every article thereof, then this Bill shall be void and of none effect.

Provided that this Act for the government does not extend, 19 Jan., nor be construed to extend, to abrogate, alter, or diminish any 1651. of the charters, customs, liberties, or franchises of the City of London, or any other cities, boroughs, towns corporate, or places within this Commonwealth, saving in such things wherein any alteration is hereby particularly made, but that the City of London, and all other the said cities, boroughs, towns corporate, and places, shall and may have and enjoy their said charters, customs, liberties, and franchises as aforesaid, the said Act or anything therein contained notwithstanding.

1651.

Provided that whereas the militia of this Commonwealth 20 Jan., ought not to be raised, formed, and made use of, but by common consent of the people assembled in Parliament: be it therefore enacted, that the said militia, consisting of trained forces, shall be settled as the Lord Protector and Parliament shall hereafter agree, in order to the peace and safety of the Commonwealth, and not otherwise.

102. THE HUMBLE PETITION AND ADVICE.

[May 25, 1657. Scobell, ii. 378. See Masson's Life of Milton, v. 121.] To his Highness the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging; the Humble Petition and Advice of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses now assembled in the Parliament of this Commonwealth.

We, the knights, citizens and burgesses in this present Parliament assembled, taking into our most serious consideration the present state of these three nations, joined and united under your Highness' protection, cannot but in the first place, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the wonderful mercy of Almighty God in delivering us from that tyranny and bondage, both in our spiritual and civil concernments, which the late King and his party designed to bring us under, and pursued the effecting thereof by a long and bloody war; and also that it hath pleased the same gracious God to preserve your person in

many battles, to make you an instrument for preserving our peace, although environed with enemies abroad, and filled with turbulent, restless and unquiet spirits in our own bowels, that as in the treading down the common enemy, and restoring us to peace and tranquillity, the Lord hath used you so eminently, and the worthy officers and soldiers of the army (whose faithfulness to the common cause, we and all good men shall ever acknowledge, and put a just value upon): so also that he will use you and them in the settling and securing our liberties as we are men and Christians, to us and our posterity after us, which are those great and glorious ends which the good people of these nations have so freely, with the hazard of their lives and estates, so long and earnestly contended for: we consider likewise the continual danger which your life is in, from the bloody practices both of the malignant and discontented party (one whereof, through the goodness of God, you have been lately delivered from), it being a received principle amongst them, that no order being settled in your lifetime for the succession in the Government, nothing is wanting to bring us into blood and confusion, and them to their desired ends, but the destruction of your person; and in case things should thus remain at your death, we are not able to express what calamities would in all human probability ensue thereupon, which we trust your Highness (as well as we) do hold yourself obliged to provide against, and not to leave a people, whose common peace and interest you are intrusted with, in such a condition as may hazard both, especially in this conjuncture, when there seems to be an opportunity of coming to a settlement upon just and legal foundations: upon these considerations, we have judged it a duty incumbent upon us, to present and declare these our most just and necessary desires to your Highness.

1. That your Highness will be pleased by and under the name and style of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, to hold and exercise the office of Chief Magistrate of these nations, and to govern according to this petition and advice in all things therein contained, and in all other things according to the laws of these nations, and not otherwise that your Highness will be pleased during your

lifetime to appoint and declare the person who shall, immediately after your death, succeed you in the Government of these nations.

2. That your Highness will for the future be pleased to call Parliaments consisting of two Houses (in such manner and way as shall be more particularly afterwards agreed and declared in this Petition and Advice) once in three years at furthest, or oftener, as the affairs of the nation shall require, that being your great Council, in whose affection and advice yourself and this people will be most safe and happy.

3. That the ancient and undoubted liberties and privileges of Parliament (which are the birthright and inheritance of the people, and wherein every man is interested) be preserved and maintained; and that you will not break or interrupt the same, nor suffer them to be broken or interrupted; and particularly, that those persons who are legally chosen by a free election of the people to serve in Parliament, may not be excluded from sitting in Parliament to do their duties, but by judgment and consent of that House whereof they are members.

4. That those who have advised, assisted or abetted the rebellion of Ireland, and those who do or shall profess the Popish religion, be disabled and made incapable for ever to be elected, or to give any vote in the election of any member to sit or serve in Parliament; and that all and every person and persons who have aided, abetted, advised or assisted in any war against the Parliament, since the 1st day of Jan., 1641 (unless he or they have since borne arms for the Parliament or your Highness, or otherwise given signal testimony of his or their good affection to the Commonwealth, and continued faithful to the same), and all such as have been actually engaged in any plot, conspiracy or design against the person of your Highness, or in any insurrection or rebellion in England or Wales since the 16th day of December, 1653, shall be for ever disabled and made incapable to be elected, or give any vote in the election of any member to sit or serve in Parliament. That for Scotland none be capable to elect, or be elected to sit or serve in Parliament, who have been in arms against the Parliament of England, or against the Parliament in Scotland, before the 1st day of April, 1648 (except such as have since borne arms in the service of the

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Parliament of England or your Highness, or given other signal testimony of their good affection), nor any that since the said Ist day of April, 1648, have been in arms, or otherwise aided, abetted, advised or assisted in any war against the Parliament of England or your Highness, except such as since the 1st day of March, 1651 (old style'), have lived peaceably, and thereby given testimony of their good affection to the Parliament and your Highness.

Provided, that nothing in this Article contained shall extend to put any incapacity upon any English or Scotch Protestants in Ireland, either to elect or be elected to serve in Parliament, who, before the 1st day of March, 1649, have borne arms for the Parliament or your Highness, or otherwise given signal testimony of their good affection to this Commonwealth, and continued faithful to the same; that all votes and elections, given or made contrary, or not according to the qualifications aforesaid, shall be void and of none effect; and that if any person or persons so incapable as aforesaid, shall give his or their vote for election of members to serve in Parliament, all and every such person or persons so electing shall lose and forfeit one year's value of his and their respective real estates, and one full third part of his and their respective personal estates; the one moiety to your Highness, and the other moiety to him or them who shall sue for the same in any Court of Record, by action of debt, bill, plaint or information, wherein no essoine, wager of law, or protection shall be allowed. And that the persons who shall be elected to serve in Parliament be such, and no other than such, as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation, and being of the age of twenty-one years, and not such as are disabled by the Act of the seventeenth year of the late King, entitled, An Act for disenabling all persons in Holy Orders to exercise any temporal jurisdiction or authority, nor such as are public ministers or public preachers of the Gospel.' Nor such as are guilty of any of the offences mentioned in an Act of Parliament bearing date the 9th of August, 1650, entitled, An Act against several atheistical, blasphemous, and execrable opinions derogatory to the honour of God, and destructive to 1 i. e. 165.

human society'; no common scoffer or reviler of religion, or of any person or persons professing thereof; no person that hath married or shall marry a wife of the Popish religion, or hath trained or shall train up his child or children, nor any other child or children under his tuition or government, in the Popish religion, or that shall permit or suffer such child or children to be trained up in the said religion, or that hath given or shall give his consent that his son or daughter shall marry any of that religion; no person that shall deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God, or the sacraments, prayer, magistracy, and ministry to be the Ordinances of God; no common profaner of the Lord's day, no profane swearer or curser, no drunkard or common haunter of taverns or alehouses.

And that these qualifications may be observed, and yet the privilege of Parliament maintained, we desire that it may be by your Highness' consent ordained, that forty-one Commissioners be appointed by Act of Parliament, who, or any fifteen or more of them, shall be authorised to examine and try whether the members to be elected for the House of Commons in future Parliaments be capable to sit, according to the qualifications mentioned in this Petition and Advice; and in case they find them not qualified accordingly, then to suspend them from sitting until the House of Commons shall, upon hearing of their particular cases, admit them to sit; which Commissioners are to stand so authorised for that end, until the House of Commons in any future Parliament shall nominate the like number of other Commissioners in their places; and those other Commissioners so to be nominated in any future Parliament, to have the same powers and authorities ; that the said Commissioners shall certify in writing to the House of Commons, on the first day of their meeting, the causes and grounds of their suspensions of any persons so to be elected as aforesaid; that the accusation shall be upon the oath of the informer, or of some other person, that copy of the accusation shall be left by the party accusing, in writing under his hand, with the party accused, or, in his absence, at his house in the county, city or town for which he shall be chosen, if he have any such house, or if not, with the Sheriff of the county, if he be chosen for a county, or with the Chief Magistrate of the city