feit that legal Protection, our fettled Laws and Government, and to be fubjected to a new un• known Protection obtruded upon us by a Company of Upstarts, (Mushrooms of Majefty, fo mean in Birth and Breeding, for the moft Part, that the Place of Constable equals the higheft of • their Education) impofing what Law and Conditions upon us they pleafe; I would be glad to hear, without being hinder'd by Guns, Drums, High Courts of Justice, and other Inftruments ⚫ of Violence and Murder.' ، ، N. Ibid. New Keepers of the Great Seal were appointed; from whom the Judges received their Commiffions, with the Name, Style and Title of Cuftodes Libertatis Angliæ Authoritate Parliamenti, i. e. Keepers of the Liberties of England by Authority of Parliament. Upon which the noble Hiftorian makes the following Remark; (b) If it were not a Thing fo notoriously known, it could fcarce be believed, that of twelve Judges, whereof ten were of their own making, and the other two had quietly fubmitted from the Beginning of the War to the Authority that governed, Six laid down their Plices, and could not give themfelves leave to accept Commiffions from the (c) eftablished Power: So aguifh and fantastical (b) Hiftory of the Rebellion, vol. 3. p. 202. a (c) Brave was the Behaviour of Alderman Reynoldjon, Lord Mayor, who retufed to proclaim the Ordinance for abolishing Kingly Government, for which he was fined 2000 l. committed Prifoner to the Tower for two Months, and degraded of his Mayoralty; (Whitelock's Memorials, p. 393.) 400 l. of this Money given to the Poor of the City, to ftop their Mouths from curfing upon the Thanksgiving-Day. This is (fays Mr. Waiker, History of Independency, part 2. p. 196) according to the Spanish Proverb, To fical a Sheep, and give away the Trotters for God's Sake. Sir Thomas Soames and Mr. Chambers refufed likewife to attend at the proclaiming the Ordinance, for which Sir Thomas was difabled from being a Member of the Houfe, and disfranchifed from being Alderman, or to bear any publick Of• fice; and Alderman Chambers difabled from being an Alderman, or to bear any publick Office, (Whitelock, p. 405.) The Lord Mayor and Aldermen who proclaimed this Ordinance, were Alderman Andrews, Lord Mayor, Alderman Pennington, Alderman Wollaston, Alderman Foulkes, Alderman Kenrick, Alderman Byde, Alderman Edmonds, Alderman Pack, Alderman 6 a Thing is the Confcience of Men who have once departed from the Rule of Confcience, in hope to be admitted to adhere to it again upon a lefs preffing Occafion. (d) The Names of thofe that threw up their Commiffions were • Bacon, Brown, Bedingfield, Crefwell, Trevor and Atkins. They refufed (fays Heath, Chronicle, p. 226.) as knowing the Laws and the prefent Anarchy were incompatible of any Expedient to fuit them together. (e) The fix others, Rolls and Fermyn of the King's-Bench, St. John and Pheafant of the Common-Pleas, and Wild and Yates of the Exchequer, receiv'd their Commif* fions from these new Keepers of the Great Seal, and fubmit to the Alterations made in the Law by the Parliament. The new Judges appointed by the Rump, (f) were Serjeant Nicholas and Mr. Ask to be Judges of the Upper-Bench, Serjeant • Pulefton and Peter Warburton, Efq; to be Judges • of the Common Pleas, and Serjeant Thorp and Mr. Rigby to be Barons of the Exchequer. N. Ibid, The (g) Coin was stamped on one Side with the Arms of England, between a Laurel and a Palm, Alderman Bateman, Alderman Atkins, Alderman Viner, Alderman Avery, • Alderman Wilson, Alderman Dethick, Alderman Foot, (Hiftory of Independency, part 2. p. 185.) (d) Echard's Hiftory of England, vol. 2. p. 658. (e) Ibid. p. 653. (f) Bishop Kennet's Complete Hiftory, vol. 3. p. 192. Pulefton and Thorp were the two wretched Judges that condemned the brave Colonel Morris, for defending of Pontefract Caftle against the Forces of the Rump, at York Affizes 1649. The fcandalous and inhuman Treatment of him may be met with, Walker's Hiftory of Independency, part 2. p. 250. and Whitelock, p. 421, 422. This Shamble-Row of Judges, (fays Mr. Walker. Hiftory of Inde pendency, part 3. p. 31.) take upon them to be both Judges of the Law, without acknowledging the fundamental Laws of the Land, or taking any "Oath of Indifferency to the People) Tryers of the Fact, or Jurates of Life and Death, without being fworn to find according to Evidence, as well as * Parties and Profecutors. Thieves upon the Highway may as justly arraign a true Man before them, becaufe he brought no more Money in his • Purfe, offered to draw his Sword, and hid his Money about him in Contempt of their Jurifdiction and Authority; and condemn him upon fuch a ⚫ mock Trial and Mummery, or Interlude of Juftice as thefe Fellows.' (g) Sir Robert Harley, (according to Whitelock, Memorials, p. 402.) ↑ Mafter of the Mint, refusing to ftamp the Coin with any other Stamp than ! formerly, Palm, with this Infcription, The Commonwealth of England; and the other Side a Cross and a Harp, with this Motto, God with us. (b) This gave Occasion to a Man of Wit to obferve, That God and the Commonwealth were not both of a Side. N. Ibid. Such was the Foundation of this new Conftitution, which had neither the Consent of the People of England, nor their Representatives in a (i) Free Parliament. But tho' it was unsupported by any other Power but the Army, it was carried on with the most confummate Wisdom and Succefs. Lord Clarendon's Obfervation upon this Year, in which this new Form of Government was fet up, which was carried on by the most confummate Wisdom, is as follows: (k) So ended the Year One thousand fix hundred and forty-eight; a Year of Reproach and Infamy above all Years which had paffed before it; a Year of the high• eft Diffimulation and Hypocrify, of the deepest Villany and moft bloody Treafons that any Na<tion was ever curfed with, or under; a Year in which the Memory of all the Transactions ought to be rafed out of all Records, left by the Succefs of it, Albeifm, Infidelity and Rebellion thould be propagated in the World; a Year of which . <formerly, the Houfe ordered, That a Trial of the Pix fhould be made at Sir Robert's Charge; put him out of his Place, and made Dr. Gordon, the Phyfician, Mafter of the Mint in his Room." Remarkable was the Punishment of fome Coiners in Scotland. Soldiers in Scotland, (fays Whitelock, Memorials, p. 555.) for coining new Half Crowns of Pewter, were fentenced by a Court Martial to have 40 Lafhes on their bare Backs, and to march thro' the High Street of Edingburgh with a counterfeit Half Crown nail'd to each of their Ears, and that Pieces of their Ears should be cut off with the Half Crowns, and nail'd to the Gallows.' (b) Hiftory of England from authentick Records, 1706, 8vo. vol. 2. p. 264. (i) The Parliament of Paris, during the Civil War in France, fo far refented (according to Cardinal de Retz, Memoirs, vol. 2. p. 194.) Cardinal Mazarin's comparing them to the Houfe of Commons in England, or Rump, and fome private Perfons to Fairfax and Cromwell, that some were for fecuring his Perfon, and others for having him brought immediately before the Company, to give an Account of his Administration. (k) Hiftory of the Rebellion, vol. 3. p. 211. we $ we may fay, as the Hiftorian faid of the Time of Domitian, Sicut vetus ætas vidit, quid ultimum in libertate effet: ita nos quid in fervitute. Or as the fame Writer fays of a Time not altogether fo wicked; Is habitus animorum fuit, ut pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes pate• rentur.' And it was declared by Lilburn, a noted Republican, that if the Petition of Right was broke in upon by Cromwell and his Adherents, (1) that he fhould defire rather to live in Turkey, under the Great Turk, than in England, under Hugh Peters's religious Mafters at Whitehall: For (fays he) there is no fuch Tyrant or Perfecutor in the World, as an Apoftate, that once turns his Back of Juftice, Righteoufnefs and • Truth. But Mr. Peter, as for Things at prefent, tell your Mafters from me, that if it were poffible for me now to chufe, I had rather chufe to live feven Years under old King Charles's Government, (notwithstanding their beheading him as a Tyrant for it) when it was the worst before this Parliament, than live one Year under their prefent Government, that now rule: Nay, let me tell you, if they go on with that Tyranny they are in, they will make Prince Charles have Friends enow, not only to cry him up, but alfo really to fight for him, to bring him into his Father's Throne, that fo 6 < 6 (1) A Difcourfe betwixt Lieutenant Colonel Lilburn and Hugh Peters in the Tower, May 25, 1649. p. 8. Publick Library Cambridge xix. ix. 6. The following Character of John Lilburn is given by Sir Thomas Wortley, Knight and Baronet, in a loyal Song at the Royal Feaft, kept by the Prifoners of the Tower, in August 1647. Folio, penes me. John Lilburn is a firring Blade, And understands the Matter, He neither sill King, Bishops, Lords, He had Squint Eyes, and died a Quaker. B 6 • they . they may have their juft Defires of perfidious, cruel, bloody Tyrants, and the People of ⚫ the Land fome Eafe and Reft from their infupportable Burdens and Oppreffions. Here is the • Subftance of my Difcourfe with Mr. Peter, faving I pinch'd him a little particularly upon his great Mafters large fingering of the Commonwealth's Money, which was no better than Theft in them, and State (m) Robbery in the the Highest as I told him. Ay, but, fays he, Ireton has got none. Then, faid I, former Reports are false; and befides, if he have not, what need he, when his Father-in-Law gets fo • much for them both, as (n) 3 or 4000 l. per • Annum at a Clap, with well nigh 20,000 l. • Worth of Wood upon it, if Parliament Men's Relations may be believed?' N. Ibid. The Levellers of the Army gave out, that the People had only changed their Yoke, and not fhaken it off: and that the Rump's little Finger (for (m) Their Principle is, (fays Mr. Walker, Hiftory of Independency, part 3. F. 22.) That the good Things of the World belong only to the Saints, (that is themselves) all others being Ufurpers thereof; and therefore they may rob, plunder, fequefter, extort, cheat and confifcate (by illegal Laws of their own making, by extrajudicial Courts and partial Judges of their < own conftituting) other Men's Goods and Eftates upon as good Title, as the 6 Jews spoiled the Egyptians, or expelled the Canaanites.' And in another Place, (part 3. p. 7.) he fays, That in their Tax Rolls, they usually fet in the Margent to every Name, private Notes of Diftinction, an M. an N. or P. The Letter M. ftands for Malignant; he that is fo branded is highly taxed, and his Complaints for Redress fleighted. N. ftands for Neuter; he is more indifferently rated, and upon Caufe fhewn may chance to be relieved. The Letter P. fignifies a perfect Parliamentarian: He is fo favourably taxed, as he bears an inconfiderable Part of the Burden: and that they may the better confume with Taxes and Want all fuch as do not concur with them in the Height of their Villanies, the pretended Parlia<ment are now debating to raise the monthly Tax to 240000l. or to deprive every Man of the third Part of his Estate both real and perfonal, for the • Maintenance of their Immortal Wars, and fhort-liv'd Commonwealth : Befides Excife, Cuftoms, Tonnage and Poundage, Free Quarter, Standing Army and Horfes, and the Sale of Corporation Lands now in Agitation whilft ourGrandees enrich all the Banks of Christendom with vaft Sums, raifed by publick Thefts and R pines.' (n) Mr. Walker informs us, (Hiftory of Independency, part 2. p. 156. part 1. p. 170.) That King Cromwell had 4 or 5000 1. per Ann. out of the Earl of Worcester's Eftate, befides 4 or 5. a Day as Lieutenant General and Colonel of Horfe, altho he were at the Beginning of the Parliament a poor Man, yea little better than a Beggar,” 2 |