THE general COMPLAINT of the most oppressed, distressed COMMONS of ENGLAND. COMPLAINING TO, AND Crying out upon the Tyranny of the perpetual Parliament at Westminster.  Written by one that loves, serves, and Honours the KING, and also holds the Dignity of a Parliament, in due honourable Regard and Reverence. JO. TA. 
IT is needless to demand, from what Shire, County, City, Corporation, Town, Burrough, Village, Hundred, Hamlet, House, Family, Persons or person this Complaint comes, for it were a rare search, and would trouble the brains of all the cunning men, and wisest Mathemagicians, with all the judicial Astrologers, and Fortune-telling Figure-flingers, to tell us truly where this complaint is not. It is so universal epidemically general, that whosoever hath not a grievous sense or remorseful feeling of it, hath a soul stupefied, and a conscience benumed mortally with a dead palsy.  
We the most miserable amongst men, do make humble suit to you, who (next to our sins and selves) are the cause and causers of our miseries, you do best know the nature and condition of our griefs, you had the power, will and skill to wound us, and you have the art and knowledge to make us whole; you have the secret virtue which is feigned to have been in Achilles his lance, to hurt and cure. We are sure that the King most graciously eased and removed all our greivances, (or as many as we complained on) there was not a monopoly, a tax, toll or tribute left, that was grievous or justly offensive, but they were all either made void, or mitigated, neither did his Majesty deny you any thing that you did demand, nor you ever grant him any thing that he requested; and to our griefs we speak it, it had been better he had been more sparing of his royal grants, except you had more. Loyally and gratefully dealt with him, and acknowledged them. We need not tell you, that the Protestant Religion is almost cast out of the Kingdom by you. It is impertinent to give you notice how you have used the King, so that the meanest of yourselves would be loath to be so dealt withal; How we have been beggared and ruined by you, we know▪ how you have enriched yourselves by undoing us, you know, and when you will endeavour to seek peace, and cease those mischiefs which we suffer, God knows.  
self do, self have, is an old English proverb. It is only our own doings that hath undone us, it was our tongues that extolled you, it was our voices that was your advancement, it was our noises that Elected you to that power, which you have turned into intolerable Tyranny, it was we that did rend our throats for a Kimbolton, a Hampden, a Pym, a Martin, a Haslerigge, a Hollis, and a great many more than a good many. It was we that made you Knights and Burgesses for the Shires, Counties, Cities, towns, boroughs, Corporations; and for us, it was our follies to do all this for you, for which it is too too manifest what you have done for us. Thus by our means you were raised, and by our ruins you are enriched. The premises considered, we humbly beseech you to take these few following lines into your serious considerations, and at your pleasure or leisure, confute them if you can.  
It is a main point of Romish doctrine, that the Pope cannot err in matters of Faith, (which error of theirs is far from our opinions) but this we are too sure of, that you have all erred in matters of trust. We the Freeholders and Commons of England do lamentably know and feel it; folly and foolishness, are the only opposites to wisdom, and Knowledge hath no enemy but Ignorance, this being confessed, we pray you to remember, that our rash folly elected you to be the representative body of the kingdom, which we did acknowledge you to be; and we most humbly desire you to consider, that we are the body of the kingdom represented; now as a thing representative is but a derivative from that which is the represented, so is your power derived from us, and from us who are but men full of infirmities and errors; though our voices had power to give you power, to be a house of Commons in Parliament; yet from those voices and folly of ours, we had not power to infuse infallible and inerrable wisdom into you.  
We (as men) confident of your integrity, did choose you as our Proctors and attorneys, the King's Majesty, with his best council, and we (the poor Commons) entrusted you with all we had, but we had no mistrust that you would deceive us of all we had, we trusted you to maintain our Peace, and not to embroil us in an universal endless bloody War. We trusted you with our Estates, and you have robbed, plundered, and undone us; we trusted you with our freedoms, and you have loaden us with slavery and bondage, we trusted you with our lives, and by you we are slaughtered and murdered every day. We trusted you not with our souls, and yet you with a new Legerdemain doctrine, a juggling kind of Preaching, a pestiferous swarm of Preachers, a mechanic kennel of illiterate knaves, with the threats and Tyranny that you have used to us, and the execrable Covenants which you have forced us to take, we might with as much safety, and less hazard, have trusted our souls with Judas, Julian th' Apostate, or the devil himself, as with you, or your Doctrines.  
Many thousands of souls, (loaden with their sins) are Impenitently parted from the Bodies of His majesty's Subjects (by your seducements and enforcements) and (alas) few of them knew the Cause wherefore they fought, or wherefore they so cruelly killed one another. You will say, that you fought for the Protestant Religion, (that's a lie) it is known, that it was never offered to be taken from you, and that His Majesty will live and die in it, and the defence and maintaining of it; do you fight against the King, as fearing He would take from us our laws and Liberties, in those points we plainly perceive, that He never intended any such wickedness? But if He had had any such unkingly and tyrannical intention, you have prevented Him, and done it yourselves.  
Do you fight against Him, and murder His loving Subjects, for fear that He should bring in Forreigne-Nations to destroy us, (which thought never entered into His royal Heart) but you have done the same, both against His Majesty and us, you have at exceeding Rates and prices (with our moneys) bought Rebellious Scots, who have sold themselves to you, and to work wickedness, no purpose to ruin the King, the kingdom, you and us, and as the devil could not overthrow man without the help of the woman, so you could never destroy this Church and State without your Golden temptation of those accursed hirelings, which if you were to fell them again, at half a quarter of the price they cost, it must be at a very dear Market.  
It is an old saying, that the King of Spain is a King of Men, because the Spaniards (as men and loyal Subjects to him) do honour, obey, and serve him. That the French King is a King of Asles, because of the insupportable heavy burdens, Taxes, and slavery which they undergo and tamely bear. But ('tis said) the King of England is a King of devils, because of their disobedient murmurings, and often Rebellion. For the nature of an English man is, not to know when things are well, which if we would have known, things had not now been so bad as they are.  
Do you fight against the King to remove some evil councillors from him? we know that you have long fiddled upon that string, yet you could never name one of those Counsellors, nor relate any particulars against them, that might so much, as put a scratch, scar, or spot upon their Integrity, either to His Majesty or the public good; all that can be said, either against the King, Queen, Nobility, or any loyal Royalist, is vented through your learned conduit Pipe, Mercurius Britanicus, who (by your especial favour and Command) rails and Reviles, Sheetly, weekly, most wickedly weakly, Cum Privilegio.  
Thus we perceive, that you pretend to fight for the Protestant Religion, and all the World may see and say, you have made a delicate dainty Directory, new Religion of it. And you have fought for the King, (and that is most certain) you have fought and sought for the King, but it hath been to Catch him, and make him no King. You have fought for our Liberties, and have taken them from us, you have fought for the gospel, and have spoiled the Church, you have fought for our Goods, and ye have 'em, and you have fought to destroy the kingdom, and you have done it. What can you do, or what would you do more? and still you persist in these impious Courses, and there is no hope of any end of our sufferings.  
The many Gulleries, that you have put upon us, would fill a large Volume, if they should be written or Printed; and because you shall not think us to be fenceless, or such blockheads as you would make us, you shall know that we know somewhat. And to lay aside all old Dogge-tricks, how this Rebellion hath been a Brewing more than 60 years, we will let you know, that we know many of your State sleights and Policies within these three years, &c.  
You have extorted great sums of money from us, under the pretence of Relieving of Ireland, and with the same moneys, you have maintained a bloody war in England, so that whatsoever was Raked from us, for the preservation of one kingdom, you have employed for the destruction of three; for England is cheated, Ireland, defeated, and Scotland is heated in her own dissentious flames.  
You have pretended Treaties for Peace, when (God knows) Peace was never in your Thoughts, (as by your impudent Propositions and demands may appear) for if the Turk had made a Conquest here, he could not have devised, or would not have enjoined and tied the King, and his true liege People to harder Conditions, and then (to salve your Reputations) you have caused your lying Lecturers, and slanderous Pamphlets to revile the King, and lay all the fault on him for the breaking off of the Treaties, when as you had Consulted, and knew before, that your unreasonable demands, neither would or could be granted.  
You have abused and mocked God, with false and forged thanksgivings, for such Victories as never were, and with your Sophisticated Triumphs of Guns, B●lls, bonfires, Ballads, libels, and other Imposture-like expressions, whereby we have been seduced and encouraged to give more and more Contributions, and buy our own utter undoeings, for (like corrupted and covetous Lawyers) you would not take so much pains, or do us the courtesy to beggar us Gratis, to ruin us for nothing; And you would not by any entreaty make us miserable at a cheap rate, or except we gave you our, moneys, almost to the uttermost farthing.  
Many of your Faction (like decoy Ducks) brought in their Plate and moneys at the beginning of this Rebellion, in large proportions to the Gull-Hall of London, whereby thousands of people were gulled, by deed of gift, (or deeds of shift) and new found loans, and Contributions, to maintain your greatness, and feed your bottomless Avarice, whilst we, and the rest of your new shorn sheep, had no other assurance, but the airy pawn of a Confounding Faith, called public; and those cheating decoys, who first gave, and lent to draw poor fools on, Those Knaves had their Plate and moneys privately delivered to them again, whilst ours was accursedly employed against the true Religion, a just King, and all His loyal Protestant Subjects.  
You have (to make your Victories seem great) caused many of your own tattered ensigns, Cornets, or Colours of Foot and Horse, with many arms, to be privately sent out of the City in an Evening at one Port, and brought in at another Port in the morning in Triumph, making the People believe, that those Colours and arms, were taken from the King at such and such a battle; and this trick hath hooked us into more chargeable and Rebellious Contributions.  
You have caused thousand of arms to be bought and brought from foreign Nations, and those arms, you have proclaimed to be taken at Sea, and that either the King had bought them to make war against the Parliament, or that they were sent Him for that purpose, from some Catholic Prince; and this slight of Hand, hath often juggled away our moneys.  
You have many times, made Women believe that their slain Husbands who went forth with you alive, were alive still, in such or such Garrisons of yours, when you knew the same men were killed, and left dead in ditches for crow's meat, but that His Majesty graciously caused the dead to be buried, and the maimed and wounded, to be relieved and cured.  
You have contrived Letters in Private Chambers, and you have subscribed them from foreign Kings and States, or from the Queen to the King, or to some other Persons of Worth and Eminency near His Majesty, which Letters have been as full of forged dangerous consequences, as your wicked brains could thrust or foist into them; And by some miraculous way, the said Letters have been either intercepted on the Land (by some vigilant great Commander of yours) or they have been said to be taken at Sea by your valiant admiral; then are those Letters openly Read, and copied out a thousand ways, Printed ten Thousand ways, dispersed a Hundred Thousand ways, and believed by Millions of People, by the prating of your Preachers and Pamphlets, which tricks have cost us some Millions of money, with many thousand of our lives.  
You have many times taken (or intercepted) Letters which have been sent from some of His majesty's Armies, Garrisons, or some other true and loyal places or Persons, or from the King or Queen, one to another; and those Letters have been publicly Read and Printed, but you have new moulded them, you have made your own Constructions and Interpretations on them, and in a word, you have not only the procreating Art, to beget and engender such news, as you please to have; but also you are fruitful in conceiving, and producing such Letters as hath or may be most for your advantage; as Lately you have used in His majesty's Cabinet, which you took at Naseby, and broke open at Westminster, and made the Letters therein, to speak what you would have them; But (maugre all your malice) the said Letters are as so many crystal mirrors, wherein His Kingly care, His Christian Piety, His immovable Constancy, in the service of God, in the Protestant Religion, in the Peace of His Kingdoms, and in the welfare of His Subjects, all these His Letters do show (in despite of your wrested comparisons, and mingle, mangle juggling alterations) His Transcendent goodness, and most gracious inclination, and royal Resolution, and withal, your mischievous intentions are plainly manifested, in that you still persist in your wicked courses against so gracious a sovereign. But there are more judicious, learned, and grave writers than any of us (your oppressed Complainants) whose Pens have better described your playing fast and loose in this kind, to whose better Informations we leave you.  
We do most heartily wish, that you were all as weary of being Tyrants, as we are in bearing the insupportable burdens of your Tyranny; we do humbly beseech you to be pleased to give over beggering and killing of us, we pray you to suffer us to live and enjoy the Protestant Religion, we desire you to let us feed and subsist upon that little which you have left us (against your wills;) and lastly, we entreat you not to enforce us into a desperate Condition, and make us do we know not what.  
His Majesty, as a true Defender of the true Faith, doth with Truth defend that Faith, and He hath most graciously often offered you Peace and Truth, both which you pretend, but you intend neither. Lay down your arms, that's the nearest way to a Peace, and leave Lying, and you shall have Truth. If you will not, we would have you know, that we must take a course, that neither our Purses or Persons, shall not long maintain you and your Rebellious Garrisons, (who are no other but dens of thieves) and as our Tongues did lift you up, and made you able to abuse the King, the Religion, Church, and kingdom, so our Hands must help to pull, or knock you down, to recover part of that of which you have bereft us, and to keep about us to Relieve us, that little which yet we have left us.  
FINIS.