censures, not only for the maintenance and improvement of
monopolies and other unlawful taxes, but for divers other
causes where there hath been no offence, or very small;
whereby His Majesty's subjects have been oppressed by grievous
fines, imprisonments, stigmatisings, mutilations, whippings,
pillories, gags, confinements, banishments; after so rigid a
manner as hath not only deprived men of the society of their
friends, exercise of their professions, comfort of books, use
of paper or ink, but even violated that near union which God
hath established between men and their wives, by forced and
constrained separation, whereby they have been bereaved of the
comfort and conversation one of another for many years
together, without hope of relief, if God had not by His
overruling providence given some interruption to the
prevailing power, and counsel of those who were the authors
and promoters of such peremptory and heady courses.
38. Judges have been put out of their places for refusing to
do against their oaths and consciences; others have been so
awed that they durst not do their duties, and the better to
hold a rod over them, the clause 'Quam diu se bene gesserit'
was left out of their patents, and a new clause 'Durante bene
placito' inserted.
39. Lawyers have been checked for being faithful to their
clients; solicitors and attorneys have been threatened, and
some punished, for following lawful suits. And by this means
all the approaches to justice were interrupted and forecluded.
40. New oaths have been forced upon the subject against law.
41. New judicatories erected without law. The Council Table
have by their orders offered to bind the subjects in their
freeholds, estates, suits and actions.
42. The pretended Court of the Earl Marshal was arbitrary and
illegal in its being and proceedings.
43. The Chancery, Exchequer Chamber, Court of Wards, and other
English Courts, have been grievous in exceeding their
jurisdiction.
44. The estate of many families weakened, and some ruined by
excessive fines, exacted from them for compositions of
wardships.
45. All leases of above a hundred years made to draw on
wardship contrary to law.
46. Undue proceedings used in the finding of offices to make
the jury find for the King.
47. The Common Law Courts, feeling all men more inclined to
seek justice there, where it may be fitted to their own
desire, are known frequently to forsake the rules of the
Common Law, and straying beyond their bounds, under pretence
of equity, to do injustice.
48. Titles of honour, judicial places, sergeantships at law,
and other offices have been sold for great sums of money,
whereby the common justice of the kingdom hath been much
endangered, not only by opening a way of employment in places
of great trust, and advantage to men of weak parts, but also
by giving occasion to bribery, extortion, partiality, it
seldom happening that places ill-gotton are well used.
49. Commissions have been granted for examining the excess of
fees, and when great exactions have been discovered,
compositions have been made with delinquents, not only for the
time past, but likewise for immunity and security in offending
for the time to come, which under colour of remedy hath but
confirmed and increased the grievance to the subject.
50. The usual course of pricking Sheriffs not observed, but
many times Sheriffs made in an extraordinary way, sometimes as
a punishment and charge unto them; sometimes such were pricked
out as would be instruments to execute whatsoever they would
have to be done.
51. The Bishops and the rest of the Clergy did triumph in the
suspensions, ex-communications, deprivations, and degradations
of divers painful, learned and pious ministers, in the
vexation and grievous oppression of great numbers of His
Majesty's good subjects.
52. The High Commission grew to such excess of sharpness and
severity as was not much less than the Romish Inquisition, and
yet in many cases by the Archbishop's power was made much more
heavy, being assisted and strengthened by authority of the
Council Table.
53. The Bishops and their Courts were as eager in the country;
although their jurisdiction could not reach so high in rigour
and extremity of punishment, yet were they no less grievous in
respect of the generality and multiplicity of vexations, which
lighting upon the meaner sort of tradesmen and artificers did
impoverish many thousands.
54. And so afflict and trouble others, that great numbers to
avoid their miseries departed out of the kingdom, some into
New England and other parts of America, others into Holland.
55. Where they have transported their manufactures of cloth,
which is not only a loss by diminishing the present stock of
the kingdom, but a great mischief by impairing and endangering
the loss of that particular trade of clothing, which hath been
a plentiful fountain of wealth and honour to this nation.
56. Those were fittest for ecclesiastical preferment, and
soonest obtained it, who were most officious in promoting
superstition, most virulent in railing against godliness and
honesty.
57. The most public and solemn sermons before His Majesty were
either to advance prerogative above law, and decry the
property of the subject, or full of such kind of invectives.
58. Whereby they might make those odious who sought to
maintain the religion, laws and liberties of the kingdom, and
such men were sure to be weeded out of the commission of the
peace, and out of all other employments of power in the
government of the country.
59. Many noble personages were councillors in name, but the
power and authority remained in a few of such as were most
addicted to this party, whose resolutions and determinations
were brought to the table for countenance and execution, and
not for debate and deliberation, and no man could offer to
oppose them without disgrace and hazard to himself.
60. Nay, all those that did not wholly concur and actively
contribute to the furtherance of their designs, though
otherwise persons of never so great honour and abilities, were
so far from being employed in any place of trust and power,
that they were neglected, discountenanced, and upon all
occasions injured and oppressed.
61. This faction was grown to that height and entireness of
power, that now they began to think of finishing their work,
which consisted of these three parts.
62. I. The government must be set free from all restraint of
laws concerning our persons and estates.
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63. II. There must be a conjunction between Papists and
Protestants in doctrine, discipline and ceremonies; only it
must not yet be called Popery.
64. III. The Puritans, under which name they include all those
that desire to preserve the laws and liberties of the kingdom,
and to maintain religion in the power of it, must be either
rooted out of the kingdom with force, or driven out with fear.
65. For the effecting of this it was thought necessary to
reduce Scotland to such Popish superstitions and innovations
as might make them apt to join with England in that great
change which was intended.
66. Whereupon new canons and a new liturgy were pressed upon
them, and when they refused to admit of them, an army was
raised to force them to it, towards which the Clergy and the
Papists were very forward in their contribution.
67. The Scots likewise raised an army for their defence.
68. And when both armies were come together, and ready for a
bloody encounter, His Majesty's own gracious disposition, and
the counsel of the English nobility and dutiful submission of
the Scots, did so far prevail against the evil counsel of
others, that a pacification was made, and His Majesty returned
with peace and much honour to London.
69. The unexpected reconciliation was most acceptable to all
the kingdom, except to the malignant party; whereof the
Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford being heads, they and
their faction begun to inveigh against the peace, and to
aggravate the proceedings of the states, which so increased
[incensed?] His Majesty, that he forthwith prepared again for
war.
70. And such was their confidence, that having corrupted and
distempered the whole frame and government of the kingdom,
they did now hope to corrupt that which was the only means to
restore all to a right frame and temper again.
71. To which end they persuaded His Majesty to call a
Parliament, not to seek counsel and advice of them, but to
draw countenance and supply from them, and to engage the whole
kingdom in their quarrel.
72. And in the meantime continued all their unjust levies of
money, resolving either to make the Parliament pliant to their
will, and to establish mischief by a law, or else to break it,
and with more colour to go on by violence to take what they
could not obtain by consent. The ground alleged for the
justification of this war was this,
73. That the undutiful demands of the Parliaments in Scotland
was a sufficient reason for His Majesty to take arms against
them, without hearing the reason of those demands, and
thereupon a new army was prepared against them, their ships
were seized in all ports both of England and Ireland, and at
sea, their petitions rejected, their commissioners refused
audience.
74. The whole kingdom most miserably distempered with levies
of men and money, and imprisonments of those who denied to
submit to those levies.
75. The Earl of Strafford passed into Ireland, caused the
Parliament there to declare against the Scots, to give four
subsidies towards that war, and to engage themselves, their
lives and fortunes, for the prosecution of it, and gave
directions for an army of eight thousand foot and one thousand
horse to be levied there, which were for the most part
Papists.
76. The Parliament met upon the 13th of April, 1640. The Earl
of Strafford and Archbishop of Canterbury, with their party,
so prevailed with His Majesty, that the House of Commons was
pressed to yield a supply for maintenance of the war with
Scotland, before they had provided any relief for the great
and pressing grievances of the people, which being against the
fundamental privilege and proceeding of Parliament, was yet in
humble respect to His Majesty, so far admitted as that they
agreed to take the matter of supply into consideration, and
two several days it was debated.
77. Twelve subsidies were demanded for the release of
ship-money alone, a third day was appointed for conclusion,
when the heads of that party begun to fear the people might
close with the King, in falsifying his desires of money; but
that withal they were like to blast their malicious designs
against Scotland, finding them very much indisposed to give
any countenance to that war.
78. Thereupon they wickedly advised the King to break off the
Parliament and to return to the ways of confusion, in which
their own evil intentions were most likely to prosper and
succeed.
79. After the Parliament ended the 5th of May, 1640, this
party grew so bold as to counsel the King to supply himself
out of his subjects' estates by his own power, at his own
will, without their consent.
80. The very next day some members of both Houses had their
studies and cabinets, yea, their pockets searched: another of
them not long after was committed close prisoner for not
delivering some petitions which he received by authority of
that House.
81. And if harsher courses were intended (as was reported) it
is very probable that the sickness of the Earl of Strafford,
and the tumultuous rising in Southwark and about Lambeth were
the causes that such violent intentions were not brought to
execution.
82. A false and scandalous Declaration against the House of
Commons was published in His Majesty's name, which yet wrought
little effect with the people, but only to manifest the
impudence of those who were authors of it.
83. A forced loan of money was attempted in the City of
London.
84. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their several wards,
enjoined to bring in a list of the names of such persons as
they judged fit to lend, and of the sums they should lend. And
such Aldermen as refused to do so were committed to prison.
85. The Archbishop and the other Bishops and Clergy continued
the Convocation, and by a new commission turned it into a
provincial Synod, in which, by an unheard-of presumption, they
made canons that contain in them many matters contrary to the
King's prerogative, to the fundamental laws and statutes of
the realm, to the right of Parliaments, to the property and
liberty of the subject, and matters tending to sedition and of
dangerous consequence, thereby establishing their own
usurpations, justifying their altar-worship, and those other
superstitious innovations which they formerly introduced
without warrant of law.
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86. They imposed a new oath upon divers of His Majesty's
subjects, both ecclesiastical and lay, for maintenance of
their own tyranny, and laid a great tax on the Clergy, for
supply of His Majesty, and generally they showed themselves
very affectionate to the war with Scotland, which was by some
of them styled 'Bellum Episeopale,' and a prayer composed and
enjoined to be read in all churches, calling the Scots rebels,
to put the two nations in blood and make them irreconcilable.
87. All those pretended canons and constitutions were armed
with the several censures of suspension, excommunication,
deprivation, by which they would have thrust out all the good
ministers, and most of the well-affected people of the
kingdom, and left an easy passage to their own design of
reconciliation with Rome.
88. The Popish party enjoyed such exemptions from penal laws
as amounted to a toleration, besides many other encouragements
and Court favours.
89. They had a Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebanck, a
powerful agent for speeding all their desires.
90. A Pope's Nuncio residing here, to act and govern them
according to such influences as he received from Rome, and to
intercede for them with the most powerful concurrence of the
foreign princes of that religion.
91. By his authority the Papists of all sorts, nobility,
gentry, and clergy were convocated after the manner of a
Parliament.
92. New jurisdictions were erected of Romish Archbishops,
taxes levied, another state moulded within this state
independent in government, contrary in interest and affection,
secretly corrupting the ignorant or negligent professors of
our religion, and closely uniting and combining themselves
against such as were found in this posture, waiting for an
opportunity by force to destroy those whom they could not hope
to seduce.
93. For the effecting whereof they were strengthened with arms
and munitions, encouraged by superstitious prayers, enjoined
by the Nuncio to be weekly made for the prosperity of some
great design.
94. And such power had they at Court, that secretly a
commission was issued out, or intended to be issued to some
great men of that profession, for the levying of soldiers, and
to command and employ them according to private instructions,
which we doubt were framed for the advantage of those who were
the contrivers of them.
95. His Majesty's treasure was consumed, his revenue
anticipated.
96. His servants and officers compelled to lend great sums of
money.
97. Multitudes were called to the Council Table, who were
tired with long attendances there for refusing illegal
payments.
98. The prisons were filled with their commitments; many of
the Sheriffs summoned into the Star Chamber, and some
imprisoned for not being quick enough in levying the
ship-money; the people languished under grief and fear, no
visible hope being left but in desperation.
99. The nobility began to weary of their silence and patience,
and sensible of the duty and trust which belongs to them: and
thereupon some of the most ancient of them did petition His
Majesty at such a time, when evil counsels were so strong,
that they had occasion to expect more hazard to themselves,
than redress of those public evils for which they interceded.
100. Whilst the kingdom was in this agitation and distemper,
the Scots, restrained in their trades, impoverished by the
loss of many of their ships, bereaved of all possibility of
satisfying His Majesty by any naked supplication, entered with
a powerful army into the kingdom, and without any hostile act
or spoil in the country they passed, more than forcing a
passage over the Tyne at Newburn, near Newcastle, possessed
themselves of Newcastle, and had a fair opportunity to press
on further upon the King's army.
101. But duty and reverence to His Majesty, and brotherly love
to the English nation, made them stay there, whereby the King
had leisure to entertain better counsels.
102. Wherein God so blessed and directed him that he summoned
the Great Council of Peers to meet at York upon the 24th of
September, and there declared a Parliament to begin the 3d of
November then following.
103. The Scots, the first day of the Great Council, presented
an humble Petition to His Majesty, whereupon the Treaty was
appointed at Ripon.
104. A present cessation of arms agreed upon, and the full
conclusion of all differences referred to the wisdom and care
of the Parliament.
105. At our first meeting, all oppositions seemed to vanish,
the mischiefs were so evident which those evil counsellors
produced, that no man durst stand up to defend them: yet the
work itself afforded difficulty enough.
106. The multiplied evils and corruption of fifteen years,
strengthened by custom and authority, and the concurrent
interest of many powerful delinquents, were now to be brought
to judgment and reformation.
107. The King's household was to be provided for:--they had
brought him to that want, that he could not supply his
ordinary and necessary expenses without the assistance of his
people.
108. Two armies were to be paid, which amounted very near to
eighty thousand pounds a month.
109. The people were to be tenderly charged, having been
formerly exhausted with many burdensome projects.
110. The difficulties seemed to be insuperable, which by the
Divine Providence we have overcome. The contrarieties
incompatible, which yet in a great measure we have reconciled.
111. Six subsidies have been granted and a Bill of poll-money,
which if it be duly levied, may equal six subsidies more, in
all £600,000.
112. Besides we have contracted a debt to the Scots of
£220,000, yet God hath so blessed the endeavours of this
Parliament, that the kingdom is a great gainer by all these
charges.
113. The ship-money is abolished, which cost the kingdom about
£200,000 a year.
114. The coat and conduct-money, and other military charges
are taken away, which in many countries amounted to little
less than the ship-money.
115. The monopolies are all suppressed, whereof some few did
prejudice the subject, above £1,000,000 yearly.
116. The soap £100,000.
117. The wine £300,000.
118. The leather must needs exceed both, and salt could be no
less than that.
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119. Besides the inferior monopolies, which, if they could be
exactly computed, would make up a great sum.
120. That which is more beneficial than all this is, that the
root of these evils is taken away, which was the arbitrary
power pretended to be in His Majesty of taxing the subject, or
charging their estates without consent in Parliament, which is
now declared to be against law by the judgment of both Houses,
and likewise by an Act of Parliament.
121. Another step of great advantage is this, the living
grievances, the evil counsellors and actors of these mischiefs
have been so quelled.
122. By the justice done upon the Earl of Strafford, the
flight of the Lord Finch and Secretary Windebank.
123. The accusation and imprisonment of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, of Judge Berkeley; and
124. The impeachment of divers other Bishops and Judges, that
it is like not only to be an ease to the present times, but a
preservation to the future.
125. The discontinuance of Parliaments is prevented by the
Bill for a triennial Parliament, and the abrupt dissolution of
this Parliament by another Bill, by which it is provided it
shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of
both Houses.
126. Which two laws well considered may be thought more
advantageous than all the former, because they secure a full
operation of the present remedy, and afford a perpetual spring
of remedies for the future.
127. The Star Chamber.
128. The High Commission.
129. The Courts of the President and Council in the North were
so many forges of misery, oppression and violence, and are all
taken away, whereby men are more secured in their persons,
liberties and estates, than they could be by any law or
example for the regulation of those Courts or terror of the
Judges.
130. The immoderate power of the Council Table, and the
excessive abuse of that power is so ordered and restrained,
that we may well hope that no such things as were frequently
done by them, to the prejudice of the public liberty, will
appear in future times but only in stories, to give us and our
posterity more occasion to praise God for His Majesty's
goodness, and the faithful endeavours of this Parliament.
131. The canons and power of canon-making are blasted by the
votes of both Houses.
132. The exorbitant power of Bishops and their courts are much
abated, by some provisions in the Bill against the High
Commission Court, the authors of the many innovations in
doctrine and ceremonies.
133. The ministers that have been scandalous in their lives,
have been so terrified in just complaints and accusations,
that we may well hope they will be more modest for the time to
come; either inwardly convicted by the sight of their own
folly, or outwardly restrained by the fear of punishment.
134. The forests are by a good law reduced to their right
bounds.
135. The encroachments and oppressions of the Stannary Courts,
the extortions of the clerk of the market.
136. And the compulsion of the subject to receive the Order of
Knighthood against his will, paying of fines for not receiving
it, and the vexatious proceedings thereupon for levying of
those fines, are by other beneficial laws reformed and
prevented.
137. Many excellent laws and provisions are in preparation for
removing the inordinate power, vexation and usurpation of
Bishops, for reforming the pride and idleness of many of the
clergy, for easing the people of unnecessary ceremonies in
religion, for censuring and removing unworthy and unprofitable
ministers, and for maintaining godly and diligent preachers
through the kingdom.
138. Other things of main importance for the good of this
kingdom are in proposition, though little could hitherto be
done in regard of the many other more pressing businesses,
which yet before the end of this Session we hope may receive
some progress and perfection.
139. The establishing and ordering the King's revenue, that so
the abuse of officers and superfluity of expenses may be cut
off, and the necessary disbursements for His Majesty's honour,
the defence and government of the kingdom, may be more
certainly provided for.
140. The regulating of courts of justice, and abridging both
the delays and charges of lawsuits.
141. The settling of some good courses for preventing the
exportation of gold and silver, and the inequality of
exchanges between us and other nations, for the advancing of
native commodities, increase of our manufactures, and well
balancing of trade, whereby the stock of the kingdom may be
increased, or at least kept from impairing, as through neglect
hereof it hath done for many years last past.
142. Improving the herring-fishing upon our coasts, which will
be of mighty use in the employment of the poor, and a
plentiful nursery of mariners for enabling the kingdom in any
great action.
143. The oppositions, obstructions and other difficulties
wherewith we have been encountered, and which still lie in our
way with some strength and much obstinacy, are these: the
malignant party whom we have formerly described to be the
actors and promoters of all our misery, they have taken heart
again.