and many more additions made thereto, to the utter inslaving of the English nation.

Hereupon the people stand up, once more, for their liberties and native rights in the ancient laws of the land, and demand, the second time, to have them confirmed, and to be kept from violation, and so, in the ninth year of King Henry the third, was the great charter of the liberties of England (being but a declaration of the ancient common laws of the land, and little differing from the articles of Renymeed, together with the charter of the forest) framed and consented to in full parliament, and are the first acts of parliament now extant in print, And so the people sat down again under the protection of this second security; but, how weak a security it proved, let the practice of the next King, and all succeeding Kings, tell you, though it had been confirmed and allowed by themselves two and thirty times; for in the two next Kings time you shall find the good men of the land discountenanced, and vain, loose, and wanton persons to be the men in highest esteem; nay, murderers and robbers, and the like, cherished and maintained, and, if brought to publick justice, and condemned for their misdoings, yet pardoned again, and set at liberty; and though (by the fundamental law) parliaments, (the usual salve for the people's sores) were to be called and held twice a year, yet were they laid aside, and rarely made use of; and then, when they were called, it was but to serve the king's turn, for granting subsidies, or the like. And therefore this when the people perceived, in the time of King Edward the Second, they thought fit to question his misgovernment, by articles of impeachment in parliament against him, and then to depose him from his kingly office, and to make his son, during his father's life-time, warden of the kingdom, and shortly after they made him King (while his father lived) by the name of Edward the Third. And now are acts of parliament made against the former mischiefs: First, against the King's granting pardons to robbers and murderers; and four acts of parliament are made at the neck of one another, and pursuing one before, telling the king plainly, that he may not, he must not grant pardons, but where he may do it by his oath, namely, in case of homicide, by misfortune, and homicide, in his own defence. Secondly, for more frequent holding of parliaments, namely, that they should be held once a year, and oftener, if need be. But little effect did these produce, for the mischiefs have continued, and the people have still suffered, by the breach of those laws, even until these very times, the very same mischiefs as before.

In the time of King Richard the Second, the disorders of the court, and oppressions upon the people from thence, were so great and unsupportable, that the people articled against that King, and likewise deposed him, and so they afterward did in like manner depose King Henry the Sixth, and King Edward the Fourth, by consent in parliament. Thus you see how the exercise of kingly office, within this na tion, hath been made use of to the damage of the people, and how the people again have put in use their authority over their kings, to call them to an account for their misgovernment. Touching the last king, much hath been said, and too much hath been felt by this country, in

relation to the last war. But pardon me, if I tell you so, it was a just punishment of God upon us of this county; for, I may truly say, the water bad its rise and beginning here, here in this county, nay, here in this court, for this was the first place in England where any grand juries of the county charged themselves and their countrymen with any tax to raise a war against the publick interest of the people, as they did here when, at the summer assizes in the year 1642, they charged the county with a tax of eight thousand six hundred pounds, to maintain a thousand dragoons, upon pretence to keep the country in peace. But alas! the dragoons were no sooner raised, but they were made use of for another service, namely, to attend the King's standard at Nottingham, and from thence were carried to fight at Edge-hill against the parliament forces, for better keeping the peace in Yorkshire; and though it be true, that this tax of eight thousand six hundred pounds was never levied, yet our own great lords and gentlemen made it the foundation and rise of another tax of thirty thousand pounds, which they laid and levied upon the county in October after, for bringing in the Earl of Newcastle and his forces.

But (as I said before) God's punishment is just upon us; for, as the war began here, so it hath ever since continued among us, and even at this day, when all the rest of the kingdom is in peace and quietness, only we are now upon sieging, at our own charge, of your cursed castle at Pontefract, which began at first, and continues to be the last of our enemies hold and garisons within this nation.

But to return to the point of the King's incroachments upon the people's liberties, and therein I will clearly tell you my own thoughts in one particular, and instance in that one, but it is, to my apprehension, unum magnum, and instar omnium; it is as the lion said of her whelp, when the fox upbraided her, that she was not so fruitful in procreation as the fox, but brought forth only one lion at once; it is true, saith the lion, but that one is a lion; and so I may say by the King's negative voice in parliament; for admit but this one piece of prerogative to be just, and consonant to the constitution of the government, and I dare affirm, that the people of England were in a possibility, by that constitution of government, to be as arrant slaves and vassals, as were in Turky, or among the Moors in the gallies: For let the King put what oppression he will upon the people, let their grievances and burthens be never so great, and let him, at the people's desire, call parliaments for redresses thereof never so often, and let never so good bills be prepared and presented to him for reformation, yet still he shall put them off with this royal compliment, Le Roy s'advisera, signifying, quoad the practice, in plain English, I will not help you, nor release the unjust burthens and oppressions I have laid upon you.'

But add to this that other incroachment of the lords negative voice upon the people, which they also have with much lordliness practised in answer to the commons bills, though of the highest concernment for their weal, however they express that negative in court-language and good words, We will send an answer by messengers of our own;' as if the people should expect they meant to return some concurrence with

them, when, God knows, nothing is less thought upon, or meant by them.

And now let the people see their own condition, now let them consider how they have been abused by good words and phrases, which if they had clearly and universally understood the meaning of, or if these negatives had been clearly expressed, in downright language, We will not help you!' or, We will not ease you of your burthens or oppressions that lie so heavy upon you,' truly then I presume the people would long since have been stirred up to help themselves, and to have endeavoured as well to take away the mischief, as to avoid the misery of such a government. For my own part, I speak it freely from my heart, that as I am a free-man, both by birth, and education, and am inheritable to the laws and free-customs of England; so I do naturally desire the security of government, and I do willingly submit to the justice of known laws: But I have ever abhorred all arbitrary powers, or to be subject to the wills or passions of men; and therefore I have always thought, since I could think any thing upon the grounds of judgment or reason, that, so long as these two fore-mentioned negatives remained upon the people, there could be no security or freedom in the government held over them; and there was no one thing that hath so firmly fixed me in the way I have gone, and wherein I now am, and to oppose the other, as, the mischiefs I understood to be in the two negative voices of the King and the lords: Adding to this the two fundamental court-errors, and destructive positions, maintained and held forth to the people by flattering royalists, and proud and ambitious prelates, viz. that the King had an original right to rule: And, secondly, that the King was accountable to none but God for his misgovernment; for, lay but these two together with the negative voice, and let any man judge what they may and must necessarily produce, in point of tyranny and oppression over the people.

I trust I have shewed you the true original of all just power and authority, and from whence it is that the exercise of authority and power is practised among men over one another; I have shewed you also the justice which lies in this: That Kings, rulers, and governors, and particularly the King of this nation, should be accountable to the people for their misgovernments'; and how destructive a tenet it is to say,That a King hath right to rule over men upon earth, and that yet God hath not given a power to earthly men to call him to account for misgovernment;' unless you will suppose that Kings at first did fall from heaven, and were sent down from above to exercise their wills, and act their lusts below.

And having said thus much upon this subject, only to give a hint, from whence you may observe (till the parliament's own declaration be published, which, I hope, will fully and clearly set them out) what the grounds and reasons were, that the parliament had found the kingly office, within this nation, to be useless and dangerous; and why, therefore, they will no more trust the crown upon the head of any one person, nor transfer the custody of the liberties of England, and Englishmen, into the power of another, who may abuse them; and, therefore, why, likewise, they resolve to keep the crown within its proper place, the ca,

binet of the law, and to allow the law only to king it among the people; and that the people themselves [by their representatives] shall be the only keepers of their own liberties, by authority derived from their own supreme and sovereign power, established in law and common surety: Which brings me now to the stile of our commissions, Custodes libertatis Angliæ authoritate parliamenti.

And, touching the King of England's right to rule, or title of law, by inheritance and descent, to the crown of England, thus much may be safely and truly said: That, if it be an ancient and original inheritance fixed in any one family, it was gained at first by the power of the sword, and by conquest; which title, in law, is but á disseisin, and an unlawful title, and therefore may be again as justly regained, as it was gained at first by force, and by the stronger arm and sharper sword. And, as it was so gained at first, so it hath been ever since, either by the like pure force, or else by consent of parliament, upon particular cases, kept and continued; and so you will find, if you look, how every King, since the Norman William (called the Conqueror) came to the crown: For, of all those five-and-twenty Kings and Queens, which have since that time kinged it among us, there are but seven of them, who could pretend legally to succeed their former predecessors, either by lineal or collateral title. I have not leisure to repeat the particulars; and this, I have said, may serve to give you occasion (if you be so minded) to look further into it, and to satisfy your judgments herein, and, by consequence, to keep you from engaging against yourselves, and the nation, for a name, or for a thing, which is not truth.

And now I come to that, which is our true business, our work of the first magnitude, opus diei in die suo, the articles of your charge, which I intend (for the better helping of your memories) to deliver to you in writing, with the laws and the punishments; and briefly to run over the rehearsal of the facts only, without further mention concerning them; yet with such necessary expositions and explanations of particulars, as shall be needful in my passage through them; adding only this for an animadversion to you, that you and I are trusted, at this time, with the administration of justice in our own country, amidst all the temptations, which our several relations of friends, kindred, or acquaintance, can offer unto us; which shews, that they, who do so trust us, have great assurance and confidence in us; and then we must conclude, that this confidence puts a greater obligation upon us to fidelity and integrity in the discharge and performance of that trust committed to us. Add to this that vinculum anima, the bond of the soul, the obligation of an oath, and I doubt not but it will be found, that, though love, fear, and particular interest be the usual cords which halter justice, yet, at this time, they will be found to be, among us, but sorry and unmasculine pieces of rhetorick, either to affright us from, or soften us in our duties.

The matter of your charge will be to enquire into, and find out the several offences, which have been committed and done against the politick body of the commonwealth, as so many several diseases and infirmities in the several parts of the natural body of a man, which distemper and endanger the health of the whole; and they are of four sorts,

VOL.VI.

H

First, Such as are against the peace of the commonwealth, or whereby publick peace is disturbed; and those I call diseases endangering the heart of this politick body.

Secondly, Such as are against the justice of the commonwealth, or whereby publick justice is perverted; and those I call diseases endangering the head of this politick body.

Thirdly, Such as are against the plenty of the commonwealth, or whereby publick plenty is diminished; and those I call diseases offending the stomach of this politick body.

Fourthly, Such as are against the beauty and good complexion of the commonwealth, or whereby this beauty and good complexion is discoloured and defaced, contained under the name and title of common nusances; and those I call diseases offending the outward senses of this politick body.

Touching those against peace, they are of five sorts.

1. Treasons; which, again, are either high treason or petty treason. 2. Felonies; which, again, are done either against the publick, or against the particular person, or possession, of another.

1. If any levy war against the supreme authority of the nation, or adhere to the enemics thereof. And, when I do so express it, supreme authority, I give you the meaning of the Stat. 25 E. III. 2. which mentions it thus: "If any levy war against the King, or adhere to the King's enemies within the realm.' For the name and word King (quatenus the chief officer is trusted with the government in the administration of that government) is frequently used to set forth the publick interest of the people; so we call it the King's peace, the King's coin, the King's highway, and the like: All which, in truth, are the publick concernments of the people, being for their publick use and benefit, and are therefore expressed and exhibited unto us under the notion of the King's name, because he is their publick officer, and trusted for them. So that to levy war against the King, or to adhere to the King's enemies, is to levy war against the kingdom, and the government of it, and the supreme power and authority of it; or, which is more plain in the expression, to levy war without lawful warrant and authority so to do. And yet this, I believe, was that which hath misled (and, perhaps, may still mislead) many of our countrymen: That, because they had the person of the King with them (betwixt whom and whom there were mutual and reciprocal deceivings) and they (never remembering, that, when in person he deserted the parliament, he left the King and kingly authority behind him, because he left the kingly office, and the power thereof, and publick government, behind him) they catched at the shadow, and let go the substance; and so, under colour of fighting for the King, they fought against him. Yet, because omnis non capit hoc, every man did not understand this distinction betwixt the politick and natural body of the King, therefore see how mercifully and favourably the parliament hath dealt with these men, that they have not pressed the rigour of the