imprisoned, as during pleasure, or till further order, or till they shall put in bail, or be delivered by Law; as likewise, the manner how they shall be tried, for what they are accused: and not be absolute, as a judgement or sentence after hearing: But your Warrant is, a mere judgement before hearing or examination, without any such causes; committing me close Prisoner without any limitation of time, (and so for aught I know, during life) or ever intending to bring me to any legal examination or Trial. Therefore altogether illegal in this respect.  
4. The Statutes of 5. E. 3 c▪ 8. 23. H. 8. c. 2, and 5. H. 4. cap. 10. enact; That the Prisons to which evil doors shall be committed for their evil offences, shall be in the most eminent & populous Towns of the County, where the Assizes or Sessions are usually kept, and where is most resort and repair of People, that they may be the oftener visited, the better relieved by their Friends and others; and THAT NONE SHALL BE IMPRISONED IN PRIVATE CASES. And the Book of 21. E. 4. 71, Brook Imprisonment 80, is express; That no Court can imprison any, but in their proper prisons belonging to them; and that the Fleet is the proper Prison to the Star-chamber and Palace▪ whither they ought to commit them: else men, through malice and Power, might be sent to obscure Castles, and remote Prisons, and there starved or destroyed for want of necessaries, or purposely 
* As the Duke of Gloucester was at Calis, and Honey the Martyr was in Lollards Tower.  murdered out of malice or design be private Persons; which they cannot so easily be in in common Goals, where are store of Company; and the 
* See Rastals Abridgement, Gaol and Gaolers.  common Gaolers themselves (sworn and bound by Law, to treat their Prisoners well,) may be indicted and punished for abusing them. Upon which Statutes and grounds, the whole House of Common, resolved it thrice upon the Question, & afterwards the whole House of Lords thrice 
* A New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 137. 138. etc. 165. to 179.  voted, and adjudged, my imprisonment in Carnarvan and Mount Orgu●il Castles, Dr. bastwick's in Lanceston and Syllye Castles, and Mr. Burtons' in Lancaster and Gernsey Castles, both by sentence of Star-chamber & the old Council tables warrants, to be contrary to the Law and Liberty of the Subject. Your warrant therefore for my imprisonment in Dunster Castle, (never yet a Prison) under the Custody of Soldiers only, not of a Lawful Gaoler (especially being no Prisoner of war, nor ever in arms) is diametrically contrary to these Statutes, Votes, Resolutions, the Law of the Land, and Subjects Liberties. And so much the rather, because, though there be good Air, and prospect, in the Castle, yet there are no Provisions at all within it for the body or soul; No meat to be had dressed, but at great distance from the Castle; which is very chargeable and inconvenient to a close Prisoner: and no preaching Minister settled either in Castle or Town, to comfort, or feed the soul, or to which by your Warrant I may resort; and it is above 50 miles distant from my house, where I have no Friend, nor accquaintance near to visit, or supply my wants: And so parallel to my close imprisonment in Carnarvan and Mount-Orgueil Castles, yea worse in one respect, ●hey being after a kind of public hearing and sentence, in a Court of justice, and this only by a private warrant, before any hearing, examination, or accusation that I hear of, by those who have been my friends, and for aught I yet know, have no legal power to commit me in any case, as that Court had in some cases, though not in such a manner or to such Prisons as then, or now.  
5. Your warrant is defective and illegal in the very grounds of my commitment, which are merely general and uncertain: viz. For his seditious writings and practices against the commonwealth, without particularising what these writings or practices are; or when or where published, committed, or by whom or in what manner suggested, or proved before you; or, against what Commonwealth, or f●rm of Commonwealth in particular; whether of England, Scotland, Ireland, or of any particular County, Corporation or Society, within them, which are 
* Joan: Ang: Wondenhagen Polit. Synopt. l. 2. c. 1. sect. 10 where the various acceptionsof the word Commonwealth are specified.  real Commonwealths within themselves. Which general uncertain charge and slander against me, so great an advocate for the true interest and Republic of England, as all my writings evidence▪ imports just nothing, but either malicious suggestions, groundless suspicions, or feigned pretences against me, to deprive me of my Liberty; and were long since voted and adjudged in the Parliaments, of 3, 4, and 16. Caroli, in the cases of Sr. John Eliot and others, committed prisoners to the Tower, Fleet, and Gatehouse, by the Lords of the Council, by the King's special command, for stirring up sedition and s●ditions Practices against the state (the very same your warrant suggests against me) to be too general and illegal, and no grounds at all for a commitment; no more than schismatious inveteratus, resolved to be too general a cause of a clerk's refusal by the ordinary in 
* Sperots' case 7. Report. f. 57, 58.  Cooks Reports.  
6. Your Warrant chargeth the Governor, to imprison me in the Castle, and not to suffer m● to have conference with any, but in his presence and bearing; nor to send or receive any Letters, but such as he shall peruse. A clause of the highest restraint and oppression I ever yet suffered, or met with; For if the Governor voluntarily, or necessarily absent himself, I must neither speak with, nor write to any man, upon what urgent occasion soever, nor receive any Letter of whatso ever importance; be shut up a close Prisoner night and day, always guarded when I take the air in the Castle (as now I am) and not repair to any Church or meeting, to hear, fast, pray, receive the Sacrament, nor send my own Servant out of my Chamber, or the Castle, (as now I cannot) for any necessaries, for fear of infringing this strict formidable Warrant, which puts me into the self same condition I was in at Carnarvan and Mount Orgueil Castles, and will prove as fatal to my own, and all Freemens liberties of England (if not recalled and exploded with highest indignation) as those my R●straints and close Imprisonments were (with my Brother bastwick's and Burtons' too) by the Votes and Judgement of both Houses, whereof I think meet to give you this full account. When I was first committed to the Tower by the Lords of the Council for my Histriomastix, (suggested to be seditious and scandalous in the highest degree) the words of the Lords Warrant to the Lieutenant were, 
* A new discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny, p. 9 142.  to require him to keep me safe Prisoner in the Tower, without giving free access unto me, until he should receive farther Order: yet this warrant, though all my friends had present free access to, and conference with me in public and private, without any restraint or perusal of Letters to or from me (not expressing any particular cause for my commitment) was by the unanimous Vote of the whole House of Commons 20 Aprilis 1631. in these words, resolved to be illegal; Resolved upon the question, That the imprisonment of Mr. Prynne (in the Tower) by a warrant under the hand of Thomas Lord Coventry, and others (therein named) IS UNJUST and ILLEGAL: And that they ought to give Mr. Prynne satisfaction for his damages sustained by that Imprisonment. And in my Brother Burtons' case ● committed close Prisoner to the Fleet by the Lords, for preaching and publishing a seditious Sermon and Book (as they termed it) entitled (For God and the King:) the House of Commons the 12 of March 1640. passed this Vote, 
* Ibidem p. 15, 16. 139. 140.  Resolved upon the Question, That the Warrant from the Council Board, dated at Whitehall Febr. 2. 1636. for the committing of Mr. Burton close Prisoner, and the commitment thereupon▪ IS ILLEGAL, AND CONTRARY TO THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT: And that he ought to have reparations for his damages sustained by this Imprisonment. And whereas we both, with Dr. Bastwick, for pretended seditious Books and Practices; were, after a kind of hea●ing in S●archamber, sentenced, and ordered To be kept close Prisoners in 3 remote Castle; and after that, by 
* Ibid●m p. 85, 86, 87, 137. 138. 141. 142.  Order and Warrant of the old Council Table, removed into 3 Castles in the Ifles of Jersy, Gerxsey and Silly; and there, for preventing the danger of spreading our (pretended) schismatical and seditious opinions, ordered, to be kept close Prisoners, and none to be permitted to have free conference with, or access unto us, but only such faithful and discreet persons as should be appointed to attend us; and that no Letters or Writings should be permitted to be brought to us, or sent from us to any person or persons; and if there should be any such brought or sent, that the same should be opened by the Governors, or their Deputies; and if they contained any thing material or considerable, that the same should be sent to one of his Majesty's principle Secretaries: (the substance of your present Warrant, which seems but the Copy of it in this particular,) the whole House of Commons three several times, upon the question resolved; and the Lords upon our three distinct hear, thrice adjudged, Those Sentences, Orders, Warrants, and restra●nts therein contained, 
* And so declared by the whole House of Commons, in their Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom, 15 D●cemb. 1641. Exact Coll. p. 6. 8. 11, 12, & confessed by the King himself in his Declaration of Aug. 12. 1642. Exact Collect. P▪ 518.  TO BE AGAINST THE LAW AND LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT, the Great Charter of England, and other forecited Statutes; and that we ought to receive Damages for the same, from those who had a vote or hand therein. Which illegal Sentences, Warrants of Restraint, and Exile (as you and your associates well know) were the principal occasion of Suppressing both the High Commission, Starchamber, and Council Tables exce●ses, by two special Acts of Parliament, and one principle charge against beheaded Canterbury. Wherefore, I cannot but stand amazed, to find you not only imitating, but in some sort exceeding them in this your Warrant, being privy to these Votes, and of Counsel to some of us, declaiming as bitterly against such illegal restraints, and the Authors of them, as any; which yet now you practice with an high hand, against all these Votes, in my very case; which will fall heavy on you.  
I beseech you therefore sadly to consider, what all my Friends, yea your best Friends, and Enemies too, will think, report of you for the present, and register to posterity; and what our whole 3 Kingdoms and Foreign Nations will judge of you and your Associates for this your warrant and close restraint of me thereby: Will they not report, publish to all the world, that you are more cruel, tyrannical, extravagant, unjust, than the beheaded King, (condemned by your own Sentence for a Tyrant) or than Canterbury, Strafford, the High Commission, Star-chamber, or old Council Table; and that your little singer is now grown heavier than their whole loins, not only to your Enemies but Friends? Yea, that you deal worse with me, than the most bloody Tyrant Nero did with Paul, when Prisoner under him at Rome (though charged 
* Acts 24. 6.  for a pestilent fellow, & stirrer up of Sedition among the Jews throughout the World;) who yet 
* See A New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny, p. 170 to 181. where this point is fully debated.  had there free liberty, without the least restraint, publicly and privately to confer with, send for, yea preach to whom he pleased, and to receive all persons (and Letters too) that came unto him, no man forbidding him: Acts 28. 14. to the end. Nay, worse than men by Law can deal with their Trespassers or ill-Tenants Beasts; which ought to be kept in ●n overt open Pound, where the Owners, and all others may freely visit, feed, relieve, replevy them at their pleasures without restraint; and not shut up in a close room, where none may see or feed them, but by the oversight and leave of others: as the Statute of 1 & 2 Phil. & Mary, c. 12. 5 H. 7. 9 with other Law-books resolve. Nay worse▪ than the late Parliament dealt with Strafford, or Canterbury, when impeached of High Treasons of the greatest magnitude, against the King and Kingdom, by all the Commons of England; who had no such restraints of Conference, or Letters on them, as you now lay upon me, but absolute freedom of both, and full liberty of the Tower, till Strafford endeavoured an escape from thence. And will you deal more rigorously with me, than the Parliament did with these Arch-Traytors? Let not such an oppression, an exorbitancy as this, be ever heard of in 
† 2 Sam. 1. 20.  Askelon, or published of you in Gath, lest all your and my Enemies should rejoice thereat.  
If you pretend necessity of State, or the public Peace and safety, for these Illegal Proce●dings; it is but the very same Plea the Prelates pretended for my close Imprisonment, and banishment heretofore; the 
* 
See Mr. St. John's Spe●ch concerning it at the Judge's Impeachment.  
And the Kings Answer to the Petition of both Houses, Exact Coll. p. 127. 518. 586. 879. 858, 882.   King, for the Loans, Excise, Shipmoney; and the Army for my last restraint, violence to both Houses, and their secured secluded Members: A plea which soon resolve● into, Scelera sceleribus tuenda, and necessitates men at last, to commit one violence, sin, & wickedness, after another, till they perish in their villainies, and sink down quick into Hell, and is at this day the greatest Argument, Instrument, the Devil hath, to precipitate men (formerly moderate, merciful, just, religious) into most exorbitant, scandalous, 
* Whence the King in his Answer to the Declaration of the Lords and Commons of the 19 of May 1641. Exact Collection p. 252. thus adviseth bo●h Houses, To take heed of inclining under the specious show of Necessity & Danger, to the exercise of such an Arbitrary power they before complained of. The advice (saith he) will do no harm, and we shall be glad to see it followed.  violent unrighteous Actions, Designs, and to induce them to proceed impenitently from one extremity to another, which they formerly most severely censured, sentenced in others; yet now approve and justify in themselves, when they find their own interest concerned, or their carnal f●ars or jealousies of others really Innocent, suggesting any thoughts of some close designs against their ways of violence and public desolation, instead of sincere repentance, confession and reformation, of what their own consciences inform them secretly to be evil and unjust. Wherefore I desire you in this case, to beware of this most dangerous snar● of the Devil, and that maxim now in many men's mouths▪ unworthy men or Christians: Over shoo●s, over Boots: We are engaged, and therefore can neither with honour, safety, nor prudence, recede from what we have done amiss: When as all our honour, safety, prudence, and eternal salvation too, consists only, in our 
* 2. Ch●on. 28 6. to ●6. Ezech 18. 7. 12. 13. 16, 17, 18. Isay 58. 6, 7, 8. Obad. 10 to 17. Mic. 2. 1, 2, 3. Lu. 19 8. Acts. 16. 33, 34.  retreating, actual repentance, and satisfaction to the parties injured, in suh c asses, by our unrighteous dealings a●d oppressions, because we have only present power in our hands, to oppress and injure them.  
6. Your warrant order them, to search all my Chambers ' studies and places in my house for Papers, Writings, Records, and before any accusation or conviction; the highest strain of Regal, Prelatical, high-Commission, and councill-Table Tyranny, 
* An exact Collection. p. 6. 11, 12. 31. 37, 38. 156. 500 A New Discoveoy of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 15. 138. 140. in the cases of Dr. Bastwick, and Mr. Burton.  resolved by the two late Parliaments and whole house of Commons', to be an high entrenchment upon the Subjects' Liberties, and property, contrary to Magna Chart●, the Petition of Right, the Judgement in S●mai●s case; much censured by Sir Edward Cook in his 4th. Institutes, in the Chapter of Justices of the Peace: and in the cases of 
* Ex●ct Collection. p. 6. 11, 12. 35. 37, 38. and 156, 157▪  Mr. Cre●, Mr. Pym, and other members o● Parliament ● and such a one I yet am, if the former Parliament hath a being since the Kings beheading, the Lords suppression▪ and most Common●●eclusion, as you hold it hath) an high infringement of the Privileges of Parliament, of which whosoever are, or shall be guilty, they are by several Orders, votes, a●d Ordinances of Parliament, declared, to be Enemy's both to th● Parliament, and Common▪ wealth▪ of England, ●nd to be apprehended and proceeded against as such.  
In all which respects your present Warrant, and the execution of it, being so diametrically contrary to the known 
* The true custody and safeguard of all public and private Interests, The inheritance of every Subject, and the sec●ty he can have both of his l●fe, liberty, or estate: and the which being dis-esteemed, or neglected, (under what specious shows soever) a very great measure of infelicity, if not of irreparable confusion, must without doubt fall upon them: as the King himself and both Houses declare. Exact Collection. p. 28, 29. 267. 284. 491, 492. 494. 503 694.  Laws and Statutes of the Realm, the votes and Declarations of both Houses of the Parliament, in mine own and others cases, and the late Declarations of Febr. the 11. and March 17. 1648. of those now acting; I shall of mere Right, not any grace or favour, demand and expect from yourself, and your Associates of the long Robe (my quondam special Friends) who know all the premises to be Law and this Warrant most illegal, a present revocation and condemnation ●hereof as such, and my present absolute enlargement, without any condition, restriction, caution or engagement whatsoever; which I resolved never to enter into (being liable only to punishment when, and if I do amiss, and am legally convicted of it,) that so I may follow my Country affairs this harvest time, without any such future interruption and vexation. And withal to send me the names of my Accusers, and their particular Accusation, (if there be any such) that so I may receive reparations from them or you, for this most injurious▪ restraint, to my great trouble, cost and prejudice; which I am confident you neither will nor can in justice or honour deny me. But if this will not be granted; as this my unjust restraint, may then prove as prejudicial to you, as my former Imprisonments did to the Canterbury, the Prelate's, and Star-chamber, and will cry as loud to heaven, against you as they did against them; till God himself delivered me by some other means; I shall then request this Justice only at your hands.  
First, that you would take care that my soul be not starved, for want of spiritual food, or free access unto it, when there are any sermons in the Town: where there is yet no settled Minister, but a Lecture at some times and days. A 
* The denial whereof is charged by the Commons as a great illegal Grievance and evil. Exact Collection p. 6.  Libert● enjoyed during my former Imprisonments.  
2. That you will allow, and take care for my diet, during my close restraint, if you will needs keep me up a close Prisoner▪ my estate being exhausted by my former sufferings, the loss of my calling, public Taxes, Free quarter, and scarce able to support my family at home; now left like sheep without a shepherd.  
3. That if you will not be so just and charitable▪ that at least you will cause the 800 l. due unto me as contractor (for which I never received o●e farthing, though it cost and lost me double the value, and I should never have demanded it, but upon this extraordinary occasion of expense) with all the free quarter, certified to be due unto me for the last year, under 〈◊〉 Commissioners hands, and yet not satisfied, to be forthwith paid; to help sustain me, during this my present extremity, (which I hope you will 
* Magna Charta▪ c. 29.  not delay, or deny) I shall till then remain,  
Yours illegally restrained 
 close Prisoner, WILL. PRYNNE. Dunster-Castle July 5. 1650.   

Mr. Prynnes second Letter to Mr. Bradshaw.  
SIR,  
I Informed you by my Letter the 5 of this instant july, of the forcible breaking and searching of my house and Study at Swainswick, seizing and carrying away my Person and Papers about Midnight, on the Lord's Day, by a Party of Horse, and my close imprisonment ever since in Dunster Castle, by pretext of a Warrant signed with your hand; the illegality whereof, and of its execution, I therein undeniably demonstrated, by Acts, Votes, Resolutions of Parliament in my very case, and proved them more exorbitant, than the worst first proceedings of the Prelates, High Commission, Council Table, or Star-chamber against me, under the late King, whom you yourself 
a And thinkest thou this O man that judgest them which do such things, and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the judgement of God? Rom. 2. 3.  condemned to have his head severed from his shoulders for a Tyrant, demanding thereupon of mere right my present Enlargement from this unjust imprisonment, with reparations for the same. To which as yet receiving no answer, after above a fortnight's restraint, contrary to expectation, and Magna Charta itself: Nulli negabimus, nulli differemus justitiam aut rectum: and hearing, that by a like illegal Warrant under your hand, made to Soldiers, not sworn Officers, they have broken open my Study, seized all my writings & Trunks at Lincoln's Inn, & carried them to White-Hall, contrary to the Law of the Land, and Liberty and property of the Subject; I am thereupon necessitated for the Defence of mine own, and the Nations Liberties, (for which I have so deeply suffered, in Defence whereof, we have of late years spent so many Millions of Treasure, and Tuns of Gallant English blood) to make this solemn Protestation to you, and all the world, That these Warrants and Proceedings of yours against me, are altogether illegal, tyrannical and exorbitant, contrary to Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Resolutions of the 3 last Parliaments, the 
b A new D●svery of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 15, 16, 120, 121, 128, 132, 137, 140, 225.  votes of both Houses in my very Case, and the Cases of my Brother Dr. Bastwick and Mr. Burton, the Law of the Land, the Subjects Liberties and Property, and many Declarations of the last Parliament, published to the World.  
To begin with the breaking up of my House, Study, seizing of my writings and Papers, Records, and imprisoning my Person, before any hearing, examining, or legal accusation against me, by colour of your illegal Warrant (the revived Exorbitances of the High Commission, and old Council Table, under which the Freemen of England formerly groaned, and most sadly complained) I shall desire you and the whole Kingdom (by way of supplement to my former Letter) to take notice,  
1. First, That in the cases of my Brother Dr. Bastwick, and Mr. Burton, (whose Houses, & Studies were broken open, searched, and their Writings, Books, Persons seized, by colour of a Warrant from the High Commis. & old Council-Table) the whole House of Commons, upon the report of their Cases, passed these two Votes 
c A new Discovery etc. p. 137, 138, 139.  Feb. 24. 1640. Resolved upon the Question; That the Precept made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other high Commissioners for causes Ecclesiastical within the Realm of England, for apprehending the body of Doctor Bastwick; and for searching for, and seizing of his Books; and the making and issuing thereof, and likewise the Messenger's Act in searching Dr. Bastwicks' House and Study, and searching and taking away his Books and Papers, by that Precept, ARE AGAINST▪ 
Nota,  LAW, AND THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT. And March 12. 1640. Resolved upon the Question; That the breaking open of Mr. Burtons' House, and arresting his person, before any cause depending against him in the Star-Chamber; and his close imprisonment thereupon, are against the Law and Liberty of the Subject. That john Wragge hath offended in searching and faising th● Books and Papers of Mr. Henry Burton, by colour of the general Warrant Dormant from the High Commission; and that that Warrant IS AGAINST THE LAW, AND LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT: and that S●rjeant Dendy, and Alderman Abel have offended, in breaking open the House of Mr. Burton, and aught to make reparations to Mr. Burton for the damages he sustained by breaking open his house. And that john Wragge ought to make reparations to Mr. Burton for the damages h● Justained by breaking open his Study, and seizing his Books and Papers.  
2ly. That after this, the whole House of Commons in their Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom, the 15 December, 1641. reciting many grievances therein complained of (now acted over in a far 
d See Exact Collection, p. 558. 559. Witness Excise, Tonnage and Poundage, Monthly Contributions, Quartering of Soldiers; new Oaths and Judicatures without and against Law; ta●ing away men's Arms, breaking open men's house's, imprisoning and confining their Persons.  higher degree than ever they were under the beheaded King) sadly remonstrated, 
e Exact Collection, p. 8.  That great numbers of his Majesty's Subjects for refusing unlawful Charges, Taxes, New Oaths and Judicatures erected against Law, have been committed t● long and hard imprisonments, and others have had their houses broken up, their goods seis●d, and some have been restrained for their lawful callings. And that the very next day after the Parliament ended, the fifth of May, 1640. Some Members of both Houses, had their Studies and Cabinets, yea their Pockets searched; which they declare to be contrary to the Law, and the Subjects Liberty.  
3ly. That in the Case of Members (and such a one I still am, if the Parliament or House of Commons be yet in being, as you do and must affirm) the whole House of Commons 3 Jan. 1641. published and printed this Order, 
f Exact Collection, p. 35.  It is this day ordered upon the Question by the Commons House of Parliament, That if any persons whatsoever shall come to the Lodgings of any Member of this House, and there do offer to seal the Trunks, Doors or Papers of any Members of this House (which is less than to break open, search, and take them quite away by armed Soldiers, as in my case) or to foise upon their Persons; That then such Members shall require the aid of the Constable, to keep such persons in safe custody till this House do give further Order. And this House doth further declare; That if any Person whatsoever shall offer to arrest or detain the person of any Member of this House, without first acquainting this House therewith, and receiving further Order from this House, That it is lawful for such Member, or any Person, to assist him, and to stand upon his or their guard of Defence, and to make resistance, according to the Protestation taken, to def●nd the Privileges of Parliament.  
4ly. That afterwards the Commons House in their 
g Exact Col. p. 38, 39, 41.  Declaration of the same January (in case of the 5 impeached Members) published to all the Kingdoms, further declared and ordered, That whereas the Chambers, Studies and Trunks of Mr. Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur Haslerigge, Mr. John Pym, Mr. John Hampden, and Mr. William Strode, Esquires, Members of the House of Commons, upon Monday the third of this instant January, by colour of his Majesty's Warrant, have been sealed up (not broken up, searched, and carried away as mine are, which is far more) by Sir William Killigrew, and Sir William Flemen, and others, which is, NOT ONLY AGAINST 
Nota.  THE PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT, BUT THE COMMON LIBERTY OF EVERY SUBJECT▪ Whereupon we are vecessitated according to our duty, to declare, And we do hereby declare, that if any person shall arrest Mr. Hollis, Sir Arthur Haslerigge, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and Mr. Strode, or any of them, or any other Member of Parliament, by pretence or colour of any Warrant issuing out from the King only, he is guilty of the breach of the Liberty of the Subject, and of the Privilege of Parliament, and a public Enemy to the Common wealth. And that the arresting of the said Members, or any of them, or any other Member of Parliament, by any Warrant 
Nota,  whatsoever (therefore by yours now) without a Legal proceeding against them, and without consent of that House, whereof such Person is a Member, IS AGAINST THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT, AND A BREACH OF THE PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT; And the Person that shall arrest any of these Persons, or any other Member of the Parliament, is declared a public Enemy of the Commonwealth. And we do further Declare, That the Privileges of Parliament, and the Liberties of the Subject so violated and broken, cannot be fully and sufficiently vindicated, unless his Majesty will be graciously pleased, to discover the names of those persons, who advised his Majesty to issue out Warrants for the sealing of the Chambers and Studies of the said Members, to send a Sergeant at Arms to the House of Commons to demand their said Members, to issue out several Warrants under his Majesties own hand to apprehend the said Members; Whereupon those who sealed up these Members Studies and Trunks were committed Prisoners, and threatened to be put by their places; as some of them then were.  
From all which Votes, Resolutions, Declarations (to omit many 
h Exact Collection p. 77, 78, 156, 157, 458, 483.  others of this Nature) I must conclude and protest; that if the breaking up, searching for, seizing, and bare sealing up of the Doors, Studies, Trunks, Papers of Subjects, and Members of the Commons House, or apprehending their Persons by Warrants from the High Commission, old Council Table and King himself, by Pursuivants and Clerks of the Council Table (who were sworn Legal Officers) be such an high violation of the Law of the Land, the Liberty of the Subject, the Privileges of Parliament, and render such as are guilty thereof declared Enemies to the Commonwealth: Then your breaking up, searching my House, Studies, Trunks, and seizing of my Writings, Papers, Person, by armed, unknown, obscure Soldiers, who are no Legal Officers▪ after all these Votes and Declarations, must much more be against the Law, and Liberty of the Subject, the Privileges of Parliament, and render you, them, and all who were active in it, notorious Enemies to the Commonwealth of England, unless you give me speedy Satisfaction and Reparations for the Injury, and retract those violent Proceedings with shame and indignation; which I Demand and expect of Right, without further delay.  
Next, I must acquaint you, that I and my Servant too, have now been kept up close Prisoners, and restrained from all Gods public Ordinances, above this fortnight, by colour of your illegal Warrant; whereas the whole House of Commons, in their 
i ●x●ct Coll. p. 6.  Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom, 15 Decemb. 1641. reputed and Declared this, as the Completing of cruelty, under the late King, That some Members detained close Prisoners, after the Dissolution of the Parliament 4 Caroli, were deprived of the necessary means of spiritual Consolation, in not suffering them to go abroad to enjoy God's Ordinances in God's house. Which soul-murthering cruelty I now suffer by your unjust restraint, and my Servant likewise.  
I beseech you sadly to consider, not only the great Scandal, but impiety and danger of such restraints from public Ordinances. The Scripture defines the Devil himself to be the Original Author of such Imprisonments, Restraints of God's Saints and Servants, Rev. 2, 16. And further assures us, That 
k Matth. 25. 41. to 46.  Christ at the last Judgement, will say to those who did but only not feed, cloth, and visit the least of his Saints, when they were in Prison; Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the ●evil and his Angels: What an heavy Doom then will he pass against those, who (against all Rules of Law and Justice,) cast them into Prison, and will there neither feed, cloth, nor visit, but starv● their bodies and souls too, as much as in them lieth, by depriving them of God's Ordinances, and all means of livelihood, as you do me, after all my former great losses, and long-continued sufferings. I cannot as yet be so uncharitable, as to believe you design the ruin of my soul, body, and wasted Estate; but if you de facto do it, by this injurious restraint, your sin is as great, as if you did design it.  
If you think to justify or excuse these Irregularities and unjust violent Proceedings against me, by pretext of Necessity and public Danger, the only thing in Justification I yet hear alleged by your Instruments; As this will be no Plea at all before Christ's Tribunal in the great day of Judgement; who 
l Leu. 25. 14. Ez▪ c. 18. 12, 13 Psal. 10. 14, 18. 1 Cor. 6. 8, 9 Col. 3. 25. Mich. 2. 1, 2, 3▪  prohibits all kind of violonce, injustice, oppression, injury upon any Pretence what soever, and will severely punish it; their 
m Rom. 3. 3.  Damnation being most just who do evil upon this unrighteous ground, that good may come of it: So it will not hold water before man's Tribunal, being resolved, declared, by the 
n Exact Collection, p. 518, 838, 879, 882, 885, 886.  Judgement of both Houses, and an Act of Parliament in cases of Shipmoney, Excise, Loans, to be no cause nor Justification of a Distress, much less of an Imprisonment. And it being a Necessity and Danger of your own making, not mine, the Rule of Law is, 
o Little on Chap. Remitter.  That noman shall take advantage of his own wrong to the prejudice of another. The late Beheaded King in his 
p Exact Collection, p. 127.  Answer to the Petition of both Houses, 26 Martii, 1 642. is so ingenious, as to confess, That the violating of Laws by his Ministers, and the mischief that then grew by Arbitrary Power, was made plausible to Us, by the suggestion of Necessity and Imminent danger; and thereupon he gave both Houses this caution: And take you heed, you fall not into the same Error, upon the same suggestions; which in his 
q Exact Collection, p. 252.  Answer to the Remonstrance of the Lords and Commons of the 9th of May, 1642. he thus seconds, And therefore we had good cause to bestow that Admonition (for we assure you it was an Admonition of our own) upon both Houses of Parliament, to take heed of inclining, under the specious shows of Necessity and Danger, to the exercise of such an arbitrary Power they before complained of; The Admonition will do no harm, and we shall be glad to see it followed. And therefore for you, or those now acting, after these two serious Admonitions, to pretend Necessity and Imminent Danger, for these, with other Arbitrary courses, Proceedings, condemned in and by the King himself, and the whole Parliament, must be the height of Oppression, Injustice, and will render you 
r Rom. 2. 3. 16. to 25.  more detestable to the Nation and World, than ever they did the King, or his Evil Counsellors.  
To trouble you no further at present; I shall only inform you. That the Commons in their 
s Exact Colle ction, p. 10 492.  Remenstrance of the State of the Kingdom, Decemb. 15. 1641. Yea, both Lords and Common● in their Declaration of 4 August, 1642. among other Designs, Practices of the Malignant Party and Counsellors about the King, complained of this, as one of the most dangerous; 
t And is not this the present case of most of the Nobility, the late s●eluded, secured Members; and all conscientious Presbyterians throughout the Realm, wh● dare not violate their former Oaths, Covenants, Protestations, Declarations, Remonstrances, published to all the world? & of myself▪  That they endeavoured to make those odious, under the name of Puritans, who sought to maintain the Religion, Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom; and such men were sure to be 
t And is not this the present case of most of the Nobility, the late s●eluded, secured Members; and all conscientious Presbyterians throughout the Realm, wh● dare not violate their former Oaths, Covenants, Protestations, Declarations, Remonstrances, published to all the world? & of myself▪  weeded out of the Commission of the Peace, and out of all other employments of Power and Authority in the Government of the Country. Many Noble Personages were Counsellors in name, but the Power and Authority remained in a ●ew of such, as were most addicted to this P●rty; whose Resolutions and Determination● were brought to the Table for countenance and execution, and not for Debate and Deliberation; and no man could offer to oppose them, without disgrace and hazard to himself; Nay, those that did not wholly concur, and actually contribute to the furtherance of their Designs, though otherwise Persons of never so great honour and abilities, were so far from being employed in any Place of Trust and Power, that they were neglected, discountenanced, and upon all occasions injured and oppressed. The Laws were no Defence or Protection to any Man's Right; all was subject to Will and Power, which imposed what payments they thought sit to drain the Subject's purses, and to supply those Necessities which their ill Counsels had brought upon the King, and gratify such as were Instruments in promoting these illegal and oppressive Courses. 
v Is not this your very practice now? witness the Proceedings against the R●fusers of the Engagement, who are thrust out of all public Offices, places ●f trust, deprived of their Callings, Augmentations, Sequestrations, all present and future Preferments and Degrees in the Church, Universities, Inns of Court, etc. yea deprived of the Law itself, their Inheritance and Birthright, like Outlaws, the height of Tyranny and Injustice.  They who yielded and complied, were countenanced and advanced; all others disgraced and kept under, that so men's minds made poor and base, and their Liberties lost and gone, they might be ready to let go their Religion, and submit to the subversion and alteration of the Laws and Government, which they designed. And whether your Proceedings in the selfsame kind against myself, & others who have suffered and stood so much for Religion, Laws, and public Liberties in the worst of former times, thus complained against; and securing, restraining us to boot, in a more more violent way than the King and his evil Counsellors proceeded against us heretofore, will not draw a greater guilt, disreputation, heavier judgement upon you and your Associates, than they complained of did upon them, if you persevere impenitently in such execrable Machiavilian carnal Practices, I leave to your own Consciences to determine?  
Sir, I was never yet a flatterer of any Person or p●rsons, how great soever in arbitrary and illegal w●ys, and my present extremities will be a sufficient Apology for this my boldness and plain▪ dealing with you, as well as others heretofore in like cases, wherein the 
x For that which is my Case to day, may be many or any others tomorrow.  whole N●tions Liberties are concerned as much as mine own; wherefore I do once more, upon the premised Votes and Grounds of right, demand my present enlargement, the restitution of my seized Papers, Writings, Records, Books, Tr●●●ks from you and your Associates, with reparations for these injurious proceedings against me from yourselves, 〈◊〉 the Original Authors, and Principal Actors in them. And so expecting your undelayed Answer to my former and present Demands (who amidst your manifold employments, may spare as much time to do me right as wrong) that so I may know how to steer my course; I must, and shall till then remain  
Your unjustly close restrained Captive, WILL. PRYNNE, For his quodam kind Friend Mr. Sergeant john Bradshaw at Whitehall, these. Dunster Castle, 16 July. An. Dom. 1650.   

The third Letter to Mr. Bradshaw.  
SIR,  
I And my Servant attending on me, have for above 6 week's space, against all Rules of Law, Justice, and the Votes of both Houses in my very Case, been already kept close Prisoners in Dunster Castle, debarred all free converse with others, by Discourse or Letter, and access to God's public Ordinances, by your illegal Warrant; and although I have sent 5 several Letters to yourself, and others of your Colleagues, declaring the illegallity, the extremity of these your Proceedings, and demanding nothing but Jnstic● from you, which not only one Christian, but Turk, Infidel, might justly challenge and expect from an other; yet, I can neither receive answer, nor satisfaction from you in the least measure; when as I never sought to the late King himself in my former troubles, for any thing I desired, but he ever gave me some positive answer or other, at the first, without one quarter of that solicitation which you have had, who professed yourself, my cordial Friend; Yea whiles I was close Prisoner in Mount Orgueil Castle, he was so pious, as upon the very first motion of the Governor (without any Petition from me) to grant me free access to all Gods public Ordinances, Sermons, and the Sacrament, which I cannot yet obtain from you (pretending far more Piety and Liberty) after so many Letters; who are now so far from returning me any answer, that my Brother Bastwick (my Solicitor) I know not by whose direction, informed me, he can obtain no admittance to your presence, being put off, or denied entrance by your Attendants. A strange carriage of any Mortal towards his fellow Creature, but stranger in any Christian towards his Christiun Brother, and Professed Friend; when a● the most high, most glorious, omnipotent, incomprehensible God, who dwelleth in the highest (a) Heavens, and in that light that no man can approach nnto; though 
b Psal. 123. 8. Esay 57 15. 1 Tim. 6. 16.  
b 1 Tim. 6. 15. Psal. 47. 2, 7.  King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and a great King over over all the Earth, doth▪ so far humble▪ himself▪ (to teach the highest Mortals the like humility, and charity to their lowest afflicted Brethren) as, always to give 
c Ephes. 2. 10. c. 3. 12.  fr●e access, a● 
d Ps. 34. 15.  open ear, a 
e Psal.  speedy audience, & ready answer to all the just prayers, & requests of the very mean●st of his Creatures, Servants here on earth (especially in the times of their D●stresse) and hath registered this comfortable Precept, backed with a Pr●mise, not only of audience, but Deliverance, for every faithful Christians encouragement▪ Psal. 50. 15. Call upon me in the time of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me, The accomplishment whereof hath experimentally been made good unto them, upon all occasions, and is thus recorded to Posteriry by the Palmist in his own and others Cases. Psal. 34. 4, 5, 6. I sought the Lord, and he he●rd me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him, and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles. Whose celestial example you are so far from imitating, notwithstanding this Evangelical-Precept, Luke. 6. 35, 36. Be ye therefore merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful; for he is kind unto the unthankful and evil; (than much more to the good) that as yet I cannot find you so righteous, as that Dilatory 
f Luke. 18. 2, 3, 4▪ 5, 6, 7, 8.  Judge, which feared not God, nor regarded man, who although for a while he refused to avenge the importunate Widow of her Adversary, ●et afterward said within himself; Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this Widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by h●r continual coming she weary me. And therefore you may justly fear what follows in the next ensuing verses. And shall not God avenge his own Elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily, of all those that injure, or refuse to do them right, according to that memorable Scripture, Prov. 21. 7. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them, because they refuse to do judgement. If you still pretend, want of leisure to do me right▪ I shall fi●st mind you, that King Philip of Macedon, giving this answer to a p●●r Petitioner, who demanded justice at his hands, that he had no leisure to do her right; received this bold reply from her, 
g Plutar●●i Apothegmat●.  Noli itaque Regnare; Be you then King and Precedent no longer over us, but let those reign who will find leisure to to do us justice; Whereupon he immediately did right, not only to this suitor, but divers others. It shall be my reply to your Dilatory excuse, and I wish it may produce the like effects in you as it did in Philip. Next I find, that si●ce my imprisonment in Dunster Castle, you have found leisure enough to grant out an O●der for the slighting of it, and removing the Garrison thence to Taunton Castle, and therefore I conceive you might at the same time, have found leisure enough, had you not wanted will, for my release from thence, who now am like to be tossed up and down by you, like a Tennis-Ball, from one Castle, and illegal Prison to another, to my greater trouble and expense, as I was by the late Tyrannising Prelates malice, contrary to Law, and the Subjects Liberty, as both Houses 
h A New discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 142. Resolved upon the Question, that the War●ant dated 27 of August 13 Caroli, made for the Transportation of Mr. P●ynne from Carnarvan Castle to the Isle of Jersey, and his Imprisonment there, & other restraints therein mentioned, are against the Law and Liberty of the Subject, and that he ought to be discharged of that imprisonment, and to have reparations for his damages sustained thereby.  voted in my very Case, which will be a further addition to my oppression, and your Injustice render you altogether as injurious, if not as malicious towards me, as beheaded Canterbury, & add very little reputation to your new Regency over us. And is this the only fruits of your pretended friendship and justice? the only guerdon, recompense of all my former Labours, Losses, Sufferings, for the Commonwealth, and Liberty of the Nation, even in the worst of times? is this the only Native English Freedom▪ I and other Patriots of our Country must n●w enjoy, expect, after so many years' sufferings, wars, prayers, tears, fasts, (both public and private) so profuse an expense of our Treasure▪ Blood, and exhausted Estates, to regain, maintain our hereditary Liberties against all invasions, to be now at last, without, before any legal process, or Indictment, upon m●er general surmises, fears▪ suspicions, thus violently pulled out of our houses, banished our habitations, divorced from our families, deprived of our Callings, disseised of our Offices, Trusts, Freeholds, attainted in new kind of Premunires, put out of protection of those very Laws to which we were born undoubted heirs; sequestered from all free converse with our Friends, Countrymen, by conference or writing; debarred access to all Gods publi●e Ordinances, for the instruction or consolation of our Souls; plundered of our Papers, Writings, Records, Horses, Arms, at the arbitrary Discretion of every Sowldier or New 
i Condemned by the Declaration and Judgement of both Houses, Exact Collection, p. 853, 854, 855, 8 87.  Militia-man, carried through the Country in triumph, like Turkish Galley-slaves, consigned, banished, imprisoned, tossed up and down from one illegal Prison to another, from one illegal Judicatory to another, and ruined by uncessant new Taxes, Excises, Payments, without and against all rules of Law and Justice, contrary to so many solemn Protestations, Declarations, Remonstrances, Leagues, Covenants, ratified, subscribed in God's sacred presence, with hands lifted up to Heaven; And that by a few of our mere fellow-Subjects, who have not the least shadow of any lawful jurisdiction over us from God or Man, much less of any such absolute, arbitrary, Tyrannical Domination over our Persons, Estates, Liberties, Lives, as they now daily exercise: which the beheaded King, yea the most oppressive of his Royal Predecessors, never exercised, nor pretended to, but 
k Exact Collection. p. 242, 28, 29, 267, 500  absolutely disclaimed and protested against, as both illegal and tyrannical? And must we still be constrained to pay heavy monthly Contributions, Excises, only to maintain Soldiers, to support such an oppressing 
l Hab. 17.  Selfcreated Authority, power over us, and execute all their iregal Warrants, to break up, search, command our Houses, ransack our Studies, writings, seize, in prison our persons, plunder our goods, disseise us of our Freeholds, take away our lives, and make us more absolute Vassals to our new Supremacy, than the most Slavish Turks are to their Grand Signior? Did ever the free people of England (voted by the Army and those at Westminster the 
m Jan. 4. 1648.  only Supreme Authority of the Nation next under God▪ and the only fountain of all lawful Authority) ever transferr such an exorbitant jurisdiction as this, over themselves, or me, to those at Whitehall, or any other, who stile themselves, their Representatives, or authorise them to do the least Action contrary to Magna Charta, the Statutes of 25. E. 3. c. 4▪ 42. E. 3. c. 3. the Petition of Right, the Statutes of 25. E. 1. c. 5, 6. 28. E. 1. c. 1. 34. E. 1. De Tallagio non concedendo. 1, 2, 3, 4. 14 E▪ 3. Stat. 2. c. 1. 1. R. 3. c. 2. 35▪ E. 1. De Asp●rtatis Religiosorum, and other Acts, but lately made and assented to by the late be-headed King, An. 1640? And if not, as is most certain, then how can, or dare you, thus illegally ab●se, imprison, close imprison m●, and sundry others, as you have done; and to levy 
n See my v●nd●cation of the Subjects' L●●e●ty against illegal T●xes. Exact Collection, p. 882, 883, 884, 885, 886.  illegal Contributions, and Taxes, on me since my chargeable imprisonment, not granted, nor imposed by the Common Consent of the Earls, Barons, Great men, and Commons of the Realm in full Parliament, by Act of Parliament, only to maintain Soldiers to apprehend▪ secure, imprison myself, and th' other freemen of England, and Lord it ●ver us, by colour of your unlawful warrants, contrary to the express Letter of all these Acts and Resolutions of our two last Parliaments?  
Yet this is not all the Oppression I now groan under; but as if the former had not been sufficient, some Malitia (rather than Militia) Gentlemen of our County, (the original Contrivers of my present Commitment, if I be not mis-informea) in the prosecution of their further malice towards me, on Tuesday night last, sent a Warrant by the Constable to my house (I know not by what new pretended Authority) to send in an horse and man, (such as they should approve of) completely furnished, to their worships, at Wells (17. miles from my house) the very next morning, without fail: To whom my Sister returned this answer; that I was a close Prisoner, fifty miles off: that I had neither ●orse, nor Arms to send, and it was impossible to provide any at so short warning, neither would my estate bear such an heavy new Charge (being not chargeable with an horse, by their late instructions) He replieth, that no excuse would serve, but and horse and man must be sent, under I know not what heavy penal●y●; & none beingsent upon these Grounds, I daily expect to hear of their utmost Ex●remitys against this my pretended Default, being encouraged thereto by my present restraint: The illegallity and dangerousness of which new Arbitrary Authority in these Commissioners of the Militia, arraigning, Assessing men with Arms & imprisoning, fining men at their arbitrary Discretion, without any legal trial being largely argued, vored, resolved, 〈…〉 to the Kingdom, by the 
o Exact Col●etion. p. 380, 442, 462, 485. 469. 478 550, 551, 850, to 890.  Declaration of the Lords & Commons concerning the Distractions of the Kingdom, 1▪ 2. july 1642. By the Petition of both Houses, 20. july 1642. By his Majesty's Declaration to all his Subjects, Aug. 12. 1642. and by the Lords and Commons 2. Declaration, against the Commission of Array, 12. jan: 1642. I shall not dispute it here, but refer you thereunto. And for their present practice, in dis-arming many well affected Gentlemen and Yeomen of best rank and Quality, puiting their arms into Mercinaries hands, and not trusting them with their own or the Kingdom's Defence; as it is against all Precedents in former ages, cited either by the late King or Parliament, concerning the Array or Militia; so it was thus publicly declared against by the Lords and Commons in Parliament, in case of the King and his party, in their Printed 
p Exact Collection, ●. 575.  Declaration of 18. August 1642. A third observation is this; That Arms were taken from the honest Gentlemen, Yeomen, and Townsmen; and put into the hands of such desperate Persons as cannot live but by rapin● and spoil. A fourth, That not withstanding all the Vows and Protestations to Govern according to Law, which have been dispersed throughout the Kingdom, to blind and deceive the People. THE MOST 
q And are not they sopractised now, in the very selfsame, or a ●●rr more dangerous in this and others Particulars▪  MISCHIEVOUS PRINCIPLFS OF TYRANNY ARE PRACTISED THAT EVER WERE INVENTED; that is, TO DISARM THE MIDDLE SORT OF PEOPLE who are the body of the Kingdoms, AND TO MAINTAIN SOLDIERS BY FORCED CONTRIBUTION TO CREATE A PROVINTIALL GOVERNMENT IN THE NORTH (but now throughout the Kingdom) CLEARLY AGAINST THE COMMON LAW, AND THE JUDGEMENT GIVEN THIS PARLIAMENT, for taking away the Court at York. That the Contrivers and Instruments of ●h●se mischiefs, for th●ir better strengthening in these Designs, are about to join themselves in Association with other Counties; That Directions are given that such as shall oppose and ●ot join with them, shall be violently plundered and pillaged▪ of their horses and Ar●●es, at least, if not of their goods and estates.) Upon all which considerations, and unjust Oppressions, now imposed on, or threatened to me be reason of my present restraint, I do once more, of mere common right, Demand my unconditioned present Enlargement, that ●o my imprisonment may not survive my now Demolishing new Prison, where there are near 300. pioneers at work to levelly, not only the Castle Walls▪ but ●●●●lling house itself, to the very ground, by pretext of your fresh warrant; though the best Seat in the County; yea the ancient habitation of an Eminent Gentleman, and his Ancestors, who have been always cordial to, & sustained many thousand pounds' loss for the Parliament; who yet, without any Notice, or 3 days warning, 
r By an expres●e warrant of the new, rash, inconsiderate Militia, grounded on yours at White▪ hall.  must have his house pu●led down over his head, before, yea without any view, hearing, or recompense; himself, his Wife and Family▪ turned out into the Streets (having no other habitation for the present,) & instead of receiving recompense for his former Six thousand pound losses or more, be rewarded with near ten thousand pound new Damages, for his fidelity toward you; to the great rejoicing and triumph of all the Malignants in the County, who laugh in their sleeves, to see how gratefully and bountifully you reward your best deserving friends, for all their losses and Services for the public, with greater Injuries, Damages, Affronts, Oppressions and restrain is, than ever they received from the worst, and cruelest of their Enemies. Which is the present condition o● Mr. George Lutterell; the owner of my Demolishing Prison of Dunster Castle; and of  
Your much oppressed close Impriprisoned Vassal, WILL. PRYNNE. From my Demolishing Prison in Dunster Castle.   

The fourth Letter to Mr. Bradshaw, and his Assocîates.  
Gentlemen,  
THese are to mind you, that after all my heavy sufferings of three Pillories, a double loss of my ears, stigmatising on both Cheeks, two Fines of 5000 l. apiece, expulsion out of the University of Oxford and Lincoln's Inn, degradation in both, the seizure of my Papers, Books, Estate, near 9 years' loss of my Calling, above 8 years' imprisonment in the Tower of London, Fleet, Carnarvan, and Mount Orgueil Castle in Jersey, through the Tyranny of the late Prelates, Starchamber and Council Table, only for my public Defence of the Protestant Religion, Laws, and Liberties of the Kingdom, against Popery and Tyranny, in the worst of times, when few durst openly stand up on their behalf, to my Damage of ten thousand pounds at least; After above 8 years, faithful, painful services, since my enlargement, in maintenance of the Kingdoms, Parliaments just Rights, Privileges, Liberties, against all opposers; and other public employments for the Common good, with the almost total neglect and loss of my Practice, and expense of many hundred pounds out of my purse; After 3 months' costly, most injurious imprisonment by the Army, for discharging my duty, and speaking my Conscience in the Commons House, whereof I was then a Member (and am so still, if that House be yet in being, as you affirm, and so not subject to your New Whit●hal Jurisdiction▪ contrary to Law and the Privileges of Parliament; After sundry other Affronts, Injuries, Pressures, for my sincerity, fidelity to my Native Country (for all or any of which unjust sufferings, losses, meritorions services, by which our Religion, Republic, Parliament, Nation, received many great advantages, I never yet received one farthing recompense, nor the least advantage or preferment, of which I was never ambitious,) I have (to augment my former damages, oppressions, in stead of repairing them) received this great accumulation to them, by colour of your illegal Warrants under Mr. Bra●sbaws hand (who lately professed yourselves my Friends, and lamented my former injurious sufferings, though senseless of my present) before & without the least notice, summons, 
a Contrary to 2 and 3 Phil. and Mar. c. 10. ●nd the common ●aw, Cook 2 Institu●es. p. 51, 52, 53, 54.  examination, or legal accusation; even a forcible infringement, search, rifling of my Studies, Trunks, Writings, Papers in Lincoln's Inn, & house at Swainswick, by a company of armed Soldiers▪ who ●e●sed sundry of my Writings, Papers, Books, 〈◊〉 Records, against Law, and sent them Whitehall; together with a violent Attachment of my own Person, (though no Fugitive, nor person in Arms) not by any known, sworn, lawful Officers, but a strong Party of unknown Troops, in my own house and Bedchamber, about eleven of the clock at night, on the Lords day, the 30 of June last; who carried me through the County in triumph, as their Prisoner to Dunster Castle, (no ordinary Prison but a private Garrison) 50 miles distant from my habitation, where I have been kept close Prisoner (with my Servant who attends me) by more than four Quaternions of Soldiers (as 
b Acts 12. 3, 4, 5, 6.  Peter was under persecuting Herod) above 3 month's space, though the walls thereof be demolished of late by your Order, to my extraordinary expense▪ and great damage, through my absence from my Family all the Harvest; during all which time neither I nor my Servant have been permitted the least access to God's public Ordinances, on Lordsdays, or Lecture days; nor to stir out of the Castle (where are no provisions at all to be had for any thing I want) nor to speak with any Person, but in the Governors' presence, or hearing; nor to receive or write any Letters upon any occasion, but what he must first peruse. And although I have written at the least Seven Lett●rs to Mr. Bradshaw, and others of you (my late intimate friend's, ●omol ining of this unparallelled Injustice and Tyranny, answering all Pretences of necessity and public Danger, to justify or excuse it, and manifesting it to be contrary to MAGNA CHARTA c. 29. 25 E. 1. c. 12. 28 E. 3. c. 1. 5▪ E. 3. c 9 25 E. 3. c. 4. ●8 E. ●. c. 3 37. E. 3▪ c. 18. 38 E. 3 c. 9 42 E. 3. c. 3. 17. R. 2. c 6. 2 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 60. the Petition of Right & other Statutes, the very Common Law of England. the Liberty of the Subject, the Law s of God and Nature, the Resolutions and printed 
c 
Exact Collection, ●. 8 11, 12, 13. 312, 322, 666▪ 364, 462, 466, 470, 472, 483, 550, 551, 767, to 773, 812, 813. 845. 846, 851, 852, 854, 855, 887.  
A Collection. p. 424, 425. 877, 879.   Declarations of the 3 last Parliaments, the expressed 
d a N●w Discovery of the B shops Tyranny, p. 139. to 179.  Votes of the Commons, & judgement of the Lords House, in my own particular Case and my Fellow Sufferers; yea a Greater Cruelty and Tyin some respects, than ever the late King, Star-Chamber, or be headed Canterbury ●●flicted on me, who at first only summoned me by a Messenger, to appear before them, but never attached me by armed Officers or Soldiers; accused me of a particular bock upon which they examined heard, before they restrained me, and never committed me close Prisoner at first, nor laid any such restraints, upon me or my servant, as you do now for above 4 years' space; permitting me free access to God's public Ordinances; free conference in public and Private, with whom, and Liberty to write to, and receive Letters from whom, I pleased, without any overhearing or Jutervising; and to send my Servant abroad, upon all occasions (A Liberty which the Laws of England allow to all Traitors and Felons whatsoever, and which beheaded Strafford, and Cant●rbury enjoyed, though impeached of the Highest Treasons by the whole Commons House, and yet devyed unto me, by you, such Great Pretenders to Public Liberty, both of Person and Conscience, though hitherto accused, impeached of no Crime) yet notwithstanding, I can hitherto receive no relief, nor satisfactory answer to my just Demands from any of you; Whereupon I have been necessitated to address this brief precedent Narrative of your harsh proceedings against me, to you all in general, to leave you without excuse, and thereupon, as a Free▪ born English man (who, as you well know, hath written, suffered more than any, or all of you, for the public Liberty of the Nation, without the least reward (upon which account I may Justly challenge, as great an Interest in the Laws and Liberty of the Nation, as any man this day breathing;) I shall make bold (being thus enforced by you thereunto) to make some Proposals unto you (who have 
e Declaration of th● 17 March, 1648.  Declared an unaccountable Power, or Officer in any State, to be A MONSTER both in Nature and Politics;) for the public and your own particular good, and my better relief, which I beseech you sadly to consider, because I fear, you now meet with more * Sycophants than Faithful 
Adulatio perperuum m●lum Regum. Qu. Curtius, ● hi●l. l. 8.  Friends and Monitors to inform you of your extravagances.  
First, whether these exorbitant Proceedings against me, contrary to all the forementioned Laws, Statutes, Declarations, Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions of both Houses in my very Case, be an inviolable maintaning, upholding, preserving of the fundamental Laws of the Land, Liberty and property of the people, according to the 
f Exact Collection, p. 663. 666. A Collection, p. 227. 310, 420, to 428. 458, 459, 878, 879, 889.  Solemn Protestation, Vow, Covenant, you have made, subscribed, in the presence of the everliving God, with a real intention to perform the same, as you shall answer the contrary, at the great day of judgement, or of your own 
g Exact Collection p, 267 666. 491, 492, 493, 852, 854.  former late printed Declarations, published to this Kingdom, Nation and the whole world? And by what authority derived to you from God, or men you can justify or excuse this extreme violation of all these Laws and Premises, contrary to the very Letter of your Protestations, Covenants, and public 
h 11 Feb. and 17 March, 1648.  Declarations, in this second year of England's pretended Redemption from Tyranny and Slavery, which never felt, nor complained so much of both of them, as now under you.  
2ly. How you, who profess yourselves such Eminent Saints, yea Patrons of public Liberty and Piety and justify the casting, detaining of Saints in Prison, which is the proper work of the Devil, and his Instruments. R 〈…〉 Isay 14. 17. Acts 5. 18. c. 12. 3, 4, 5. Mat. 14. 〈…〉 17 18, 21. but the opening of Prison doors, the losing, releasing Prisoners, the proper office, work of God, Jesus Christ, and all good Angels, Psal. 146. 7. Isay, 61.▪ 1. Acts 5. 18, 19 c. 12. 5. to 20. ●he debarring me and my Servant above three month's space, from all Gods public Ordinances, on Lords days, and week days, and denial of me so much freedom, Liberty, under your New Gaolers and Free-State Government in Christian England, as St. Paul (though accused for a 
i Acts 24, 5.  Pestilent Fellow, and a stirrer up of sedit ion amongst the Jews throughout the world) enjoyed under the Pagan, bloody persecuting Tyrant 
k See a new Discovery of the Bishop's Tyranny, ●. 172, 173, 174.  Nero in Heathen Rome itself, Acts 28. 15. to the end: Yea, as all public Traitors, Malefactors whatsoever, by the Laws of the Kingdom 〈◊〉 enjoy, and all late restrained Cavaliers in Arms have enjoyed? And how you will at last escape that heavy Doom denounced against such, as do but only, not visit Christ's imprisoned Members; or such as trouble and oppress, without imprisoning them, recorded Mat. 25. 41. to the end, 2 Thes. 1. 4. to 10. if you thus close imprison, starve, undo me, without any just or real cause, only because you have present power in your hands, and the longest sword; against which practice and ground of present power, there is an heavy woe and judgement particularly denounced, Mich. 2. 1, 2, 3, etc. Which I desire you will seriously read and consider.  
3ly. Whether it will not be esteemed an argument of extraordinary Cowardice, Guiltiness in you, who have all the Militia and power of the Kingdom, both by Land & Sea, in your hands, and such great successes, as you publish; to stand in fear of such a mean, unarmed, despicable Person as myself; and thereupon only to move me up close Prisoner, as you do, in a remote private Castle, against all Rules of justice, 
l See 5 E. ●. c. 8. 5 H 4. c. 10. 29 H. 8. c. 2. 27 E. 4. 71. Brook imprisonment. 80. Cooks 2 Institutes p. 43.  Law, and Christianity?  
4ly. Whether▪ if you pursue, equal, exceed the Injustice, oppressions, Tyranny & greatest Exorbitances of beheaded Canterbury, Strafford, the suppressed Star-Chamber, Council Table, or late King (condemned, executed by you so freshly, for a Tyrant, must you not in all justice, reason expect, and in gods due time undergo the self same, or far worse Tragical, fatal ends, as they have done, with eternal Damnation to boot, notwithstanding your present power, Greatness, not half so well settled, bottomed, backed by Law, or otherwise, as theirs was, when they sare and acted in State, where you do now? For which I entreat you, advisedly to peruse, with sincere hearts. Rom. 2. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 21, 22, 23, 24. Ezech. 18. 12, 13, 24. and Isay 14. 4. to 24.  
These Proposals premised, I have only as ma ny Demands to make unto you; to which I desire your undelayed answer, not out of any favour, but mere right and Justice.  
First, that if you have an● criminal or Capital Charge against me, by any known Laws or Statutes of this Realm (as I am sure you have none) you will then bring me to a speedy, Just and Legal Trial for it, upon an Indictment or Presentment of the good and Lawful People of the Neighbourhood, where my pretended Offence was committed, before a Lawful Tribunal and Legal judges; (if there be 
m See Magna Cha●ta ●. 12. 13. 29. 4●●. 3. c. 1 5 9 13. 26▪ 20 E. 3. ●. 12. 13. 27. H, 8. c. 16. 24. 1. E▪ 6. c. 7. 10▪ which prove that there are now.  any such now in being:) and that I may be tried by the Lawful Judgement of my Peers, according to the good old Laws of the Land; and have all just exceptions and challenges allowed me; and not to be murdered, destroyed as some lately have been, by Tyrannical and Arbitrary Courts▪ Marshal, or misnamed▪ New Courts of high justice, set up in direct opposition subversion and destruction, of the very 
n See Cooks 2▪ Institutes on Magra Charta c. 14. & 29. 3. Instit. c 12. &c. Brooks and Fi●cz. Title Trial and C●ron●, and so adjudged in Parliament in the Earl of Lancaster's case, Mo●t●mers case, and the 2 Spencer's case, and others. Cook 2 Instit. p. 48. 4E. 3. R●t. Par. n. 14. 15 E. 8. ●. 6 8. 44. 49. 51. 17 E. 3. n. 22. 28 E. 3. n. 7. 10. 16. ●0 R. 2. n. 7, 8. 2 H. 5. n. 15.  Common Law of England, (the Highest Liberty of the Subjects, the very safety, preservation of their Lives, their 
o job. 2. 4.  chiefest Bulworks against all Arbitrary Powers, which are all now prostituted to the Lawless wills of others) & the express Statutes of Magna Charta, c. 14. 29. 25 E. 1. c. 1, 2, 3. 28 E. 1. c. 1. 1 E. 3. c. 19 2 E. 3. c. 1. 4 E. 3. c. 1. 5 E. 3. c. 1. 9 10▪ E. 3. c. 1. 14. E. 3. c. 1. 15 E. 3. c. 1, 2, 3. 20 E. 3. c. 1. 3. 28 E. 3. c. 2▪ 4. 28 E 3. c. 1. 31 E. 3. c. 1. 37 E. 3. c. 1. 18. 38 E. ●3. c▪ 1. 9 42 E. 3. c. 1. 3. 45 E. 3. c. 1. 50 E. 3. c. 2. 1 R. 2. c. 1 2 R▪ 2. c. 1. 3 R. 2. c. 1. 5. R. 2. c. 1. 5. 6▪ R. 2. c. 1. 7▪ R. 2. c. 2▪ 3. 8 R. 2. c. 1. 9 R. 2. c. 1. 12 R. 2. c. 1 13 R. 2. c. 2. 5. 14 R. 2. c. 1. 12. 1 H. 4. c. 1. 10. 2▪ H. 4. c. 1. 11. 19 and Rot. Parl. n. 60. 4 H. 4. c. 1. 7 H. 4. c. 1. 9▪ H. 4 c. 1. 13 H. 4. c. 1. 2 H. 5. c. 6. 8, 9 2 H. 5. Stat. 2. c. 3. 3 H. 5. c. 1. 7. 4 H. 5. c. 1. 7 H. 5. c. 1. 2 H. 6. c. 1. 6 H. 6. c. 1. 8 H. 6. c. 10. 29. 9 H. 6. c. 3. 10 H. 6. c. ●0. 14 H▪ 6. c. 1. 15 H. ●. c. 5. 18 H. 6. c. 12. 20 H. 6. c. 9 31▪ H. 6. c. 1. 33 H. 6. c. 2. 1 R. 3. c. 3, 4. 11 H. 7. c. 1. 11 H. 7. c. 21. 4 H. 8. c. 2. 6 H. 8. c. 6. 22 H. 8. c. 2. 14. 23 H. 8. c. 3. 13. 25 H. 8. c. 6. 22. 26 H. 8. c. 5. 6. 13. 27 H. 8. c. 4. 24. 26. 28 H. 8. c. 1. 7. 15. 32 H. 8. c. 4. 33 H. 8. c. 12. 20. 23▪ 24. 35 H. 8. c. 26. 35 H. 8. c. 1. 2. 37 H. 8. c. 5. 6. 8. 1 E▪ 6. c. 1. 10. 12. 2 and 3 E. 6. cap. 1. 2. ●4. ● & 6 E6. c. 4. 9 〈◊〉 11. 14. 1 Mar. c. 3. 6. 1 & 2 Phil. & Mar. c. 10. 4 & 5 Phil. & Mar. c. 3. 4. 1 E. c. 1. 2. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 4▪ 10. 11. 15. 21 Eliz. c. 3. 4. 13 El. ●. 1. 2. 14 Eliz. c. 1. 2▪ 3▪ 18. Eliz. c. 1. 2● Eliz. c. 1. 2. 27 Eliz. c. 1. 2. 29 Eliz. c. 1. 35 Eliz. c▪ 1●. 39 El. c. 15. 43 El. c. 13. 1 ●ac. c. 28. 11. 12. 27. 31. 3 Jac. c. 2. 4. 5. 13. 4 Jac. c. 1. 7 Jac. c. 1. 6 10. 13. 21 Jac. c. 4. with 
p All P●n●l S ●t●●es, c●e●ting any 〈…〉 nact, that No Of feeders shall be punished by ●nd●ctment▪ and freed by a Ju●y of▪ their Peers, according to M●gna Charta, & the Common Law, and by the Statutes of 18 H. 6. c. 19 2 E. 6. c. 2. ● & 5 Phil. & Mar. c. 3. Soldiers departing without licence f●om their Service, are to be punished with indictment, and tried by a Jury, not by Martial Law▪ Cook 6. Report. f. 27. & the Petition of Right. 3 Carol▪  sundry other Acts, and the very Letter of the Petition of Right (so highly magnified fo● the most excellent▪ most just, free and equal of any other Laws in the World, by those now sitting at Westminster, in their Declaration of March 17. 1648. for settling the present Government in way of a Free State, wherein they solemnly engage inviolably to maintain them; and yet now trample them all under feet by these illegal arbitrary ●udicatories, so much 
q Exact Collection. p. 8▪  declaimed against heretofore) of purpose to destroy all sorts, degrees of Subjects, and Freemen of England,) Though no Soldiers under Military Discipline, contrary to all these Laws and Franchises of the Land; when and where, no Legal jury, nor Court of justice; will or can condemn them; adjudged wilful murder heretofore, and so resolved▪ in Parliament, as Sir Edward Cook 
r Se● ch. A●urder ●●●stit. p. 48. and 4 Instil. 〈◊〉 Co●●t.  informs us in his 3. Institutes (printed by Order of the House of Commons,) and so esteemed by G●d himself, though coloured by a pretext of Law, Psal. 94. 20; 21. 1▪ King's 21▪ ●●o 2▪ 5. john 19 7. 16. 18. compared with Acts 2. 23. c. 3. 14, 15. c. 7. 52. yea a more transcendent publicly avowed Act of absolute Arbitrary Power; and Tyranny, than ever the late King or any of his Predecessers were guilty off, which endangers every man's life, and chops off every man's head, in taking off any ones, yea▪ such, as in conclusion, may prove a new Perillus his Bull, to torture, destroy the first ●uve●tors by Gods just judgements; the Heathen Poet ●vi● observing, 
— N●c ●nim Lex justio● ulla,  
Quam necis artifices Arte perire sua.   
Whereof we have a memorable Scripture Precedent in that Tyrant, Adonibezek, Judg. 1. 6, 7. and in the shedders of the blood of Saints, Rev. 16. 5, 6. seconded with four 
s Psam. 137. 8. ●er. 51. 34. 36, 37. 56. 〈◊〉 10. 14. I●ay. 31. 1. Judg. 15. 10, 11. f●r. 50. 15. 29. 2. Sa●. 3. 39 Ps. 94. 20, 21, 23. Ps. 109. 15, 16. Isay. 3. 11.  formidable Comminations both in the old & new Testament, G●n. 9 6. Ezech. 35. 5, 6. Obad. 10. 15. etc. Jam. 2. 13. Rom. 2. 1, 2, 3. and with a most observable example in Thomas▪ Lord Cromwell, recorded by Hall, and Sir Edward Cook, in his 4 Institutes p. 37, 38. who in the height of his greatness & power, endeavouring to procure an Act of Parliament, to take away some other m●ns lives, without any Lawful Indictment Trial & by their Peers, contrary to the forementioned Laws, by the mere Legislative power of the Parliament, was the first and only man that suffered and l●st his head, without any Legal Trial, by a bare Act of Parliament. 31. H. 8. c. 3. which kind of illegal taking away men's lives, being next degree, & very near of kindred to a private Assasination, or Public Massacre of those we fear or ●ate; and in one respect worse than either of them, because disguised with a pretended show of Justice, is for ever to be abominated and exploded by all Pretenders to Piety and Public Freedom, and not▪ to be tolerated in any free Monarchy or Republic upon any pretence of necessity or Public safety whatsoever: and so much the rather, because the blood of such so murdered and destroyed, will 
t See Gen. 4. 10. to 16. c. 9 5▪ 6. c. 42. 22. Nu. 35. 30, 31, 32, 33. Deu. 19 10 to 14. c. 32. 43. 2. Sam. 4. 11. 12. 1. Kings 2. 5▪ 9 31, 32, 33, 37. c. 21. 19 c. 22. 38. 2. K. 9 7, 8. c. 24. 4. Ps. 9 12. Ps. 19 10. Ps. 94. 21, 22. Prov. 1. 16. 18. c. 28. 17. Isay 59 2. to 13. J●r. 19 3, 4. c. 51. 35. Ez●●h. 16. 38. c. 22. 2. to 12. c. 24. 6. ●o 10. c. 35. 5, 6. Hos. 4. 29. c. 6. 8. Joc●. 9 19 Mi●h. 3. 9 10. 12. c. 7. 2. 4. Hab. 2. 8. 12. 17. Math. 23. 35. c 27. 25. Acts. 5. 28. R●v. 6. 10. c. 19 2. 2. Sam. 21. 12. etc.  cry loud to God for exemplary Vengeance, as Naboths did, 1. Kings. 21. 10. to 25. And if he that only hateth his Brother, be a Murderer and hath not eternal life abiding in him. 1 John▪ 3. 15. Then certainly those who thus not only hate, but illegally destroy and execute their Christian English Brethren, yea s●ay their Brothers in Covenant, by thousands, with a rage reaching up to Heaven, 2. Chron. 28. 9 13. must much more be bloody 
v ●am. 2. 11. Num. 35. 20, 21 to 34. Ps. 10. 8. 2 Kings. 6. 32. Isay 1. 21. Jer. 4. 31. Acts. 7. 52.  Murderers in God's accoutnt, and sha●● never inherit eternal Life, unless they seriously repent and abandon all such Barbarous Cruelty, and new Butcheries of men, which every Heroic Christian and true English Spirit cannot but with highest indignation protest against, out of zeal to God's Honour, his Native Countries, hereditary Liberties, his own and posterities safety, which I desire you to ●ay close unto your spirits, as you will answer the contrary before Christ's Tribunal at the last, upon the seasonable information and admonition of him, who hath suffered so much for his Country's Freedom, and would rather die ten thousand the aths than see it (after so much expense of Treasure. blood in defence, of the for ecited Laws, and public Freedom) enthralled to such a strange new Butchery and Tyranny, as this (and that in Westminster Hall itself ●elf in the highest Court of Law and Justice in former times) under the monstrous contradictory Title of High or Highest justice; true only in the Proverbs sense, 

* Ci●●ro & E●asmi Adagia.  Summum jus summa Injuria.   
2. If you have no particular Charge or Crime, for which by Law you can thus restrain me; that you will then immediately enlarge me, without any limitations or conditions whatsoever; and render me full Damages for my false Imprisonments past; and not thus mo●est and oppres●e me for the future, against all Rules of justice and Piety.  
3. That you will presently restore all my seized Trunks, Books, Records, Papers, Writings, being most of them my own peculiar; the rest the only 
x And thereof Right be longing to me, as was resolved in Justice Ric●els case 1. H. 4. ro●. Pa l. Memb▪ 2▪ n. 1  justification and Defence I have●, if ever I should be hereafter questioned for any Treatises I have published concerning the late King, Canterbury or others (out of my seized Originals or Transcripts) for the Common good; which certainly deserve a far more honourable reward, and grateful requital, than such a violent public search of my house, studies, seizure of my Trunks, Papers, by Soldiers, and so long strict, chargeable a close imprisonment of my Person, as I have sustained.  
4ly. That, if you will still close imprison me against Law & Conscience, you will then either defray the charges of my imprisonment, or else cause the Treasurers of Bishop's Lands immediately to pay me the 800 pounds' salary due unto me as a Contractor (for which I never yet received one cue, and should never have desired any thing, but upon this extraordinary occasion of expense) and the Committee for your Army, to pay me all such moneys, as are or shall be certified to be due unto me for free quartering of your Soldiers, to help support me in Prison, and defray those Debts, which your present oppression, the loss of my Calling thereby, and your illegal heavy Taxes have contracted, in stead of receiving any recompense for my former illegal sufferings, damages, and manifold faithful Services for the public, according to 
y The Kingdom of England and Scotland in their joint Declaration of 3 Jan. 1643. A Coll. p. 417. 418▪ find themselves ●ound in Conscience to declare, that no man who h●th been eminent in action, or hath suffered any notable loss● for public, shall be neglected or slighted, but one way or other shall be thankfully remembered to his own honour, and the good of his Posterity. And is your close imprisonment of me and seizing of my writings, etc. a real fulfilling of thi● promis●?  former public Engagements and Votes.  
And so expecting your undeferred positive answer to all these just demands, I shall till then remain,  
Your over-oppressed close Prisoner and Captive, WILL. PRYNNE, To Mr. john Bradshaw Sergeant at Law, and the rest of his Assessors at Whitehall, present these. Dunster Castle, Octob. 30. 1650.   

TO Mr. JOHN BRADSHAW, AND HIS ASSOCIATES AT WHITEHALL, (Styling themselves the The Council of State) his Imprisoners.  
The Remonstrance of several Grievances, and Demands of Common Right by William Prynne Esq their 2 years and 3 month's Close Prisoner under Soldiers, in the remote Castles of Dunster, Taunton, and Pendennys in Cornwall, before any Legal Accusation, Examination, Indictment, Trial, Conviction, or Objection of any particular Crime after above 8 years former Imprisonments, and unrecompensed great sufferings, Losses for the Public and Religion under their Whitehall Predecessors, and all his Faithful, Unmercenary Services for the Public Laws, Rights, Privileges of the English Nation  
Showing,  
THat although he be a Freeman of England, both by Birthright, and Dearbought Purchase, having 
a See a New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny.  formerlysustained above 8 years' imprisonments, and more heavy Sufferings in his Person, Calling, Estate, than any of this Nation; merely for writing in Defence of the ●ust Laws, Liberties, Franchises of the Land, and true Protestant Religion, in the worst of former times, against the Invaders thereof, and spent the greatest part of his life and estate in painful studies, Services, Sufferings, Duresses for the Public (without the least Recompense, Reward, or Self advantage) our of a sincere Public Spirit, unbiased with private ends. And hath in all his Relations, as a Lawyer, Magistrate, Committee-man, Member of Parliament, of this Kingdom, and a Christian, diligently endeavoured 
b Acts 24. 26.  to keep a good Conscience always in all things void of offence towards God and Men; never to his knowledge perpetrating any Crime, deserving Bonds or close Restraint, by any known Law of this Land, nor acting or writing any thing, but what his own deliberate Judgement, Science, Conscience, clearly resolved him, to be agreeable to, and warranted by the sacred Oracles of God, the Principles of our Reformed Religion, the Fundamental, Common Statute-Laws, Franchiscs of England, the Resolutions, Judgements, Declarations of our ancient and late best Parliaments, and 
c Sir Edw. Cooks 2, 3, & 4 Institutes. Mr. St. John's Speech against Shipmoney. Judgement and Argument at Law against Strafford. Mr. Hackwells Argument against Impositions. Judge Crookes, and Huttons Arguments against Shipmoney.  B●oks Printed by their Authority; and those solemn, serious Oaths, Protestations, Covenants, imposed on, and oft taken by him, by Parliamentary Authority (which still lie as 
d Num. 30. 2. P●. 15. 4. Josh. 9 19, 20, etc. 2 Sam. 21. 1, 2, & Ps. 89. 33. 34. Heb. 6. 17, 18. Prov. 17. 12. to 24. Grotius de Jure Belli & Pacis, ●. 2. c. 13. ●. 3. c. 19  immnutable, inviolable, divine obligations on his Soul, till otherwise convinced of his total and final Absolution from them, by the brutish Arguments of the longest Sword, and long, illegal, close imprisonments under Swordmen) in pursuance of his bounden duty to God, his Lawful Superior Powers, and beloved Native Country, whose truest, greatest, weal, Peace, Settlement, he hath ever studied, advanced to his utmost power, by all Christian, honourable, just and righteous means, though encountered therein with many Discouragements, and ingrate requitals from most sorts of men.  
That although by the express provisions of the Common Law, the Great Charter of England, ch. 29. (confirmed in about 40 several Parliaments) the Statutes of 25 E. 1▪ c. 2. 28 E. 1. c. 1, 2. 1 E. 3. c. 5. 5 E. 3. c. 8, 9 25 E. 3. c. 4. 28 E. 3. c. 3. 35 E. 3. rot. Parl. n. 20. 37 E. 3. c. 18. 42 E. 3. c. 1, 2▪ 3▪ & rot. Parl. n. 42. 2 H. 4. rot. Parl. n. 10. 4 H. 4. c. 13. 5 H. 4. c. 10. 23 H. 8. c. 2. The Petition of Right, 3. Caroli. The Act for In pressing Soldiers 17. Caroli, with sundry other Statutes; the 
e The P●●nted Arguments and Papers of th● Commons House, 3 Caro●i in the G●ntlem●ns Cas●s, imprisoned▪ for the I●ans, Cot●o●i Posthuma, ●. 222. ●o 296. Exact. Collection. p. 6. to 13. 35, t● 42. 147. 492 500 845. 850. to 890. A new Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 136 to 188.  printed Declarations, Remonstrances, judgements, Votes of all our late Parliaments, and the known Rules of Common justice, no English Freeman may or aught to be arrested, imprisoned, exiled, outlawed, or deprived of his Liberty, Freehold, Writings, Papers, Members, Life, Franchises, without due Process of Law, Indictment or Presentment by his Lawful Peers, executed by 
f 9 E. 2. Statutes of Sheriffs. 2. E. 3. c. 4. 4 E. 3. c. 9 5 E. 3. c. 4. 14 E. 3. c. 7. 9  known, Lawful responsible sworn Officers of Justice; after a Legal Accusation, Examination, or Conviction of ●ome particular Offence; nor enforced to go out of his own Country, against his will, or imprisoned in any private or foreign Castles, but only in Common usual Prisons, under sworn Gaeolers, without debarring free Access of Friends and Letters to or from him, or searching his House, Study, Trunks, Pocket's for Writings, Letters, Books, to pick out matter of Accusation against him, or examining himself, or others▪ Ex officio, to that end, in an extrajudicial manner, before any Legal Charge exhibited; Nor yet translated from one unusual Prison to another, without hearing, or bringing him to any just, lawful Tribunal, the next 
g 4 E. 3. c. 2. 27 E. 1. 2 E. 3. c. 2.  General Assizes or Session's held within the Country, wherein he is imprisoned, or releasing him the next Goal delivery, if not then indicted and Legally prosecuted for what he is imprisoned. That albeit his former professed, oppressing Enemies, the old Council Table, Star Chamber, High Commission, Lords and Prelates 
h Exact Collection. p. 8, 13, 15, 517, 518▪ The Acts for suppressing the Star▪ Chamber, high Commission, & regulating ●he Council Tab●: The Em●●u●●m n●● & Acts of At a●nd●●●f Str●fford & Canterbu●y.  (condemned, suppressed, and some of them executed by most of your concurrent suffrages, as the greatest Tyrants, the last Parliament, for their extravagant, unjust Censures, and some exorbitant Proceedings against him and others) were even then so candid and honourable towards him, at first (though accused of pretended scandalous, seditious Passages in his Histriomastix against the King, Queen, Court, State, Government, Prelates) as not violently to attach by Troopers in the night, and close imprison him in remote unusual Castles, without hearing, but only summoned him by a single n●armed, known, sworn Messenger, to appear before them the next day, and upon his appearance charged him for writing a particular pretended offensive Book, then produced and heard him concerning it, before they committed him; and after sent him Prisoner at large to their usual Prison, the Tower of London, under an honourable Guardian, near his then residence, and friends, who with all others had free access to▪ and conference with him, both in public and private, without restraint, or any Eavesdroppers, appointed to overhear their discourses with h●m, and supervise all Letters, Writings, Papers to and from him; which Liberty he there enjoyed, even after his first severe Sentence, till the second Bill against him. And when after they caused his Study and Chamber to be searched, employed only Mr. Noy, than the King's Attorney, and two Clerks of the Council (Responsible Persons of eminency, learning, judge meant, able to judge of Books, and writings fit for leisure, not rude illiterate Soldiers) in that service; who never finally ransaked his Pockets, nor seized any Notes, writings, Letters, Books, not relating to his Charge; which they speedily prosecuted in a usual Court of justice, continuing him, even after their first Sentence, a Prisoner at large in the Tower. After which they 
i See a new Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny.  exhibited a second Bill against him, Dr. Bastwick, and Mr. Burton in Star-chamber, concerning particular Books thereto annexed, and heard them (in a sat) at the Bar, before, they sentenced them to be kept close Prisoners in remote Castles, and upon their removals thither, gave them convenient notice, to provide necessaries, provided Horses, Coaches at the Kings own cost, to carry them Prisoners thither, and afterwards provisions and Ships to transport them to Jernsy, Garnsey, and Silly Castles, promising to allow them competent diet, during their close restraints (which the other two ordinarily received, and he but for 3 weeks only in the Tower) never placing armed Sentinels day and night at their doors, dogging them at the heels, when ever they stirred out thence, but to suck in Prisonair, or exonerate Nature, during their closest Restraints; yet notwithstanding, such is his strange late unhappiness, after all his pristine Martyrdoms, and unmercenary eminent Services for Religion, Laws, Liberties, and his Country, instead of receiving the least voted satisfaction for them; as that by colour of several illegal warrants from you (though for the most part his late professed Christian Friends and Servants too in verbal compliments, as he was really some of yours, and the publikes upon all occasions to his power) issued under Mr. B●andshaws hands, not to Legal▪ known, sworn, responsible, public Officers of Justice (as by our 
k 9 E. 2. ● E. 3. c. 4. 4 E. 3. c 9 5 E. 3. c. 4. 14 E. 4. ●. 7. 9 〈◊〉 Sh●●i●●s.  Laws they ought to be) but to unknown, unusual, unsworn, obscure, ignorant Soldiers (unable to judge of scandalous or seditious Writings, Letters, Papers, Books, Records, and never raised nor paid by the Nation for such unlawful empIoyments, subverting all the foresaid Laws, and Subjects common Liberties▪ for whose real (f) Defence they were first waged by the Parliament, 
(l) This all Ordinances for their first ●a●●●ng, continuing, Pa● and Contributions, and Declarations concerning them or the wars, and Solemn L●ague and Cov●na●● jointly attest, and the Armies own printed Declarations likewise.  as violently to force and ransack men's Houses, Studies, Papers, arrest, imprison their Persons in private Castles, now turned into Common Gaols, and they into Gaolers) his Chamber, Study, Trunks at Lincoln's june▪ during his absence thence, by a party of Soldiers (to him yet unknown) before the least Summon●, accusation, examination, or objection of any special Crime against him, on the 26 of June 1650. were forcibly searched, ransacked, and all his Writings, Papers, Records, Letters, Trunks (as he was informed) carried away by them thence (without giving any Inventory of them) to White-●all, with some printed Books. A●ter which, on the 30 of that Month, being the Lord's day, a strong party of Hors●, near Midnight, beset and forced his House at Swainswick in Somersetshire (though he then openly resided, being never a Fugitive, nor afraid to look any mortal or Tribunal in the Face all his life) seized his Person in his Bed▪ Chamber, searched all his House, Study, Trunks, with his Sisters and Servants Chests, & Boxes for Writings, Papers, Letters, Records, Books, taking away what they pleased▪ and then bringing him Prisoner to their quarters▪ carried him out of the way, through the whole City of Bristol, as their Prisoner, in the head of two Troops in triumph, with Trumpets sounding, like a transcendent Malefactor; After which they delivered him over to Dragooners, who conveyed him clos● Prisoner to Dunster Castle; (a Garrison 50 miles from his house) w●ere he and his Servant attending him (though he could get no provisions dressed in it) were by your pretended Orders, detained close Prisoners, under armed Guards, denied liberty to speak with any of their friends, or others, about any occasion, but in the presence and hearing of captious Eavesdroppers, observing every word they spoke, or to receive or send any Letters (though to yourselves, by their Guardians own hands) or read any Books, but what they first perused and approved, who were there his supreme Governors, being two late beardless Apprentices, the one to a Baker, the other to a Cutler in London, understanding neither Latin nor Law; nor able to write true English, yet one of them a constant Chaplain to his Soldiers (who for the most part seldom resorted to any Ordinances in public, reviled our Ministers, Sacraments; some of them openly asserting, by word 
* This one Turner Servant to the Garrison, asserted in a written Discourse, Which he sent to me, challenging me to answer his Arguments, which I did.  and writing, the mortality of men's souls, as being nought else but flesh, and dying with their bodies, with other erroneous Arminian and jesuitical Tenants) who most unchristianly debarred him and his Servant from all Gods public Ordinances, notwithstanding many fruitless complaints unto you for redress of this 
m Exact Collection p. 6.  Soul-murthering cruelty▪ And so over-officious were they, as (without and beyond your Orders) to keep a constant Court of Guard at his Chamber door, to his great disturbance, and others there, to search, and six days imprison one of his Servants, who brought him necessaries from his own only Sister, merely, for offering to her by his command, a Copy of your Order for his imprisonment, and of▪ a Letter to you for his enlargement, (formerly perused, allowed, and sent to you by them) for her satisfaction; denying her afterwards (when she had taken a long winter journey thither, only to visit him) the least access unto him for an whole night and day; and at last, upon her resolution to depart without sight of him, admitting her to visit him, upon this precedent promise and condition, not to stay with him above one quarter of an hour, though in their Supervising, overhearing presence; albeit she was formerly admitted to him, without delay, scruple, Evesdropper, and to continue with him many times, for sundry hours together, whiles he was close imprisoned in the Tower, by the Star-chamber Lords and Prelates. After which, (upon their mis▪ informations) his Laundress Mrs. Car in London, Mr. George Gear his Sister's Husband were both examined, and committed Prisoners, and Mr. George Luttrel and his wife in Dunste● Castle strictly examined, upon special Articles by your Order, of purpose to sift out, post factum, some matter of accusation against him, to justify these Antecedent injurious Proceedings; and himself for the same end, was there sent for to be examined ex Officio by Colonel▪ Pyne (his greatest causeless Enemy and Prosecutor) concerning things done, and 
* One entitled News from Guildhall, The Title whereof my Examiner read unto me.  Pamphlets printed in London, after his close Imprisonment at Dunster, which he never heard of, nor saw before; to which revived Prelatical, High-Commission Proceedings (condemned in all ages, as unrighteous, tyrannical, and so lately damned in full Parliament as such) he refused to submit, for the Reasons mentioned in his Protestation, drawn up, and then promised to be sent unto you by john Pyne his Examiner. Besides, his Servant there attending him, was solicited by some of your Agents, not only to desert his Service, but also to betray his Secrets and him, Soldiers there set, not only to listen at his Door, Windows, but to creep behind the hangings▪ in his Chamber, (whereof they kept the Key) whiles he and his Servant were at their private Prayers, to pick matter from them to accuse him▪ And not only his Prison Chamber, Bed, Bedding, clothes, Hangings, but even his very Pockets were there forcibly searched by his armed 
* Ensign Bower, and others▪  Guardians, by pretext of your Order, and the Copies of his Letters, in answer to theirs, with his very Collections out of, and Tables to the Books he there read, violently taken away without Restitution, notwithstanding his Resistance, Protestation, and reading of sundry 
n Exact Collection. p. 8. 11. 12. 35. to 42. 197.  Declarations of Parliament there against it; declaring such searches, not only against Law, and the Common Liberty of every Subject, which they might resist with force, but those to be public Enemies to the State, who attempted them: Whereunto his Guardians replied, 
* This Ensign Bower twice averred, when he forcibly searched my Pockets, with two other Soldiers more in the presence of my Servant.  They were commanded by you to do it; and therefore must obey without dispute against these Declarations: Adding, that they must and would 
† Acts 27. 42. The Soldier's counsel was to kill the Prisoners, but the Centurion willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose.  kill, hang, or cut his throat (though never accused, nor condemned of any offence) if enjoined by you so to do, so well were they versed in the Jesuits Doctrine, and Practise of blind Obedience, and Assassination too, upon all occasions; Of all which particulars, though he earnestly complained to all and sundry of you, by divers Letters, yet he received not the least redress: But was (to Mr. Lutterils and the Country's great charge and oppressing) kept▪ there still clonse Prisoner in Mr. 
* Enforced to find them Lodging, Fire, Candles, and to give you ten thousand pound Bond to keep his Castle against all Enemies, after its walls, works, demolished, & the Ordinance and Ammunition thence removed, else it must be totally demolished without recompense, though Mr. Lutterils chief seat, Inheritance, Honour, of which many Manors are held by Knight's Service, such is your Free-State, even to your Friends and Servants.  Lutterils domestic Castle Lodgings, with 20 Soldiers purposely to guard him sundry Months after the Castle walls and outhouses there demolished (before any notice, or without the least satisfaction, given to the owner thereof▪ Mr. Lutteril, damnified above 4000l. thereby to recompense his former 6000l. losses by the King's party, for his fidelity to the Parliament, whom he served gratis as a Colonel) and the Garrison thence removed by your special Order; which in Law▪ reversed your Warrant for his Imprisonment there, and set him free.  
After which on the 12 june 1651. by a Warrant from Colonel Desbrow, without any from you, to increase his expenses and vexation, he was translated to Taunton Castle (notwithstanding his Protest against it, as being then set at Liberty in point of Law, by Dunster Castles dismantling, and that Garrisons dissolution, to which only he was confined, and no Prisoner to this Colonel, nor subject to his Military Power, by any Law he knew) whither being brought close Prisoner, he was for want of Bedding (which the Governor could neither borrow nor hire in the Town, so much did they detest his causeless close imprisonment there) mewed up close Prisoner in an Inn over against the Castle (even when some Colonels formerly in arms for the King were there set free) with two Soldiers to guard him, who had so much good manners, as not to permit Captain George's (though then a Colonel of the County Militia Horse) to see or speak with him in their presence, unless he would first seek out his Governor at the Castle, and gain his licence; two others of them having the like rudeness at Dunster Castle, as to quarrel with and affront two Devonshire Gentlemen of quality (there visiting Mrs. Lutterel their Kinswoman▪ only because one of them passing by your Prisoner, as he was walking, moved his hat, and said, God bless you Sir, without the Governors previous licence; and the other recited only a consolatory Latin verse to him out of Virgil, whereupon they saucily told him; he ought to speak no word or language but what they understood, & should answer it to you if he did. And whereas he desired the Governor at Taunton, being very near the Church, to permit him to go to the public Ordinances there, he having no Order to restrain him from them, or so much as to imprison him there from you; he peremptorily refused it, whereupon he demanded leave to send a Note to Taunton Church, to desire the Prayers of that Congregation from which he was debarred, to this effect; Mr. William Prynne having for 12 Month's space last passed, been totally deprived of, and debarred from God's public Ordinances (which he enjoyed in his former close restraints) and from free converse with men, without any particular cause yet declared to him for this his strict restraint, desires the public and private prayers of this Congregation (whereto he is now denied access▪) for restitution to God's Ordinances, and his just Christian and Civil Liberty, after full ten yeans imprisonments and sufferings, for Defence of our Religion, and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom and Nation, which Note he enclosed in a Letter to his Governor, proving it to be a chief part of Christian Liberty, and a Gospel Duty, for him to desire, and them to make their public, private Prayers to God for him in such a condition, By Acts 10. 5. 12. Rom. 15. 31, 32. 2 Cor. 1. 9, 10, 11. 2 Thes. 3. 1, 2. 2 Tim. 1. 2, 3. Adding, that all the world, and his own Conscience, would cry shame on, and condemn him, if he should now deny him the benefit thereof. Upon which his Governor was so surprised, that to prevent the infamy of stopping this Note, or reading it publicly in the Church if sent; he ordered his Lieutenant to accompany his Prisoner to the Congregation, with his two other Guardians.  
About two weeks following, upon a bare Information, That Taunton was an unfit place for his restraint (because he had some acquaintance, and good accommodations for Soul and Body there, and was nearer his friends than before) though not unfit for Colonels of that County, formerly in Arms against the Parliament, there lodged in Inns and private houses, walking about the streets at pleasure, with one single Soldier only to guard them) he was about the 27 of June 1651. by your fresh warrant, upon few hours warning (before he could procure a horse for his Servant, or necessaries for so long and costly a journey) (notwithstanding his special open Protestation against his transcendent vexation, and reading the late unanimous 
p A New-Discovery of Prelate's Tyranny. p. 136. to 143.  Votes of all the Commons (and most of yourselves) in Parliament against it (in his own and his former fellow sufferers Cases) to his Condnctors) mounted against his will upon a Troopers Horse, without his Servant, clothes or Linen, by a party of Captain Warringtons Troop, and by them carried close Prisoner that night to Crediton in Devonshire, and from thence by other fresh Parties of other Devonshire and Cornish Troops (who were all generally very civil to him, some of them having formerly conducted him voluntarily towards London in his return thither from his pristine close restraints in ferein Castles, and lamenting they were now forced against their wills, to conduct him to a new close Prison, without an cause or crime at all expressed in their Warrant;) He was on the 2 of july 1651. brought close Prisoner to Pendennis Castle, near the extremest parts of Cornwall (50 miles further than the Star-chamber Lords, by their last severest sentence sent 
q Ibid. p. 167  Dr. Bastwicke and him, whether 
(p) Ibid. 32. 75. 133.  his very trespassing Beasts could not be driven by Law) being above one hundred and fifty miles from his house, near two hundred and fifty miles from his Library, and usual Residence at Lincoln's Inn, out of all common roads; where his kindred, friends, at such a vast distance can neither conveniently visit, send to, hear from, nor supply him with necessaries, where he can have no accommodation of Books to read, nor of Physic, Physicians, or other conveniences in case of sickness, nor lodging fit for a Gentleman, being for three months' space imprisoned in a narrow Chamber, newly made for him (for want of other Lodgings) just over and besides the Soldier's main guard▪ from which it was severed only with a few thin borders) where, by reason of the guards continual noise, walking, talking, releasing, drumming, and the like, he could enjoy no rest nor sleep, day or night; to the great impairing of his health, eyesight, and interruption, not only of his Studies, but Meditations and private Devotions.  
After which (upon the enlargement of the Cornish Gentlemen, formerly in Arms against the Parliament, there secured) he was removed to the best Chamber the Marshalsee there afforded, being but mean, low, small, and by reason of the natural situation of the place (upon the Top of an Hill next the Sea, near surrounding it, without any tree or other shelter) is so exposed to winds, storms, tempests, driving the rain through the Windows, Tiles, Chimney, and Fire oft times out of the hearth; and so subject to smoke, that the last tempestuous winter, his Chamber was sundry times near overflowen with water, and he forced to set therein many whole, wet, cold days and weeks together, without fire, and sometimes to extinguish it when kindled, lest the smoke should suffocate him▪ or put out his eyes, (it being so moist withal, that it presently moulds and rots, clothes, Books, Shoes, Unguents, and other things; and so dark in Winter, and cloudy weather, that he can hardly see to read therein at Midday) By reason whereof his health hath not only been impeached, but his very life endangered, he having no place to walk within doors, and there being no walking without doors in wet and windy seasons, here very frequent.  
And whereas some of the Cornish Gentlemen here secured by your order for▪ being Colo●els and Officers in the late King's Army against the Parliament, had so much liberty from Captain Charles Shrubsoll (Deputy Governor of the Castle here under Sir Hardresse Waller) as in those pretended dangerous times of the feared Scotish Invasion, to repair home to their Friends and Houses only upon their Pa●olls, to walk abroad out of the Castle, both about their occasions, and for their recreations, to visit their fellow Prisoner's in Arms at St Maurs Castle (who likewise oft repaired to visit them here) and to consult together, and write Letters concerning their enlargements, without any restraint; which liberty▪ I no ways envy or dislike; yet such was his strange severity towards your Prisoner (though a constant Servant, Friend, Adherent to, and Member of the Parliament) as not only to place special 
m A Practice borrowed from the malicious Jews, and persecuting Herod. Mar. 27. 63, 64, 65, 66. Acts 12. 4. 6. 10. 18. c. 5. 23.  Sentinels at his door day and night) who followed him with their Matches lighted, Musqusts at his heels, when ever he stirred out but to ease Nature, or walk before his Chamber door, in the view of other Sentinels and Soldiers, though he had the Marshal and his Servant besides to guard him) notwithstanding his Protests against it (being no Prisoner of War) as a new Military Oppression, Innovation beyond your Orders, and contrary to Law, exposing him to the custody of as many new Gaolers, every day, as there were fresh Sentinels, never imposed on him in the Tower or other Garrisons, whiles close imprisoned in them by the Prelates, (which yet he still continued) but likewise to debarr him from repairing to the Parish Church to God's public Ordinances and Sacraments, though there be no Chapel nor Minister in Orders in the Castle, but only private meetings in the Storehouse, where a Chaplain never in orders, and sometimes Soldiers pray and speak (as they phrase it) upon some Scripture Text, without reading or singing any Psalm or Chapter, or using any Sacraments, (And although this Captain and most of his Officers, seldom or never resort to these, nor yet to any other Meetings, from which they withdraw themselves, as being either above or against all Ordinances) yet he would by no means permit this Remonstrant to resort to God's public Ordinances at the Parish Church, contrary to the express word and meaning of your Warrant for his removal hither (occasioned by his forecited Note to his Governor at Taunton) to permit him Liberty to repair to the public Ordinances of God's worship, if he shall desire it, which restraint he continued to his great spiritual prejudice, oppression, and discomfort, notwithstanding his often desires and expostulations too (till Captain Cousins upon the receipt of your late explanation in August last) permitted him this Liberty. And not content herewith, this Shrubsoll peremptorily denied him Liberty to send any Letters to yourselves, or other his Friends in London, to demand his Freedom, or procure his enlargement, or to complain to yourselves of these his unparallelled Injuries, even after his perusal of the Laws, unless he would likewise first give him Copies of them under his hand, and also trust him with their conveyance, when and by whom he pleased; which restraint of Letters (beyond and against your Orders) this Captain obstinately continuing above 8 month's space, notwithstanding his Remonstrants, several expostulations with him, and protests against it, as most injurious, unreasonable and tyrannical, never formerly imposed on himself, or other Prisoners, by any Guardians of late, nor yet anciently on the Prophet 
n Jer. 16. 〈◊〉 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, &c, 28, 29, 32.  jeremiah himself, when imprisoned under impious K. Zedechia, as a Traitor to him and his Kingdom, wh● writ and sent abroad his Prophecies against the● in his very Prison, and n●w writ and disposed them abroad again, with many additions, when burned by the King, without such restraint●; nor yet on St. Paul by the bloodiest Pagan Tyrant Nero in heathen Rome itself, when sent Prisoner thither, and publicly accused by all the Elders and High Priests, for a 
o Acts, 24, 5.  Pestilent fellow, and mover of sedivion throughout the world, etc. who 
p Acts 28, 16 to the ●nd. Ephes. 3. 1. c. 6. 21, 22. Phil. 2. 19 23. c. 4. 18. 22. 2. Tim. 4. 9, 10, 11. 21. Philemon 1. 9, 10, 23, 24. Colos. 8 to 19 and the Postscripts of his Epistles.  writ most of his sacred Epistles to whole Churches, and particular persons in, and sent them by his own friends and sp●●ial Messengers from his prison in Rome, without his ke●p●rs supervisal, or demand of their Copies, trusting him alone to send them at his pleasure; No● yet by the cruel Pagan Emperor Domitian the Persecutor on St. john, when confined by him to the 
q Rev. 1. 9 11. c. 2. 1. 8. 12. 18. c. 3. 1. 7. 14. c. 21. 5.  Isle of Patmos, from whence he writ, if not his 3 Canonical Epistles, and gospel▪ too, yet his Apocalypse and 7 Epistles to the 7 Churches of Asia, and sent them by his own Messengers, without any perusal or restraint by his Heathen Guardians, (a tyrannical project▪ which would have suppressed a great part of the sacred Scripture, if then in use, as now of late) nor yet imposed by the last Parliament on Strafford, Canterbury, or any others, when impeached, condemned for High Treason, nor on the vilest felons in our Common Gaols, nor the very Galleyslaves in Turkey, who ever usually freely write and send Letters thence to their friends, to ransom and enlarge them thence; Upon which considerations, he told him, He would rather die in prison▪ than submit to this his worse than Turkish Vassalage: Thereupon after so long a fruitless Patience, this Remonstrant was necessitated for his relief herein, without this Tyrant's privity to use means to convey a Letter to Sir james Harrington (one of your society) formerly, twice perused, and stopped by this Captain, Guardian, upon the terms forementioned, to demand his Liberty, or removal hence from u●der the power of such an Oppressing Guardian, who not only sta●d his perused Letters, and detained him, from God's Ordinances against your Orders; but denied him leave so much as once to go with the Marshal into the Castle fields to gather herbs, which▪ others ●new not, to make▪ Salves and Medicaments for lame Impotent Soldiers of the Garrison, and other poor People, out of mere Charity, and debarred sundry lame diseased People of this County (where is neither skilful Physician nor Chirurgeon near, that could or would help them) and amongst others, two poor Eisher-men kept near 5 years' Galleyslaves in Turkey, lately returned thence with dangerous Ulcers in their Eyes, the least access unto him even with a guard, to dress or direct them how to cure their Maladies, to their great grief, only because (as he afterwards pretended) they had not taken the Engagement, though never in actual Arms. A more than Turkish Barbarism, not only against the express 
r Mat. 10. 8. c. 16. c. 12. 15. 22. c. 14. 14. c. 19 2. Ma●. 3. 10. c. 6. 5. ●u. 4. 40. c. 5. 15. c. 6. 17, 18, 19 c. 8. 2. 36. 47. c. 9 11. 42. c. 10. 3. c. 35, 36. ●. 14. 4. Acts 5. 16. c. 8. 7. Jam. 5. 14. 15.  Precepts, Precedents of the Gospel, the Rules of common Charity, Humanity, but the very Laws of God, of Natnre, of Nations, and War itself; Which oblige all men to 
s Rom. 12. 20 Mat 5. 44, 45. Luke 6. 27. Prov. 25. 21. 2. Chr. 28. 15.  feed, dress, cure, and suffer to be fed, dressed, cured the very pierced wounds of Strangers, of their Professed Enemies taken in open battle in the field, and make them liable to severe Punishments if they neglect or refuse it (for which Sir. john Owen was of late criminally questioned for his life:) much more than was he obliged to permit poor English Christian▪ Neighbours, and late Turkey Captives, wounds, and Ulcers (never in Arms) to be dressed by a charitable Prisoner; seeing the very Pagan Roman Centurion, who carried St. Paul Prisoner to Rome, gave him both free Liberty and encouragement in his voyage thither, to 
t Acts. 28. 8, 9 30.  to cure Publius' Father, and all others diseased People in the Isle of Melita, who freely resorted to him, and afterwards in Rome itself, without restraining them or him from so charitable a work, and the very Samaritan commended in the gospel by Christ himself, 
v Luke 9 1. 6. Acts. 10. 38.  who went about doing good, healing all diseases of the ungrateful people in all places; and 
x Luke. 22. 50, 51, 54.  healed Malchus his Ear, who came out to take him, whiles a Prisoner under the High Priest's Officers and Soldiers, (for our Christian imitation ●n like cases) did so far compassionate the man wounded and left half dead ●y Thiefs in the high way (though a mere Stranger to him of author Nation,) as to go to him, bind his wounds, pouring oil & wine into them, set him, on his own beast, bring him to his Inn, take care of him, and pay for his expenses and cure, whose example is thus backed with Christ's own Gosple-Precept to every one of his followers and others, Go, and DO THOU LIKEWISE. Luke 10. 29. to 38. Which Precedents and Scriptures though urged to this Barbarian, could not prevail on his stony heart for his admission to him for their cure; nor yet for Engagers themselves with out special Officers and Soldiers, beside the Marshal appointed to supervise his dressing of and directions to them; as if this his very Charity and Compassion to p●●r 
y Ephe. 4. 31, 32. c. 5. 1, 2.  distressed People, he never knew nor saw before, might prove Treasonable and destructive to your free Estates. Sir james Harrington receiving this Letter, & information, and moving you on this Remonstrants' behalf, acquainted his Friend who delivered it; you all declared, that he had free Liberty of the Castle granted him, and of Letters to and from him, without restraint, who writing him word of the delivery of his Letter to Sir James, and this his Answer thereunto, this Governor upon perusal of the Letter (first brought to him) instead of taking off these his former injurious Restraints, like an inhuman Procrustes, reinforsed them all with greater severity, and withal commanded the Marshal forth with under Pain of forfeiting his place, to lock your Remonstrant up close Prisoner in his Chamber, (which was never done before,) besides a Sentinel always placed at his Door, to keep all Officers, Soldiers of the Castle, as well as others, from him; and not to permit him to stir out of his Chamber with a Sentinel but in his company, or speak with any but in his presence; Which being accordingly executed with all rigour, the Remonstrant thereupon first by Letters, and afterwards by discourse before Officers, expostulated with him concerning this New Oppression, as not only against your former Warrants, which ●ad not the words▪ close Imprisonment, much less in his Chamber, 
z A new Discovery, etc. p. 84. 86.  in them, as the Order for his close Imprisonment under the old council Table Lords had) but as an high contempt of your authority, and new Declaration ●ignifi●d by Sir James, desiring him, either presently to right him therein himself, or to give him leave to complain thereof to you by writing; Whereunto he replied, He would not take off these new nor the former restraints, but if he would complain thereof to you, and state the matter of fact truly ●y writing, he would not only freely send, but assist it too: Which he doing accordingly, and directing it to Sir james to communicate to you, on his behalf, sent the draught thereof to him by the Marshal, to peruse and rectify, if mistaken in any thing; a●d then to send it away according to his prom●s; who after persual thereof, peremptorily refu●ed, either to send, correct, except against, or restore it; stopping his other Letters to Sir james (though twice altered to his mind) complaining of this miscarriage, & entreating him, to certify under his hand, whether he used any such words or Declaration to his friend or no, as aforementioned; he having in a bravado, to palliate this his Tyranny, laid 5l. to 12 d. with the Prisoner (who delivered him 12d. in the presence of his Officers, which he was to make 5 l. in money, if such words were used) ●hat Sir Ja. never spoke such words to his F●i and as were contained in his Letter, promising to give him leave to write to Sir James and his friend to that end; and yet staying his Letters to both, when written, and denying either to alter them, or write himself to that purpose, or restore the 12 d. received, or to draw up the differences himself, and present them to you; continuing him thus above 6 week's Prisoner under lock and key, in his close littl● Chamber, to the great impairing of his health, (so as his appetite and digestion was quite lost for several weeks, insomuch that he could not eat or ●igest the Leg or Wing of a Chicken, nor any meat else but a little broth) and leaving him (so remote from his friends) in this sad condition, destitute of all means of complaint or relief herein, till Captain Cousin's Deputy Governor in his absence (using him more civilly like a Gentleman) since Shrubsols occasions drew him hence to London, enlarged him from this close restraint, to enjoy the freedom of the Castle, the purity of God's public Ordinances, and sending of Letters, when first approved by himself, such a Ward and School boy is he, yet to this very hour, under your Free-State, even after the Court of Wards quite voted down.  
And whereas all Colonels and Gentlemen heretofore in actual Arms against the Parliament here, or elsewhere, secured (in their proper Counties only, not in foreign) in the late times of danger, were a full year since enlarged from their far more favourable restraints than his, by your general Order, and many Thiefs, Felons, legally deserving death, both pardoned and set free, without any Petitions to you from them; and not only divers Popish Recusants in A●mes, but some Popish Priest's and Jesuits, imprisoned before your Government, absolutely released under it, yea exempted from the very Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance 
a 1 Eliz▪ c. 2. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 3 Jac. c. 4, 5. 7▪ Jac. c. 6. 17 Caroli. The Act for Triennial Parliaments.  (specially provided, prescribed by the wisdom of many pious Parliaments, for the detection and prevention of their manifold treasonable practices against our Realms, Princes, Parliaments, Government, Laws, Liberties and Religion) from some if not all old penal Laws, formerly made, and those 
b See the printed Propositions sent to the▪ King the last Treaty, & m● Speech in Parl. p. 57, 58.  5 new excellent Bills and Oaths of Abjuration▪ for their better, speedier discovery, a●d suppression, so 
c Exact Collection, p. 20. 208. 309. 9▪ 8, 909, 911.  earnestly pressed by our late zealous Parliaments, and consented too by the late King (so 
d Exact Col. p. 1, 4, 5, 12, 13. 665, 669.  much taxed by you for indulgence towards them) in the last Treaty without scruple, yet since quite buried with ●im in oblivion, and some of them (unwittingly, as is conceived) entertained as Troopers, Soldiers in pay in your very Guards, for want of such strict inquiries after them, and such means to prevent their coming over, and to detect them as formerly; and not one of them (for aught he can hear) close imprisoned (if imprisoned at all) in remote Castles, under such Guards, Sentinels, Restraints, as his forementioned; though in 
e Exact Col. p. 1 to 21. 91, 98. 106, 108, 145, 199. 206, 207. 308, 310. 461 to 465. 490, 491, 492. 508, 516, 567, 570, 574. 616, 625, 628, 637, 639, 640, 648, 651 to 656, 659, to 754, 755 764, 769, 786. 813, 814, 816, 827, 832, 834, 845, 861, 890, 891, 896, 902, 904, 907 to 919, 932. A Collection of Ordinances, p. 23. 30, 39 95, 96, 97, 98. 167, 169, 185, 187. 203, 204, 210, 217, 218, 227, 249, to 267, 275, 283, 309, 310, 314, 360, 363, 371, 379. 412, 413, 417, 424, 432, 457, 458, 470, 483. 514, 517, 537, 548, 576. 616, 623, 624, 666. 704, 705, 706, 724, 761, to 829, 834, to 870, 872, 880, 883. Appendix p. 1. 15▪  near one hundred printed Declarations of Parliament▪ remonstrated to the World, to be the Original Contrivers, the chief Incendiaries, Fomentors, Promoters of the first late Wars between Scotland and England, and the late King and Parliament, of purpose thereby to subvert the Protestant Religion both at home and abroad, destroy that last, and all future Parliaments, our Laws, Liberties, and former settled Government, and introduce Popery, Anarchy, Slavery and Military Tyranny in their pl●c●s: Whereupon they are grown so audacious, as not only secretly to infuse their Jesuitical Tenants, Practices, Politics of most dangerous consequence (expressed in sundry former 
f 5 El. c. 1 13 El. c. 1. 23 El. c. 1. 27 El●●▪ c. 2.  Acts of Parliament purposely enacted to prevent them) into the Soldiery a●d Pe●ple▪ now much infected with them, but likewise by their instruments, to translate, print and vend publicly, throughout the Nation (without Inhibition or Punishment) their Jesuitical Books even in folio; professedly ass●rting, both th● Pope's Supremacy, pra●ing to Saints and Angels, Purgatory, Mass, Transubstantiation, and all other points of grossest Popery for undoubted Truths necessary to Salvation, and also positively maintaining our true Protestant Religion to be gross Heresy, and our late famous Queen Elizabeth, with all true professors thereof, to be damnable Heretics: Witness the Jesuit Edmond Causin his Holy Court, printed in several folio Tomes in London itself (translated into English by Papists, Jesui●es, and dedicated to the two greatest Female Papists▪ Queen Marry, and the Duchess of Buckingham) sold publicly under your Noses, and elsewhere, with the very Jesuits badge S. I. (S●cietatis jesis) in Capitals, in the Title Page; and this bold subscription, Printed at London by William Bently, Anno 1650. (since his close imprisonment by you) and are to be sold by john Williams in Paul's Churchyard; where all these Popish Tenants are largely maintained, to the great Scandal and Offence of all true Protestants, as you may read at leisure▪ Tom. 1. p. 30 to 38▪ 63, 64, 68, 74, 75▪ Tom. 2. p. 168. Tom. 3. p. 425 to 430. 461, 462. Tom. 5. p. 173, 174. 304 to 319 The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes, p. 10, 11, and elsewhere; to omit all other jesuitical, Arminian, Popish Erroneous Books against our Religion, now publicly written, printed, vended 
* See the Stationer's Reaco● fired.  (by thousands) under you with impunity, though so lately charged, pressed by the whole House of Commons 
* See Canterbury's Doom, p. 26, 27. 178 to 350.  against Canterbury as an Article of High Treason, for which amongst others he lost his head, by judgement of Parliament, and your own concurrent Votes and Approbations. Yet he who out of pure love, zeal to his God, true Religion, Country, Parliaments, hath constantly stuck unto, and written most of any man in times of greatest need and danger, in defence of the just 
g In his Sovereign power of Parliaments and Kingdoms.  Power, Rights, Privileges of our true English Parliaments and Nation against all Opponents; against all late introduced 
h In his Perpetuity of a Regenerate man's estate, Anti-A●m●anisme, etc.  Arminian, 
i In his Breviate, Cousin's cozening Devotions, Quench coal, Lame Giles his Halting. A Pleasant Purge for a Roman Catholic, Rome's Master-P●ece, The Popish Royal Favourite, Hidden works of Darkness brought to public Light, Antipathy of the English Prelacy, Cant. Doom▪ Speech in Parliament.  Popish, jesuitical Errors, Doctrines, Ceremonies, Innovations, Books, and made the first, the fullest discoveries of and Oppositions in print of any man (with no little pains▪ cost, loss, danger) against their manifold dangerous Books, Practices, Plots, Conspiracies to undermine our Religion, Parliaments, Laws, Liberties, Government, and involve all Protestant Kingdoms, States, Churches, in bloody intestine wars, to their own mutual destruction, but these Jesuits insultation, exultation, and that by approbation, authority of Parliament, and most of your applauses; And hath particularly informed some of you by Letters, since his restraints, of admired indulgences towards Priests, jesuits; of one particular noted jesuit (who for a fortnight's space together disputed with a friend of his at St. Omers, with 5 other Jesuits more, about August 1649, since listed a Trooper) in your Guards, and of this late printed Jesuits folio Book, without any reformation or suppression of either, upon his complaints thereof; during this their licentious Liberty and Freedom (to their grand Rejoicing Advantage, and the great Grief, Offence, of most really affected to our Religion, or the public weal) without any cause, hearing, or release, must be shut up and continued close Prisoner by you, year after year, and sent from one remote Castle to another▪ remoter and worse than it, and there kept under strictest Guards, Sentinels Restraints, and most injurious Duresses, as aforesaid, without any hopes of release; notwithstanding his manifold Letters and Addresses to you jointly and severally (in such a way as becomes him, though not by unworthy compliances in submission to the selfcreated new Powers and Titles) complaining of these fore-remonstrated Proceedings, Searches, Imprisonments, Translations and Restraints in foreign Counties, Castles, under Soldiers, without any precedent Indictment, Trial and Crime yet specified, and undeniably manifesting them to you, to be contrary to all Laws of God, Nature, Nations, the Common L●w and Great Charter of England, and other forecited known Statutes, Iudgement●, Declarations, Resolutions, R●monstrances, of all our late Parliaments, the express 
k A New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny. p. 141, 142.  Votes and Resolves of both Houses of Parliament, in his own late particular case and others; the indubitable Birthright, Franchises of eve y English Freeman; of very dangerous Precedent, Consequence to Posterity, and in sundry respects far more exorbitantly unrighteous than his former Grievances and Imprisonments under the worst of your discarded, condemned, decapitated Predecessors at Whitehall; as your own Judgements, Consciences, upon perusal hereof, cannot but acknowledge, before all Tribunals of God and Man.  
And although he hath hereupon earnestly pressed you jointly and severally from time to time, both by Letters and Friends, for his own and the world's satisfaction, to specify the true cause of these your rigorous, anomolous Proceedings, and wrongful long Restraints (inconsistent with your manifold printed 
* In the Declaration of 17 Martii 1648, and others.  Protests, for advancing every m●ns public Liberty, and abandoning all Approaches towards abolished pristine Tyranny) And if it be only for difference in judgement and Conscience from you, concerning our late public Charges and Affairs (the dangerous bloody Consequences whereof since experimentally verified, he truly predicted in his printed Speech in Parliament, and other writings, not then credited by you) as he and others conjecture; that then he, and those of his opinion, being the far greatest part of the late undoubted Parliament and English Nation, and having by all Laws of God and Men, as just, as true, as real, full, large (if not 
l 2▪ Sam. 19 43.  larger) an interest in the Republic, as those in greatest present power, and all others of a different Persuasion, being all 
m Magna Cham ta c. 29. and C●●ks Institutes thereon. 1 Sam. 8. 4, 19 20 22. 2 Sam. 19 41, 42, 43. c. 16. 18. 2 K●ngs 2. 23, 24. 2 Chr. 23 throughout, c. 26. 1. 23 24. 25. c. 36. 1. The Lords and Comm●●s Declaration 23 Oct●b. 1642. Exact Collect. p. 660. We must own it AS OUR DUTY, that the meanest of the Commonalty may enjoy their own Birthright Freedom and Liberty of the Laws of the Land, BEING EQUALLY ENTITLED THEREUNTO WITH THE GREATEST SUBJECT.  equally English Freemen and Peers herein, with you and them may not be prejudged, convinced, without a free Legal public hearing, by mere Tyrannical violent Iron Arguments and Prisons alone, as hitherto we have been, but that you would like rational men pious Christians, Assertors of Liberty of Conscience and Common Freedom, admit him, for his own and their conviction and satisfaction (it mistaken or erroneous in our Judgements or Consciences) to debate these our Differences of highest public Concernment, in a free public manner, by word or writing, in point of Divinity, Law, Reason, and true State-policy, with all or any of the ablest Divines, Lawyers, Scholars, Statesmen of a different Judgement from him, or else quietly to enjoy and follow the D ctates of his own resolved Conscience and judgement therein, without molestation, in this age, when not only Liberty but Licentiousness of Conscience, in the chiefest Principles of Religion, and most other thin gs, are so much practised and patronised: Or, if it be any real transcendent Crime against any known Law of the Land, deserving such severities before hearing or trial, or a Capital punishment after them (whereof he believeth himself really innocent in the impartial verdict of your own Consciences) that then you would of Common Right and justice, according to Magna Charta, and other forecited Laws, without further delay or denial, bring him to a lawful fair public Trial, by his Lawful Peers and Legal judges, in some usual Court of Iustic●, before all the world, where he might openly make his full defence against your Charge; and thereupon be either justly condemned, if guilty; or immediately enlarged, repaired for all his forementioned injurious Sufferings, Imprisonments, and his Damages thereby sustained, if found Guiltless; or else absolutely released (as well as imprisoned by you) without trial, and repaired by his yet unknown clandestine malicious Accusers, if you have no such real actual Crime to charge against him; Or, if neither of these might be granted under your Free-State, never yet denied any English Freeman under the greatest former Regal Tyranny; that then you would either permit him Free Liberty to transport himself into some strange foreign Climate, if unworthy to breathe freely in his own Native Country, after all his unrecompensed faithful eminent Services, Losses, Sufferings for it, where he hopes to find better usage, and more Freedom, justice, amidst mere Strangers and Foreigners, than he had yet enjoyed under professed Popish Prelatical Enemies heretofore, or pretended late Christian real Friends in power since; Or otherwise, if you are resolved to wear out the short Remainder of his expiring Life in remote obscure Prisons without trial or hearing, of purpose to hinder him from doing the Church of God or his Native Country any further service in this world, when others are acting so much mischief and treason against them both; that then, according to justice and ancient Practice under our Kings, you would afford him a Competent Allowance of Diet, in some more convenient usual Prison than this, where he might have all fitting Accommodations in health and sickness: Or otherwise forthwith pay him the 800l. public Debt long due unto him as a Contractor (for which he never yet received one farthing, though he thereby lost and expended many pounds, besides his pains) or order him some of his voted Damages to be paid him by his former unrighteous Censurers sitting amongst you, to help defray his Debts, and extraordinary Prison expenses, having exhausted his private estate for the public, and to defray his extraordinary Prison expenses, and lost the Practice of his very Calling, to support him, by your strict Duresses; And albeit his only Sister (out of her natural affection to him, without his privity) hath thrice humbly Petitioned you (as he hath heard) and others of his Friends oft earnestly solicited and petitioned you on his behalf to the like effect; yet hitherto (such is his unhappiness, or rather your hardheartedness, as some esteem it) that he and they could never hitherto receive the least satisfactory Answer, to all or any of these his just Demands, being still continued a close Prisoner by you, in sundry respects, in this remote incommodious Castle; yea that which adds exceedingly to the Transcendency of your In ustice, Oppression, and Tyranny towards him, is this; That instead of enlarging, relieving, or answering his Sister's late Petitions to you in his behalf, you have very lately (as he is credibly informed) voted him out of his poor Recordership of the City of Bath, to which he was about 5 years since (without his privity or solicitation, freely elected by the unanimous Vote of the whole City) and by two several Letters under all the Alderman's and Mayors hands importuned to accept it, er● he would embrace it; And that on no other ground or cause, but only because you have so long imprisoned him against all Law, without any cause yet expressed, before the least hearing or complaint, against the express Letter of Magna Cha ta and other fundamental Laws; and that upon the motive of one of your Whitehall Members (his pretended great Friend and Servant) then in the Chair; who by his Letter in your Names writ to the City to elect a new Recorder in his place, being disabled to execute it by your imprisonment of him; and withal particularly recommending his own Son in-Law james Ash (a Westminster Memb●r) to the Office; which being seconded by his own Father's solicitation (another sitting Member, his near Neighbour) thereupon he was without any justice, hearing, or other cause or trial, contrary to the Great Charter, Petition of Right, and all Rules of justice, outed of his Recordship, his 4 years' salary of x ls. per annum then in arrear detained from him (and never since paid him by the City) and this other Member intruded into his Place; su●h is your new Free-State Whitehall transcendent justice (worthy to be registered for your Honour to all Posterity) towards this Remonstrant (instead of recompensing his former voted Damages, Losses, Services for the public) to his extraordinary Prejudice and Oppression, the exceeding grief of his kindred, friends, and most religious truly public spirited men; to the great rejoicing of his jesuitical and Prelatical Malignant Enemies, and no great honour to your justice or Government; And that only (as most conjecture) in imitation of the 
n A New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny P. 86, 87, 88  Prelates heretofore, of purpose to disable and ●inder him from writing or publishing any thing more in Defence or vindication of our endangered, invaded Religion, Government, Laws, Liberties, Franchises, Properties, Freeholds, Lives, against the manifold new encroachments on them, and subversions of them under pretext of their support: or making any fr●sh discoveries of the Jesuits, Papists and their confederates, various plots and practices (now very rife and visible) to undermine them; and engage our own and all other Protestant Kingdoms, States, Churches in destru ctiveunreconcilable Wars and differences, agreeth either to their mutual and the Protestants Religions ruin; or to countermine these their designs, (as he hath done formerly to his power) Or else (as others conceive) to force him by tedious uncomfortable imprisonments, and extreme penury to turn a practical Apostate and perjured abjurer of all his former Orthodox loyal Principles, Writings, Books, Oaths, Covenants, Protestations concerning King, Kingdom, Laws, Liberties, Properties, Taxes, Parliaments, Government, 
o Maintained in his Sovereign power of Parliaments, licenced by the Commons. His plea for the Lords. The Levellers Leveled. Antiquity triumphing over Novelty. A brief Historical Collection of the ancient Parliaments of England, and Prynne the Member reconciled to Prynne the Barrister. Irenarches Redivivus.  Lords hereditary just right to sit, vote, judge in our Parliaments as Peers, and thereby to verify all the Prelates malicious 
p No Bishop no King, etc. Conference of Hampton Court. The Bishop of Downes Sermon. The antipathy of the English Prelacy to Unity and Monarchy: Epistle Dedicatory to the Parliament.  Aspersions upon all Puritans in general, and himself in particular, in their two late Star-chamber Bills and Speeches there exhibited against him, and render him really guilty of beheaded Canterbury's Treasons in an higher degree than he, (after his enjoined printing and publication of his;;;;;; 
q C●nterburies Doom, Written and Printed by their special Order.  Charge, Trial and Condemnation for them, by the Commons House special Order) to his eternal infamy here, and damnation hereafter; neither of which, through the assistance of heaven, no Prisons, Tortures, Powers on earth, shall ever compel or persuade him to do; or in case of his resolved Noncompliance herein, under feigned Machivilian pretexts of his wilful obstinacy, and contempt of your new-created authority (whose legality it must be no less than High Treason, for him to dispute in law or conscience, being now as absolutely to be submitted to by all men as the Popes itself in Rome, by an implicit faith, and blind obedience) even to 
r Psal. 69. 19, 20.  break his heart with grief, if possible, by depriving him of the comfort of his Friends, Kindred, Books, Calling, all free converse with men by Letters or conference, all public Trusts, and private useful employments, to pass▪ away his solitary hours, laying him quite aside, like a▪ 
s Psal. 31. 12.  broken useless vessel, restraining him under strictest Guards, as the most dangerous enemy, instrument to his Country's weal, after all his real losses, studies, sufferings, for its benefit; whose truest welfare he hath ever cordially studied to his private prejudice, (whiles others under pretext thereof, have 
t Phil. 2. 20, 21, 22.  wholly sought their own particular emoluments, to its irreparable damage, if Vox Populi be truth) and by such ingrateful usage, ill requitals of all his former merits, by his very late pretended 
u Psal. 55. 12, 13, 14.  friends, to hasten his passage from these strong earthly purgatives to a better world. Or else if this plot prevail not, through Gods 
x 2 Cor. 1. 4, 5, 6, 9, 10. C. 4, 8, 9, 10.  supporting power, as hither it hath not; to starve or kill him outright in foreign incommodious prisons, for want of legal matter or proof, to take away his head, after your Whitehall Predecessors double cropping off his ears, as some of his friends conceive: You having of late refused (as he is informed) to receive any more Petitions in his behalf, from his own Sister or any others, or to release or remove him from his ill winter prison; or to pay his public debt, allow him diet, or do him any common right, or justice; (which though due 
y Rex Omnibus & singulis Regni sui Justi●iae est debtor. Register of Writs, and the Prologues of our ancient Statutes. Exact Collection, p. 494, 498, 712, 713, 714, 660.  Ex officio mero from all Kings, Powers, Governments, Magistrates whatsoever; by the 
z 1 Sam. 8. 5, 20. 2 Sam. 23. 3. 1 King. 16. 9 Chap. 10. 9 2 Chron. 8 9 Chap▪ 10▪ 5, 6, 7. 2 Sam. 8. 15. Chap 15. 2, 5. Psal. 82 3. Prov. 8. 15. Jer. 7. 5. Chap. 23. 5. Chap. 33. 15.  Laws of God, Nature, Nations, and Oaths to their meanest subjects; and particularly by our own Kings, Judges, Justices, and great Officers▪ usual 
a Exact Collection, p. 268, 269, 290, 291, 36●, 370, 706, to 716. 18, & 20. E. 3. Rastall Justices. Totel● Magna Charta.▪  Oaths; the great Charters and other Statutes resolutions, to every English freeman) upon their respective demands of, or motions for it, (yea upon bare information from others 
b Brooks Office des Court. Job 29. 12, to 18. Isa. 65. 1.  without any suit or motion by, for, or from the oppressed, injured parties, (in such cases as his is) without any formal Petition to them for it, as the 
c Questus est Nobis I. S. ex gravi querela I. S. occepimus, Petit Judicium, etc. Register of Writs; and Natura Brevium.  Forms of most legal Writs (sued forth of course) and most Plaints and Declarations manifest; every real demand of right by word or writing being in truth, a real Petition for it (and every Petition of Right but a more bashful demand thereof) as all 
d Cal●pine Holi●k●, Rider, Eliot, Calvini Lexicon Medicum.  Dictionaries in the words, Peto, Petitio; the usual Law phrases 
e Register of Writs. Natura Brevium. Old and new Books of Entries, and all Declarations, etc.  Petere Debitum, Petere Judicium, etc. the ordinary motions of the Council or Parties in all our Courts of Justice, for Law or Right, without written or verbal Petitions for them; and the 
f Luk. 18. 1, 2, 3, etc. Mat. 7. 7, to 13. 1 Joh. 5. 15.  Scripture itself resolve) yet such is your unparallelled injustice toward him that unless he will present a submissive Petition to you, after the new mode (wherewith he is unacquainted) subscribed with his own hand, you will neither release nor right him in any kind. Which, as it seems very strange unto him, he desiring not mere grace or mercy from you, but only common known right and Justice against undeniable oppressions by yourselves and instruments; so all his former Letters and his friends addresses to you, being real, legal, though not formal Petitions for right and justice (yet denied him) and formal Petitions even for right itself by the resolution of our 
g Fitzherbert, Brooke, Ash, Title, Petition and Prerogative.  Law-books, the Records of our ancient Parliaments, and late Petition of Right; Petitions of this nature being originally due to our English Kings alone, as their unseparable regal prerogative; not to any Subjects whatsoever, nor yet to the very House of Lords, Commons, or any other Courts of Justice, Council, Judges, Justices, Great Officers or Grandees whatsoever, being no King but Subjects; which anciently were but the inferior people's hands, or Masters of Requests to 
h See the beginning of most ancient Parliament Rolls; Title, Receivers of Petitions to the King only, not them; and the King's Answers to the Petitions of the Lords and Commons.  receive and present their formal Petitions to our Kings both in and out of Parliament; and had no other Bills of Parliaments, but mere Petitions of Right or Grace to the King, whose 
i 
1 Jac. c. 1. Coke 4. Instit. c. 1. Brooke Title Parliaments. Cromptons' Jurisdiction of Courts, Title Parliaments. Sir Tho. Smith, De Republica Angl. l 2. c. 2, 3, 4. Mr. Hackwels manner of passing Bills in Parliament.  
The Petition of Right 3. Car. Exact Collection, p. 163, 164, 250, 310, 311, 317, 319, 320, 468, 477, 764, 768, 794, 872, 873. A Collection of Ordinances, 221, 222, etc. 110, 111, 756, 757.   Royal answer to them (by way of concession) made them Acts, Laws, and his disassent mere Nullities, as our old Parliament Records, and the late Petition of Right 3. Caroli, resolve. Which transcendent Prerogative of our Kings alone, by Law (of mere Right, incommunicable to any other Subjects) he hopes you will not now arrogate to yourselves, by enforcing him through duresse to a formal submissive Petition to you as his Sovereigns, before you will enlarge, or do him common right or justice, having both abolished, and publicly engaged yourselves, and also others to your power against Kings and Kingship, as Tyrannical, and overmajesticall; and with them (as he conceives) both exploded and engaged against this their sublime Prerogative of suing only by Petition even for common right; and that you will not still detain him close Prisoner upon this account alone, for not suing to you by Petition, for what is due to him, ex officio mero, as his 
k Exact Collection, p. 660, 459, 28, 29, 852, 854.  birthright without any suit at all, by all Laws of God and the Land, before any new Law or Statute made justly intitling you to this old regal pre-eminence. The rather, because the Heathen Magistrates of Philippi, when upon the people's bare accusation of Paul and Silas, as 
l 1 Thess 2. 2.  Disturbers of their City, and teachers of customs contrary to their Government, had taken and cast them into Prison, and commanded the Jailor to keep them safely, without any legal Indictment or trial, but for one single night, were so just and reasonable, as the very next morning (without their Petitioning for liberty) to send their Sergeants voluntarily to the prison to release and tell them, that they might depart their City in peace: And when as Paul (like a true magnanimous Christian, careful to preserve his own liberty, yea and all the Romans too invaded by this injurious proceeding) thereupon replied thus to their Sergeants; They have beaten us openly, being Romans and UNCONDEMNED, and CASTANNA US INTO PRISON; and now do they thrust us out privately? (without reparation of this our indignity and shameful usage) Nay verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out (with honour and confession of their injustice, as they have cast us in with shame) Whereupon the Sergeants relating his words to these Magistrates they 
m The like we read of the Centurion who beat and imprisoned him, mentioned Act. 22. 24, to 30.  feared, when they heard they were Romans; and in stead of expecting a Petition from them, by reason of their high magistratical authority, they came presently to the Prison, AND BESOUGHT (or petitioned THEM (to pardon and pass by this great injustice) AND BROUGHT THEM OUT OF PRISON, AND DESIRED (not imperiously commanded) them to depart out of the City. And hereupon they went out of the Prison, and entered into the house of Lydia, visited and comforted the Brethren there, and then departed, Act. 16. 12, to the end. And should not you then who profess yourselves Saints of the highest form, after your injurious searches, apprehensions and other indignities offered to an English Freeman, Parliament-man, an eminent Servant too, and Martyr for the public, a Christian, a Patron of Religion, a Bencher of an Inn of Court (as honourable in each respect as any ancient Roman, and as much privileged by our Laws) and that not for one night only, but two whole years and three months close imprisonment of him, even under stricter Guards than they, in three several Garrisons, now incite and engage you voluntarily to send your Officers hither, then enforce him to send to you, to set him free; and because you have so much oppressed him, being better than a mere Roman, and so long cast him into Prison unheard and uncondemned, that you should not now privily release, nor extort an unworthy Petition from him before you set him free; but out of a conscientious consideration of your apparent injuries and injustice to him, and a true Christian fear of a strict account for it both to God and Man, if unrepented or unrepaired by you, imitate these Heathen Philippian Magistrates (whose precedent is recorded in the very Gospel for this end) and now at last come yourselves in person, and in stead of expecting his petition to you (who have done him so much injury, and more invaded the whole— English Nations, Privileges, Liberties in his unrighteous sufferings under you, than the Philippians did the Romans or St. Paul under them) beseech and petition him to pardon and not to persecute these your illegal extravagances, upon your unfeigned sorrow for, and public acknowledgement and reparation of them, and then to bring him out of his present Prison, with as much public joy and honour into London, as he was formerly brought in thither by some of yourselves, and 
n A new Discovery, etc. p. 113, 114, 115.  thousands more from his long close imprisonment by your Lordly Whitehall Predecessors, to all honest men's rejoicing, and the whole discontented Nations satisfaction, as well now as then, and Reparation of all violations of their common Rights and Liberties by the dangerous precedent of his late restraints, your yet unrevoked, uncancelled illegal warrants, deserving as heavy a Parliamentary censure of condemnation, as any of your Predecessors illegal Warrants and Sentences against him, unanimously condemned, and for ever vacated, as repugnant to the forecited Laws, Statutes, and destructive to the Subjects common Liberty by the 
o Ibidem.. p. 141, 142.  Votes of all the Commons House, and concurrent judgement of the House of Lords.  
Upon serious consideration whereof, as he cannot in prudence or conscience, submit to any such extorted Petition to you, as you by plain duresse (against Law and Justice) would enforce from him, to the betraying of his own and the whole Nations Franchises and Birthrights, by so ill a precedent, so being injuriously deprived of all other legal means of 
p Coke Instit. on Magna Charta. c. 29. Brooke Habeas Corpus.  Relief, by Habeas Corpus, or other writ or action of Law, of which common inherent 
q Exact Collect. p. 8, 20, 28, 29, 450, 660, 652, 894.  Birthright of all English freemen, he and all conscientious non-engagers, (after all their late Losses, Sufferings, Writings, Fightings, expenses of their▪ Estates, Treasures, Blood, Fasts, Prayers, and still continued incessant heavy contributions for the pretended just preservation and defence thereof, by a new invented MONSTROUS PRAEMUNIRE (transcending, in his judgement▪ all unrighteous Acts, Edicts, Encroachments of regal Tyranny and injustice upon the people's Rights and Franchises by beheaded King Charles, or any other of our English Kings) are most wrongfully disinherited, and of the benefit, protection of all our Laws in all Courts of justice, at one blow by you and others in power; against the express Letter of Magna Charta; the Petition of Right (assented to and ratified even by decapitated King Charles himself) the usual Oaths of all our Kings, Judges, Justices, Chancellers and great Officers heretofore, the late solemn Protestation, Vow, Covenant; all printed Declarations and Ordinances (concerning the Army or moneys) the last Parliament, your own Remonstrance for altering our Kingly Government into a Free State, March 17. 1648. and sundry other your publications since; and that without any hearing, Trial, Crime, Conviction or just forfeiture thereof upon Record; as if he and they were now mere alien enemies in their Native Country; new villains in gross, or regardant only to you their fellow subjects in present power, even in your new-erected Free State, though never such to or under their cashiered Kings. Whereupon he is now necessitated, for regaining, preserving his own, and all other Freeborn Englishmen just rights and Liberties (transcendently violated by these his illegalrestraints, who hath written, suffered most of any man for their maintenance, which otherwise might and would be made a leading precedent to oppress all or any others in the self same kind) by way of final address, to present unto you, this Large Remonstrance of his several successive Grievances, illegal restraints, close imprisonments, pressures under you and your Officers; (the only legal, real petition you can in justice expect from him) whereby he doth (after his full two years and three months forementiond illegal close imprisonments and Pressures under you, before any legal Indictment, Trial or Crime objected against him) once more jointly and severally demand from you and every of you of mere common right and Justice, without any further denial or delay, his absolute freedom and enlargement from all his present restraints, with full undelayed reparations for all his damages, losses, expenses sustained thereby, and by all other his remonstrated injuries from the authors and instruments of them, according to all the forecited Laws, Statutes, Oaths, Protestations, Vows, Covenants, Declarations, Remonstrances, and your bounden duty by Gods own sacred Edicts: And that he having already wasted above ten whole years of his short expired life in ten several prisons, only for his free unmercenary defence of public Liberty, Laws and Religion, out of pure conscience, zeal, duty, he may be no longer enforced without guilt or Trial (upon any carnal State policies, or old 
r Exact Collection, pag. 252, 278, 285, 289, 869, 871, 883, 885, 866, 559, 560.  exploded Whitehall pretences of necessity, danger or public safety (the damned Pleas for his former illegal close imprisonments, sufferings, exile, and his present likewise) to consume the short remainder of his declining days, (like a 
t Mat. 5. 15. Luk. 8. 16. Chap. 10. 35.  lighted candle under a bushel, or 
(s) A new Discovery, p. 86, 87, 88  
u Psal. 31. 12.  a dead man out of mind, in obscure Prisons, at farthest distance from his friends, where he can neither enjoy their sweet society, nor serve his God, his Country or private family with that freedom and improvement of his Talents for their best advantage, as he doth desire; nor any longer detained prisoner under the custody of such Martial Guardians, who are for the most part professed enemies both to our Laws, Lawyers, Ministers, Ministry, God's public Ordinances, Sacraments, Churches, Chapels, Glebes, Tithes, and whatever else the piety or bounty of former times hath devoted to the maintenance of God's worship, Religion or Learning; and therein to our Religion and Learning itself, under a pretence of transcendent sanctity, and a new monstrous kind of zeal, to reform Religion, propagate the Gospel, and support true Preachers of it, by the readiest unrighteous, sacrilegious, irreligious ways that the Jesuits or worst enemies of the Gospel could invent, eternally to extirpate it and all true Ministers of it, now as violently and publicly, impiously pursued by them and some other Army Officers; contrary to the pious practices and sacred precedents, of all godly martial Kings, Generals, Colonels, Captains of thousands, hundreds, and Armies, recorded by God himself in the old and new Testament; who were so enamoured, ravished and eaten up with the love, zeal, beduty of God's House, Temple, Tabernacle, Sanctuary, public ordinances, Worship, Priests, Ministers, so careful to frequent, maintain, advance, encourage them, that they cheerfully and bountifully contributed, not only the Tithes, Firstfruits, and oblations of all their estates; but the very tenths of all their spoils, with all the Precious stones, Jewels, Ear rings, Rings, Chains, Bracelets, Tablets, vessels of gold and silver, Treasures, Brass and Iron taken in the Wa●s, to the building, adorning, repairing of magnificent Tabernables, Temples, Houses, Synagogues, Churches devoted to God's public service, and maintaining of God's public worship, Ministers, Priests, Levites and other Officers attending thereupon in these public Edifices, to which they joyfully, constantly and zealously resorted, without separation from them: as Gen. 14. 20. Exod. 35. 20,— 30. Ch. 38. 1,— 10. Numb. 31. 28▪— 54. 2 Sam. 8. 10, 11, 12. 1 Chron. 21. throughout. Ch. 26. 26, 27, 28. (a memorable text) Ch. 29. 1,— 10. 2 Chron. 15. 11. Luk. 7. 1, 5, 6. Heb. 7. 4, 6. Psal. 5. 7. & 21. 6. & 26. 8. & 27. 4. & 36. 8. & 42. 4. & 52. 8. & 55. 14. & 65. 4. & 66. 13. & 69. 9 & 84. throughout. & 42. 1, 2. & 116. 13. & 102. 1, 9 & 134. 1. & 135. 1. Isa. 2. 2, 3. Mich. 4. 1, 2. Joh. 2. 16, 17, 18, 20. Luk. 2. 27, 37. Ch. 20. 1. Ch. 24. 53. Act. 2. 46. Ch. 3. 1, 8. Ch. 5. 20, 21. Rev. 7. 15. resolve. To the shame of those his irreligious Guardians of a different judgement and practice, who debarred him from all resort to God's public Ordinances and Ministers in the Parish Churches of the Garrisons wherein he hath been restrained, dedicated to God's worship; and still detain him close Prisoner (as aforesaid) by colour of this your void illegal Warrants bare Transcript, without date, thus subscribed by them as a true Copy.  
SIR,  
WE have been informed, that Taunton is an unfit place for the imprisonment of Mr. Prynne, where he now is; we therefore desire you to give order for the removal of the said Mr. Prynne to Pendennis Castle; and that HE BE THERE KEPT UPON THE SAME WARRANT UPON WHICH HE HATH BEEN PRISONER AT DUNSTER CASTLE AND NOW AT TAUNTON, till further Order. And that whiles he is there in restraint, he may have liberty to go to the public Odinances of God's worship, if he shall desire the same.  
Signed in the Name and by Order of the Council of State, by authority of Parliament. John Bradshaw, President.  
This is a true Copy,  
John Disbrowe.  
This is a true Copy of the aforesaid Copy,  
Charles Shrubsoll.  
This Copy only, or your Original Warrant, (as the science and conscience of every Lawyer amongst you, and his who signed it, must inform you) is merely void, illegal, and no justification for these his foremen●ioned Restraints or Imprisonment in Pendennis Castle, before any tribunal of God or Man, for these following Reasons.  
1. Because contrary to all former Council Table Warrants of this nature. All old Council Table Orders, Warrants, for his and others imprisonments were figged and subscribed, not only by the Precedent alone, but by all the Lords and Council consenting to them then present, as by Law they ought, that so they might know all those that Imprisoned them, and whether enough to make a Council, and whether to bring their actions against all or any of them if wrongfully imprisoned; as you may read in A new Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny, pag. 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 69, 85, 86, 90, to 97.  
2. Because this single signing of Warrants by one of you alone against ●ll Law and former Precedents, disenabling the Prisoner to know who they were who committed and translated him from prison to prison, except the first and sole subscriber John Bradshaw, (the rest it seems being ashamed to subscribe or own it, or the former Warrants for his restraints, being so unjust and defective in Law) And the subscriber alone being no Council, and having no power solely to act any thing, but only, jointly with such a number of Associates, who cannot translate their power or trust to him, but must execute it themselves; This Warrant (and the former so signed) must needs be void in Law and unwarrantable, or else all John Bradshawes companions, though absent or dissenting to its guilt, though issued in their Name and by their Order, without their parties or consents.  
3. Because it contains no crime, nor just cause at all, for which he was formerly kept Prisoner at Dunster Castle or Taunton, or since Imprisoned in Pendennis; as it ought to do by the express provision of the Petition of Right, and all ancient Statutes therein recited; the Votes and Resolutions of Parliament in the large debates of that Petition, with all other Parliaments since; the Resolves of both Houses, and most of yourselves in his own and Mr. Burtons' late cases; the judgements of all our Judges, Law-books, and Sir Edward Coke Institutes on Magna Charta, Ch. 29. Printed by the Commons House special Order; and the Statute of 42 E. 3. c. 12. declaring all such general Warrants against these Statutes and Magna Charta, to be void and nul in Law to all intents.  
4. Because it is grounded upon no precedent legal Examination, Conviction of, or Process, or Indictment against him, as by these Statutes, Laws, Law-books, Resolves it ought to be.  
5. Because it enjoins (or rather desires) him, to be kept Prisoner in Pendennis Castle▪ not upon it, or any lawful Warrant specially directed unto the Governor thereof; but upon the same Warrant upon which he hath been Prisoner at Dunster Castle, an● than was at Taunton, when this was issued. Which Warrant for his first imprisonment at Dunster, being likewise general and void in Law, because it containeth no particular offence at all for which he was there imprisoned; and if good in Law, yet directed personally to Major Robinson alone, than Governor of Dunster Castle, and none other; not to Colonel Disbrow, or Captain Shrubsoll, or any Governor of Taunton or Pendennis Castle; and restraining him and his imprisonment only to Dunster Castle, not to Taunton or Pendennis Castle, above 120 miles distant from the former, and situated in another Country. And your first Warrant being in Law quite nulled, expired, by your demolishing Dunster Castle, and removing the Governor (Major Robinson) and the whole Garrison (who there kept, and to whom only you committed him) totally and finally thence; and he being no Prisoner at all at Taunton, upon that or any other Warrant from you; it is both impossible, absurd, unwarrantable, illegal, and beyond all extravagant Precedents of former times, to keep him up close Prisoner so long in Pendennis Castle upon the same void, nulled, expired, illegal warrant only directed to others, upon which he hath been Prisoner at Dunster Castle, to which it only confined him, but never really to Taunton; and it must needs be a great Solecism in Law and Clerk-ship at least, if not in State policy, and Statesmen, to● issue out such a Warrant, and imprison any intelligent Lawyer or English freeman in three remote Castles, under several Governors, by colour of one mere void illegal Warrant, to imprison him only in and under one of them, a thing never heard of in the world before.  
6. Because it ordered him to be removed against his will, perforce, out of his one Native County, and sent to, and kept Prisoner in a remote Castle, in a foreign County, in the extremest Western part of the Island, not properly belonging to the restraining jurisdiction of any Legal Court, Council or Power by any known Law; where he can neitherbe legally tried, nor proceeded against for any real or pretended crime only acted in other Countries, nor this, for which he is thus restrained; contrary to express Statutes of 5. E. 3. c▪ 8. 28. H. 8. c. 2. 5. H. 4. c. 10. 1. E. 1. c. 5. 4. H. 4. c. 13. 23. H 8. c. 9 1. 2. Phil. Mar. c. 12. 21. E. 4. f. 71. Brook Imprisonment, 80. Protestation, 18. the late Votes and Resolutions of Parliament, as well of the Commons as Lords, in his own and fellow-sufferers cases, sent first close Prisoners by the Star-chambers sentence, and after by the old Council Tables orders, to such foreign Castles, Prisons, against these acts and the subjects Liberty; for which ill precedent (now pursued and exceeded by you) both Houses and most of yourselves voted the Starchamber Lords, and your Whitehall Predecessors to be Delinquents, and to render— 
y A new Discovery. pag. 137, to 143.  Damages to them, though done by and after a Bill and Sentence, when as ye now do it before any Sentence or Impeachment at all, much less any hearing or sentence against him.  
7. Because this Warrant is directed only to Colonel Disbrow, not commanding▪ but only desiring him to give order for his removeall from Taunton to Pendenn is Castle, and that he be there kept upon the same Warrant upon which he hath been Prisoner at Dunster and then at Taunton. Which Colonel being no known sworn Officer of Law or Justice in the Counties of Somerset or Cornwall; but only a Military Commander, and he being no Prisoner of War, or Soldier, subject by any Law of England to his Military power; nor yet his Prisoner there, or since that time; and this Letter of yours (rather than Warrant) making his inherent power and Order alone, the only authority both for his remove and restraint at Pendennis, without any special or legal derivation of any such power from yourselves, (who in truth have no more lawful power for it then he, who had none at all;) Therefore it can in no Court of Law or Justice, be any legal Warrant for a Colonel or any other, to remove him hither, or detain him Prisoner here, upon it, or the former Warrant.  
8. Because the sole ground for his remove from Taunton, within his native County, to this foreign County and Prison, is only a bare information to you, without hearing of him to disprove it; That Taunton is an unfit place for his Imprisonment, which as it is no crime, nor ground at all in itself for his imprisonment elsewhere; so it is a strong Argument of the injustice of his imprisonment at Taunton, and of your warrant, and of his translation to and imprisonment in Pendennis Castle in the remotest County; it affording no such fitting accommodations in any kind for his soul or body in sickness or health (when reof it is wholly destitute) as Taunton doth; and being a mere private Castle only in a foreign Shire, not a Market Town, where the Assizes and Sessions are usually held (as Taunton is;) wherein alone all Prisons and Prisoners in all Counties ought to kept, under known sworn Gaolers and Officers, (not in private Castles under Soldiers) by the express Statutes of 5. E. 3. c. 8. 5. H. 7. c. 10. 23. H. 8. c. 2. and that for their better relief, accommodation, security and more frequent visits by their friends. Therefore this must be a far juster ground for you to release or to translate him from Pendennis now, then to send him thither at the first, or detaining him still close Prisoner there.  
9 Because neither this nor the former Warrant is directed to the Governor or any other Officer of Pendennis Castle, to detain him Prisoner there; as by Law it ought to be; for the first warrant is directed by you only to Major Robinson, the second only to Colonel Disbrow; who are neither Military nor Civil Governors nor Officers in Pendennis, and keep your original Warrants for their own indemnity, sending only a bare copy of them, (without time or date) to the Governor of Pe●dennis (to whom neither of them are directed by you) to detain him Prisoner by, which can be no Plea nor Warrant in Law in any Court to justify his imprisonment in this place by Captain Shrubsoll, who yet without any other Warrant but this Copy alone of yours to Disbrow, hath injuriously— restrained, oppressed and close imprisoned, and kept him from God's public Ordinances, as aforesaid, beyond and against all Warrants, by colour only of this his dateless Copy forecited.  
10. Because this Warrant doth not so much as mention his known Christian name WILLIAM, as by Law it ought; but his Surname only; nor so much as expressly command him, to be kept Prisoner, but barely kept at Pendennis Castle (which he may be, and yet not as a Prisoner, or close Prisoner) upon the same (void, illegal, expired) Warrant, upon which he hath been Prisoner at Dunster: Besides it neither commands or requires, but only desires Colonel Disbrow, that he may be removed and kept here; not for any certain time, or till delivered by Law, or brought to his legal Trial for that (nothing in this warrant) for which he stands here committed; but merely, till further Order from you; (which may be till death or doomsday, if you please, and yet seem to resolve:) for all which causes (as well as the former) it is both void and illegal, as Sir Edward Coke resolves in his Institutes on Magna Charta, c. 29. ratified by the Commons own Order for its impression.  
11. Because it gives no express command nor precept, either for his translation hither or restraint here▪ nor concludes as all legal Warrants do; And for your so doing this shall be your Warrant, and hereof fail not, at your peril; but barely desires his removal by Disbrow and keeping here, rather as a cuortesie then commanded duty; concluding only▪ And WE DESIRE YOU to certify (any other as well as you, for us is not expressed if intended) what you shall do herein, in his removal thither; not in his keeping there, where he is no Officer nor Governor. Therefore illegal and no Warrant at all.  
12. Because if this Copy be true (as they both attest under their hands) than this Warrant hath neither time when, nor place where it was dated▪ nor person to whom it was directed. Therefore illegal, null, invalid.  
Now how much it will redound to the Honour of your wisdom, justice, reputation of your Clerks and those Lawyers associated with you, to advise you in points of▪ Law, to issue forth such a defective, null, void, illegal, absurd, imp●ssible, nugatory Warrant, as this in all the 12. forecited regards, and so long to restrain, imprison, close imprison him in this remote Castle upon a bare Copy thereof, and still to detain him Prisoner thereupon, notwithstanding all former addresses to you by himself or friends for his enlargement hence; and what all rational men in present, in future ages will judge of your strange exorbitant proceedings of such nature, or how you will clear, justify or excuse them before any future Parliament or new (pretended, but as most now think never really intended) Representative of the Nation (so often promised, but still as long deferred as his liberty) or any other impartial Court of Justice on earth, if ever there legally examined upon complaint; or before Christ's own inpartiall, 
z 2 Cor. 5. 10. Read Master strong's his Printed Sermon thereon.  unavoidable Tribunal at last, where you must shortly render a strict account thereof to this Righteous Judge of all the earth (without any armed Guardians to secure you against his Justice) in the presence of 
a Mat. 25. 31, 32. 2 Thess. 1▪ 7, 8, 9, Judas 14, 15. Jer. 51. 6, 11.  all his holy Angels, and the whole world of Mankind; Where himself hath resolved beforehand in his very Gospel, that he will pass this irrevocable sentence against all such who only refuse or neglect to resort unto, visit, feed, cloth and relieve his imprisoned believing members for this their bare omission: Go ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels: FOR I WAS SICK AND IN PRISON AND YE VISITED ME NOT, etc. And will therefore certainly pronounce a severer doom against all such unrighteous Grandees who actually without cause, crime, trial, maliciously cast his formerly suffering members into Prisons and detain them close Prisoners, under terrifying armed Guards and Sentinels in remote obscure Castles, far from all friends or acquaintance, of purpose to disable, deter all others from visiting, feeding, clothing, and relieving, comforting them in their necessities, or sickness therein, and yet year after year most inhumanly refuse upon their Oaths, frequent sad complaints and importunities, to release, visit, relieve, or right them. And what you will then be able to allege for yourselves to prevent any human censures here, or such a fatal sentence from Christ's own mouth hereafter for the premises, he most seriously refers to your own awaked consciences, and most serious contemplations, if now after this his Remonstrance and full information of your Warrants Illegality and Nullity, by which he hath been restrained, you shall wilfully neglect or peremptorily refuse immediately to release and fully to repair him; who by colour thereof hath been kept a closer Prisoner under you, before any charge or hearing, then formerly under your tyrannical condemned Predecessors at Whitehall, after two bills, hear and their severest censures; and denied so much Prison freedom, as very Popish Priests and Jesuits formerly obtained, did and still enjoy (if you have any such now Prisoners) under your Regency even in their very strictest prisons when convicted, condemned even of the greatest highest treasons both against King and Kingdom.  
And seeing you have freshly exhorted, enjoined all sorts of person in the Nation to make public and private confessions to God of all their personal and national sins, which have provoked his wrath, kindled new wars with our very formerly confederated Brethren, and threaten many heavy judgements to the Nation if not cordially lamented, speedily and really reform; and for this end have appointed a general solemn Fast and day of Humiliation on the 13. of October next, to divert God's incumbent imminent judgements, and procure peace.  
And for as much as God himself, the God of 
b Isa. 26. 9, 11.  Judgements, 
c Psal. 94. 1, 2, etc. Rom. 12. 19  Vengeance, 
d Exod. 15. 3. Isa. 45. 7.  War, 
e Psal. 59 10. 17.  Mercy, 
f Rom. 15. 33. 16. 20. 2 Cor. 13. 11.  Peace, hath frequently declared in his sacred Oracles, that 
g Psal. 12. 5. & 72▪ 4. Isa. 49 26. Jer. 6. 6. & 22. 15, to 20. & 51▪ 35, 36. Ezek. 7 11, to 25. & 8▪ 17, 18 & 12. 19, 20. & 21. 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 20, 21, 29, 30▪ & 45 9 Isa 33. 1, 2. Jer. 22. Job 20. 15, to 29. Amos 2. 1, 2, 3▪ &c & 3. throughout. Hab. 2. 7, 8▪ ●oel 3. 19 Obad. 8. 9, 10, to 21. Zeph. 3. 5, 6. L●k. 3. 19, 20▪ Act. 12 1, to 10. Exod. 3, 7, 8. & 2. 23, 24, 25. Mat. 25▪ 41, 42, 43.  Oppression, Injustice, Violence, Spoil, Cruelty; depriving any of their just Liberties, Rights, Inheritances, Estates, by mere arbitrary Power, and the oppressing Sword, without just cause, Right, Title or Legal trial imposing heavy yokes of bondage on the necks, and intolerable burdens on the backs, Estates of men by illegal Taxes or Exactions, (next to Apostasy, and most gross Idolatry) are the greatest Wrath-procuring, State▪ subverting, Realm-destroying, Warre-ingendring, Land-desolating, Soul condemning sins of all others, which have utterly destroyed, subverted, extirpated and brought to nought, not only many potent Kings, Princes, Potentates, Nobles, Grandees of all sorts with their posterities, but even whole Kingdoms, States, Republics, beyond all humane probability, as the Histories of all former ages, and recent Precedents of your immediate Whitehall Predecessors, experimentally confirm▪ whose injurious oppressive proceedings, Sentences against 
h See Exact▪ Collection p. 917, 918. An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons exhorting all to Repentance, Confession and Humiliation for our enormous sins procuring God's wrath.  him, causeless long imprisonments of●this Remonstrant, were one 
i A New Discovery of the Prelate's tyranny p. 115, 116.  principal occasion of their downfall, and of that very Star-chamber Court wherein they censured him. And because God hath likewise positively resolved Isa. 58. 6, 7, 8. That this is the chiefest, the only fast which he hath chosen, and appointed, to pacify his wrath, avert his judgements, cease all Wars, restore, establish Wealth, Peace, Setlement and prosperity (the proper effects, fruits of 
k Isa 32. 17.  Righteousness and true Justice) to an afflicted Realm or Nation, to lose the bonds of wickedness (and such are all injurious, illegal Warrants, close Imprisonments, Restraints, and his fore-remonstrated in the highest degreen;) to undo the heavy burdens (and are not his, and the other long continued unwarrantable public Taxes, Excises, extraordinary Prison expenses, and grievous unredressed pressures imposed by you, such▪) to let the oppressed go free (and is not he such an one in the highest degree, as well now as heretofore, in his person, freedom, calling, estate, friends, and all earthly comforts▪ by your foreign close imprisonments so long continued on him, after all his ancient oppressions?) and that ye break every yoke (and are not his present restraints from all free private or public converse with any ranks of men by word or writing, by muing him up in for●in Prisons, under armed Guards, Sentinels, debarring him from all Gods own Ordinances, all legal ways or writs for his enlargement, yokes, nay iron yokes to him? Your keeping o● him and the whole Nation so many years together▪ when the King and both Houses 
l See the Vindication of the secured and secluded Members, and my Speech in Parliament.  would and might have settled a most desired blessed Peace without further arms or bloodshed, under the over●wing, Parliament-subverting, Law-oppressing Sword, Power, Discipline of a disobedient Army, subverting those very ends, powers, persons, for whose preservation and defence they were professedly raised, waged, continuing them still in extraordinary pay, both Winter and Summer, with little or no diminution of their number, to the total consumption of all the Lands, Rents, Revenues of Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Chapters, King, Queen, Prince, of many thousands of Delinquents, the 
m Jer▪ 46. 16. & 50. 16.  undoing of some thousands of well affected persons, the general impoverishing of most men throughout the Nation, and threatening a speedy consumption of all yet remaining— if longer continued, and that rather to enslave then enfranchise us; to promote their own Officers and others private Wealth, Greatness, than our real, public weal, liberty, safety, or our Religion: The maintaining of many superfluous Garrisons, Castles, more to imprison, secure him, and the other causeless Prisoners in them, then defend the Nation by them; the usefullest of them, even at the entrance of our chiefest Harbours, being experimentally found to be mere Scarecrows, to fright cowardly unexperienced Seamen only; but unable with all their mounted Canons (discharged suddenly if there be occasion only one by one, at Rovers and great uncertain distance, and that but once or twice at most with round balls, by none of the skilfulest Gunners) unable to hit (unless by chance) much less to stop, hurt, spoil, strike any single Ship or Vessel passing in or out of the Harbours; when as old, late and present experience in our latest Sea fights prove that 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100▪ whole broad sides, and greater, better tires of Ordinance than any in our Forts discharged together at one stout ship by skilfullest Gunners, at nearest distance, with better aim, with key or cross chain shot, will hardly split or sink it, (which no Fort, no Castle that we read of ever yet did) nor stay, take any resisting Vessel without grappling with and boarding her; which Forts cannot do: much less can they hinder the ingress, egress or regress of any considerable Squadron of Ships or a whole Navy; or impeach the landing of an Army by or under their very noses, or in places out of their Guns command, as ignorant people dream, as the forcible landings of your forces, though small, in the late reduced Islands of Silly, Jersie, the Barbadoss under their very Forts and Canons, without the loss of any one Ship or Vessel by their Canons and Blockhouses; and of the loss of very few Mariners or Land Soldiers (with the taking of Cadez and many fortified Towns in the Indies heretofore by Sir Francis Drake and others, without the loss of any one ship by Canon-shot) manifest beyond all contradiction; such Forts serving only in truth, to maintain many ●asie Gunners and Montrosses at, 8, 10, 12 l. pay a week or more in many Forts, merely to shoot away vast proportions in a year of Powder and Bullet in mere compliment and salutes of men of war and other Ships, who waste more Powder, Bullet in saluting, resaluting Ships, and in other idle frolicks upon Visitants and News of good successes, than their salaries amount to; and to maintain many thousands of lazy, idle Soldiers (whose labour would be far more profitable to the Nation then their service) at 5 s. 10 d. pay each week, and their Officers at double, treble, 4, 6, or 8. times as much more, only to burn Match to take Tobacco, stand Centinel, to walk or look about them some two or three hours, in three or four whole days space or more, which they call Duty; and exercise once in two or three months' time for so many hours, to shoot away their powder; when as poor Labouring men of all sorts must work hard all the week long for lesser gain and wages, than these idlebees receive for this their lazy useless duty, and yet pay heavy weekly Taxes duly (under pain of plundering) to maintain these Lurdánes to so little purpose: Are not these think you 
n Jer. 28. ●3, 14. & 27. ●. Ezech. 30. 18. & 34. 27.  yokes, nay heavy unsupportable Iron yokes, far 
o 2 Chron. 10. 10, 14.  heavier than those wooden ones (of a little Shipmoney only once a year) under which we formerly groaned, till we broke them; fit now to be broken on your Fastday, after so long a continuance of them by you on our Nations galled, wearied necks?) There is yet a second part of that Fast, which God now calls for from you; to deal your bread to the hungry (and are there not now many such amongst us by your unrighteous depriving them of their Liberties, Callings, Employments, Revenues, Husbands, Servants, Children, Estates, public Offices, and the benefit of our very Laws to regain their own, and detaining their public debts, as you do his) To satisfy the afflicted soul (and is not his soul such, by your remonstrated pressures, and thousands of souls more by other grievances?) To bring the poor that is cast out (as he is by you from his House, Liberty, Calling, Family, Kindred, Friends, all worldly comforts, public Trusts and Employments, into remotest Prisons without cause, against all Laws) into your houses; (who will not so much as once permit him, to return into his own house, and so long debarred him from Gods own houses) If you see the naked, that you clothe him; (and you have almost made him naked by depriving him of his Calling, Friends, Employments, detaining his public oft-demanded debts, his extraordinary prisonexpences and late Militia charges, enforcing his friends to sell all his stock, superadded to all his other payments, reducing him to his very worst old Jersie Prison rags and clothes to cover his nakedness by these merciless undoing extremities) And that you hide not yourselves from your own flesh (as you do from him by not receiving some, breaking up others of his Letters of complaint without reading them, slighting all the rest, and answering none of them but by denials; refusing to hear, dispute, or speak with him face to face, for ought you can charge him with, as persons either ashamed, afraid, or unable to encounter or behold him, after so many indignities, or to make good your own cause, or proceedings against him, by Divinity, Law, Religion, or any sole hearing; and yet hide him from his own flesh too, by keeping him from his Friends, Kindred, and them from him by strict restraints in remotest Garrisons from them, of purpose to deprive him of their visits:) Give him leave then upon all these grounds, in the name and fear of God, as your former true Christian friend and present impartial monitor, without all carnal fear or sordid flattery, seriously to exhort, and faithfully to persuade all and every of you, not so much for his own interest, as your own truest good, salvation, and our whole Nations welfare, both before and on your Solemn Fastday, to lay all his former Remonstrated pressures and long illegal close restraints, as close as may be to your souls, and both publicly and privately with deepest sorrow, shame and detestation to confess, acknowledge, bewail, abhor, renounce, redress, repair them by his present honourable enlargement, and other proportionable recompenses to him and the grieved Nation, as crying, God-provoking sins, which if not then thus seriously acknowledged, repent, and rerlly redressed, may and will draw down as exemplary Justice and Vengeance on your heads, and present exorbitant Power, as his former sufferings of this natnre did upon beheaded Canterbury, with other you immediate Predecessors at Whitehall and their exorbitant authority, though then better settled, secured by our Laws and long Prescription, than you or your present slippery peace. And withal, before, or on that day at furthest, effectually, sincerely by real performances and actual ex●cutions, to keep and render unto God that practical forementioned Fast which he hath chosen, and expecteth at your hands, in all the respective branches thereof, both in relation to himself, and all other oppressed, afflicted, impoverished ones throughout our three Nations, now groaning, languishing and almost expiring under manifold bonds of wickedness, heavy burdens, oppressions, yokes, already hinted to you; without which all your prayers will be but mere 
q Hos. 7▪ 14.  howl in his ears; all other feigned humiliations, a mere atheistical abuse of this most sacred Ordinance, to mere politic sinful ends, to which it is oft abused; nay a 
r Isa. 58. 4. Like Ahabs to take away Naboth's Vineyard 1 King. 21. 9, 12.  Fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness, as God there resolves; by making it a general engine to raise, foment, encourage, countenance, justify new unchristian, inhuman, unrighteous, impolitic divisions, factions, Wars with and again our very fellow-Christians 
(s) See Exact Collection. p. 21. 310. 634, to 638.  upon slight pretences, dissents and private differences, without just substantial grounds, warranted by Gospel's principles, precedents, precepts; which instruct all Christian men and States too, 
t Rom. 12. 10. & 13. 8, to 12. Gal. 5. 13, 14. Ephes. 1. 15. & 4 2. & 5. 2. Col. 2. 2. 1 Thess. 3. 12. & 4. 9 Heb. 10. 24. & 13▪ 1. 1 Pet. 1. 22▪ & 2. 17. & 3. 8. 1 Joh. ●. 11, to 24. & 4. 7, 11, 12.  to love like Brethren, to pass by and forgive their enemy's injuries and offences; 
u Ephes. 4. 9  to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace; 
x 2 Cor. 13. 11. 1. Thess. 5▪ 13. Heb. 12. 14. 1 Pet. 3. 11,  to live in peace, and follow peace with all men; 
y Phil. 2 2, 4.  to seek one another's welfare; 
z 1 Joh. 3. 16.  to lay do●n their lifes for their brethren; 
a 1 These. 4. 11.  to study to be quiet; to 
b 1 Tim. 2. 2.  live in all peaceableness and honesty; to 
c 1 Cor. 10. 32. 2 Cor. 6. 3. 1 Cor. 8. 13. Rom. 13. 10.  give no scandal nor offence, and do no wrong nor violence one to another; to 
d Isa. 2. 4. Mica. 3. 3▪ 4.  beat their Swords into Ploughshares, their Spears into pruning hooks; not to lift up a sword one against another, or learn war any more; 
e Mat. 26. 5●.  to put up the sword into the sheath, because all those that take the sword, shall perish with the sword; Not to 
f Gal. 5. 15.  bite and devour one the other, lest they be consumed one by another; resolving, all 
g Jam. 4. 1. & 3. 13, 14, 15, 16.  Wars and Fightings amongst them, to come only from their lusts, that war in their Members; and all wisdom to raise, foment and manage them, not to descend from heaven above, but to be carnal, sinful, devilish.  
And if your public Fast be now secretly designed to any such unchristian purposes as aforesaid, or not accompanied with that real Fast fore-specified; it will be so far from allaying, that it will far more incense God's wrath; so far from procuring, obtaining public peace, that it will increase your Wars and enemies; so far from establishing your new republic, that it will suddenly and certainly subvert it, if not by others, yet by the very Army and arms of flesh you most depend on; so far from securing our sinful Nation (or Religion) from foreign enemies and plunders thereof, that it will expose them to their combined invasions on all hands, to their great molestation, devastation, if not final extirpation out of the long enjoyed Land of their Nativity (as the Britain's of old) for all your and their late increased, desolating, crying sins, which hath been, and yet is, the grounded fear, and is and shall be the daily fervent deprecation of your oppressed close Prisoner, necessitated by your defaults to this prolix Remonstrance of his Grievances, and final demand of Right, Liberty, Justice from you; which God himself will both hear and grant, if you now prove more deaf and dumb thereto, than the 
h Luk. 18. 2▪ to 9  unrighteous Judge in the Gospel, after all former Solicitations, Letters, Suits, and this ultimate address unto you, by  
Your two years and three months 
 causeless close Prisoner, William Prynne. From his ill, moist, close Prison-chamber in Pendennis Castle, 26. Septem. 1652.   

After this Remonstrance sent, upon the motion of some of my friends, this Order and Warrant thereon was made at Whitehall, and sent to Pendennis Castle, for my release. 

Tuesday first of February, 1652. At the Council of State at Whitehall.  
Ordered,  
THat Mr. William Prynne be discharged from his Imprisonment, he giving his Bond to the sum of one thousand pounds, That he will not for the future act any thing to the prejudice of this Commonwealth, and the present Government thereof.  
Exam. John Thurlo, Clerk of the Council.    

SIR,  
THe Council hath thought fit, that Mr. William Prynne now Prisoner with you in the Castle of Pendennis, shall be discharged from th' restraint upon him, he giving his own Bond of one thousand pound, that he will not for the future, act any thing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth, and the present Government thereof. The Council have thought fit, that the taking of his Bond, should be left to your care, and do therefore desire you, to see the same entered into by the said Mr. Prynne, according to usual form, and the condition above mentioned; which Bond when the said Mr. Prynne hath entered into accordingly, as is hereby directed, you are to return the Bond to the Council, and to set Mr. William Prynne at Liberty. Whitehall Feb. 2. 1652.  
JOHN BRADSHAW, President. To the Governor of Pendennis Castle, These.  
Signed in the name, and by Order of the Council of State appointed by authority of Parliament.  
Exam. John Thurlo Clerk of the Council.   
Upon reading of this Order and Warrant, brought me by the Deputy Governor, I peremptorily resused to enter into any Bond at all upon any terms; the Illegality and Tyranny of which Bond and Condition, I at length expressed in a Letter to a Member of Whitehall that sent them; resolving rather to die a Prisoner then live a Bondman in my Native Country, where I was borne a Freeman: Whereupon they sent this absolute Order for my enlargement, without any Bond or limitation whatsoever, upon which I was thence released.  

THese are to will and require you forthwith upon sight hereof, to discharge and fet at liberty the body of Mr. William Prynne from his Imprisonment, if he be under restraint with you for no other cause, then that is expressed by the Order of the Council for his Commitment, of which you are not to fail, and for which this shall be your Warrant. Given at the Council of State at Whitehall this 18. day of February, 1652.  
To the Governor or Commander of the Castle of Pendennis. JOHN BRADSHAW, President.  
Signed in the name, and by Order of the Council of State appointed by authority of Parliament.  
Exam. Jo. Thurlo Cler. Concil.   
Upon my repair to London in November last, I writ and sent this ensuing Letter to Mr. Bradshaw.  
SIR,  
UNderstanding you are now returned to Westminster, I thought meet to mind you, that by sundry illegal Warrants under your hand, during your cashiered Whitehall superlative power, my study in Lincoln's Inn, and house, study at Swainswick, were searched; my Records, Writings, Papers taken away; my person forcibly seized by, and close Imprisoned, in three several remote Castles under Soldiers, for two years and eight months' space: my Prison-chamber and very Pockets ransacked; my notes, tables to the Books I read in prison, violently taken from me; all persons prohibited to speak with me, but in the presence and hearing of my Guardians; all Letters to or from me, intercepted, perused; the liberty of sending Letters to demand my freedom, debarred; access to God's tublick Ordinances, denied me; my Laundress, Brother in Law, Servant, with some others, imprisoned and examined extrajudicially against me; and that before, without the least legal accusation, hearing, trial, or any particular crime, or cause objected against, or hitherto signified unto me; contrary to all rules of Law, Justice, the great Charters of England, the Pe●ition of Right, and the Votes of both Houses of Parliament in my very case (as you well know, and I then informed you at large by several Letters,) to the prejudice of my health, decay of my estate, and extraordinary damage, after all my former unrecompensed great losses and martyrdoms for our Religion, Laws, Liberties, under the beheaded King, Prelates and old exorbitant Council table. The true cause of whose Tyrannical proceedings against me, being yet unknown, even to such of your late Whitehall associates, as I have hitherto met with, (who are ashamed of these Barbarismes, and remit me wholly to yourself for the true reason of them, of which they profess themselves ignorant) I thereupon held it necessary and just, now at last to demand from you by writing, the true real cause of these irregular restraints and proceedings against me; together with full damages for the same, in private, before I demand them in such a public manner, (if necessitated thereunto) as may expose you to greater obloquy and infamy, than ever beheaded Canterbury sustained for his ●xorbitances against me. For my own part, I was never of a revengeful spirit; yet I cannot be so stupid, as to put up these transcendent iujuries, and illegal oppressions I sustained under you▪ because I underwent them, not as a private person, but as A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT; and that in and for the public cause of the whole English Nation, I then supported; whereupon I must no● pass them by in silence without public satisfaction, even for the present and future benefit of the Nation, and vindication of the liberties and privileges of Parliament, according to the Tenor o● the Covenant: lest by my silence they should prove dangerous precedents to prejudice posterity, I b●ing then a Member of Parliament, i● the former Parliament continued in being, as you affirmed it did in your very Warrants for my restraints. Wherefore seeing we are once more become fellow▪ commoners again, I do hereby in justice require and expect from you an undelayed accounted, both of the grounds of my forementioned illegal unchristian injuries and restraints, with full reparations for the same, as I did from Canterbury, and my quondam Lordly Whitehall unjust censurers; which I presume you will not disdain to render to him, who through God's mercy, maugre all men's Tyranny, still continues to be, what you ever found him,  
Your long oppressed, yet still 
 unconquered Tyranno-mastix, William Prynne. From my Chamber at Lincoln's Inn, Nou. 24. 1654.  
To this Letter Mr. Bradshaw returning a long unsatisfactory answer in writing, dated the 1 of of December, I thereupon sent him this Reply thereto.  
SIR,  
UPon my return late last night to my Chamber, I found your answer to my former lines, under my door; which by reason of company, I had no time to peruse till now, wherein as I find not the least satisfaction touching the particular grounds of these illegal proceedings against me, I informed you of; justifiable (as you well know) by no Laws of God or Man; so your hand alone being to the Warrants, prescribing and occasioning them, contrary to the precedents in former times, and all my commitments by the old Whitehall council, to which all my committers subscribed their hands, or had their names superscribed by the Cle●k of the Council, as you may see in my New discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny; I could resort to none but yourself, both for satisfaction and reparation; being wholly ignorant, who else concurred with you therein. For any pretended mercy showed to me by you or others of your associates in my restraints under you, I must yet account them such mercies only as Solomon defines them, Prov. 12. 10. and you such friends alone, as Job and David complain of, Job 19 13, 14, 19, to 24. & 6. 14, 15. Psal. 41. 9 & 55. 13, etc. As for the surmised benefit you did me at last, by your casting voice, which (you say) brought me out of Prison, when as your hand alone cast me into it; Let Seneca the Philosopher resolve you what it is, De beneficiis, l. 6. c. 26. NEQVITIA EST ut extrahas mergere, evertere ut suscites, VT EMITTAS INCLUDERE. Non est BENEFICIUM INJURIAE FINIS; Nec unquam id detraxisse MERITUM EST, quod ipse qui detraxit intuberat. Non vulneres me malo quam sanes. Potes inire gratiam, si quia vulneratus sum, sanas; non si vulneras, ut sanandus sum, etc. That others joined with you in the injury, etc. was but Canterbury's old exploded plea, and and rather aggravates than mitigates your offence, by Gods own resolution, Exod. 33. 2, 7. Yet notwithstanding I am not so vindictive or implacable, as to deal with you as you did with me; to surprise you without the least notice, to begin with execution, without any precedent process or parley, as my former lines attest. Neither shall I take advantage of the present season by way of revenge, which others perchance would do, but only endeavour to right myself in a just and Christian way, for the damages sustained in my estate and person, to prevent the like future injuries, and to advance public liberty so far, that my illegal restraints under you, may become no precedents to prejudice, but benefit posterity. And seeing I find you inclined to a friendly conference when and where I shall appoint, (which would have done better before my commitment then now) if you nominate any Chamber in any of the four Inns of Court, where me may meet to morrow, or Thursday morning about ten of the clock, I shall (God willing) then and there expect such further satisfaction from you, as is due in justice and conscience to  
Your injured, oppressed quondam Friend, 
 and Martyr for the public, William Prynne. Lincoln's Inn, 5. Decemb. 1654.  
To this Letter I received a large impertinent answer, dated the 6. of December, giving no account of the cause or justice of my Restraints, but proffering me a meeting at Mr. Ellys his chamber in. Gray's Inn the Saturday following, about 8. of the clock in the morning, freely to debate the business in a friendly manner, without prejudice to either side: Where I meeting Mr. Bradshaw accordingly, he seriously protested to me, That he neither knew nor remembered the Informers names, nor any particular informations given in against me, whereupon I was thus imprisoned, restrained; but he would peruse all his own papers, and the Books at Whitehall with all possible speed; and if he could find any particulars relating to my commitment in them, he would give me a speedy account thereof. After which he said, That he had sundry things in the general to allege for himself in relation to the proceedings against me, which did quiet his conscience: the sum whereof (which he amplified with many words) was this alone.  
1. That he and the Council at Whitehall (as he styled them) had their authority derived to them from a true and unquestionable Parliament of England.  
2. That this Parliament gave them particular instructions to pursue, for the preservation of the Peace and safety of their new Commonwealth; which they accordingly pursued according to their judgements and consciences, without malice or partiality.  
3. That there were many desperate plots and conspiracies set on foot against this poor infant Commonwealth by the enemies thereof, threatening utter ruin thereunto, had they not been carefully prevented, about and during the time of my commitment, which enforced them to extraordinary proceedings.  
4. That though he knew not the particular grounds or cause of my restraints, yet he was persuaded, that it was done in order only to public safety, and not out of any malice, but rather out of a tender respect of the Council towards me; and that he did nought therein but only by the Counsels command, which he was bound to obey.  
To which I presently returned him this answer, That I much wondered with what face or confidence he could condemn the late King for a Tyrant, and yet soon after become more arbitrary, unrighteous, and Tyrannical himself in his proceeding against me, (his late special friend) then ever the King or his Council were.  
For first of all, they only summoned me in the day time to appear before them by a single sworn Messenger the next day, without any attachment of my person: But he at the very first attached me near midnight in my own house, by a party of horse, without any sworn legal Officer.  
2. They summoned me to appear before them to answer such things as should be objected against me: but he attached and sent me as far off from him as possible, to remotest Castles, without bringing me ever before him; as being afraid or ashamed to see my face.  
3. They when I appeared before them, objected a particular book to my charge, as scandalous and offensive and heard me concerning it before they committed me▪ But he at first objected no particular crime or Book against me, nor would he afterwards during my long restraints, signify any special cause of my close imprisonment, though oft importuned by my Letters; which he would have done for his own reputation, and my own or the world's satisfaction, had there been any. And now at last he protests, That be neither knows, nor remembers any particular informations given in against me for which I was so long committed; my papers, records, writings seized, and my very pockets, as well as my House, studies, and Prison-chamber ransacked; But he will seek if he can find out any particulars, which would have been found out long ere this, had there been any such, even since my first Letter to him in November last.  
4. They committed me only a prisoner at large, as first to the Tower of▪ London, their usual Prison, near my friends and place of residence; without any restraints of Letters or conference with any. B●t he sent me to three remote Castles one after another, every one worse than another, the last near 150 miles distant from my house and friends; and there kept me under the strictest restraints and armed guards; contrary to sundry express Statutes, and the Votes of both Houses of Parliament in my former case; debarring me for a long time the liberty of God's public Ordinances; which I enjoyed under them. In all which respects, after the Parliaments censures against the old Council-table, Prelates, Canterbury, and his own sentence against the King; he had manifested himself a worse Tyrant than they, and might therefore justly expect as heavy, or a far worse censure as any of them sustained, in case he repented not of, and gave not satisfaction for these transcendent injuries. As for the general grounds he alleged, to excuse or justify his exorbitant proceedings against me; I told him, they were frivolous, and would rather aggravate then mitigate his offence before any Legal Tribunal.  
To the first of them I then immediately answered, that I much admired, how any man who professed himself a Lawyer, or beware a Gown upon his back, durst affirm, That about 50 or 60 members only of the late Commons house, confederating with the Army-officers to destroy, 
(a) Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. Coke 4. Instit. ch. 1.  condemn and behead the King, the * head of the Parliament, abolish the whole house of Lords, the ancientest, honourablest, chiefest of branch our English Parliaments. Wherein the judicial 
(b) See my Plea for the Lords and Collection of the ancient Counsels and Parliaments of England.  power of Parliaments wholly or principally resided; and secure seclude the majority or five parts of four of the whole Commons house (only, for voting according to their consciences and endeavouring to settle the Peace of the Kingdom, after eight years bloody wars,) and to subvert all future real English Parliaments, contrary to their trusts and duties, the very express words of the writs and retornes of those by whom they were made and elected members; contrary to the direct tenor of the 
c 1 Eliz. c. 1. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 3 Jac. c. 4, 5. 7 Jac. c. 6. 16 Caroli. The Act for Triennial Parliaments.  Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, which they took and must take before they could sit or vote as Members; contrary to the Solemn Protestation, Vow, League and Covenant, which they all made and took after they were Members; contrary to their manifold printed Declarations, Remonstrances, Ordinances, Votes, whiles there was a real Parliament, and they actual Members of it; contrary to the Desires, Petitions of those who entrusted them; yea contrary to the principles of the Protestant Religion, the Privileges, Rights of Parliaments, the fundamental Laws of the Land, which they professed, covenanted, engaged inviolably to maintain, as they were Members; should be a true and unquestionable Parliament of England, of themselves alone, without either King or House of Peers, or the mainity of the secured and secluded Members; especially after the Kings beheading, which 
d 
See my Plea for the Lords. My legal Vindication against illegal Taxes.  
Prynne the Member, reconciled to Prynne the Barrister.   actually dissolved the Parliament, and sitting still under the over-awing guards and force of the Army? demanding of him in an earnest manner, by what Parliamentary or Legal Records, Histories, Law-books, resolutions of our Judges or Courts of Justice, he could prove that unparliamentary Juncto, to be a lawful English Parliament, when as his own science and conscience must attest, that they all declare and resolve them to be no Parliament at all? Whereunto he replied, he must needs confess, that all Records, Histories and Law books were clear against him; that they were no legal Parliament; but yet yet in this case of extremity, wherein we then were, It was lawful for the minor part of the Commons Houses to seclude the King and house of Lords, with the major part of their fellow-commoners, when they would have endangered the ship of the Commonwealth to preserve it from drowning; as I myself granted in one of my Books, that the Mariners might secure the master of the Sip, and thrust him from the stern, in case he would wilfully split it against a Rock or Quicksands, to preserve the ship and themselves from perishing: to which I rejoined; that the similitude suited not with the case in question. For the secluded majority of the Commons and Lords house, according to their trusts, duties, at the earnest desires of the generality of our three Kingdoms, endeavoured to preserve and secure the ship of the Commonwealths of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and bring it into a safe harbour, by a happy close with the late King, upon far more honourable terms and propositions for the subjects benefit, liberty, weal, security, to which the King consented, then ever we or our ancestors enjoyed, or our posterities can hereafter hope for; and laboured to their power, to prevent those bloody intestine wars between our Protestant Realms and Allies, and that prodigal expenses of many millions of treasure, which this violence upon the King, Peers and Commons house, have since produced, and is still likely to occasion, by these few Members confederacy with the Army; who in stead of saving have quite wracked the ship both of our true ancient Parliaments, and Republics, and of their new infant Common wealth too, and left us in a more desperate distracted unsettled condition, than they then found us (which he confessed to be true). Therefore he could no ways justify this their violence, much less infer from thence, that they were an undoubted true English Parliament, for by like reason he might make the Army, or General Council of Army Officers (the chief authors and actors in this violence only) to perpetuate their own armed power and our intestine wars for their own private ends (as now all clearly see) a true English Parliament▪ as well as that Fag end of the house of Commons confederating with them; who now too late repent of this their folly, treachery, and heartily wish, they had joined with us in our really endeavoured, and near accomplished settlement upon the King's confessions, which now they despair of more than ever, to enjoy under any New Government.  
To the second I replied, that admit them to be a true English Parliament (which I could not grant) yet certainly they neither would nor could grant him or his Whitehall associates any such unlimited arbitrary instructions and Tyrannical power, to close-imprison me or others in remote Castles under Soldiers, to break open, ransack our houses, studies, seize our writings, records; deny us liberty of God's Ordinances, or free commerce with others by conference or Letters, which the whole Parliament and themselves so lately condemned, sentenced and publicly voted, declared against, as repugnant to the great Charter, Laws, Liberties, properties of the Nation in my own and others cases, and made new acts against. And if any such exorbitant, tyrannical power had been granted them upon any pretence, yet the Statutes of 25 E. 1. c▪ 1, 2. E. 3. c. 1. declare them, to be null and void, and himself knowing them to be such in law, could neither in justice nor conscience pursue them to mine or others prejudice.  
To the third I subjoined, That the many desperate plots and conspiracies against the true real Commonwealth of England, were on his and his associates part, who subverted our old Fundamental Laws, Government, Monarchy, Parliaments and the free course of justice, by arbitrary power, force, and Courts of highest injustice, not on mine, or the secured and secluded Lords and Commons, who detested, opposed all their apparent late plots a●d conspiracies against them; and that now, by God's retaliating Justice, they poor infant Commonwealth (founded in Treachery, Perjury, Violence, Injustice, Blood, Tyranny) was suddenly subverted, destroyed, by that very armed power which first erected and engaged to support it still. But admit the allegation true; yet this was very ill Logic, and worse Law and Policy; because there were many plots and conspiracies against their new infant Republic by others; Ergo, he and his Whitehal associates might close-imprison me (after all my sufferings and services for the public) and all else they pleased, in remotest Castles, without cause or hearing, though guilty of no real crime, plot or conspiracy; which strange exorbitancy, in my judgement, was our principal cause of their new Commonwealths and Whitehall Counsels suddenunexpected downfals: However, I being a Member of Parliament that had then a being; neither he nor his Whitehal associates, could thus imprison and secure me by any general instructions, without a special order of Parliament, without th● highest breach of Parliamentary Privileges; and if there were no real Parliament in being which gave them their usurped authority, (as in truth there was not) they were then but a company of private men, destitute of all legal authority and had no more lawful authority to restrain or imprison me upon any pretext, than I had to imprison him or them, since Par in parem non habet imperium; as he well knew, without some special law authorising him.  
To the fourth I related; that if he knew not the particular grounds of my Imprisonment, than he could not positively resolve, that it was in order to the public safety. That to injure and oppress me, who had written, acted, and suffered so much for the public safety heretofore, was the high way to occasion, hasten, not prevent their public damages, and must certainly favour of much private causeless malice of some men towards me, rather than of public safety, or their private respects towards me. That I was so conscious of my own innocency, that I neither feared nor declined, but oft desired a public legal Trial for any thing he or his associates could object against me; which I could not attain; and to say now at last, that all they did was only out of tender respects and favour-towards me; was a very absurd and pitiful excuse; especially seeing he professed, he knew no ground nor reason for it. That Canterbury and the Prelates, might have made the same absurd allegation for my former close restraints as well as he, and that if himself should be so long close imprisoned in three remote Castles, under such armed guards, and unchristian restraints as I sustained under him, by me or any other his pretended friends, without any legal cause, hearing, trial; I doubted not, but he would interpret it, as an act of highest malice, Tyranny, and injustice, not as a special favour and tender respect towards him. That himself well knew, in the cases of many late Delinquents, illegal commands and commissions too from the King, Council, or any others, had been frequently resolved in Parliament, and elsewhere, to be no excuse, nor justification at all for those who obeyed or executed them; and therefore his pretended counsels, illegal commands to him, in relation to me, could neither extenuate nor justify his illegal warrants and restraints, in the least degree. That he was sorry to hear such poor excuses from a Lawyer; and that he should be so far overseen, as to expose himself alone to answer and satisfy all the illegal actions, and exorbitant Warrants he issued by their unjust commands, b●th against me and others; which they now totally disclaimed, and so lest him in the lurch to bear both the odium and damage of them.  
In brief, after near two hours' discourse, being unable to reply to my premised answers; he promised, to make a diligent speedy search after the particulars that were suggested against me, and to give me an undelayed account thereof, if there were any at all extant; as I presumed there were none; Whereupon we departing, and I hearing not from him in five week's space, I thereupon sent this ensuing Letter to him.  
SIR,  
I Presume by this time, according to your former promise, you have made an exact search and discovery, both of the Informers name, and particular Informators, upon which you committed me close prisoner near three years' space, to three remote Castles, without any hearing or trial, against all rules of Law or Justice; of which I desire to be presently informed, that so I may know how to steer my course in righting myself against this public injury (lest it prove presidential to prejudice posterity) in such sort as may most redound to my own vindication, and the common good of all English Freemen; which shall be the endeavour of  
Your Quondam close Prisoner, William Prynne.  
Since which I never receiving the least account or answer from him, I take this long silence for a satisfactory evidence of my innocence and his injustice in committing and injuring me as aforesaid, without any particular cause at all, yet discovered or declared, after so long a respite; whereupon to right myself the best I may at present in point of reputation, (till a time of future reparation in some other kind shall offer itself) I thought it both just and necessary for me to publish all the premises to the world; supporting and solacing myself in the mean time with these old Christian Cordials, of which I have had frequent experience, Psal. 37. 5, 6, 37, 38, 39, 40. Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgement as the noonday. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together, the end of the wicked shall be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord, he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked; and save them, because they trust in him. Mich. 7. 8, 9, 10. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. He will plead my cause, and execute judgement for me: he will bring me forth to the light, I shall behold his Righteousness. Then he that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover him which said unto me, Where is the Lord thy God? mine eyes shall behold him, and now shall he be trodden down as the mire of the streets.  
FINIS.   

A Useful Seasonable Corollary to and from the Premises.  
WHen I seriously contemplate with deepost grief of Heart and confusion of Spirit, how my late Imprisoners, with other of their Confederates (who made the greatest Profession of transcendent Piety, Justice, uprightness, Clemency, Humility, Selfe-deniall; cordial affection, & transcendent Zeal to the Fundamental Laws, Liberties, Franchises, Privileges, Ease, Weal, Establishment of their Native Country; published so many large 
* See An Exact Col●ction of them, in quar to and another in Folio, with an other of their new Knacks since, and their Declarations of Febr. 10. and April. 17. 1648.  Declarations, Remonstrances to the world, in print, asserting the same, and declaring their utter detestation and total extirpation of all arbitrary Government, Tyranny, Injustice, Oppression, Violence, illegal Proceedings, Imprisonments, Restraints, Seizures of Papers, ransacking of Houses, Executions, Taxes, Excises, Imposts, Arrays exercised by the late King, Strafford, Canterbury (whom they impeached, condemned, beheaded as the Greatest Tyrants) and by the old Council Table, Star-chamber, High Commission, and House of Lord●, which they totally suppressed as intolerable Greivances to the people; No sooner engrossed into their own hands (by force and fraud) the Supreme Power over their fellow-brethrens, and our Realms, but they presently degenerated by degrees in to more absolute Tyrants, greater Oppressors, Self-seekers, Invaders, underminers, Subverters of the Laws, Liberties, Properties of the Subject, the Rights, privileges, freedom of Parliaments, than the very worst of their condemned Predecessors, transcending them in all kinds of unrighteous Exorbitances, and acts of Injustice, Cruelty, Oppression; and that not only towards their declared common Enemies, but fellow-members, and most endeared, best respected, meritorious Christian friends; notwithstanding all sacred Oaths, Protestations, Vows, Leagues, Covenants, Christian & civil Obligations to the contrary: and that only for their constant Loyal●y, Fidelity, and adhesion to their first Principles, Oaths, Protestations, Covenants, Trusts, Duties; without the least Apostasy; for which they deserved their highest respects; and for opposing them in, dissuading them from those violent unrighteous Proceedings, and destructive public Changes which have occasioned so much effusion of Christian blood, such vast expenses of Treasure, and produced so many sad calamities to our 3 whole Nations, only as yet to make them more unsettled, more enthralled to all sorts of illegal Pressures then ever heretofore. It experimentally instructs both me and all others capable of any good instructions.  
First, of the infallible verity of these sacred Oracles Jer. 17. 9 The heart (of man) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? & Ps. 62. 9 Surely, men of Low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie, to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.  
Secondly, of the sad, tragical, dangerous fruits of ambitious affectations of Sovereignty, greatness; which instigates men oft times, to violate all Oaths, Laws, Trusts, Obligations, Relations, natural, civil, sacred, public, private, transforming them into savage▪ beasts, yea Saints themselves in external show, into incarnate Devils, and monsters of iniquity, treachery, cruelty. Witness. Judg. 9 5. to. 57 1 Kings 15. 27, 28, 29. c. 16. 9 11, 12. to 21. 2 Kings. 8▪ 13. 15. c. 10. 1. to. 15. c. 11. 1. c. 15. 10. 13, 14. 25. 30, The 
* Quintus Curtius Hist. l. 10. Justin. H●st l. 12. 13. 14. 15 16. 17. 18. Arrianus Hist▪ Alexandri. Jacobus usserius Annales ve●eris Testamenti, Plutarchi Cassander, Eum●nes, Diodorus Siculus, and others.  Barbarus treachery, cruelty, ingratitude of Cassander and other Captains to Alexander the great: who notwithstanding all their oaths, obligations▪ and pretended affections towards him, as their sovereign, general, advancer, first traitorously destroyed him with a poisoned potion, than murdered his own Mother, Wife's, Children, Brother, Kindred, interfectis etiam omnibus, quicunque Alexandrum etiam longinqua cognation●, &c the better to secure his dominions and treasures to themselves, which they divideth between them. After which they falling out between themselves, Warred upon and betrayed each other, till they were all slain and destroyed by one another. With sundry other foreign and domestic precedents, recorded in histories; many▪ whereof are collected by Sr. Walter Raleigh in his Preface to the History of the world; and Dr. Beard in his Theatre of God's judgements. Book. 2. c. 3, 4, 5, 10. 17. 41. where all who are guilty of this sin, or really dete●t it, may profitably peruse-them at their leisure: with this observation of Justin. Hist. ●. 16. touching God's retaliation upon such perfidious traitors and their families. Atque ita universa Cassandri domus Alexandro magno, seu necis ipsius, seu stirpis extinctae paenas, partim caede, partim supplicio luit. Sufficiently refuting that received Parodox of the Tragedian, 
* Seneca.  
* Psal. 73. 6. to 12. ● Isay. 14. 5. to. 18  Imperia quolibet precio constant benè.  
Thirdly, of the extraordinary dangerous, sinful, poysonful leaven, usually attending grand powers, offices, Preferments, which frequently transform not only proud ambitions carnal persons, but even the most humble, mortified, meek, just, upright, pious, selfdenying Saints, and greatest Patrons of Religion,▪ Laws, justice, public liberty, (without God's extraordinary restraining grace) into the very worst of tyrants, oppressors, Extortioners, especially when suddenly advanced by unlawful means or from an inferior condition to the highest pinnacle of sovereignty or Empire. This 
* In ●utropium l. r. See Roger Hoveden, Annal. pars posterior. p. 680.  Claudian a heathen Poet, long since observed, and thus elegantly expresseth. 
Asperius humili nihil est cum surgit in Altum.  
Cuncta ferit, dum cuncta timet; desaevit in omnes  
Ut se posse putent; nec Bellua tetrior ulla,  
Quam servi rabies in libera colla furentis.   
Yea such a strange corrupting transforming venom usually is there in Sovereign powers and dignities, (which ought really to make men 
* 2. Sam. 23. 3. 4. 2, Chr●n. 9▪ 8. c. 10. 5. 6. Isay. 32. 1. 2. Rom. 13. 3. 4. 6. Psal. 78.. 71. 72. 2. Sam. 5. 12. c. ●. 15.  Like to God himself, whose Deputies, Ministers, all lawful Kings and Magistrates are) in justice, righteousness, Clemency, Goodness, and zeal for their subjects welfare) that they frequently produce such strange alterations in men's minds, actions, and so wonderfully metamorphize them from what they formerly were, and thought themselves to be, that if God himself by a special Prophet from Heaven, should predict such a mutation to and in them, they would not believe him. Of which we have a memorable Scripture precedent. 2. Kings 8. 11, 12, 13. Hazael a Servant to the King of Syria being sent to Elisha by the King, to inquire, whether he should recover of his disease? the Prophet setting his countenance on him till he was ashamed, Wept. Whereupon Hazael said; Why weepeth my Lord? and he answered; Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword; and wilt dash their Children against the stones, and rip up their Women with child, & Hazael said; BUT WHAT IS THY SERVANT A DOG▪ THAT HE SHOULD DO THIS GREAT (or strange cruel) THING? And Elisha answered (only this) The Lord hath showed me, THAT THOU SHALT BE KING OVERDO SYRIA. Intimating that his unexpected advancement to and aspiring after the sovereign Power, should work such an incredible alteration as this in him. And so it did. For presently after, he smothered and murdered his own sick Sovereign in his bed, than invaded his Crown and reigned in his stead. v. 15. and not long after he invaded the Israelites with an army, slaying, & cutting them short, burning their Cities, oppressing & tyrannising over them (as Elisha predicted) in all the coasts of Israel. 2 Kings. 10. 32, 33. ●. 13. 3. 22. 25. Should Elisha himself have risen again from the dead, and foretold to Mr. Bradshaw and his confederates at Whitehall, Westminster and in the Army, but three or four years before their advancements to their New self created Supreme Powers; that they should so far degenerate from their first Principles, professions, Practices within few year's space, by unexpected advancements and Su●ces●es, that contrary to all their former Oaths, Protestations, Vows, covenants, Leagues, Declarations, Remonstrances, Commissions, Trusts, Obligations, Relations, Judgements, Resolutions, and all bonds o● Loyalty, Duty, Friendship, Law, Justice, they should forcibly undermine, subvert the Fundamentals of the Kingdom, the Rights, Privileges, Freedom (yea being) of parliaments and their members, more avowedly and desperately then ever beheaded Strafford, Canterbury or others had done in any former age. That they should engage the parliaments own Officers and Army against the Houses, Members, Privileges, and constitution of Parliaments themselves; forcibly secure, seclude, asperse in print, imprison, close imprison not only sundry Noble Lords, but myself, with many of the sincerest, Eminentest members of the Commons House, whom they then most honoured for their Piety, Ability, Fidelity to the public Interest: impeach, condemn, behead their Lawful Protestant King, disinherit his Posterity; Seclude th● greatest part of their fellow Commoners, vote down the whole house of Lords, create 50. or. 60. of themselves A Parliament of England, without King, Lords, or their secluded Associates. Arraigns, execute, the King, Nobles, Peers, Knights and other English Freemen in a New misintituled High Court of Justice (created by themselves alone) without any Lawful Trial by their Peers: alter the ancient Hereditary Monarchical Government of our three Kingdoms into a pretended Free State, Common Wealth, and other New-modles; erect New forms of Parliaments, seals, Coins, Writs, Courts, Legal Procedings; create New Treasons diametrically contrary to old ones: Suppress the Presbyterian Government and party for which they were then so Zealous: cut off the head of a Presbyterian Eminent Minister of their own party; imprison, sequester divers other godly Ministers whom they then most countenanced▪ preferred. Suspent all Penal Laws against Heretics, S●hismatickes, Blasphemers, Priests, Jesuits: Sell all the ancient Church Revenues formerly devoted by their Ancestors and voted by themselves for the better maintenance of the Ministry, and propagation of the gospel; With the ancient Crown Revenues which should defray the Ordinary expenses of the government. Repeal the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, which themselves had taken as Members, together with the Solemn Protestation, Vow, League, Covenant, made and prescribed by themselves under strict penalties; and set up a New Engagement, point blank against them (by which they were all abjured) under such disabilities, forfeitures, pains, as they inflicted on such who out of conscience and detestation of Perjury could not submit thereto: impose strange illegal, oppressing uncessant oft-condemned Excises, Imposts, Tonnage, Poundage, Monthly Contributions, Shipmoney, Arrays, Militiaes', and public Charges on the whole Nation without grant or consent in any free or Lawful English Parliament, as no former times can parallel▪ and themselves so frequently voted, declared, and passed particular Acts and Judgements against at the beginning of the Parliament; together with forcible Presses of Soldiers, Mariners, Seamen, from time to time against sundry New Acts and Declarations to which themselves were parties: and that only to keep up a constant standing Army in the three Kingdoms, to enforce these Illegal Taxes from them, and keep them under perpetual Bondage to their arbitrary new illegal self created Powers. That they should hostily invade their nearest, dearest Protestant Christian brethren of Scotland with an Army, against the Act of Oblivion, Solemn League, Covenant, and all their late Obligations to them for their Brotherly assistance; assault, beseige, pillage all their Cities, Castles, strong Holds, and burn some of them with ●●re; slay many thousands of their bravest Soldiers who assisted them, and ●heir stoutest young men with the sword, (yea hack, wound, maim thousands more of them in a barbarous manner) 
* 2▪ Chr●n. 28. 9  with a rage reaching up to heaven; slay some, persecute, imprison others of their eminentest Protestant Ministers, Nobles, Gentry, in remotest Castles; sell many of them for Bondslaves to remote Plantations; forage, Wast, destroy much of their Country with fire and sword, kill many of them with famine; keep all their whole Nation (like Bondslaves) under constant Garrisons, and Tributes; subvert their old Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws, Parliaments, Government, imposing New upon them by the sword; and be so far from repenting, or being grieved, humbled for these unchristian Cruelties towards them (upon no other known account, but their Loyalty to their lawful King, and conscientious adhering to their former Government, Lawful Oaths, Covenants;) that though some of them appointed General day of humiliation throughout the land by an 
* Exact Collection. P. 927. 928.  Ordinance of the 15. Febr. 1642. For the cruel and crying Sin of blood shed, especially of the Protestants in Queen Mary's time, and before, amounting but to some hundreds: yet they should after prescribe days of publikethanksgiving for the bloody slaughters of many thousands of their godly Protestant Brethren & victories over them, & hang up all their Captivated Ensigns in triumph in Westminster Hall, for a perpetual testimony of this their unprotestant, unbrotherly carriage towards them, contrary to the 
* Judg. 21. 1. to. 18. 2. Sam. 1. 12. to. 20. 2. 2. Chron. 28. 5. 1. John. 3. 10. 11. 12. 1. Cor. 12. 25. 26.  Practice of all godly people in former ages, and many 
* Judg. 21. 1. to. 18. 2. Sam. 1. 12. to. 20. 2. 2. Chron. 28. 5. 1. John. 3. 10. 11. 12. 1. Cor. 12. 25. 26.  gospel Precepts. That after this they should pick a quarrel with our old Protestant Friends and Confederates of the united Provinces by putting New restraints upon their Trading, beyond all former precedents, seizing their Ships, Merchandise as confiscate, and then engage them in a most bloody war and fights against them by Sea, to the destruction of many thousand Merchants, Mariners and their Families, the impoverishing of both Nations, the great decay, obstruction of Trade, and grand advantage, rejoicing of our Spanish and other Popish Enemies. That they should pull down the King's Arms by special Order out of all Churches, Courts and other public places, yet set up the bloody Cross (as the only Coat of England for the future, as it hath since been and is still like to be) in its place; though they formerly pulled down, demolished all Crosses in such places by special Orders, as Superstitious, and still permit the King's Arms and Images too upon his coin, where they yet pass currant. That whereas Christ himself in his Gospel commands all Christians; not only to 
* 1 Tim. 2. 1, 2. Math. 5. 43 to the end Rome 12. 20. 21.  make Prayers, Supplications and Intercessions for all men in general, and for KINGS and their very enemies in particular; but also not to hate, but love their Enemies, to do good to them that hate them, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute them; That they may be the Children of their father which is in heaven: For he maketh his Sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain both on the just and the unjust. Backing it with this reason. For if you love them that love you, what reward have you? do not even the Publicans the same? Be you therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect; Therefore if thine Enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst, give him drink. Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with goodness. In pursuance of which Precepts our King 
* 
Receptus erg● Edgarus et magno donativo donatus est, pluresque annos in Caria mancus; liber am.  
A genti quotidie in stipendi● accepi●bat. Will. Malmesburiensis De G●stis Regum Angliae l. 3. ●. 103. Math. Paris Hist: Angl. p 6. Speeds History. p. 442 Hiero. de Knyeth●on. de Eventibus: Angliae. l. 2. c. 3 col. 2350.   William the I. (though now branded for an inhuman tyrant by many) was so christianly Charitable, Noble, Heroic toward Edgar Athelirig (after he gained the Crown of England from the perjured usurper Harold by the sword) that although he was right heir, and his only Competitor to the Crown of England, twice set up in Arms against him by the English Nobility and King of Scots to force him from the Throne; yet after all his Forces broken, when he was quite deserted by his friends, upon his addresses to him in Normandy; he courteously received him into his favour, entertained him for sundry years together even in his own Court; Allowed him an Honourable pension of one pound of Silver every day, besides a large Donation. After which Edgar going to the holy wars into Apulia with many Ships and Soldiers, he was in return from thence, courteously entertained and had many benefits bestowed on him by the Emperors of Greece and Germany, who disired to retain him in their Courts; Which Courtesy he refusing out of love to his Native Country, returned again into England where he lived quietly all his Reign. And although 
* Simcon Dunelmensis Hist. An 1086. 1091 1097. Col. 213 216. 223. Chro●, Joannis Bromton. Col. 973.  William Rufus his Son, upon some differences arising between them (amounting to a competition to the Crown) banished him into Scotland for a time; Yet at l●st he received him both into his favour and Court too; and in the 7. year of his reign, sent him Chief Commander with an Army into Scotland, to establish his Cousin Edgar Son of King Malcombe, King in the Throne, and to expel his Uncle Dufenald, who had usurped it by violence. (Such was the Nobleness of these successive Kings to this-right Heir to their Crowns) That yet ●hey notwithstanding should contrary to these Gospel Precepts, and this domestic memorable precedent; contrary to the resolution of a very Heathen; 
* Seneca de Ira. l. 2. c. 3 4.  Nihil est iniquius quam aliquem Heredem paterni odii Fieri: To Gods own resolution, Ezec. 18. 17 2 Chron. 21. 6. 7. c. 28. 27. c. 33. 20. etc. and of our English Nobles and Nation, in the case of K. Hen. 3. whom they crowned for their K. notwithstanding his Father K. John's faults; Quia propria patris iniquitas ut CUNCTIS VIDEBATUR, Filio non debuit imputari: be so unchristian, uncharitable towards their beheaded Kings Royal Posterity, and Right Heir to the Crown, though Protestants; as not only to prohibit all public Prayers unto God for them, under pain of High Treason and severest Penalties; to banish them out of all their Realms and Dominious, to which they were 
* See 1 Jac. c. 1. 2.  borne Heirs, under pain of High Treason and death itself, if ever they set footing in them, not to allow any of them, the least breathing place therein; nor the least standing Pension for their necessary support in other Climates, out of their own Hereditary large Revenues which they have seized on; to prohibit any other within their Territories, publicly or secretly to aid or relieve them under pain of High Treason, loss of Liberty, Life, Estate: But likewise to treat with other foreign Protestant States and Princes, to banish both them and their Protestant Adherents out of their Territories; thereby to necessitate them (●o the intolerable Scandal of our Religion and Nation) to live upon the mere Alms of Popish Princes, and For●aig, ners, like distressed Exiles, to the great peril of their Souls, and apparent hazards of their seduction from our Religion, by exposing them to so manifold temptations provocations to renounce it. Of which the 
* S● Militiere his Victory of Truth.  Jesuits and Papists make great advantage to draw others from us to their Romish Superstitions: And not content herewith, to treat with those Popish Princes, Stats, where now they are entertained, to remove them out of their Dominions, and withdraw all Charitable Supplies for their relief, that so they may inevitably perish, and have neither being nor subsistence in this world, nor place to r●st their heads in. Which transcendent unparallelled Proceedings (as many intelligent Protestants conceive) have been the principle inpulsive cause and argument the Jesuits have made use of, to incite the Emperor of Germany to 
* As several● printed Diurnals. etc. An▪ 1653. 1654. 165●. relate, & Merchant's Letters thence.  banish all the Protestants by severest Edicts out of Bohemia Austria, Styria, and other his Hereditary Dominions? and incensed the Duke of Savoy by severe Proclamation, and by a bloody Army of Irish and other Papists, to massacre many thousands of them, and endeavour their utter extirpation out of his Territories, and will probably instigate all Popish Princes, States of Christendom to unite their forces together, to extirpate us and all other Protestants out of the world, for these premised unchristian Exorbitances, which 
* In his Victory of Truth.  Militiere and other Papists in late printed Books impute to the Principles of the Reformed Religion. Should Elisha himself, I say, have predicted all or any of these particulars to them before they were acted by them? and that they should publicly justify them before all ●he World in many Printed Papers, and most Christian, Righteous, Just, Heroical Actions, without the least remorse or shame (as they have done) I appeal to their own consciences; whether they would not have been as incredulous thereof, nay more discontented with the Prophet for meddling in them, as Hazael was, and would not have returned him the self same Answer as he did? or a worse; What are thy Servants Dogs, n●y Devils incarnate, and the Monsters of men, that we should do all these great, strange incredible things; And yet since they have acted them all over and pursued them with eagernes instead of repenting of them; and esteem all such their Capital Enemies, yea little less than greatest Tratyors to them and their New Republic, who out of cordial Love to their Souls, mere Conscience towards God, and duty to their Native Country, shall dare presume to dissuade them from, reprehend them for, oppose them in, or move them to sincere repentance for the same: Which I beseech them now in the fear of God, seriously to reveiw, retract, reform, if ever they expect grace or pardon before any Tribunal of God or Men, where they must sooner or latter be 
* 2. Cor. 5. 10. 11. Rev. 6. 15. 16. 17. c. 20. 12. 13. 14.  called to account for them, notwithstanding all their present Power or armed forces to secure them from humane Justice; unable to resist divine.  
From this perilous corrupting, transforming leaven usually accompanying Empire and great Honours, the very Heathen Philosophers and others deduced these three Proverbs 
* See Erasmi Adagia.  Honours mutant Mores: Magistratus virum indicat; vis nosse virum, committee imperium: And 
* De Vera ●t falsa Religio ne cap. De Magistratu.  Huldricus Zuinglius renders this reason of it. Adeo late vast●t hominum mentes rei gloriaeque ●upid●, tametsi interim pulchre celet omnia, & non alia res est quae latentes cupiditates magis exulcerat, QVAM IMPERIUM: tunc enim occasionem se invenire arbitrantur, qua maxime grassari possunt. Caeterum ubi jam via patet, nemo retrahere potest ut vel moderate videantur concupivisse, etc. He instanceth in two examples to prove what strange alterations, Empire and power, operate in men's minds and manners. First in King Saul; next in Pythagoras the Philosopher: 
* See Plutarch Diogenes Laertius, Diodorus Si●ulus, and others in his Life.  who although whiles a private person, he was such an extraordinary, humble, meek, pitiful, mortified, self denying, and cynical a person, that he would neither kill, nor eat any living creature whatsoever, nor any pulse or thing that had red spots or colour of blood upon it; renounced all worldly honours▪ pleasures, profits, pomp, pride; would seldom converse with men, or utter any word in any company, enjoining almost perpetual silence to himself and five years' taciturnity to all his Scholars ere they should presume to speak in public; yet no sooner was he made a King by the people, for his transcendent virtues seemingly against his will; but he became a transcendent bloody Tyrant: OMNIUM ingurgitavit & haud aliter at que two qui vino adobruuntur ebrius esset, & IN INNOXIOS FURERET, etc. Vnde PERICV LOSSISSIMA RES EST QVIQVAM COMMITTERE IMPERIUM. To pretermit all other foreign precedents of like nature, enough to fill whole Volumes; I shall instance only in one domestic one, not unseasonable for, and very parallel to our times; related by sundry of our Historians.  

* Math. Paris Hist. Angliae. p. 151 155. 156. 160 161. Gul. Nubrigensis. Rerum Angl. Hist. l. 4. c. 14. to. 19 Roger Hoveden. pars posterior. p. 687 700. to 708. 718▪ 719. 720. 735 etc. Fox Acts and Monuments. p. 114 123. 124. Holinshed. p. 121. 129. 130. 131. 132. Godwins Catalogue of Bishops p. 247. to. 261. Speeds History. p. 531. and My Antipathy of the English Lordly Prelacy to Regal Monarchy and Civil unity p. 202 to 211.  William Langchamp being advanced from an inferior condition by King Richard the first, to be Bishop of Ely, Pope's Legate, Lord Chancellor, Chief Justice and Protector of England (the first who enjoyed that title to my remembrance) during the King's absence in the holy Wars, Ann. 1191, etc. Was so strangely infatuated, intoxicated, metamorphosed by these his new honours and powers, that he acted many things, not only indiscreetly and untowardly, but also most arrogantly, insolently tyranically, unconscionably covetuously and cruelly; tyrannising beyond all measure over his Fellow▪ Commissioners the Kings own Brethren, all the Nobility, Clergy, Gentry and Commonalty of the R●a●me whom he perpetually grieved, oppressed with manifold continual and needless illegal exactions, pressures, proud insolent Speeches and behaviour, purveyances, proling Officers, Troopers, Guards, Garrisons, who by some means or other got all the wealth of the kingdom into his and their hands; by placing, displacing all Officers, and disposing all Offices, preferments in the Realm at his pleasure, by imprisoning, crushing, trampling under feet all such who durst oppose, or appeal against his Tyrannical Exactions, Proceeding, Usurpations against their ancient Liberties, Privileges, Rights, Laws, AS GUILTY OF HIGH TREASON OR SEDITION. And to keep the Nobility, Clergy, People in this servile condition under him, he kept a perpetual Guard of Frenchmen and Flemings about him, never riding abroad with less than 1500. Horse to guard him, and commanded all the Nobility and their Sons to attend upon him, and matched his Nieces and kinswomen to them, the better to secure and strengthen himself: Yea, he displaced all the Officers appointed by the King, and under pretext of suppressing Thiefs and tumults, placed garrisons of his own creatures, rather to destroy then govern it; who kept great troops of cruel and barbarous Soldiers, which road about armed in every place to terrify the people, and be the most wicked executioners of his Violence, rapine, covetousness, Exactions; sparing neither Clergy man, Monk, nor Layman, and committing many outrages, and cruelties in all places without punishment. And not contented herewith (being sensible of the Nobilities, Clergies and people's indignation against him for these his Exorbitances and Oppressions) he sent for div●rs foreign forces of his Friends and Confederates, placing them in the Castles and Garrisons of the Kingdom for his greater security. By which Tyrannical courses, Multis Terrorem incussit, Siluit▪ Regnum Angliae à facie ejus, nec fuit, qui obmurmuraret ●um sibi in Anglia nihil ad ex●vgnandum restaret, writes Matthew Paris. In brief Nu●rigensts records, That the Laity o● England experimentally found him MORE THAN A KING; And the Clergy MORE THAN A POPE, but both of them AN INTOLERABLE TYRANT. Solis complicibus et copri●toribus suis innoxius: caeteris indifferentur, non tantum PECUNIARUM AMBITV, verum etiam DOMINANDI VOLUPTATE ERAT INFESTUS, For by reason of HIS DOUBLE POWER (or rather treble, civil, Ecclesiastical & Military) he usurping the Militia into his own hands alone) HE PUT ON THE PERSON OF A DOUBLE TYRANT most arrogantly domineering both over the Clergy and people, making use of both his powers, the more easily to accomplish his designs, and crushiug those with his Military and royal power, whom he could not subdue with his Ecclesiastical Authority. Non erat qui se absoonderet à calore ejus cum & secularis in eo virgam vel GLADIVM Apostolicae potestatis timeret: His pomp and pride was more than royal almost in all things; Yet, such was his secret 
* 
Necesse est ut multos timeat, quem multi timent. It a natu● ra constituit, ut quod al●en● m●tu magnum est, à suo non vacet. Quicquid terret, et trepidat.  
Seneca de Ira▪ l. 2. c. 11.   fear in the midst of his greatness: That Clericorum stipatus Catervis MILITUMQVE VALLATVS AGMINI●VS, Orientalium more Regum TANQVAM IN EXPEDITIONE JUGITER POSITUS ARMATORUM CIRCA CUBICULUM SWM HABERE EXCVBIAS VOLVIT; keeping great armed guards about him day and night; wheresoever he was, or went.  
Hereupon the Nobility and People unable to suffer his intolerable insolences and oppressions any longer, complained most greivously of them ●o the King; who thereupon writ to some Nobles to examine and redress these Greivances; And upon the instigation of Earl John the King's Brother, the Nobles of England raising great forces, to suppress and eject this Tyrant, met in a kind of Parliament the Saturday after Michaelmas, Anno. 1191. at L●don Bridge between Reading and Winds●r; and after that in Paul's Church, and on the East part of the Tower of London, where all the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls and Barons there assembled agreed, and resolved the unanimous consent of all; Vt talis de caetero in Regno Angliae non dominaretur, per quem Ecclesia Dei ad ignominiam, et POPV●VS AD INOPIAM TRAHEBA●VR. Ipse enim Cancellarius et satellit●s ejus, OMNES REGNI DIVITIAS IT A EXHAUSERANT, Vt nec viri Baltheum argento redimitum, ne faeminae monile, nec viri nobili annulum, vel Judaeo relinquerent the saurum, vel quidlibet precio●i. The saurun quoque domini regis adeo evacua▪ verant▪ ut in scriniis au●●lit●llis, Nihil praeter c●aves et vasa vacua possent de elapsa Biennio inveniri. Provisum est etiam. Vt o●●ia castella, quae pro libitu suo idem cancellarius cu●todiae satellitum suorum commisserat, redderentur, & in primis Ipsa turris Londinensis. This insolent Oppressor now finding himself unable to resist the nobles (most of his Friends, rebellious forces deserting him in his distresses) fled to the Tower of London, refusing to appear before the Lords, for fear of violence, notwithstanding security tendered to him; but at last being necessitated thereunto, he swore to perform whatsoever the Lords had Decreed, giving sureties to surrender up all the Castles to them, and to depart the Realm. Whereupon laying down his Offices and Legates Cross, he came to Dover; thinking in a clandestine manner to pass the Seas: and the better to deceive the Mariners eyes, he disguised himself in women's apparel; virum in faeminum convertit, dum vestem Sacerdotis in meretricis habitum commutavit; tunica virida faeminea indutus. But being casually discovered by a Mariner to be a man, (who desired to make use of him as his strumpet) and that hateful Chancellor whom so many had cursed and feared, a company of women and vulgar people in great despite, threw him to the ground, spit upon and beat him very sorely, dragged him by the heels along the Sands, and would (no doubt) have torn him in pieces, had not some of the Burgesses of the Town rescued him out of their hands, and thrust him into a Seller, where he was detained prisoner till they knew the Lords pleasure concerning him. 
* Se● Godwin in his Life.  Thus he who but a few months before was honoured and feared by all men like a demigod, attended with so many Officers, Nobles, Guards, and pretended Friends being once down and standing in need of his Friends help, had no man to defend or speak for him, no man that moved a tongue or finger to rid him out of his present calamity, lying long in this sad pickle, till at last being set at liberty by some Bishop's means, he passed with scorn and contempt into Normandy, his native Country. Let those who now imitate him in his Tyrannies, Oppressions, Insolences, Rapines, and imposing armed Guards and Garrisons on the Nation to enslave them, take heed they follow him not in his sudden shameful downfall.  
From these and infinite other Precedents of men's strange Degeneracies & Transmutations by their high Honours, Powers, in all ages, we may well cry out with godly 
* De vera et falsa Religione. cap. De Magistratu.  Zuinglius Quis nunc tuto cuiquam committat Imperium, cum simplicissimos & sapientissimos videamus imperio immutatos esse? And let all conscientious Christians truly fearing God, learn these profitable Instructions from the serious contemplation of them.  
1. Not over severely to aggravate, censure the Exorbitances of our late or former Kings, or their Officers, Counsellors, Courts; since other late Reformers who have most eagerly declaimed against, censured, condemned and totally suppressed them as the greatest Grievances and Tyrants, have far transcended them ever since in their very worst Exorbitances, and degenerated into more absolute Tyrants, Oppressors, Grievances in most kinds than they were heretofore, as their late Acts, Edicts, Actions and Speeches proclaim to all the world.  
2. Not greedily or ambitiously to seek after Empire, Sovereignty, Power, Magistracy, great Offices, or Preferments (
* Gal. 6. 1. 2.  
* Miserimam ergo necesse est non tantum brevissimam vit am eorum esse, qui magno parant labour, quod majore possideant; operose assequuntur quae volunt anxij tenent quae asscutâ sunt maximae quaeque, boxae sollicite sunt, neculli fortunae minus bene quam optimae creditur, Aliae faelicitate ad tuendam faelicitatemopus est et pro ipsis quae successarunt votis, vota facienda sunt. Seneca De Brevitate vitae c. 17.  being so full of perils, cares, fears) especially, by violent, fraudulent, corrupt, unlawful meane●, but rather modestly and carefully to decline them, for fear of being depraved, altered, and brought if not to temporal, yet to eternal ruin by them, as thousands have been.  
Thirdly in case they be lawfully called, urged, and in a manner enforced against their wills, without their solicitation to any places of great Power, Trust, or Honour, to be very cautious how they undertake them, to examine their own abilities faithfully to discharge them, with the strength of their Christian graces to resist, conquer, those manifold temptations unto sin, and gross Corruptions, which usually attend them; and earnestly to seek to God by prayer for special direction in the acceptance or rejection of them.  
Fourthly, If God and their own Consciences upon warrantable grounds incline them to embrace such Powers or preferments, then to make it their earnest prayer to God (as 
* 2 chro●. 1. 8. 9  Solomon did) to bestow upon them an extraordinary measure of Grace, Wisdom, Knowledge, Courage, Diligence and sincerity, to manage them rightly to God's glory, the people's weal, happiness; and to avoid all those corruptions, temptations to Oppression, Injustice, Pride, Violence, etc. which usually attend them.  
Fif●hly, To engrave these sacred scriptures always in their hearts and memories: 2 Sam. 23. 3, 4. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God: with 2 Chron. 19 6, 7. Rom. 13. 3, 4. 2 Chron. 9 8. Jer. 7. 5. 8. c. 23. 5, 6. Zech. 7. 9, 10. Execute true Judgement throughly, for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgement: take heed what you do; and show mercy and compassion every man to his Brother. And oppress not the widow nor fatherless, the stranger nor the poor, and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in his heart. Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. As likewise Rom. 11. 21. Be not high minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed left he also spare not thee: 1 Cor. 10. 12. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. And withal to imitate our pious Saxon King Edelwolf, of whom Abbot 
* De Gene●logia Regum Anglorum. Col. 351.  Ethelred gives this Encomium, Hi● in Regno terreno semper meditabatur celeste; ut manifeste daretur intelligi, eum non victum cupiditate, sed charitate provocatum, alienae necessitati regnando consulere, non suae voluntati dominando satisfacer●.  
Sixthly, To beware how they give the least way, to any unjust or unrighteons' Project, Judgement, Commitment, Imposition, action, 
* See. 2. E. 3. c 8▪ 20. E▪ 3. c. 1. 2 and 18▪ E. 3 Oath of the Justice's.  contrary to the known Laws of God or the Land, to the prejudice of any private Person, or the whole Nation, upon any pretended Necessity, Extremity, Conveniency, public advantage, or to satisfy the unjust desires, or commands of an● Powers or Persons whatsoever: lest it prove an inlet, and leading precedent to far more, worse, greater Exorbitances, Injuries, Oppressions, Sins, and necessitate them at last to defend one wickedness or act of Injustice, by another, till they plung themselves over head and ears, beyond recovery in sin and damnation, to their temporal and eternal ruin. 
* Ovid. De R●medio Am●ris.  Principiis obsta: is the best resolution in such cases.  
Seventhly, Diligently to examine by the rules of law conscience and right Reason, every Action, Project, Design proposed to, or imposed on them, by these three notable Interrogatories of Saint 
* De Consideration●. lib▪ 1.  Bernard: Whether it be Lawful? Decent? Expedient? And if upon due consideration, it fail in any of these three circumstances, then peremptorily to reject it, proceed no further in the execution; but rather willingly to quit their Offices, Honours, Powers, than their Justice, Honesty Consciences in such cases; according to our Saviour's advice, Matt. 16. 26. and the Apostles resolution, Acts 4. 19, 20. and c. 5. 29. We ought to obey God (and the Laws too) rather than men.  
Eighthly, To 
* Psal. 141. 5. 6. Prov. 19 20. 25. c. 9 8. 1 Sam. 25. 18. to 36.  listen with a willing ear and thankful heart to the informations, admonitions, oppositions, reprehensions of their realest Christian friends, and eminentest sincerest Patrons of their Country's Laws, Rights, Liberties, in all cases of public concernment; rather then to mere creatures &▪ dependants of their own, or to the suggestions of projecting self-seekers. And when they are opposed by such in any of their designs, to consider that excellent saying of Seneca, which will not only mitigate their anger against such, but reclaim them from such injurious prosecutions and designs. 
* De Jra. l. 3. c. 28. 29.  Quidam verò non tantum JUSTAS CAUSAS standi contra nos, sed etiam Honestas habent. Alius Patrem, alius Fratrem, alius Patruum alius amicum: (alius Patriam) His tamen non ignoscimus id facientibus, quod nisi facerent, improbaremus. Immo, quod est incredibil●. Saepe de facto bene existimamus, de faciente male. At me hircule vir magnus & justus fortissimum quemque ex hostibus ' suis. Et pro libertate ac salute Patriae pertinacissimum suspicit: & Talem sibi civem, talem militem contingere optat turpe est odisse quem laudes, etc. Which had my injurious imprisoners duly considered before they committed me close prisoner, they would have been more ashamed to commit me, than now they are ashamed of my long injurious imprisonment, without any legal ground or cause.  
If any in present or future Power, contemning these Christian Instructions, and all Laws of God and Man, shall think to support themselves in any Arbitrary, violent, illegal, oppressive ways to the general oppression of the people, by the power of armed Forces. Let them remember that of Psalm 33. 16. There is no King saved by the multitude of an Host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. And know that all the Hosts, Guards under Heaven can neither save nor secure any unrighteous violent Tyrants or, Oppressors from the Justice of that Omnipotent God, who hath decreed, Psal. 140. 11. Evil shall hunt the man of violence to his overthrow: that bloody, violent and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, be brought down by him into the pit of destruction. Psal. 55. 23. And that all those who take the Sword, shall perish by the sword. Mat. 26. 42. Which the Histories of all ages, places, Zach. 9 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Isay. ●4. 10. to 20. worthy their saddest perusal with the forecited precedent of William Lanchamp sufficiently confirm; their very Armies, Guards themselves becoming many times their Executioners, as Seneca de Clementia l. 1. c. 25, 26. most elegantly records. Yea sometimes the most victorious Generals, Arms, when they prove treacherous too, and mutinous against their Sovereign Lords and Masters, contrary to their Oaths, Trusts, become mutually treacherous and destructive to each other in conclusion: Of which I shall give you only one memorable example. When Alexander the great, his Captains had after all his Conquests poisoned him, murdered his Mother, Wife's, Sons, and all his Kindred, and divided his Kingdoms, Dominions and Conquests between them, by divine Justice for his unjust, ambitious invasions of others Crowns, and Territories; their own ambition & covetousness, presently armed them against each other, till they and their old victorious conquering Army with thousands more were totally slain and destroyed one by another. Amongst the rest 
* See Justin, Hist. l. 12. to 18 Qu. Curtius. Hist. l. 10. Plutar●hi. Alexander, Antigonus, Eumenes, Dr. Usher annal veteris Testamenti. pars. 1.  Eumenes (the greatest Politician of them all, and inferior to none of them in valour) to whom Cappadocia and Paphagonia were asigned; having gained two victories against his Opposites; and routed Antigonus and his Army in a third Battle with part of his forces; The Arggraspides (Alexander's old invincible Army, by whom he obtained all his Conquests) growing mutinous and contemning his commands, because some of Antigonus forces in that battle had taken their Wives & Children, Prisoners, with all the spoils and rewards of their long warfare. Thereupon they refused to fight any more to regain their Wives, children, plunder and openly reviled 
* Plutarch. in his Life. Justin Hist. l. 12. 12 14.  Eumenes as the cause of this great loss of all they had gained in the former wars, by engaging them in new wars in their old age, with vain deceitful promises. And presently (without their Captain's knowledge) sen● secret Messengers to Antigonus, petitioning him, to restore their Wives, Children and plunder to them; who promised to restore them, if they would deliver up Eumenes to him. Whereupon they forthwith seized upon Eumenes, as he was endeavouring to escape their hands, and bound him in chains to carry him captive to Antigonus: Upon which craving leave to speak to the Army, which was granted: He used these expressions to them, showing them the chains they had treacherously laid upon him against their Oaths. * Cernite Milites habitum atque ornamentum Ducis vestri; quae non hostium quisquam imposuit: nam hoc etiam solatio foret▪ VOS ME EX VICTORE VICTUM, VOS ME EX IMPERATORE CAPTIWM FECISTIS: QVATER INTRA HUNC ANNUMIN mea VERBA JUREJURANDO OBSTRIATI ESTIS: & ista mitto. Verum oro: si propositorum Antigoni in meo capite summa consistit, inter vos me velitis mori: Nam neque illius interest, quemadmodum aut ubi eudam, & ego fuero ignominia mortis liberatus. Hoc si impetro, soluo v●s Jurejurando, quo toties vos Sacramento▪ mihi devovistis. Aut si ipsos pudet roganti vim adhibere, ferrum huc date, & permittite quod vos facturos pro Imperatore jurastis, Imperatorem pro vobis sine religione juramenti facere. When they would neither slay him themselves, nor permit him to kill himself, upon this his pathetical request, turning his entreaties into imprecations against them, for their perjuries, treacheries to him, and their other Generals, he said. At vos devota capita, respiciant Dii perjuriorum vindices, talesque vobis exitus dent, quales vos ducibus vestris dedistis. Nempe vos iidem paulò ante, & Perdi●ae sanguine estis aspersi, & in Antipatrum eadem moli●i. Ipsum denique Alexandrum, si fas fuisset eum mortali manu cadere, Interempturi; quod ●aximum erat, seditionibus agitastis. Vltima nunc ego perfidorum victima: ●as vobis diras atque inferias dico, ut inopes, extorresque omne ●vum in hoc castrensi exilio agatis, devorentque vos arma vestra quibus●plures vestros quam hostium Duces absump●istis. After which commanding his Keepers to go before with him to Antigonus his Tents; The whole Army followed their General whom they thus betrayed, who being himself a Captive, led the triumph of himself and his army likewise into the Tents of his conquered Enemy, delivering up all the fortunes, successes of King Alexander; all the palms and Laurels of so many wars and victories, together with themselves into Antigonus his hands; together with the Elephants and Eastern Auxiliaries following them, that nothing might be wanting to the triumph. Antigonus overjoyed with this unexpected success, more glorious to him then all Alexander's victories, in that he had thus overcome those by whom Alexander had Conquered the World; divided these conquerors of the World, through out his Army; restoring what was taken from them, according to his promise. But in a few days after 
* Plutarchi Eumenes.  Ibricius by his command, put all these mutinous Argyraspides conquerors and Plunderers of the World to the sword, destroying every man of them, not so much as one escaping; & prohibiting Eumenes to come into his presence, verecundia prioris amicitiae, committed him to custody, and soon after caused him to be slain; being not long after slain himself in a battle by his former fellow Captains under Alexander, who destroyed each other by the sword. This was the tragical end of Alexander himself, and of all his victorious old Conquering, Plundering, Treacherous Officers and whole Army too; which our conquering, domineering Army, Officers, Soldiers now, with all depending on their support, may do very well advisedly to consider, upon this information of their late long causeless Prisoner, under their strictest guards; who shall close up all with Solomon's words, (which he hopes to find experimentally verified, for this his impartial Discovery): Prov. 28. 23. He that rebuketh a man, afterwards shall find more favour, than he that flattereth with the tongue: and Prov. 9 8, 9 Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee, Give instruction to a wise man and he will yet be wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.  
FINIS.   

Courteous Reader, I shall desire thee to excuse these many Erratas through the Author's absence by the Printers.  
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