" [Footnote: Clarendon's _History of the
Rebellion_, vol. i., p. 667.] His work _De Decimis_, in which he tried to
prove that the giving of tithes was not ordered by any Divine command,
excited much contention, and aroused the animosity of the clergy. In
consequence of this in 1621 he was imprisoned, and remained in custody for
five years. On the dissolution of Parliament in 1629, being obnoxious to
the royal party, he was sent to the Tower, and then confined in a house of
correction for pirates. But as a compensation for his injuries in 1647 he
received L5,000 from the public purse and became a member of the Long
Parliament. He was by no means a strong partisan of the Puritan party, and
when asked by Cromwell to reply to the published works in favour of the
martyred King he refused. He lived until 1654 and wrote several works,
amongst which are _Mare clausum_, which was opposed to the _Mare liberum_
of the learned Dutch historian Grotius, _Commentaries on the Arundel
Marbles_ (1629), and _Researches into the History of the Legislation of
the Hebrews_.
John Tutchin, afterwards editor of the _Observator_, was punished by the
merciless Jeffreys in his Bloody Assize for writing seditious verses, and
sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and to be flogged every year
through a town in Dorsetshire. The court was filled with indignation at
this cruel sentence, and Tutchin prayed rather to be hanged at once.
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