Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England Against Illegal Taxes 2, Postscript
A POSTCSRIPT.
SInce the drawing up of the precedent Reasons, I have met with a printed Pamphlet, intituled, An Epistle written the 8th day of June, by Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburn, to Master William Lenthal Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights, Citizens and Burg…es that Col. Thomas Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster, (as most fit for his and his Masters designes, to serve their ambitious and tyrannicall ends, to destroy the good old Laws, Liberties and Customs of England, the badges of our Freedom, as the Declaration against the King, of the 7th of March, 1648. p. 23. calls them) and by force of Arms to rob the people of their lives, estates and properties; and subject them to perfect vassallage and slavery, &c. who (and in truth no otherwise) pretendedly stile themselves, The Conservators of the Peace of England, or the Parliament of England, intrusted and authorized by the consent of all the people thereof, whose Representatives by Election (in their Declaration last mentioned, p. 27. they say) they are; although they are never able to produce one bit of Law, or any piece of a Commission to prove, that all the people of England, or one quarter, tenth, hundred or thousand part of them authorized Thomas Pride, with his Regiment of Souldiers, to chuse them a Parliament, as indeed it hath de facto done by this PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAMENT: And therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or Peoples Parliament: but Col. Prides and his Associates, whose really it is: who, although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant, yet walk in his oppressingest steps, if not worse and higher.
In this Epistle, this late great champi…n of the House of Commons, and fitting …cto's Supremacy, both before and since the Kings beheading, who with his BrotheraHis Petition and Appeal, & his Arrow of Defiance. See Mr. Edwards Ga…grena, 3 pa. pag. 154. f. 204. Overton and their Confederates, first cryed them up as, and gave them the Title of The Supreme Authority of the Nation: The onelyonly Supreme Judicatory of the Land: The onelyonly formall and legall Supreme power of the Parliament of England, in whom alone the power of binding the whole Nation by making, altering, or abrogating Laws, without either King or Lords, resides, &c. and first engaged them by their Pamphlets and Petitions, against the King, Lords, and Personall Treaty, (as he and they print and boast inbPag. 11, 29. this Epistle, and other late Papers) doth in his own and his Parties behalf (who of late so much adored them, as the onelyonly earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation) now positively assert and prove
First, ThatcPag. 34, 35. Commissary General Ireton, Colonel Harrison, with other Members of the House, and the General Councel of Officers of the Army, did in several Meetings and Debates at Windsor, immediatly before their late march to London to purge the House, and after at White-hall, commonly stile themselves the pretended Parliament (even before the Kings beheading) a MOCK PARLIAMENT, a MOCK POWER, a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT; & NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL: And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOTS, and not so much as to leave a shadow of it; yea, and had done it, if we (say they) and some of our then FRIENDS in the House, had not been the Principal Instruments to hinder them: We judging it then of two evils the least, to chuse rather to be governed by THE SHADOW OF a PARLIAMENT, till we could get a reall and a true one (which with the greatest protestations in the world they then promised and engaged with all their might speedily to effect) then simply, solely and onelyonly by the will of Sword-men, whom we had already found to be men of no very tender consciences.
If then these leading, swaying members of the new pretended purged Commons Parliament and Army, deemed the Parliament even before the Kings beheading, a Mock-parliament, a mockpower, a pretended Parliament, yea, no parliament at all; and absolutely resolved to pull it up by the roots as such, then it necessarily follows, First, That they are much more so after the Kings death, and their suppression of the Lords House, and purging of the Commons House to the very dregs, in the opinions and consciences of those now sitting, and all other rationall men. And no wayes enabled by Law to impose this or any other new Tax or Act upon the Kingdom, creating new Treasons and… Penalties. Secondly, that these grand saints of the Army and Stearsmen of the Pretended Parliament knowingly sit, vote and act there against their own judgements and consciences, for their own private, pernicious ends. Thirdly, that it is a baseness, cowardize, and degeneracy beyond all expression, for any of their fellowmembers now acting, to suffer these Grandees in their Assembly & Army, to sit or vote together with them, or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army, or to impose any tax upon the People to maintain such Officers, Members, Souldiers, who have thus villified, affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority, and thereby induced others to contemn and question it: and as great a baseness in others for to pay it upon any terms.
Secondly he there affirms that(d)Pag. 26, 27 Oliver Crumwel by the help of the Army at their first Rebellion against the Parliament, was no sooner up, but like a perfidious, base, unworthy man, &c. the House of Peers were his only white boys, and who but Oliver (who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Usurpers) became their Proctor, where ever he came; yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also; insomuch that at some meetings, with some of my friends at the Lord Wh…rtons lodgings, he clapt his hand upon his breast, and to this purpose, professed in the sight of God upon his conscience, THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE & JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO THE COAT UPON HIS BACK, and he would procure a friend, viz. Master Nathaniel Fiennes, should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England. And not only so, but did he not get the General and Councel of War at Winsor (about the time that the Votes of no more addresses were to pass) to make a Declaration to the whole world, declaring, THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE LORDS HOUSE, & THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN & UPHOLD IT? which was sent by the General to the Lords by Sir, Hardresse Waller: and to inde…r himself the more unto the Lords in whose house without all doubt he intended to have sate himself, he requited me evil for good; and became my enemy to keep me in Prison, out of which I must not stirre, unless I would stoop and acknowledge the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners; and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do… it: yet now they have suppressed them.
Whence it is most apparent, 1. That the General, Lieutenant Generall Cromwel, Ireton, Harrison, and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members, and over-ruling all the rest, have wittingly acted against their own knowledges, Declarations, Judgments, Consciences in suppressing the Lords Hou…e; and depriving them of ther Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power, by presuming to make Acts, passe sentences, and impose Taxes without them, or their assents in Parliament. 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom, for their own particular advantage, pay and enrichment, is in their own judgment and conscience, both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm, being not assented to by the Lords: and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all who love their own or Countries Liberties, or have any Nobility, or Generosity in them.
Thirdly, he(e)Pag. 34. 39, 40. 56, 47. there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf, and his confederates; That the purged Parliament now sitting, is but a pretended Parliament, a mock-Parliament; yea, and in plaine English, NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL, but the shadow of a Parliament. That those Company of men at Westminster, that gave Commission to the High Court of Justice to try and behead the King, &c. were no more a Parliament by Law or Representatives of the People, by the rules of Justice and Reason, then such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People, that a company of armed Theeves choose and set apart to try, judge, condemne, hang or behead any man that they please, or can prevaile over by the power of their Swords, to bring before them by force of arms, to have their lives taken away by pretence of JUSTICE, grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their Wills and Swords. That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters, or to give a Law unto them, or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power, and set themselves downe in it; which is the Armies case with the Parliament, especially at Thomas Pride's late purge, which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons: to set up indeed a MOCK-POWER, and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT; by purging out all those, that they were any way jealous of, would not Vote as they would have them; and suffering and permitting none to sit but (for the Major part of them) a company of absolute School-boys, that will, like good Boys, say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters, and vote what they would have them: and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people, with the name of Parliament, and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assessments and Taxations; and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees (the best of which is now become a perfect S: ar-chamber, High-Commission, and Councel-board) make them their perfect slaves and vassals. With much more to this purpose.
If then their Principal admirers, who confederated with the Army, and those now sitting, in all their late proceedings; and cryed them up most of any, as the Parliament and supreme Authority of England before, at, and since the late force upon the House, and its violent purgation, do thus in print professedly disclaim them, for being any real Parliament or House of Commons, to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people; the secluded Members, Presbyterians, Royallists, and all others, have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegal Taxes, Acts, as not made by any true English Parliament, but a Mock-Parliament only.
Fourthly, He therein futher avers: (f)Pag. 52. 53. 56. 57. 58. 59.That the death of the King, in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament, ipso facto, though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour. That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it; the rather, because the men that would have it continue so long as they please, are those who have created these necessities on purpose, that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent. That the main end wherefore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither, was, To treat and conferr with King Charles and the House of Peers, about the great affairs of the Nation, &c. And therefore are but a third part, or third estate of that Parliament, to which they were to come and …yn with, and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation. And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make laws, the end both in reason and law of the peoples trust is ceased: for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end, cannot play Lord paramount over the Major, and then do what it please; no more can the Minor of a Major; viz. one Estate of three, legally or justly destroy two of three, without their own assent, &c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within it's limited time, in all its splendor of glory, without the awe of armed m…n, neither in Law, nor in the intention of their Choosers were a Parliament; and therefore of themselves alone have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments, &c. concluding thus: For shame let no man be so audaciously or sottishly void of reason, as to call Tho. Prides pittifull Junto A PARLIAMENT, especially those that call…, avowed, protested and declared again and again those TO BE NONE that sate at Westminster, the 26, 27- &c. of July 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army, by a few hours t…mult of a company of a few disorderly Apprentices. And being no representative of the People, much lesse A PARLIAMENT, what pretence of Law, Reason, Justice or Nature can there be for you to alter the constitution of Parliaments, and force upon the people the shew of their own wills, lusts and pleasures for Lawes and Rules of Government, made by a PRETENDED EVERLASTING, NULLED PARLIAMENT, a Councel of State, or Star-Chamber and a Councel of War, or rather by Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton.
Now if their own late confederates and creatures argue thus …n print against their continuing a Parliament, Jurisdiction, Proceedings, Taxes, and arbitrary pleasures, should not all others much more doe it, and oppose them to the utmost upon the …-same ends?
Fifthly, He there likewise affirmes,(g)pag. 53, 54. 59. 41. that those now fitting at Westminster have perverted the ends of their trusts then …ver Strafford did: 1. In not easing the people of, (bu…encreasing) their greivances. 2, In exhausting their Estates to maintain and promote pernicious Designes to the peoples destruction. The King did it by a little Ship-mony & Monopolies; but since they began, they have raised and exto…ted more mony from the People and Nation then half the Kings since the Conquest ever did; as particularly: 1. By Excise, 2 Contributions. 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value. 4. Fift part. 5 Twentyeth parts. 6 Meal-mony. 7 Sale of plundered goods. 8 Loanes. 9 Benevolencies. 10. Collections upon their fast days. 11 New impositions or customs upon Merchandize, 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men. 13 Fi…ty Subsidies at one time. 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value. 15 Sale of Bishops lands. 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters lands: and now after the wars are done. 17 Sale of King, Queen, Prince, Duke and the rest of the Childrens revenues. 18 Sale of their rich goods which cost an infinite sum. 19 to conclude all, a Taxation of ninety thousand pounds a month: and when they have gathered it pretendingly for the Common-wealths use, divide it by thousands and tenn thousands a peece amongst themselves, and wipe their mouthes after it, like the impudent Harlot, as though they had done no evill; and then purchase with it publick Lands at smal or trivial values: O brave Trustees! that have protested before God and the world, again and again in the day of their straits they would never seek themselves, and yet besides all this divide all the choicest and profitabl…st Places of the Kingdom among themselves. Therefore when I seriously consider, how many men in Parliament and elsewhere of their Associates (that …udge themselves the onelyonly Saints and Godly men upon the earth) that have considerable (and some of them vast) estates of their own inheritance, and yet take five hundred, one, two, three, four… five thousand pounds per annum Salaries, and other comings in by their places, and that out of the too much exhausted Treasury of the Nation, when thousands not only of the people of the world, as they call them, but also of the precious redeemed lambs of Christ, are ready to starve for want of bread. I cannot but wonder with my self, whether they have any conscience at all within them or no; and what they think of that saying of the spirit of God, That whoso hath this worlds goods, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from … ( which he absolutely doth that any way takes a little of his little from him) how dwelleth the love of God in him) 1 Iohn 3. 17. These actions and practices are so far from being like the true and reall children of the most High, that they are the highest oppression, theft and murther in the wo…ld, to rob the poor in the day of their great distresse by Excise, Taxations, &c. to maintain their pomp, superfluities and deb…ry, when many of those from whom they take it, do perish and starve with want & hunger in the mean time, and be deaf and Adamant-hearted to all their TEARES, CRYES, LAMENTATIONS, MOURNFUL HOWLINGS, GROANES. Without all doubt, these pretended, Godly Religious men, have got a degree beyond those Atheists o… Fools, that say in their hearts, there is no God. Psal. 14. 1. and 53. 1. 3. In quite destroying the peoples essentiall Liberties Laws and Freedoms, & in leaving them no Law at all (as M. Peters their grand Teacher aver…ed lately to my face we had none) but their meer will and pleasures; saving Fellons Laws, or Martiall Law, where new Butchers are both Informers. Parties, jury men and judges, who have had their hands imbrewed in blood for above seven these years together, having served an apprentiship to killing of men for nothing but money, and so are more bloo… then Butchers that kill sheep and calves for their own livelihood; who yet by the Law of England, are not permitted to be of any jury for life and death: because they are conversant in sheddidg of blood of beasts, and thereby through a habit of it may not be so tender of the blood of men, as the Law of England, Reason and justice would ha…e them to be. Yea, do not these men by their swords, being but servants, give what Laws they please to their Masters the pretended Law-makers of your House, now constituted by as good and legall a power as he that robs and kills a man upon the highway.
And if this be the verdict of their own Complices & Partiza…s concerning them & their proceedings, especially touching their exhausting our Estates by Taxes, and sharing them among themselves in the time of famine and penury (is the great Officers of the Army and Treasurers who are Members now doe, who both impose what Taxes they please, and dispose of them to themselves and their creatures as they please, contrary to the practice of all former ages, and the rules of rea…on and justice too) are not all others bound by all bonds of conscience, Law, Prudence to withstand their impositions and Edicts unto death, rather then yeild the least submission to them?
Sixthly, He there avers, proves and offers legally to make good, before any indifferent Tribunal, that the (h)Pag. 2. 15. 27. 29. 33. 34. 35 41. 53. 57, 58, 59, 64. 65. 75.Grandees and overruling Members of the House and Army are not only, a pack of dissembling, Jugling Knaves and Machevillians, amongst whom in consultation hereafter he would ever scorn to come, for that there was neither faith, truth nor common honesty amongst them: but likewise Murtherers; who had shed mens blood against Law, as well as the King, whom they beheaded; and therefore by the same Texts and arguments they used against the King, their blood ought to be shed by man, and they to be surely put to death without any satisfaction taken for their lives, as Traytors, Enemies, Rebels to, and (i)See Pag. 91. 32.conspirators against the late King (whom they absolutely resolved to destroy though they did it by Martial Law) Parliament, Kingdome and the peoples Majesty and Soveraignity; That the pretended House and Army are guilty of all the late crimes in kinde, though under a new Name and notion, of which they charge the King in their Declaration of the 17. of March 1648. that some of them more legally deserve death, then ever the King did: and considering their many Oathes, Covenants, Promises, Declarations, and Remonstrances to the contrary (with the highest promises and pretences of good for the people and their declared Liberties that ever were made by men) the most perjured, pernicious, false, faith and Trust-breakers, and Tyrants that ever lived in the world: and ought by all rationall and honest men to be the most detested and abhorred of all men that ever breathed, by how much more under the pretence of friendship and brotherly kindness they have done all the mischiefe they have done in destroying our Lawes and liberties; there being no Treason like Judas his Treason, who betrayed his Lord and Master with a kisse, &c. And shall we then submit to their Taxes and new Acts, or trust them with our estates, lives, liberties, and the supreme power, if such now in their own late adorers eyes?
Seventhly, He there asserts, (k)P. 57. 34.That whosoever st…ps to their new change of Government and Tyranny, and supports it, is as absolute a Traytor both by Law and Reason, as evèr was in the world; If not against the King, PRINCE CHARLES, (heir apparent to his Fathers… Cro…n and Throne) yet against the peoples Majesty and Sover…. And if this be true, as it is, That this purg'd Parliament IS NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL; then there is neither legal Judges nor Justices of Peace in England. And if so; then all those that are executed at Tiburn &c. by their sentence of condemnation are meerly murthered, and the Judges and Justices that condemned them are liaeble in time to be hanged… (and that justly) therefore for acting without a just and legal Commission: either from TRUE REGAL OR TRUE PARLIAMENTARY POWER: (except in corporations only where they proceed by ancient Charters in the Ancient Legal form).
And if this be Law and (l)Luk. 19. 14. 27. c. 12. 13. 14Gospel (as no doubt it is) then by the same reason, not only all legal proceedings, Indictments, Judgments, Verdicts, Writs, Tryals, Fines, Recoveries, Recognisances, and the like before any of our new created Judges and Justices since the Kings beheading in any Courts at Westminster, or in their Circuits, Assisses, or quarter Sessions, held by new Commissions, with all Commissions and Proceedings of Sheriffs, are not only meerly void, illegal, & coram non judice to all intents, with all Bills, Decrees, and Proceedings in Chancery, or the Rolls; and all Judges, Justices Sheriffs, now acting, and Lawyers practising before them in apparent danger of HighTreason both against King, Kingdom, they neither taking the Oathes of Judges, Supremacy or Allegiance as they ought by Law; but only to be true and faithful to the new Erected State; but likewise all votes and proceedings before the pretended House or any of their Committees, or Sub-Committees in the Country, with all their Grants and Offi…es, Moneys… Salaries, Sequestrations, Sales of Lands or goods, Compositions &c. meer Nullities and illegal acts, and the proceedings of all active Commissioners, Assessors, Coll…ctors, Treasurers, &c. and all other Officers imployed to levy and to collect this illegal tax to support that usurped Parliamentary Authority, and Army, which have beheaded the late King, dis-inherited his undoubted… H…, levyed war against and dissolved the late Houses of Parliament, subverted the ancient Government of this Realm, the constitution and Liberties of our Parliaments, the Lawes of the Kingdom, with the Liberty and property of the people of England, no less then High Treason in all these respects, as is fully proved by Sir Edward Cook in his 3. Institutes, ch. 1. 2. and by Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law at the attainder of the Earl of Strafford, both published by the late Commons House Order; which I desire all who are thus imployed, to consider; especially such Commissioners who take upon them to administer a new unlawful Ex-Officio Oath to any to survey their Neighbours and their own estates in every parish, and return the true values thereof to them upon the new prov'd rate for the 3 last months contribution, and to fine those who refuse to do it (a meer diabolical invention to multiply perjuries to damne mens souls, invented by Cardinal Woolsy, much enveighed against by Father Latimer in his Sermons, condemned by the expresse words of the Petition of Right providing against such Oathes; and a s…are to enthrall the wealchier sort of people by discovering their estates, to subject them to what future Taxes they think fit) when as the whole House of Commons in no age had any power to administer an Oath in any case whatsoever, much l…sse then to conferre any authority on others to give such illegall Oathes, and fine those who refuse them, the highest kind of Arbitrary Tyranny both over mens Consciences, Properties, Liberties; to which those who voluntarily submit deserve not only the name of Traytors to their Country, but to be (m)Exod. 21. 5. 6.boared through the ear, and they and their posterities to be made Slaves for ever to these new Tax-masters and their Successors; and those who are any wayes active in imposing or administring such Oathes, and levying illegall Taxes by distresse or otherwise, may and will undoubtedly smart for it at last; not only by Actions of Trespasse, false Imprisonment, Accompt, &c. brought against them at the Common Law, when there will be no Committee of Indempnity to protect them from such suits, but likewise by inditements of High Treason, to the deserved losse of their Estates, Lives, and ruine of their families when there wil be no Parliament of purged Commoners, nor Army to secure, nor lega… plea to acquit them from the guilt and punishment of Traytors both to their King and Country; pretended present sordid fear of loss of Liberty, Estate, or the like, being no (n)See 1. H. 4. Rot. Par. n 97.excuse in such a case and time as this, but an higher aggravation of their crime: the (o)Rev. 21. 8.FEARFUL being the first in that dismall list of Malefactors, who shall have part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstome, which is the second death; even by Christs own sentence.
JOHN 18. 34.
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witnesse unto the truth.
FINIS.
End of the text · William Prynne, Legal Vindication of the Liberties of England Against Illegal Taxes 2 (1649)