you by an high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the People,
that likewise hath been too well known and felt. But when God by
his Providence had so far brought it about, that you could no
longer decline the calling of a Parliament, Sir, yet it will
appear what your ends were against the antient and your native
kingdom of Scotland: the Parliament of England not serving your
ends against them, you were pleased to dissolve it. Another
great necessity occasioned the calling of this parliament; and
what your Designs, and Plots, and Endeavours all along have
been, for the crushing and confounding of this Parliament, hath
been very notorious to the whole kingdom. And truly, Sir, in
that you did strike at all; that had been a sure way to have
brought about That that this Charge lays upon you, your
intention to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Land; for the
great bulwark of the Liberties of the People is the Parliament
of England; and to subvert and root up that, which your aim hath
been to do, certainly at one blow you had confounded the
Liberties and the Property of England.
Truly, Sir, it makes me to call to mind; I cannot forbear to
express it; for, Sir, we must deal plainly with you, according
to the merits of your cause; so is our Commission; it makes me
to call to mind (these proceedings of yours) That that we read
of a great Roman Emperor, by the way let us call him a great
Roman tyrant, Caligula, that wished that the people of Rome had
had but one neck, that at one blow he might cut it off. And your
proceedings have been somewhat like to this; for the body of the
people of England hath been (and where else) represented but in
the Parliament; and could you but have confounded that, you had
at one blow cut off the neck of England. But God hath reserved
better things for us, and hath pleased for to confound your
designs, and to break your forces, and to bring your person into
custody, that you might be responsible to justice.
Sir, we know very well that it is a question much on your side
press'd, By what Precedent we shall proceed? Truly, Sir, for
Precedents, I shall not upon these occasions institute any long
discourse; but it is no new thing to cite precedents almost of
all nations, where the people (where the power hath been in
their hands) have made bold to ca
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