• feit that legal Protection, our settled Laws and • Government, and to be fubjected to a new un• known Protection obtruded upon us by a Com

pany of Upstarts, (Mushrooms of Majesty, fo • mean in Birth and Breeding, for the most Part, ' that the Place of Constable equals the highest of • their. Education) impofing what Law and Con'ditions upon us they please; I would be glad to

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hear, without being hinder'd by Guns, Drums, • High Courts of Justice, and other Instruments › of Violence and Murder.'

N. Ibid. New Keepers of the Great Seal were appointed; from whom the Judges received their Commissions, with the Name, Style and Title of Custodes Libertatis Angliæ Authoritate Parliamenti, i. e. Keepers of the Liberties of England by Authority of Parliament.

Upon which the noble Historian makes the following Remark; (b) ، If it were not a Thing • so notoriously known, it could scarce be be

lieved, that of twelve Judges, whereof ten were • of their own making, and the other two had • quietly submitted from the Beginning of the • War to the Authority that governed, Six laid • down their Places, and could not give them• selves leave to accept Commiffions from the

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(c) established Power: So aguish and fantastical

a

(b) History of the Rebellion, vol. 3. p. 202. (c) Brave was the Behaviour of Alderman Reynoldfon, Lord Mayor, who refused to proclaim the Ordinance for abolishing Kingly Government, for • which he was fined 20001. committed Prisoner to the Tower for twe Months, and degraded of his Mayoralty; (Whitelock's Memorials, p. 393.) 4001. of this Money given to the Poor of the City, to stop their Mouths from curfing upon the Thanksgiving-Day. This is (foys Mr. Waiker, History of Independency, part 2. p. 196) according to the Spanish Proverb, • To feal a Sheep, and give away the Trotters for God's Sake. Sir Thomas • Soames and Mr. Chambers refused likewife to attend at the proclaiming the Ordinance, for which Sir Thomas was disabled from being a Member of the House, and disfranchised from being Alderman, or to bear any publick Office; and Alderman Chambers disabled from being an Alderman, or to • bear any publick Office, (Whitelock, p. 405.) The Lord Mayor and Al⚫ dermen who proclaimed this Ordinance, were Alderman Andrews, Lord Mayor, Alderman Pennington, Alderman Wollaston, Alderman Foulkes, • Alderman Kenrick, Alderman Byde, Alderman Edmonds, Alderman Pack, • Alderman

• a Thing is the Confcience of Men who have

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once departed from the Rule of Confcience, in ⚫ hope to be admitted to adhere to it again upon • a less pressing Occafion. (d) The Names of ⚫ those that threw up their Commissions were • Bacon, Brown, Bedingfield, Creswell, Trevor and • Atkins. They refused (fays Heath, Chronicle,

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p. 226.) as knowing the Laws and the present • Anarchy were incompatible of any Expedient ⚫ to fuit them together. (e) The fix others, Rolls • and Jermyn of the King's-Bench, St. John and • Pheasant of the Common-Pleas, and Wild and Yates of the Exchequer, receiv'd their Commif* sions from these new Keepers of the Great Seal, ' and submit 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 Puleston and Peter Warburton, Esq; 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, Palm, with this Inscription, The Commonwealth of England; and the other Side a Cross and a Harp, with this Motto, God with us.

(b) This gave Occafion to a Man of Wit to observe, 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 consummate 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 consummate 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 passed before it; a Year of the high• est Diffimulation and Hypocrify, of the deepest Villany and most bloody Treasons that any Na• tion was ever cursed with, or under; a Year in • which the Memory of all the Transactions ought • to be rased out of all Records, left by the Suc• cess of it, Atheism, Infidelity and Rebellion should • be propagated in the World; a Year of which

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* we may say, as the Historian faid of the Time • of Domitian, Sicut vetus ætas vidit, quid ultimum • in libertate effet : ita nos quid in fervitute. Or as • the same Writer says of a Time not altogether • so 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 should defire rather to live in Turkey, under the Great Turk, than in England, under Hugh Peters's religious Masters at Whitehall: • For (fays he) there is no such Tyrant or Persecutor in the World, as an Apostate, that once turns his Back of Justice, Righteousness and • Truth. But Mr. Peter, as for Things at pre• fent, tell your Masters from me, that if it were • possible for me now to chuse, I had rather chuse

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to live seven 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 un• der their present 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 also really to fight for him, to • bring him into his Father's Throne, that fo

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(1) A Difcourse 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 Feast, kept by the Prifoners of the Tower, in August 1647. Folio, penes me.

John Lilburn is a stirring Blade,
And understands the Matter,
He neither will King, Bishops, Lords,
Nor the House of Commons flatter.
John loves no Power Prerogative
But that deriv'd from Sion,
As for the Mitre and the Crown,
Those Tavo be looks arury on.

He had Squint Eyes, and died a Quaker.

B

they

• they may have their just Desires of perfidi• ous, cruel, bloody Tyrants, and the People of • the Land some Ease and Reft from their insup• portable Burdens and Oppreffions. Here is the • Substance of my Discourse with Mr. Peter, sav< ing I pinch'd him a little particularly upon his • great Masters large fingering of the Common• wealth'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 Re

ports are false, and besides, 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 shaken it off: and that the Rump's little Finger (for

(m) Their Principle is, (says Mr. Walker, History of Independency, part 3. p. 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, sequester, extort, cheat and confiscate (by illegal Laws ⚫ of their own making, by extrajudicial Courts and partial Judges of their own conftituting) other Men's Goods and Estates upon as good Title, as the • Jews spoiled the Egyptians, or expelled the Canaanites. And in another Place, (part 3. p. 7.) he says, That in their Tax Rolls, they usually fet in the Margent to every Name, private Notes of Distinction, an M. an N. or P. The Letter M. stands for Malignant; he that is so branded is highly taxed, and his Complaints for Redress sleighted. N. stands for • Neuter; he is more indifferently rated, and upon Cause shewn may chance to be relieved. The Letter P. fignifies a perfect Parliamentarian: He is • so favourably taxed, as he bears an inconfiderable Part of the Burden: and that they may the better consume with Taxes and Want all such 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 short-liv'd Commonwealth: • Befides Excife, Customs, Tonnage and Poundage, Free Quarter, Standing • Army and Horses, and the Sale of Corporation Lands now in Agitation; • whilft ourGrandees enrich all the Banks of Christendom with vast Sums, < raised by publick Thefts and R pines."

(n) Mr. Walker informs us, (History of Independency, part 2. p. 156. part 1. p. 170.) That King Cromwell had 4 or 5000 l. per Ann. out of the Earl of Worcester's Estate, befides 4 or 51. 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."