"I read of a custom among the old Romans, that once every year they had a solemn feast for their slaves; at which they had liberty, without exception, to speak what they would, thereby to ease their afflicted minds; which being finished, they severally returned to their former servitude. This may, with some resemblance and distinction, well set forth our present state; where now, after the revolution of some time, and grievous sufferance of many violent oppressions, we have, as those slaves had, a day of liberty of speech; but shall not, I trust, be hereafter slaves, for we are free: yet what new illegal proceedings our estates and persons have suffered under, my heart yearns to think, my tongue falters to utter. They have been well represented by divers worthy gentlemen before me; yet one grievance, and the main one, as I conceive, hath not been touched, which is our Religion: religion, Mr. Speaker, made vendible by commission, and men, for pecuniary annual rates, dispensed withal; Judgments of law against our liberty there have been three; each latter stepping forwarder than the former, upon the Rights of the Subject; aiming, in the end, to tread and trample underfoot our law, and that even in the form of law." "The first was the Judgment of the Postnati, (the Scots,) ... The second was the Judgment upon Impositions, in the Exchequer Court by the barons; which hath been the source and fountain of many bitter waters of affliction unto our merchants." "The third was that fatal late Judgment against the Liberty of the Subject imprisoned by the king, argued and pronounced but by one judge alone." "I can live, although another who has no right be put to live with me; nay, I can live although I pay excises and impositions more than I do; but to have my liberty, which is the soul of my life, taken from me by power; and to have my body pent up in a gaol, without remedy by law, and to be so adjudged: O improvident ancestors! O unwise forefathers! To be so curious in providing for the quiet possession of our lands, and the liberties of Parliament; and to neglect our persons and bodies, and to let them lie in prison, and that _durante bene placito_, remediless! If this be law, why do we talk of liberties? Why do we trouble ourselves with a dispute about law, franchises, property of goods, and the like? What may any man call his own, if not the Liberty of his Person? I am weary of treading these ways."[96] [Footnote 96: 2 Parl. Hist. 232. See also 441, 471. He had been thrown into the Tower by James in 1624. Cabbala (3d Ed.), 311.] In 1641 Sir Philip Parker, Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, in his place in Parliament, thus spoke:--