This day, December 22. was the Election (according to the Custom of the City of London) of the Common-Council-men for the year ensuing, and all good Protestants are abundantly satisfied, that those who are chosen are such as will stedfastly adhere to the Protestant Interest, and will upon all occasions assert their own, and the Rights of this City.
The Gazette having told you, That the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London , were directed by the Lord Chancellor, by His Majesties Command, not to suffer such persons as should sign tumultous Petitions to go unpunished, but that they should proceed against them, or cause them to be brought before the Council Board to be punished as they deserve, according to a Judgment of all the Judges of England 2 Jacobi , we suppose it may gratifie our Readers curiosity, (and prevent this danger too) to see what the Law Books say therein. Judge Crook in his Reports, folio 37. saith, That by command from the King, all the Justices of England , and divers of the Nobility, with the Archbishop of Canterbury , and Bishop of London , were Assembled in the Star-chamber , when the Lord Chancellor demanded of the Judges, whether it were an Offence punishable, and what punishment they deserve, who framed Petitions , and Collected a multitude of hands thereto, to present to the King in a publick cause, as the Puritans had done, ( which was as it seems for Alteration of the Law (with an intimation to the King, that if he denied their Suit, many Thousands of his Subjects would be discontented ;) whereto all the Justices answered, “That it was an Offence fineable at Discretion , and very near Treason and Fellony , in the punishment, for they tended to the Raising of Sedition, Rebellion, and Discontent among the People,” To which Resolution all the Lords agreed, and then many of the Lords declared that some of the Puritans had raised a false Rumor of the King, how he intended to to grant a Toleration to Papists , which offence the Justices conceived to be highly fineable by the Rules of the Common Law, either in the Kings Bench, or by the King and his Council , or now since the Statute of the 3. Henry 7. in the Star-chamber , The Lords severally, declared how the King was discontented with the