THE ORDINANCE AND DECLARATION of the LORDS and COMMONS, for the Assessing all such who have not contributed sufficiently for raising of Money, Plate, etc.  
WITH HIS MAJESTY'S DECLARATION TO all His loving Subjects upon occasion thereof.  

Charles R.  
OUr express pleasure is, That this Our Declaration be Published in all Churches and Chapels within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales, by the Parsons, Vicars or Curates of the same.   
Printed by His MAJESTY'S Command at OXFORD Decemb. 8.  
By LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the University. 1642.   

An Ordinance and Declaration of the LORDS and COMMONS in PARLIAMENT.  
WHereas the King seduced by wicked Counsel hath raised an Army; and levied War against the Parliament, and great number of Forces are daily raised under the commands of Papists and other illaffected persons, by Commissions from His Majesty; And whereas divers Delinquents are protected from public Justice by his Majesty's Army, and sundry outrages and rapines are daily committed by the Soldiers of the said Army, who have no respect to the Laws of God or the Land, but burn and plunder the Houses, and seize and destroy the persons and goods of divers His Majesty's good Subjects; And whereas for the maintenance of the said Army divers assessments are made upon several Counties, and His Majesty's Subjects are compelled by the Soldiers to pay the same; which said Army if it should continue, would soon ruin and waste the whole Kingdom, and overthrow Religion, Law, and Liberty. For suppressing of which said Army and illaffected persons, there is no probable way under God, but by the Army raised by authority of the Parliament; which said Army so raised, cannot be maintained without great sums of Money, yet for raising such sums, by reason of His Majesty's withdrawing Himself from the advice of the Parliament, there can be no Act of Parliament passed with His Majesty's assent, albeit there is great Justice that the said moneys should be raised. The Lords and Commons in Parliament, having taken the same into their serious consideration, and knowing that the said army so raised by them, hath been hitherto for the most part maintained by the voluntary contribution of divers well-affected persons, who have freely contributed according to their abilities.  
But considering there are divers others within the Cities of London and Westminster, and the Suburbs of the same, and also within the Borough of Southwark, that have not contributed at all towards the maintenance of the said army, or if they have, yet not answerable to their Estates, who notwithstanding receive benefit and protection by the same army, as well as any others, and therefore it's most just, that they should as well as others be charged to contribute to the maintenance thereof.  
Be it therefore Ordained by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, and by authority thereof; that Isaac Pennington Lord Major of the City of London, Sir John Wollaston Knight and Alderman, Alderman Towes, Alderman Warner, Alderman Andrew's, Alderman Chambers, Alderman Fowkes, Sir Thomas Seham Knight and Alderman, Samuel Vassell, John Venn, Morris Thompson, and Richard Warrin, Citizens, or any four of them, shall hereby have power and authority to nominate, and appoint in every ward within the City of London, six such Persons as they, or any four of them, shall think fit, which said six so nominated, or any four of them, shall hereby have power to inquire of any that shall remain, or be within the said several Wards that have not contributed upon the Propositions of both Houses of Parliament, concerning the raising of Money, Plate, Horse, Horsemen, and arms, for the defence of the King & both Houses of Parliament, & also of such as are able men, that have contributed, yet not according to their Estates and abilities. And the said six persons so nominated, or any four of them within their several and respective wards and limits, shall have power to assess such person or persons, as are of ability and have not contributed, & also such as have contributed, yet not according to their ability, to pay such sum or sums of Money according to their Estates, as the said Assessors or any four of them shall think fit & reasonable, so as the same exceed not the twentieth part of their Estates, and to nominate and appoint fit persons for the collection thereof. And if any person so assessed shall refuse to pay the money assessed upon him, it shall be lawful to and for the said Assessors and Collectors, or any of them, to leavie the said sum so assessed by way of distress, and sale of the goods of the person so assessed, and refusing; And if any person so distrained shall make resistance; it shall be lawful to and for the respective Assessors and Collectors, or any of them, to call to their assistance any the Trained Bands of the said City of London, or any other His Majesty's Subjects, who are hereby required to be aiding and assisting to the said Assessors and Collectors in the premises; And it is hereby further ordained that the respective. Burgesses of Westminster and Southwark, together with the several Committees appointed for the subscriptions of Money, Plate, Horse, Horsemen and Arms within the said City and Borough, shall respectively have power hereby to nominate Sessors for the same City and Borough, in such manner as the Lord Maior, etc. hath for the City of London, and the said Assessors or any four of them, to name Collectors as aforesaid; Which said Assessors and Collectors shall have the same power respectively, within their respective limits, as those to be nominated within the said City of London have hereby limited to them. And for the Suburbs of London and Westminster, the respective Knights of the Shires where the said Suburbs are, shall have hereby the like power to name Assessors, and they so named, or any four of them, and the Collectors by them to be nominated, or any of them within their respective limits, shall have the like power respectively as the Assessors and Collectors for London have by virtue of this Ordinance. And be it ordained that the sums so assessed and levied as aforesaid shall be paid in at Guildhall London, to the hands of Sir John Wollastone, Knight, John Warner, John Towes, and Thomas Andrews Aldermen, or any two of them; And the Assessors and Collectors to be nominated by virtue hereof shall weekly report to the Committee of the House of Commons, for the Propositions aforesaid, what sums of Money have been assessed, and what sums have been levied weekly according to the purport hereof, and the said moneys so levied and paid in, shall be issued forth in such sort as the other moneys raised upon the Propositions aforesaid, and not otherwise.  
destroy one another? are the outward blessing only of peace, property, and liberty, taken, and forced from Our Subjects? are their Consciences free and unassaulted by the violence of these firebrands? Sure the liberty and freedom of Conscience cannot suffer by these men: Alas! all these punishments are imposed upon them because they will not submit to Actions contrary to their natural loyalty, to their Oaths of Allegiance and supremacy, and to their late, voluntary protestation, which obliges them to the care of Our person and Our just Rights.  
How many persons of Honour, Quality, and Reputation of the several Counties of England, are now Imprisoned, without any objection against them, but suspicion of their loyalty? How many of the gravest and most substantial Citizens of London, by whom the government and discipline of that City was preserved, are disgraced, rob, and imprisoned, without any process of Law, or colour of accusation, but of obedience to the Law and Government of the Kingdom? whilst Anabaptists and Brownists with the assistance of vicious and debauched persons, of desperate Fortunes take upon them to break up and rifle houses, as public and avowed Ministers of a new invented Authority; How many godly, pious, and painful Divines, whose lives and learning hath made them of Reverend estimation, are now slandered with inclination to popery, discountenanced, and imprisoned, for discharging their Consciences in instructing the people in the Christian duty of Religion and Obedience, whilst Schismatical, Illiterate, and scandalous Preachers, fill the Pulpits and Churches, with Blasphemy, Irreverence, and Treason, and incite their Auditory to nothing but Murder and Rebellion; We pass over the vulgar charm, by which they have captivated such who have been contented to dispense with their Consciences for the preservation of their estates, and by which they persuade men cheerfully to part with this twentieth part of their Estate to the good work in hand, for  will give what he hath may scape robbing; They shall be repaid upon the public faith, as all other moneys lent upon the Propositions of both Houses; It may be so, but men must be condemned to a strange unthriftiness who will lend upon such security.  
The public Faith indeed is as great an earnest as the State can give, and engages the Honour, Reputation and honesty of the Nation, and is the Act of the Kingdom, 'tis the security of the King, the Lords and Commons, which can never need an Executor, can never die, never be Bankrupt, and therefore we willingly consented to it for indemnity of our good Subjects of Scotland, (who we hope will not think the worse of it, for being so often and so cheaply mentioned since.) But that a Vote of one or both Houses should be an engagement upon the public faith, is as impossible, as that the Committee of the House of Commons for Examinations, should be the High Court of Parliament.  
And what is or can be said with the least shadow of reason to justify these extravagances? We have not lately heard of the old fundamental Laws which used to warrant the Innovations, this needs a Refuge even below those foundations: They will say they cannot manage their great undertake without such extraordinary ways; We think so too, but that proves only they have undertaken somewhat they ought not to undertake, not that it is lawful for them to do any thing that is convenient for those ends: We remembered them long ago, and we cannot do it too often, of that excellent Speech of Mr Pyms. The Law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil, betwixt just and unjust, if you take away the Law, all things will fall into a confusion, every man will become a Law unto himself, which in the depraved condition of humane nature, must needs produce many great enormities, Lust will become a Law, and envy will become a Law, covetousness and Ambition will become Laws, and what Dictates, what Decisions such Laws will produce may easily be discerned. It may indeed by the sad instances over the whole Kingdom; But will Posterity believe, that in the same Parliament this Doctrine was avowed with that Acclamation, and these instances after produced; That in the same Parliament such care was taken that no man should be committed in what case soever, without the cause of his Imprisonment expressed, and that al●● men should be immediately bailed in all Cases bay leable, and during th● same Parliament that Alderman Pennington, or indeed any body else, but the sworn Ministers of Justice, should imprison whom they would, and for what they would, and for as long time as they would; That th● King should be reproached with breach of Privilege for accusing Si● john Hotham of high treason, when with force of Arms he kept him ou●● of Hull, and despised him to his face, because in no case a Member o● either House might be committed or accused without leave of tha● House, of which he is a Member, and yet that during the same Parliament, the same Alderman should commit the Earl of Middlesex (a Peer of the Realm) and the Lord Buckhurst (a Member of the House of Commons) to the Counter without reprehension, that to be a Traitor (which is defined and every man understands) should be no crime, and to be called Malignant (which no body knows the meaning of) should be ground enough for close imprisonment; That a Law should be made, that whosoever should presume to take tonnage and poundage without an Act of Parliament, should incur the penalty of a Praemunire, and the same Parliament, that the same imposition should be laid upon our Subjects, and taken by an order of both Houses, without and against our Consent. Lastly, that the same Parliament, a Law should be made to declare the proceed and judgement upon Ship money to be illegal and void, and during that Parliament, that an order of both Houses shall, upon pretence of necessity, enable four men to take away the twentieth part of their Estates from all their Neighbours, according to their discretion.  
But our good Subjects will no longer look upon these and the like results, as upon the Counsels and conclusions of both our Houses of Parliament; (though all the world knows even that Authority can never justify things unwarrantable by the Law) they well know how few of the Persons trusted by them are present at their consultations, of above 500 not 80. and of the House of Peers, not a fifth part, that they who are present enjoy not the Privilege and Freedom of Parliament, but are besieged by an Army, and awed by the same tumults, which drove us and their fellow Members from thence, to consent to what some few seditions, Schismatical Persons amongst them do propose; These are the men, who joining with the Anabaptists and Brownists of London, first changed the Government and Discipline of that City, and now by the pride and power of that City would undo the Kingdom, whilst their Lord Major (a Person accused and known to be guilty of high Treason) by a new Legislative power of his own, suppresses and reviles the Book of Common-prayer, robs and imprisons whom he thinks fit, and with the rabble of his Faction gives Laws to both Houses of Parliament, and tells them they will have no Accommodation, whilst the Members sent and entrusted by their Countries, are expelled the House, or committed for refusing to take the Oath of Association, to live and die with the Earl of Essex, as very lately Sir Sidny Montague. These are the men who have presumed to send Ambassadors, and to enter into treatyes with foreign States in their own behalves, having at this time an Agent of their own with the States of Holland, to negotiate for them upon private instructions. These are the men, who not thinking they have yet brought mischief enough upon this Kingdom, at this time invite and solicit our Subjects of Scotland to enter this Land with an Army against us. In a word, these are the men who have made this last devouring ordinance to take away all Law, Liberty, and property from our people, and have by it really acted that upon our people, which with infinite malice, and no colour or ground, was laboured to be infused into them to have been our Intention by the Commission of Array.  
We have done; what power and Authority these men have, or will have, we know not, for ourselves we challenge none such; We look upon the pressures and inconveniences our good Subjects bear, even by us and our Army, (which the Army first raised by them enforced us to levy in our defence, and their refusal of all offers and desires of Treaty enforceth us to keep) with very much sadness of heart; We are so fare from requiring a twentieth part of their Estates (though for their own visible preservation) that as we have already sold or pawned our own Jewels, and coined our own Plate, so we are willing to sell all our own Land, and Houses for their relief; yet we do not doubt but our good Subjects will seriously consider our Condition and their own Duties, and think our readiness to protect them with the utmost hazard of our life, deserves their readiness to assist us with some part of their fortunes, and whilst other men give a twentieth part of their Estates, to enable them to forfeit the other nineteen, that they will extend themselves to us in a liberal and free proportion for the preservation of the rest, and for the maintenance of God's true Religion, the Laws of the Land, the Liberty of the Subject, and the safety and very being of Parliaments, and this Kingdom: for if all these ever were, or can be in manifest danger, 'tis now in this present Rebellion against us.  
last; We will and require all our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever, as they will answer it to God, to us, and to posterity, by their oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, as they would not be looked upon now, and remembered hereafter, as Betrayers of the Laws and Liberty they were borne to, that they in no degree submit to this wild pretended ordinance, and that they presume not to give any encouragement or assistance to the Army now in Rebellion against us, which if notwithstanding they shall do, they must expect from us the severest punishment the Law can inflict, and a perpetual Infamy with all good men.  
FINIS.