THat whereas your prisoner under pretence of a Criminall fact being in a warlike manner brought before the House of Lords to be tried, and by them put to Answer to Interogatories concerning himselfe, both which your Petitioner humbly conceiving to bee illegall, and contrary to the naturall rights, freedomes, and properties of the free Commoners of England; confirmed to them by Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Act for the abolish­ment of the Star-chamber: hee therefore was imboldened to refuse subjection to the said House, both in the one and the other, expressing his resolution be­fore them, that he would not infringe the private rights and properties of him­selfe, or of any one Commoner in particular, or the common rights and proper­ties of this Nation in generall: for which your Petitioner was by them adjudged contemptuous, and by an order from the said House was therefore committed to the goale of Newgate, where, from the 11 of August 1646. to this present he hath lyen, and there commanded to be kept till their pleasures shalbe further signified (as a coppy of the said order hereunto annexed doth declare) which may be perpetuall if they please, and may have their Wils; for your Petitioner humbly conceiveth that thereby he is made a Prisoner to their Wils, not to the Law, except their Wils may be a Law.

Wherefore your leige Petitioner doth make his humble appeale unto this most Soveraigne House (as to the highest Court of Iudicature in the Land, where­in all the appeales thereof are to centure, and beyond which, none can be made) humbly craving (both in testimony of this acknowledgment of its legall re­gality, and of his due submission thereunto) that your Honours therein assem­bled, would take his cause (and in his, the cause of all the free Commoners of England, whom you represent, and for whom you sit) into your serious conside­ration and legall determination, that he may either by the mercy of the Law be repossessed of this his just liberty and freedome, and thereby the whole Com­mons of England of their thus unjustly (as he humbly conceiveth) usurped and invaded by the House of Lords, with due repairations of the damages sus­stained, or else that he may undergoe what pennalty shall in equitie by the impar­tiall severity fo the Law, be adjudged against him by this Honourable House, in case by them he shalbe legally found a transgressor herein.

And your Petitioner (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c.