other Acts in several Counties for raising money c. or otherwise for discharging some Trust to them committed when as themselves the more eminent the more aimed at by the Enemy and the nearer to danger cannot appear with safety to execute the same Let any man suppose it to be his own case then he will not blame them for absenting themselves and substituting others in their room Many are the objections in this kinde which beget Disputes many accusations had against either part What the Parliament findes and complains to be practiced in opposition to them by their Enemies they observe most sensible presumptions for no one thing in bar to such presumptions to make up one tittle of compensation in lieu of the dangers which might happen or to give any the least satisfaction for removing the imminency of the same The vulgar and common salve used by His Majesties party of His passing bills since the Parliament began for the relief and ease of His Subjects as a pledge of His Princely goodnesse and care of His peoples welfare His often and deep Protestations for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom yet as matters now are these Acts of His not compensatory to those hostile Acts practiced by His party against His Parliament and people Besides those Acts of Parliament passed by His Majesty are in His and a new Parliaments power to retract or repeal them at pleasure For let it be granted that they were Acts of Parliament which His Majesty hath thus passed in that the Members of both Houses at WESTMINSTER are by His party denied to be a Parliament yet sometimes called a Parliament sometimes Rebels there is like to be little stability in what they have enacted neither is that which is contingent and possible to be altered to be adjudged compensatory to what is certain and actual The difference of times that they were reputed a Parliament when those Acts passed but since reputed Rebels or the distinction into persons that some are reserved to be a Parliament others Rebels will breed a greater confusion then help to frame an Answer by those of His Majesties party who object this favour of His Majesties passing divers Bills for the welfare of His Subjects c. That they may be repealed altered in part or all dissolved or want their vigour in execution it is probable when the persons who have and are the chief assistants in this War are the greatest Losers by those Acts recited Next as touching His Protestations His frequent Declarations of manifesting His intentions His late actions of Clemency and Pardon shewed to those whom he calls Rebels when they were taken prisoners at a late Seige by His Majesty His releasing and setting them free when He might have detained and proceeded against them as Traytors and Rebels in the judgement of His party These are to be acknowledged indulgent and merciful Acts becoming a just and Christian Prince yet they may be two wayes understood First in relation to the good of His own party prisoners in the Parliaments power and in danger to have suffered the like in case the King should have punished theirs Secondly those His Acts of releasing of His milde using of those His prisoners it is possible might be construed as present Acts of Clemency to endure only for a time and that He may be perswaded afterwards to punish them as Rebels These are times of wit and jealousie and the same Reasons which have occsioned this War even His peoples Jealousies may continue them without abatement there is no lesse cause of fears and dangers His party having tried every way by traducing the Parliament at home by attempting to set them at varience with Forraigners abroad having moved every stone as the Proverb is to subdue those whom they term Rebels no way left untried to take away their power and shadow of power no means left unassayed either milde of Inviting or violent in Affrighting and those plausible and gratious Acts used possibly to encrease yet the number of his party may cease from a total pardoning only remitting for a time until a full Conquest be obtained And when the Crown is repossest the Conquest fully had the French Proverb tells us Que la Coronne unifois prinse oste toute sorte de defaults i. e. that when the King shall be reinvested to His former full Power and Regal Dignity the Parliament and the power thereof then laid aside and become void the possessing of the Crown doth as well quit all quarrels and acceptions and cancels all disputes as it clears and purifies all manner of defaults imperfections or exceptions to be made concerning the means whether fair or foul of gaining the Conquest As Jealousies have been the cause of this Contention so what the cause of Jealousies The principal and most certain one hath been in matter of fact namely the infringing the Subjects Liberty soon after the Petition of Right was granted in full Parliament to be omitted here because set forth in several Declarations and Remonstrances One and more universal was that in the case of Ship-money which had it not been withstood by a Gentleman of repute let his Ghost be railed at and a Parliament soon after summoned what had become of the Subjects Liberty If a Writ comes down directed to a Sheriff of a County he bound by Oath or fearful of incurring displeasure in case he refuse to execute the Kings Writ and having the Posse Comitatus within his Office what remedy shall the poor Countrey man have dwelling one hundred or two hundred miles from the Court if he refuse or hath it not to pay against Imprisonment or his Goods taken from him by Distresse Justice hath its boundary and is circumscribed by Law Injury and Injustice like the violent Torrent of an Inundation over-flowing the Banks and Metes overwhelms and drowns as Decency and Order when bound up by good and wholsom Laws if disturbed and broken down falls into Uncertainty Indiscretion and becomes Confused Let men talk of fears and jealousies and in an Ironical way smile at those whose peculiar care is to prevent and remove the same no man knows what the Progresse of that wrong had been had it not been withstood The mention whereof seeing so often inculcated in other Writings can be no pleasing Theme to any Subject And whereas His Majesty hath confessed and retracted that His Error being now condemned to an utter abolition ought to be buried in Oblivion neither doth it become every ordinary Subject to traduce and accuse His Soveraign of Injustice doing it comes too near to what the wise man expresly forbids of Cursing the King in their thoughts as of what the Statute Law provides against Only to satisfie one Objection used by some of His Majesties party in His behalf touching the same Better say they the payment thereof should have continued then so much blood spilt such vast Sums of Money spent in
Act of offering a Treaty for Peace to invent new charges of high Treason of capital Misdemeanors of Injustice is no right way to Peace unlesse the persons charged are guilty of the same as namely they charge the Parliament or their Committees to have imprisoned two Lords for their Loyalty to the King as if their Loyalty were the unquestionable and certain cause of their Imprisonment These Lords might happily shew themselves active against and disobedient to the Parliaments Authority for in these unsetled and distracted times few men do others will not know their proper duty and so come within the compasse of some fault to deserve Imprisonment The High Treason whereof they accuse their fellow-Members is their counterfeiting the Great Seal Page 22. against the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. which whether in this case be to be understood High Treason the Sword must decide the Question The Parliament think themselves not guilty of that Crime by the Verdict of most men nor every thing made to the Mould by which it is made is not simply Counterfeiting the quality of the offence is much discerned in the maner of the offending and every Law-making commonly relates to some preterite fraud and wickednesse Now whether a King and a Parliament since the first constitution of either have heretofore made use of the Great Seal to crosse one anothers Acts be to be found in any Record whereon to ground a Law the Reader is to seek Amongst all the capital Misdemeanors amounting to High Treason recited in that Statute the Parliament making a new Seal being not done against the knowledge of the King and State seems not within the compasse of that Law which in that clause doth questionlesse intend the privy and surreptitious counterfeiting to the private Use and Benefit of the Counterfeiter And whereas in that Statute there may be divers doubtful cases of Treason determinable it is then and there accorded That if any other case supposed Treason which is not specified in See the Statute that Statute shall come before any Justices they shall tarry without giving Judgement of the Treason until the cause shall be shewed and declared before the King and Parliament whether it ought to be so adjudged or not In which determination the King and Parliament are presumed joyntly to Act if dividedly then who to judge the King seclusively without the Parliament or the Parliament without the King which if divided most likely to give a clear and dexterous judgement the King or the Parliament Those words The King Parliament cannot be understood of the Kings Councel and the Parliament it must be of the King himself in which as Treason is here objected to the Parliament the Parliament is excluded from any decisive power of being Judge what is Treason and pronounced guilty themselves of Treason The marginal Note if in that as in other places of See the marginal Note the Statute it sums up the sense of the Statute disputeth many Questions touching Treason to be first decided in Parliament leaving out the word King or presuming as is before observed that He is always there in person or in vertue Take the Accusers the Assembly at OXFORD Page 24 25. their own acknowledgement That the Parliament is His Majesties Answer to a Declaration from both Houses May 19. 1642. not Dissolved that they are far from Dissolving or attempting to Dissolve it Take His Majesties own confessing and allowing to the Parliament a power in a particular doubtful case regularly brought before them to declare what Law consequently what Treason is and the making a new Great Seal the old being contrary to Trust vafrously carried away from them the Representative Body of the State which the Seal is always to attend will not be adjudged a case of High Treason In the controverting this particular case as of the other Crimes charged on the Parliament and the Subjects of this Kingdom adhering thereunto the people may well be to seek when as the learned Sages and other Students of the * The Innes of Court Phrontisteries of Law and Justice seem to be divided in opinion some very active as being peradventure engaged for the King against the Parliament contending with all their might to make good the charge of Treason laid upon that Court and the Friends assisting them Others in the Parliaments account and questionless their Friends as earnest although more moderatly expressing it for the King and Parliament believe it to be no way Treason Which are greater numbers of them on the one side or the other or which the more able Lawyers is not here determined But to the Objection if any such That a greater number of them are within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament in LONDON and other places elswhere wherefore they may seem rather to side with that power The Answer is easily had That their hopes and possibility of being prefer'd by His Majesty were not Conscience Judgement valued by them above Reward or Honor were a more weighty motive then fear can be of displeasing that side in whose Quarters they are which cannot always protect much lesse gratifie them save only with the testimony of what they deserve answerable to their Breeding Knowledge and liberal Faculty One of the learnedst of that Tribe in those days wherein he lived and much Honored for his parts and industry wrote a whole Tractate for the Dignity and Priviledge of that Court in general How this in particular hath demeaned themselves to forfeit their Credit any other way then in maintenance of their power against oppression violence offered to themselves and the Subjects for whom they are entrusted future Ages can Record But to proceed In the same Declaration full of suspition and fraught with quarrelling the Assembly at OXFORD except against the words of a Message sent from the Lords and Commons to His Majesty Dated in the same year March 1643. viz. That His Majesty would not be the least or last Sufferer These words they throughly scanned and presented them to the world as terms of an See the Message of the Lords and Commons sent unto His Majesty upon occasion of a Letter sent from the Earl of Forth to the Earl of Essex high Affront as that Subjects or Rebels 't is all one in their Dialect in arms against their King should dare to send unto Him such a daring and presumptuous Message The words admit a two-fold sense the one of the Parliaments meaning as the Assembly at OXFORD seem to construe it the other more probably of their lamenting and foreseeing in their sadnesse and grief of heart the inevitable and universal ruine which must attend this War For that His Majesty cannot be the least Sufferer 't is too probable whose sufferings can be compared to His in the destruction of many thousands of His people as well in the greatest and dearest to Him as in the meaner sort in all whom consists His Safety This exception
Divers also of a luke-warm temper not Moderate but Neutral rather Issachar like couching down betwixt two Burthens reserving the tribute of their affections for the stronger side their condition not unlike to Water-men in a rough Tide Rowing for safety from one Shore to another yet discerning the difference of the Cause in question and in their judgements satisfied which is the more just do weigh withall whose Actions the Kings parties or the Parliaments are the more Cruel and for fear of that which is the more cruel betake themselves to that presuming upon the Lenity of the more milde and merciful as not likely to exceed the Limits of Justice in their punishings Others of mixt affections adhering to the King in some of His Tenents to the Court of Parliament in some of theirs and none so sure a lover to the Parliament or Adversary to the King but will think that the Parliament in some of their transient Acts may deviate and go astray The Kings party may in other things maintain a probable right yet that doth not distinguish these mens affections or make them lesse vehement to the party they affect For the extreme and adequate terms in this Division are an actual invading the Subjects Right setled by an Ancient and Fundamental Law on the one and an endeavoring to maintain and preserve the same on the other part The other Disputes between the King and Parliament concerning Church-Government and the manner of Divine Worship are collateral only and incident to this contention and might have been left unquestioned and intire had not this War touching a more principall object happened and may soon yet be reconciled when as little different in themselves And these men mistermed luke-warm or neutral will approve themselves as affectionate and constant to the Parliament as any of those who misterm and censure them And of this sort many there are who have wisely and warily carried themselves with fervour and constancy to that part although commended in a malevolent envious way and taken notice of by their enviers repining at their well-doing for playing their game so wisely Divers also of the other side to comprehend them all in a few words ignorant peevish and currupt in manners as in judgement as Schismatiques and Sectaries snarling at and despising all Government are seeming to adhere to the Parliament against the King it is sure against His Government no friends to the Parliament but instruments and glad at these Distempers whereout they suck no small advantage and certain Enemies when time shall discover them to the peace of the Church and State The Quarrel would end the sooner if all men who partake therein would deliberately and seriously examine within themselves on what grounds and for what respects they have wished best to the one or to the other side and if they have in a hasty and precipitate way erred in point of judgement to retract their Errors the two known premises of * Secunde cogitationes sunt sapicutores the second thoughts are commonly the wisest and no * In sapientem non potest cadere injuria Senec. injury can befall a wise and resolved spirit afford one safe conclusion that it is no injury to the Credit of any man to change his opinion upon better grounds and if it were his wisdom can keep off the injury If Reason Conscience Duty were the rule alone wherby to guide the affairs and mindes of men collateral and sinister ends as is elsewhere set down excluded or the distinction well observed betwenn Time and Eternity and the difference between the dimension of these and the reward due after the fruition of either there had been much lesse blood spilt and the accompt lain more lightly on the blood shedders The Series of the War declared the partakers known who have been the Authors what the Cause of this Contention the Parliament by the event of what hath happened have been traduced and censured the Authors the occasion The proper cause is Injustice and Oppression by whom committed follows if Justice exalts a Nation by the rule of Contraries Injustice must overthrow it T is true this calamity these pressures these divisions and Schisms have happened in the time of the Parliaments sitting yet that Court no more the Cause thereof then Augustus Caesar's Raign the cause of Christs birth He was born in the time of Augustus Raign This Calamity befel in the time of the Parliaments sitting If the Parliament any cause at all it is a very remote and least principal not to be reckoned positively a cause No man can reasonably think them to be the cause that when as Discord doth waste and rend the strength which they have gained by Policy and friends they will endanger the losse thereof by the weaknesse of Dissention In a serious and Christian apprehension of these Calamities the supreme and original cause is our National Iniquities Pride Falshood Luxury contempt of Gods Word and His Laws and the like drawing down the Anger of a just God but that His other attributes of mercy which is over all His works His long-suffering and plenteousnesse in Goodnesse can cancel and supersede that of His justice if the fault be not supinely ours when as if the commemorating of His readinesse to forgive be no Doctrine of presumption to embolden sinners He often spares for His elect for a few righteous Mens sake the rest In the rank of natural and lower causes Injustice as even now spoken of in the subordinate Ministers of justice which grindes the face and adds to the number of the poor hath been the proper and certain cause although the * Mr. Jo Heywood on the life of Hen. 4. Historian stateth it plainly against a King Himself to private men saith he it is sufficient that they do no wrong but a Prince must provide that none under Him do wrong for by the winking at the vices of His Officers He makes them His own One other sin of a latter date may be added to the number of the causes of the continuance of this War for which God is justly angry and hath severely threatned the faint and perfunctory keeping of the Protestation and Covenant entred into rather of not keeping it at all in many of this Kingdom for whilest in the close of the Protestation we shall vow to endeavour by all honorable and just ways c. In which words some measure of Activity at least is requisite When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thou shalt not be slack to pay it and wherein many have not Deuteron 23. only deserted this their vow but endeavoured against the same Others contemplative only and remisse as not endeavouring at all but with cautious reservations and forbearances keep off their endeavourings believing as the Lazy Souldiers whom the * Livie Historian noteth to have dreamed their Enemies votis sedendo debellari posse Wishings and sitting still are no sufficient discharge of the
at WESTMINSTER being the lesse One other kinde of force is urged of sitting at un-Parliamentory Pag. 7. hours or else to lose their Vote There must be to answer the other Member of of this distinction some Parliamentory hours appointed which no Laws hath yet assigned sitting still or going away relates commonly to the necessity and exigent of the matter in hand which haply will not admit delay or a second meeting but may require their sitting up till ten eleven or twelve a clock in the night and may again their meeting at six five or four or sooner in the morning If they please to abate so much of their own repose and rest by their pains and Industry their Countrey is so much the more beholding to them many of the Countries have in their * See the Petitions of the several Counties Petitions taken notice of and thanked them for their indefatigable pains The reason of the small number at WESTMINSTER wherewith the Assembly at OXFORD chargeth them is obvious to each mans understanding They make them thin and then upbraid them with their thinnesse T is as if Friends and Companions in a Journey shall see their fellow Travellers in danger to be robbed and ride away without assisting them in danger whose fault is it in case they are robbed the failing of those who might have helped or the paucity of those who are robbed this in respect of the other is a remote least principal and accidental cause T is easie for a Prince to confer Honors upon men so to fill the House of Peers divers wayes also to increase the number in the House of Commons to His party but for the one party to make the other thin and then to undervalue the power of them becoming so is like one impoverishing another by forsaking him in those duties of friendship which he owes and then contemning him The next odds observed by the Assembly at OXFORD between the Parliament at WESTMINSTER and themselves is the Kings presence with them at OXFORD and a major part of the Lords therefore out-weighing the Dignity of those at WESTMINSTER Which exception as to the Kings being there is answered by the Law of not Dissolving or by His Majesties being Virtually although not Personally present In that the greater part of the Nobility are with the King His party therefore the more Honored 't is answered without Disputing the Dignity or Preeminence of either part as which the more valuable in Birth or Breeding those which went away or those which staid behinde Comparisons are unseemly and forbid what this Discourse doth aim at Reconcilement Union It was not so at the first entrance into this Quarrel the King withdrawing Himself from the Parliament many of the Peers thought themselves by duty of their place obliged to attend on His Majesty and might have power it is like to prevail with some other of their fellow-Peers Besides the Nobility are to be considered as in the next Classe and Attendant on His Majesty some by their place others more remotely Interested wherefore seeing Safety and Preferment are the Stake which most men of all sorts contend for let the World be made believe it is Conscience Loyalty the King the Fountain of Honor in whom to Reward and Pardon they who are nearest Him hope first to gain by applying themselves to serve and please Him All men know the Proverb No fishing to the Sea nor service to the Court which was only in those days true when a just and uninterrupted Peace did flourish no man but could perceive through the Prospect of this Discord that Peace Plenty and Liberality in Rewarding would all be lost in a Civil Destructive War The Question was at the first much controverted which the more just or rightful Cause the Kings or the Parliaments divided from the King Many of the Grandees adhering to the Court and more Loyal in an implicite faith adhered to the Kings no more marvel then that Servants immediatly attendant on their Master should venture their obedience and assent unto him because their Master without examining the Reason of so assenting and then engaged pursue their undertakings or be meanly thought of in case they shall renounce the same the credit whereof is discerned in the quality of the Cause undertaken not in the resolvednesse of the Servant undertaking it Princes can and often do reward their Friends and Favorites the Parliament cannot or seldom doth it is besides their usual course to give besides their Friends expectance to receive other Salary then the redemption of their just Liberties for which they fight the maintenance of their ancient Birth-right conveyed unto them by the known Laws saving in some few particular cases where the Parliament shall meet with a desperately engaged and restlesse Enemy of great Power and Estate to fight and foment the Quarrel against on the other side some Friends Eminent in Desert of smaller Fortunes to fight for them In such a case to disseize their Enemy to diminish his power to invest and gratifie their Friend to augment his Fortune seems not unjust nor unreasonable But to return The distinction of Virtual and Personal seems offensive yea the Declaration calls it Trayterous which no indifferent man will judge until Victory by nature insolent makes every thing displeasing to the Conqueror Criminal As when those on the Kings side hoped to have over-run and conquered all no man wishing well to the Parliament durst name them joyntly whereas simply and univocally to hold for King and Parliament is the surest and most Loyal tenure Howbeit nothing can be with more anger and displeasingly received by the more perverse and insolent amongst His Majesties party then for them to hear those on the Parliaments side say that They are for the King and Parliament So the Quarrel hath several overtures of increasing the Parliament party taking it indignly at the Kings party's hands to be thought Disloyal False Dissemblers as the King 's expresse their anger with the Parliaments for saying They are for King and Parliament To believe or say that the King is seduced by evil Councel is in their heat and anger a wounding His Majesty through His Councels sides which exception of theirs must render Him infallible in judgement or so singular in wisdom as to be above or to stand in no need of Councel for if he makes use of Councel and erres by their Advice the Error is His Councels or must presume in Him such transcendency of Goodnesse in not inclining to any evil motion as is not competent to a Creature An impartial looker on will rather judge the words of His Majesties being seduced by Evil Councel to be a degree rather of Dutifulnesse then Disloyalty as freeing Him from Misdoings and laying the Charge on His Evil Councellors His Majesty is happier if free from these stiled by another * King Iames in His speech in Parliament 1609. calls them Traitors vipers c name then His
mad violence and oppression practised in the Kings name and by His party and by degrees wrought to the destruction of the Subject diverts and alters His wonted course and may make him Rebel as it were against His will when as He is frightned driven from and threatened out of His obedience If on the other side the Parliament shall prevail those Enemies to Common-Prayer advers also to what Government the Church shall appoint may be easily over-ruled by a Parliamentary Authority The Authors and Fautours of those Before this time of War there were no such Schisms or Heresies Tautum res nobis saith learned Iewel cum quibusdam satellitibus Pontificiis c. and it is requisite that Vnity and Peace be setled in the Church as well as in the State for suppression of these Schisms and Heresies God delighting yea and requiring it to have Order and Truth in his presence chamber the Church as in his larger courts the Common-wealth The Authors of the War have been the Authors of these Heresies which side Schisms being few and inconsiderable their Tenents newly sprung up and apt to vanish both through the insufficiency of their grounds and multiformity of their Sects wounding and weakning one another and in the main the Common cause For it is the firm and Orthodox Protestants which are the Parliaments firm friends whereon to trust yea and their constant friends also whilst the Parliament goes on in an entire solid and joynt way and are as the Exigency of their Affairs shall suffer them constant to themselves whereby and by which way alone they are inabled to defend themselves to protect their Friends Which side will prevail God only knows who can dispose of Victories at his will If the Parliament shall the King neverthelesse could not but assure Himself that He should be entirely King howsoever part of His Estate be by reason of these Wars diminished and the Parliaments Protestation taken 1641. together with their late Covenant two years after for the maintenance of His just Power and greatnesse were good security until themselves were reputed Traitors Rebels their worth in like maner undervalued and scorned by His party for so the Protestation and Covenant both may lose their efficacy and intent if He for whom they do Protest and Vow shall by opposing disable them in the prosecution of their Vow To that Objection That the Parliament have contrary to such Covenant Usurped and Intrenched upon His Regal Dignity and by seeking to hinder His Power have lessened His Honor in passing an Ordinance against His Majesties creating of Lords c. in seeking to have their Friends Invested with Honors and Titles answerable to their demerits To the first it is confest an Ordinance is past against all such Acts as may inure by vertue of the Great Seal and Barons being made by Patent under the same Seal which being a necessary Instrument of State which the Parliament represents being surreptitiously taken from them contrary to a Trust they have consequently passed an Ordinance against the Creating of Lords ut Supra For the Contention betwixt Him and them being grown extreme the King striving by all means to lessen their Power and Credit using all ways to advance His own their Enemies they knowing likewise the Seal to be made use of to their Detriment as if that the Kings conferring those Honors were not so much an augmentation of His Dignity in granting or in the created Lords in receiving those Honors as an intended diminution to the Parliaments Dignity had reason to provide for the time against all contingent Acts tending to the lessening their Power Admit it to be as the Objectors give out which neither the Kings party do prove nor the Parliaments do grant as in other Acts done by the Parliament An Usurping in them Usurpation may in the strength of policy prove a benefit to the Subject in that Usurpers do commonly Establish the best Laws to redeem their Credit lost by the Injury done in their Usurping If the Kings party shall prevail the War being between Him and His People the Parliament rather an Umpire in the Quarrel to do right to the wronged part there will be two things considerable The means whereby He doth prevail The end of His prevailing The first means not primarily as in the strength or greatnesse of His party yet consequently in that His party do undividedly retain and keep up the Ancient and setled Form of Government without contesting or dissenting in opinion about the Establishing any new As on the other side the Parliament hath thrown down the old without for a long time setting up any other Form or Constitution It was a learned Fathers Observation Augustine Ipsa mutatio quae utilitate adjuvat etiam novitate perturbat And it will require a most exact deliberate Wisdom to suppresse all Inconveniences which may arise on Novity Hence it hath been that the Parliaments Friends have grown lesse zealous to their side more troublesom to the Court it self by requiring and seeking a new and certain Form Which may admit a twofold Answer that the Parliament interrupted by a powerful Enemy hath not a full measure of Efficacy to conform and compose every collateral difference happing either in Church or Common-wealth when as their Task is hard enough to maintain and keep a work more necessary Their own Power Secondly In that they have for a time abolished those ancient Forms and constitutions finding haply some present reason for so doing whether they will forthwith establish some other Forme as it is probable they will having long since promised it or reassume the Ancient when time shall serve there being no substantial difference betwixt what is now abrogated and what is to be Ordained is left to their wisdom besides it is presumed in point of Judgement and of Policy that they will have such respect unto their Predecessors Acts as not altogether to raze out to abrogate for ever their ancient Constitutions least succeeding Parliaments should do the like by theirs and so the Courts of Parliament which have been instituted for redresse of Mischiefs and Grievances c. should become See Statute Edw. 3. the Scene and Seminary of inconvenience and disturbance by introducing still Novelties and alterations in the Common-wealth The third is in that His Majesty keeping His residence in a lesse Town of Garison Oxford can more easily conform and subdue a few unto His will then the Parliament can in a more greater place London The multitude in that City the supplies and Ayd afforded by the City to the Parliament can counterpoise such odds The event of His Majesties prevailing is alike considerable and two-fold also first in that the Parliament Members already proscribed and charged with Rebellion are exposed to contempt and ruine in them a great part of the Subjects of both Kingdoms when as the cause wherein the Publique good is so much concerned is by idle and abject Fellows called
already in derision The Cause Secondly In that a forraign Enemy upon a total devastation of this Realm without which the King cannot probably prevail will be induced to believe and accordingly make use of it that it hath happened through the soft and tender breeding of the English their unfitnesse to endure the hardship of a War and so invade and by degrees implant this Kingdom And what a Forraigner implanted here his Demeanour may prove towards our King not naturally their liege Lord every good English Subject will fear the worst when as especially this Kingdom must be kept as NAPLES by a Sir VValter Raughleigh in his Dialogue betwixt a Councellor of state and a Iustice of peace Garison of another Nation so that the King shall be enforced as former Kings have been to compound with Rogues and Rebels yea to pardon them thereby Himself the whole Nobility yea the State of Monarchy to fall together To state the differences of Forces on either part when the quarrel first began the Parliament had far the greater * The number of the Friends and Adversaries unto either part are calculated and their several Forts discerned about the middle of this Book and which part was in probability like to finde the greater opposition the King or the Parliament as matters were then in being in which it will appear that the Parliament had the more Enemies or their Enemies the more Friends number the King having but few yet more then the Parliament had Towns of Fort as his party have Calculated and hyperbolically reported otherwise most mens hearts being bent to defend their Rights and Liberties which they thought were of late encroached upon and indeed the Off-spring of this Quarrel and the Parliaments Friends believing the Justice of that Court and of their Cause in a carelesse way of affording Ayd threw all upon the chance of War without using the ordinary means concurrent to their defence not foreseeing what would be the end and mischief of their backwardness and neglect to be repented of not remedied They were willing enough to have redresse for their late-past grievances to have the work done and the Parliament speed well at their Neighbours charge so themselves be saved harmlesse but to lay out money and purchase the name of a Rebel in case the Kings party should prevail was both a chargeable and double Crime Then their unwillingnesse to be exposed to the hardship of a War to which they were altogether unaccustomed believing in the goodnesse and sufficiency of their Cause to have it made good in an extraordinary way by Miracles without laying to their assisting hand so casting the whole burden upon God and his Omnipotency did wish well and pray peradventure for the Parliaments Successe For now every short enjoyment of their quiet every small respite from the Enemies cruelty although the next bordering Counties unto them be infested round about with their cruelty makes these men apprehend that the War is ended because their Coast is for the present clear and they feel no instant smart It is true Gods Providence is in all things to be observed it is as his Omnipotency Infinite and Superintendent to every Creature No one hair falls from a mans head nor a Sparrow from the house top without his Providence The same Almighty power which could rescue his three Servants out of the fiery Furnace and provide strength of the mouthes of Infant Babes is able but whether he will or not his works being unsearchable and his ways past finding out give successe according to the peoples wishing without the ordinary means to be used by Instruments that is left to his secret and determinate Councel There is a time for War and a time for Peace the Lord is a man of War his Name is JEHOVAH and Fighting in a qualified sence as Praying is a duty DAVID blessed God for teaching his hands to War c. And Prayer is a Christians a contrite and good mans Arms. Had we in Unity and Humblenesse of Spirit in the Power without the Form of Godlinesse besought Almighty God to be delivered from Famine Battel Murder and from Sudden death as the Church directs These Calamities had not in likelihood come nigh which threaten now to come upon us like an Armed man Beseeching God by Prayer might peradventure be the Peoples sacrifice alone neglecting otherwise their own endeavors and carelesly trusting if at all upon God his Providence they think sufficient which is confest In which they may alike consider That if the Kings party shall prevail or the whole Land be consumed and reduced even to a handful It is all within the compasse of Gods power The Lot is cast but the disposing is of the Lord And certainly that side which useth the best and most concurrent means to his dispose the Justice of the Cause is challenged by either party is likely to have the upper hand Praying and relying on the Almighty goodness seldom fails the Petitioner God ever giving what he prayeth for what suffices or what is better then he asks but the means must be added to the prayer Qui ordinat finem ordinat etiam media tendentia ad finem Moses at the coming of the Amalakites besought the Lord by prayer yet commanded Joshua to choose out men to fight with Amalck God is in all things the first Mover by whom we move and have our being he the Super-eminent and first cause yet working by subservient and second means we are his People and Members of his Church Militant against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail In the Creation his own glory was the effect of his chief care manifested unto us his Creatures his next affording us all necessaries for our support and good he looks to be sought unto and trusted upon in that course of obedience which he hath ordained in conveying that unto us which we look for at his hands otherwise he is rather slighted then trusted on Had the people been so liberal in Contributing to to their own Defence so provident to have foreseen that within one year after their improvidence they should have been thus opprest in the progress of one year more undone they would questionlesse have been more liberal and concurred more cheerfully in Contributing to their own Assistance For within a few Moneths after the War began many in the Kingdom fell off from the Parliament and under fear and the notion of being reputed Rebels thought it made against their present safety to wish well to the Parliament a Court scarce known in the Countrey and discontinued in the Kingdom much more to fight for it And hearing of divers invective Threats and Menaces to that purpose as if their Endeavors for the Parliament did make against the King and so resemble a Rebellion thought it altogether unsafe to adhere to the Parliament So the Kings strength increasing through the fear and revolt of many formerly engaged to the other part he gained
but without declaring what Plot or the Authors which had they particularly and manifestly done and so sufficiently proved the reason of their revolt it might have spared the effusion of much blood and more availed the Kings Cause then their revolting did They did not doubtlesse originally and from the first dissemble as to sit in a joynt and unanimous way with the Parliament and reserve their heart for an advers party to the Parliament few or none of any sorts of men were good at that close and subtile posture nor was dissembling then in that mature growth as these false and desperate seasons will bring in even amongst all sorts improving it to that obstruse and exquisite form as the vertue of wisdom And the subtilty of dissembling growing to be near the same most mens carriage will seem inconstant if not false Upon deliberation and advice those men undertook their charge and what wrought the change in them such mens instability is made much of their persons little Now that the Parliament should at this time have the upper hand the Kings party losing more in some places then they gain in other and that he having gathered Forces these three years or more and set forth Proclamations to subdue and awe those whom he calls his Enemies and not to over-match them 'T is probable that howbeit Fear and Inconstancy have brought many to his party a mightier hand over-awing all hath provided strength and courage to have his purpose brought to passe beyond the ordinary power of man and by his mighty Hand and out-stretched Arm to make his own Glory the more manifest through the infirmity of weak men As to the Proclamations set forth in the Kings Name of small advantage to his Cause it is a question whether his or not or published only in his Name without his assent The ordinary matter of a Proclamation ariseth on some emergent Accident of State binding for the present anon alterable of little or no use These kindes of Proclamations of Condemning are surviving Acts and conclude the Subject Proclaimed against Again Proclamations have been heretofore set forth only as Arbitrary and Temporary Declarations of a Prince's pleasure to grant Indulgence to prevent or cure some Inconveniences in State-matters serving for a light and present remedy until some judicial Act of Law shall apyly a more weighty and certain one If they were to no other end then that the persons Proclaimed against might by the terror of such an Imperial Act be brought into obedience and then to be received to mercy yet they and most men else held it the safer course being not guilty to keep out of their Accusers reach and not to put it to Arbitriment whether they should be Condemned or Pardoned when as also their personal sufferings in losse of life as Traytors had not satisfied the thirst of their Accusers It is the Enthralling and as it were the Disfranchizing and Embasing a free born Subject to stand to the Expectance of mercy when he knows his heart to be free from guilt A Traytor in his Araignment is admitted to his lawful Tryal demanded what he can say for himself c. A Proclamation ties him up from his Answer Crimes of a lower rank are not construed so as Fellonies unlesse the minde concurreth with the Fact for the * intent doth make the Fellony Treason See the Form of Indictm Felonice a Crime of a deeper Dye staining the blood ruining the Posterity with the Estate ought to be tryed in a more upright and sober course by Judges of an entire and impartial vertue Contention and the Sword are no fit Umpires in the Question of Who be Traytors It is a harsh and severe proceeding for a man to be be charged with Crimes by Proclamation to which no Answer can be given and to be debar'd from what he can reasonably say for himself It is as strange that seeing we are Subjects under the same King and Government his Proclamations should finde such contrary entertainment so weighty on the one side as to proscribe and awe yet so slight unto the other as not to be obeyed or credited For Example sake the frequent Proclamations against Papists resorting to his Majesties Court others straightly charging in his Majesties Declararation as to this present War * In answer to a Declaration of the Lords and Commons for the raising of all Power and Force as well Trained-Bands as others in all Counties printed at Oxford 1642. That no Papist should presume to List himself either as an Officer or a Soldier in his Army having directed how he should be discocovered if he did presume and suffer if he were discovered If necessity be pleaded for the King to make use of them his Subjects for his own defence against those whom he calls Rebels Or if the like Plea be made in excuse of those his Majesties Designs of late discovered as that he hath been necessitated and driven by his Subjects to try all means whatsoever for his reducing them for the reparation of his own Honor which he complains they seek to trample on The examining of the original of this War directeth who the Authors of it have been as also how this necessity so called hath hapned and whether the King should have had need to have made use of any of his Subjects for his own Defence or to have expressed his displeasure against other of his People For his own parties not obeying his Proclamations and Edicts as is observed Those published in March and June 1643. the one against Robbing Spoiling c. The other Pardoning all Members of Parliament some few by name excepted many of them so pardoned have had their Lands seized on by his Soldiers their Houses held from them by strong hand So the Proclamations slighted the Laws protested to be kept broken the Subject and his Right trampled on Many the like Edicts and Declarations of Favor and Liberty granted to his People to some upon their humble * Petition presented to his Majesty unto See the Petition of the Clothiers in the West and his Majesties Answer 1643. others from a compassion and sence in his Majesty of their sufferings seem neither his own Acts nor scarce seen by him not able to make good what he commands or not real in not intending to make good what he had promised The figurative Dialect and strong expressions wherein those Declarations and Messages are pen'd besides the matter of them are probably none of his neither is it possible that any ones heart should have so large a capacity the King 's not leasure enough amongst the oppositions of crosse Councels amidst the variety of such accidents as hourly happen to examine digest command and declare all matters subject and suitable to such accidents the demeanor of his party also quite contrary to his Declarations and Commands The Proclamations in July the same year forbidding Trade and Traffique unto his chiefest and Imperial City should not in
Art and might nothing left unattempted to awe and conquer them and which they judge most hard that Proclamations forbidding all Traffique unto the place of their sitting that other Messages some requiring Obedience others threatning and sent them where they sit to be debarr'd the publishing their Reason and Answer of not obeying which they cannot communicate thereby to satisfie the Kingdom in that all commerce and intercourse betwixt the King and them is inhibited by those his Proclamations Fear of a Prince's displeasure is a note of a Peoples subjection no lessening their just courage the Parliament have manifested both Submission Courage Courage in not yielding when they were weakest Submission in not refusing to Treat when strongest Former Princes have been best pleased to own such Subjects men of Valor and Constancy not terming those vertues Rebellion Treason when as Rebellion rightly understood may be against a State as against a King it may want a proper appellation otherwise King James as wise and discerning a Prince as the latter times have afforded throughout the Christian Empire erred much in delivering his judgement How he sets forth the Enemies to a State and the unhappinesse of that King who admits such his above recited Speech in Parliament 1609. hath mentioned in several passages thereof Misdemeanors intended and committed against a State are done with an high insolent hand and deserve an answerable punishment as well as against a King the State being a firm and well built frame of Government wherein the King and Kingdom is conerned The King although a Supreme Person yet a Subject to Infirmity The several threatnings published and violence offered the Houses of Parliament may well grow thin when those of the Kings party contend to make his Power absolute and unlimited thence in him to Punish Pardon and Reward at pleasure In him also or in themselves to Judge alone the consideration whereof might invite many to his party who at first deliberatively upon advice and best judgement promised their duty and affections to the Parliament since finding their strength decreased by the departure of many their fellow Members might think it unsafe to stay themselves They could not but foresee that the King offering to remove the Houses of Parliament to some other place the City of LONDON would be quarreled with as harboring those whom his Majesty calls his Enemies and from whence he was driven away as he and his party do complain by seditious Tumults Whether those Tumults were the true or suggested cause of his removing thence or the Letter written to disswade him from any compliant way with the Parliament but rather to betake himself to some remoter place elsewhere c. 'T is true there was at that time which his Majesty speaks of a great concourse of people about Westminster and White-hall and the Londoners languishing long as many Subjects elsewhere did under the heavy pressures of Injustice implored his Majesty and the Houses of Parliament for redresse every one being earnest to have Justice done with the first opportunity of the Parliaments sitting They might peradventure press too near and rudely to his presence but whether his Actions after such removing suited with the Instructions of that Letter then sent when the Jealousies did first begin let all men judge The Orators opinion was Nothing so elegant or Cicer. Offie good but words may stain yea and wrest it too to an ill sense The peoples numerous and importunate desire of Justice their pressing near to his Majesty is by the power of Oratory Seditious Tumults On the other side some taking part with the Parliament give out That the Book of Common Prayer is altogether Idolatrous the Church-Government by Bishops Antichristian There may be an Error and corruptive use in this or any Form yet not to be mark'd by such Attributes Nothing also as the same Orator observes so harsh or horrid but the eloquence of words can mitigate and excuse The impetuous coming of great numbers of Armed men with Swords and Pistols following the King when he came to the House of Parliament to demand the six Impeached Members is by vertue of milde language the * In the Kings Answer to the Declaration from the Lords and Commons 1642. single casual mistake of the King the indiscretion of some few rash Gentlemen Which by the way the disaffection born by his Majesty to the City the place of the Parliaments sitting presaged all possible means to be devised of dividing the place and the Parliament met there which could not be better managed then by excepting against that and adjourning to some other place To speak it plainly it was the Cities Assistance and Affection to the Parliament which caused the Anger for be it spoken to their perpetual Glory the happy correspondence betwixt the City the place of security for that Court and that Courts consulting for the Cities and the Publique good hath hitherto next under Gods Protection delivered Both the City and the Parliament It follows next in point of Conscience which is to be obeyed the King divided from the Parliament or the Parliament as the King is the Head and eminent part of the Parliament the Parliament the Heart of the King although the Head may be forceably or otherwise turned then the Heart directs the Heart is neverthelesse the same nor to be thought divided from the Head Wherefore the Parliament residing there where it was first Summoned and the King there vertually * The Commissions cannot otherwise work then to a Parliament wherefore if his Majâ—sties personal presence be a necessary part of Parliament without which there can be no Parliament the Commissions can be of no force his absence making it no Parliament The granting which lets in other inconveniences upon dispute touching the locality of his presence as where whether in his Throne within the walls of the House or in his Court adjoyning The King and his Majesty are as it were inseparable Majesty is proper to him alone only his Attribute somtimes we say the King somtimes His Majesty neither is any mans person any more then a corporeal substance It is the Minde the Soul the Dignity and qualifications thereof which do as the Philosopher speaks inform and give being unto man Neither can it be thought that a personal contiguity is to be required of the King to be within the Parliament walls no more then the Body of the Sun to descend and touch the Earth when as it sufficeth that by its power and influence it gives heat and nourisheth a Commission for passing Bills in his absence and a Law in force for transacting matters when he is absent by Commission to convey his Royal Assent 33. Hen. 8. Obedience is due to the Parliament so considered viz. his Majesty in his lustre power and vertue being there incorporate with those his Faculties and whosoever resists that Court resists the King as Head Herewith suits the * Rom. 13. Apostles
a disposition to a habit and a habit to it self 'T is true there wanted time and preparations to make it a perfect War and neither WESTMINSTER nor LONDON were a fit scene for War the preparations were elswhere made in many parts of the Kingdom by men who have been active for His party and large contributors to this War against the Parliament have evidenced the symptomes of a War and their assistance whensoever it should be waged To prove the Kings assertion that He in His Person intended no War divers of His Nobility then attending Him have * See their Attestation at York Iune 1642. attested it under their hand writing which the Court of Parliament urges as too light a proof to discharge their Trust or to secure three Kingdoms by a Civil War being then in agitation the seed already sown Who may they say can witnesse or be security for another mans intentions for what another man doth purpose in his heart or who being present with the King dare call in question His sincerity t is all one to tell Him He is false or wicked a Kings anger is as the roaring of a Lyon If two or three begin what third fourth or more will refuse to joyn in the attesting it being present there His Majesties heart may be peaceable and sincere but a Certificate from those Lords is no Medium to prove it so Those Lords it 's like had a cheap esteem of their fellow-Lords and Commons and might well think fit rather to be quarrelled then joyned with if the Parliament the supreamest Court of Judicature and Trust shall so slighly discharge their Trust as to place the Peace and security of three Kingdoms on so easie a proof as a few though very Honorable Gentlemen to deliver what their opinion barely was concerning the Kings intentions a discord arising and a Civil War in view His Majesty exasperated as it was feared a party ready to joyn with Him some whereof having taken part with Him in His first assault others of the like condition to assist Him on pretence of Loyalty the Parliament Members many of them being accused of high misdemeanors and few scarce free from the incursion of His Majesties displeasure the debate concerning the Earl of Straffords trial being scarse wiped out were necessitated as well in their own defence as in the peoples involved in theirs to take up Arms to keep off those storms already acted and attempted which if they had not done and timously provided a face of War appearing against the like assaults it would have been thought a weaknesse of spirit or want of prudence if they had desisted besides the happinesse as to us which probably might have accrewed by the assembling a Parliament must have turned unto much unhappinesse by the affronting and overthrowing this as to the Parliament how incompetent it had been to their judgement in case the Trust reposed in them and the important Affairs of the Kingdom the end of their Assembling should have miscarried through their credulity to have made no better return of their wisdom the peoples trust then for them to have excused the same by saying We had not thought it would have so faln out As to the Acts of Violence and Injustice practised by the partakers in this War as of Robbing Spoyling and the like who first began the Kings party or the Parliaments They accuse each other of the first breach of Justice The Kings party aver The Lady Savage's House in ESSEX to be the first which was assaulted and spoyled of much of her Goods and Houshold-stuffe to an exceeding value Whether so or not or the Earl of Stamfords House in Leicestershire as the Parliament party urges the case is of a differing quality For howbeit there may be Injustice in the one as in the other act of Pillaging The Lady Savage being a known and convict Recusant a Law in force for disarming Papists and His Majesties Proclamation of Displeaâ—ure published the year before against Recusants c. the people suspecting their strength and opportunity to increase and supposing her preparations might be therefore made the better to enable her self against the Law remembring also His Majesties Proclamation did in pursuance of such Law and Proclamation without any Superior Warrant assault and Pillage her as is urged These particular acts could not but foreshew a war which since hath happened and setting those aside the Question is on which side the offensive is The extreme terms and parties in this Quarrel are a Delinquent party on the one and a Parliament a Court of Judicature on the other side or if the King will against His Subjects will and their humble importuning Him make himself a party betwixt a King and the greater part of His Kingdom the Parliament only the Umpire to judge and moderate the Quarrel A War thus happening and parties thus engaged 't is not now who first intended an Offensive who a Defensive War but who first executed a Warlike act or appeared modo guerrino which the Laws do forbid to Subjects and the King the Defender of those Laws to make the offended party provide for themselves the King against the Parliament or the Parliament against the King The Parliament to bring offendors unto Tryal the end and reason of their Assembling to sit as a speculative and ignavous Court or to dissolve as having nothing within their Power to do could not in an ordinary and usual course summon and reach offendors Themselves proscribed and proclaimed against as Traytors were enforced to take up Arms as well for their own as the peoples safety which if they did not and in time provide against their Ruine they had had no other Reward for the present but pity from their Friends and scorn from their Enemies The future inconveniences might have been as fatal like a Consumption leisurely to spend the body or as a Civil War like a burning Feaver suddenly to kill it They then upon foresight of what they could not avoid but either to pursue the Justice of their Cause by Arms or to desist and submit to the mercy of their Enemies provide and send forth an able faithful General proved by his Prowesse in rescuing and relieving a besieged * GLOUCESTER stoutly and like an expert Commander relieved without as vigilantly and valiantly defended by the Governor within Town or Fort when the Enemy had well nigh prevailed Next after him they send forth another Puissant and Dexterous in his Atchievements with other Officers and Commanders belonging to an Army hazarding their own persons and Estates to try whether the Countreys which have chosen and sent them on their work would now defend and assist them in imminence of danger in the Cause of maintaining the Laws the Subjects Liberty the Power and Priviledge of Parliament In the Interruption of whose Endeavors a War is waged a Conflict entred into two parties opposite engaged and the Victory hath been therefore doubtful by reason of
the equal strength in the one for the King and Parliament with the other for the King against the Parliament both sides equal in degree and worth The odds only in that those for the King and Parliament contend not peradventure in so temporary seeming and immediate a way of Service as those for the King against the Parliament in their impetuous and inconsiderate heat amongst their own party best accepted as having at first sight a more seeming test of Loyalty more dreadful to the advers part as being the more full of cruelty Those for the King would not be thought Adversaries to a Parliament in a direct and immediate opposition to that Court for all seem to reverence the Law and the Law makers but consequently and forseeingly what course the Parliament did take to suppresse Abuses and Exorbitances in the Common-wealth which haply those advers persons might be guilty of The Adversaries to which Court are branched into several sorts the Verses found at their first fitting declaring what Members were competent alone for imployment in the Parliament glanced at many of those who were likely to prove advers thereunto No Church-Papist no Court Atheist No Fen Dreyner nor Lords Reteiner No man commended from the Lawn Sleeve Nor Ship-money collecting Sheriff out of which some chosen have approved themselves firm Friends and Patriots to their Countrey Besides these recited in these Rimes are First Obnoxious and guilty persons corrupt in place and Office therefore troubled to be overlook'd by a Superior power who might examine their Demeanors Amongst which numbers some not from the first or habitually offending but for some later and particular act of Inconstancy having erred persist therein in forsaking the trust in them reposed 2. Others of ambitious and aspiring thoughts or of a proud conciet or envy scorning to partake with others their Equals in opinion thinking withall that it smels too much of the Yeoman of a Peasant and vulgar quality to take part with or serve their Countrey 3. Some through Levity and Humor of a crosse and advers condition affecting Paradoxes venting thence the strength of their own wit and boldly descanting on the Court of Parliament their actions as if the more Honorable that Court is the more fit a Combitant for their great wits to foyn and fence with 4. Others from an ill will and disaffection to some person of the Parliaments side which the disaffected hope may prove Rebellion in such person have therefore adhered to the King against the Parliament 5. Others not much differing from these who seeing their immediate Ancestor Father Brother or some other unto whom they are next in Remainder or near in Blood to have assisted the King and Parliament therefore in danger to be questioned and knowing it to be in the King to Punish and Reward hoping for Reversion of such Estate upon their Ancestors Attainder have therefore assisted the King against the Parliament 6. Others of the like mould dividing as it were by contract and suiting their affections as the father to the one the son to the other side so the one is to be a saver by the bargain let the victory fall out which way it will This is the easiest and uncertainest way of Policy if there be any who practice it if I had said the worst way to it had been no wrong done to the Contractors because the War hath been by no means so much protracted as by the Collateral interests Conscience and Judgement being excluded 7. Others who having lived in Forraign Countries of a more free and absolute Government then this mixt Monarchy is deeming all manner of obedience due in whatsoever a King commands because it hath been paid to the King where these persons have lived and seeing That universal obedience denied to our King as matters now stand have therefore settled their affections to His party and having so setled think it now an undervaluing their Judgement to alter their opinion 8. Others of an easier Temper yet as obstinate as any of the rest from somelight courtesie from the one or discourtesie from the other side have taken parts and taking it on trust that all maner of obedience is Loyalty all disobedience Rebellion have been through such opinion drawn unto His Majesties party and reteining still the impression wherewith they were first seasoned think it now shame to quit the same unto whom notwithstanding the terms on which this division grows have been so doubtful that the very first impression hath alone weighed in guiding their Affections for the peevish pride and folly of making good their first impression on no others grounds then because the first which they think scorn to alter hath strongly wrought upon many in this contention If any the Inhabitants in or about LONDON doubtful at first which side to take and since the time of the Proclamation set forth against that City be advers to the Parliament some through pretext of Duty to the King many upon the hopes of gaining pardon when He shall have prevailed others upon other grounds as having debtors in His Army and Quarters wish well unto His party in hope to receive their debts others not so much out of Loyalty to the King as discontented and displeased with the Parliament for imposing payments towards this War finding withall a discontinuance of their usual trading to defray this new and unexpected charge and ready to believe that His Majesties distance from White-Hall and His other adjoyning Palaces together with the peoples absence from the Courts of Judicature are a detriment to their present trading and that the Parliament is the cause of all These men are sensible only of a present pressure at the instant not looking to what is past or future like impatient and peevish patients who think no pain comparable to what they at the present feel But how to avoid the charge of the above recited Proclamations leaving none unpardoned of the city these men may imagine that they play their game most cunningly and trusting on pardons underhand may prove Enemies to their fellow-Citizens who joyntly acting for the Cities good these men it is to be feared do countermine and work against the same For admit in a corporation or society opposed by a powerful Enemy some few of the society shall upon suspition had that some of the same fellowship do covertly serve the Enemies turn by givnig intelligence or otherwise assisting him and in so doing provide for their own safety in case the enemy shal prevail wherefore those upon such suspition shal conclude to be as wise in providing alike for their own safety also By such divisions sinister suspitions the Unity being disturbed a way is consequently prepared to the ruine of the whole at last Others there be more danrous then these who having some special Friends in the Quarters or Army of the Enemy are Factors where they live for such their friends who preferring their private and ambitious ends before
the common good of the place wherein they live do negotiate and privily drive the Enemies interest like a viperous brood eating out the bowels of their parent by whom and under whose protection they live and have their being The mercy shewn to these is Cruelty to the rest and these mens mercies in case their party shall prevail will exceed what is called Cruelty The Concord should be as the Obligation is general and reciprocal for the mutual safety of the whole Body Politique the City hath a long time been as famous as any in EUROPE for their * More remarkably manifested in this instant happy and well framed Vnion and Agreement prudently preventing the mischiefs which might have befallen in case they had not agreed as an entire society notwithstanding the many and several sorts of divisions occasioned by these Commotions wisdom in all things expedient for their state dignity in their mutual traffique with all parts of Christendom and they are unworthy of their protection or to be entertained within their Limits who wisheth not their continual flourishing To divide thereby to lose so great a stake as the Publique good were a blemish to their Prudence Wisdom is more prone then folly to Dissention having in it a particle of Pride and self-conceit and naturally busie and curious in projecting in suspecting when as folly rests and contents it self with its own privations it faring commonly amongst the wiser sort of men as with the learneder of Physitians meeting to consult a Patients sicknesse Nomine eorum idem consente ne videatur Plinie accessio alterius until their dissenting in opinion disturbs and overthrows the Patients recovering hopes The City may differ in opinion about the means without disagreeing in their affections to the end the Common good and their own security involved therein least by crossing each others Acts and Councels they gain that to their Enemy which he thirsting for beyond and above half the Kingdom else cannot by his own wit and power As to their latter reason of these mens displeasure against the Parliament viz. their feeling of heavy payments or of one mans peradventure more heavy then his Neighbors It is a blessing and so it is termed that they and other parts of the Kingdom within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament do enjoy Peace within their Walls and Plenteousness within their Precincts as a Reward due for their Association and Accord although they pay for it whereas many Towns and Countreys elsewhere pay for dearly even to their undoings yet want that happinesse If amongst the rest of the partakers in this Quarrel Schollars the Clergy or a great part of them seem more Loyal more Affectionate to the King consequently the opposition being grown to the height more invective more advers to the Parliament upon a mistake had of the reason and end of the Parliaments proceedings concerning the Clergy the mistake is soon set right The Parliament in their just Estimate of what concerns the Clergy might have promoted the encouragement of Learning in a more equal distribution of Church-Livings then now it is without taking away the right of presentation from the true Patron yet by providing against the Lyon-like fellowship as the Proverb is Some all some never a whit or which is as bad that the more lazy and unlearned may not abound with what the more painful and learned want No indifferent man will think that there can be such an envy and disproportionate dealing in a prudent Laity endeavoring to Reform towards a learned Clergy the instrumental means of Reformation as that the one should check or discourage the growth and study of the other The wise and pious judgement of King James is yet fresh in memory which He left as a Legacy to Posterity of the esteem and reverence due and not to be denied to the Clergy of this Land speaking in His discourse of the Laws of this Kingdom of Gods own Laws which His Majesty did then complain were too much neglected and Church-men had too His speech in Star-Chamber in the 16. year of his Raign much in contempt for saith he great men Lords Judges and People of all sorts from the highest to the lowest have too much contemned them And God will not blesse us in our own Laws if we do not reverence his Law which cannot be except the Interpreters of it be respected and it is a sign of the later days drawing on even the contempt of the Church and of the Governors and Teachers thereof now in the Church of ENGLAND But of these kinde of advers persons last mentioned there be two sorts the one an ignorant and proud which commonly go together the more ignorant the more proud The Gale of their empty Tumour were retarded in their aspiring Course if their Bottoms were Ballassed with the solid part of man Humility The other a learned and judicious sort some of whom also may be Enemies making it a common Cause of engaging all Schollars against that Court on this surmise even now cleared That by the Parliaments endeavoring to restrain the Plurality of Church-Livings and the personal corruptions of Bishops all learning and the Seminaries thereof the Universities are discountenanced If the Universities partake of this adversnesse and disaffection as conceiving the Parliament would have made a more strict Inquisition into their Demeanor then the Visitors of Colledges their remisse Indulgency hath of latter times afforded The corruptions of those Seminaries is not so much of it self as of the negligent and discontinued over-sight in those whose proper charge it is to super-intend their course and maners Their Founders Munificent and Pious care from the first Institution of their benign intendments did purpose nothing more then an industrious and profitable course of life in the educating youth and fitting Schollars for the Church and Common-wealth which if the Founders purposes be through neglect and corruption of times perverted and that many the Fellows of Colledges there degenerating into a lazy and unprofitable life contrary to the Founders intent it were a blemish to the Government of a prudent and wise State finding out the Malady to passe it by without enquiring into the Cure Amongst the number of the parties in this Quarrel all mens Actions or Affections being engaged there be others advers enough although warily carrying it and disaffecting the one side to the heigth yet lying at a more subtile and close lock the Priscilianists Tu omnes Te nemo they know all men no man them and in their own eye play their game most cunningly contented to temper and tune their Tongues suitable to the persons with whom they do converse and to comply for the present with that side which they disaffect yet reserve an advers heart when opportunity shall serve These men should not take it ill if that side when prevailing shall deal with them in the like kinde to give them good words yet know them for their Enemies
some other contagious Disease or such like Reason those towns otherwise incompetent for such conflux of people as probably may have recourse to the Parliament for their dispatch and redresse in their Desires And whither that Adjournment amounts not to a Dissolving against the Law so consented unto by the King hereafter Besides observe the difference of Times and Persons which satisfies the Question Former Kings have been willing to call often Parliaments that the Usage and Necessity of often Summoning grew 36. Ed. 3. into a Law and yet in force to call one every year when in this of His Majesties Raign how seldom and sparingly He hath called any And when He hath as He did in the first year of His Raign to begin in June it continued unto July and Adjourned until August following and but few Acts passed before it ended In these last years the Parliament at the importunity and humble Request See their Petition 1639. of divers the Nobility and a valuable number of the Gentry the King summoned in April 1640. how soon He dissolved the same the beginning of May following Then he called another in November after in which for their more firm and constant proceedings in their Affairs and to the end that being come and met together from the several parts of the Kingdom they should not upon every light matter of Debate be dissolved and remitted home His Majesty was pleased to passe an Act against Dissolving without their own consent how soon after their sitting and that Act passed their Priviledges were seized by charging several Members of either House of High Treason Which when that could not take effect nor their persons seized the King withdraws Himself advised thereto from the Parliament and their place of sitting thereby to make void their Court whereof His Majesty one part yet His personal presence in this case not so requisite as that His absence should make void the Parliament The Parliament consisting of three Estates King Lords and Commons if the King be a necessary and constitutive part without which there can be no Parliament as those of His party contend to have it so His removing from the other parts amounts to a dissolving contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty wherefore it were a greater degree of undutifulnesse in any Subject to think that the King would violate that Law then that His Power and Vertue being there His Person should be so requisite as that the absence of His Person should adnul and make it no Parliament The person it self being severed from its Office and Vertue is a thing inanimate The distinction into a voluntary and necessitated absence or that the Kings presence shall make it compleat His absence an incompleat Parliament abates not the force of that Law nor serves to make whole the difference unlesse there be such a condition or limitation in the * See the Act passed in full Parliament Act. Which the proper and true Parliament is that summoned and resident at WESTMINSTER or that removed by a latter summons as before expressed to OXFORD which Question together with the perverse and proud obstinacy of an engaged and desperate party though throughly convinced of the truth thereof hath cost much blood The King and His party at OXFORD do resolve it truly Again He or His parties instability of Actions do seem to renew the doubt certainly do wound their own Cause For whilest His Majesty often and of late calls the Assembly at WESTMINSTER The Parliament and the Assembly at OXFORD by one and the The Assembly at OXFORD acknowledge in their Declaration printed there March 1643. The Parliament at WESTMINSTER not to be Dissolved pag. 25. same stile and that two Parliaments are inconsistent at one and the same time in this Kingdom the people unlesse wilfully and perversly ignorant are not to seek which is the proper Parliament Here by the way the OXFORD Mercury seeming to subjoyn in some ways to the Declaration printed there with a plausible Frontispiece of A Declaration tending to Peace rather Refutes that Book and deals more plainly and ingenuously upon the matter of a Peace offering from His party there and moving a strong cause of Jealousie against a truly intended Peace as is before expressed Now to examine the several Passages and Tracts of that Book Intituled A Declaration tending to Peace whither or no it ministereth matter of Peace as the title doth insinuate or further Quarrel For first they can say little for themselves to justifie their assembling as to a Parliament for the enacting and constituting Laws but what is ordinary and easie to be answered They lay aspersions on some mis-fezance and Errors in their fellow Members So great a body could not well be free from failings they accuse the whole body of Parliament of High Misdemeanors of High Treason of disturbing the publique Peace of the Kingdom of promoting and fomenting an horrid War and who to be judge thereof but themselves the Accusers The Parliament by an ancient Law in force is the sole Interpreter in matters of this doubt and consequence 36. Ed. 3. and themselves at OXFORD do not assume the Title and Power of a Parliament when as they acknowledge in the same Declaration ther fellow Pag. 16. Members sitting now at WESTMINSTER to be so material a part of Parliament that if they themselves at OXFORD might have enjoyed their freedom without being forced their sitting at WESTMINSTER to have been a full and free Convention and a Parliament The formal part of a Parliament in the Kings summoning them by Writ at such a time to such a place to debate the Affairs of the King and Kingdom This being granted and the Parliament at WESTMINSTER thus met what is wanting then to make it a full and free Parliament As to their want of freedom due to the Members of a Parliament and forced as they urge from those assembled now at OXFORD when they sate at WESTMINSTER Forced they could not be force is a fruit of power and deparibus in pares non datur potestas solicited and strongly wrought upon they might be according to their several tempers They accuse themselves and abate much of that courage required in Parliament Members when they complain they were forced fellow Peers cannot enforce each other without a previous disposition and compliance in those who are forced to be forced If any force and the same not offered by an higher power it might be in a close and clancular way by Proxies and Solicitors they know where the power rests of Punishing and Pardoning Proscriptions and Proclamations are Acts of Power no strength in equals to work a force Besides how cometh to passe that those at OXFORD Pag. 23. contending by the enumeration of those lately dead at WESTMINSTER or else departed from their fellow-Members thence to make them a few and inconsiderable part themselves the greater and more valuable number should be forced by those
the one or Restraint of the other may be had whether by a meeting for a Treaty or by pursuite of Victory by the sword A Treaty hath been had Commissioners of eminent quality met and PROPOSITIONS inter-changeably sent What the carriage and event thereof hath been the Author of the Relation of the passages there hath expressed but whither impartially set down the Commissioners are the onely witnesses whither his relation makes for or against his own party the Reader is to judge The Parliament whither in their proposing or accepting of the Treaty shewed their Inclination to a Peace gaining nothing by the meeting for no one PROPOSITION demanded was granted them save only the credit of their sincerity in really meaning to acecomplish that for which the end of their meeting was The seeking and ensuing Peace is to be presumed to be the fervor and end of their desires Neither they nor their friends shall gain by the protraction of the War It is likewise to be so presumed on His Majesties party save some Officers and Commanders in chief in either Army Forraigners and Out-landish who empty ours to fill their own purses And other Instruments appendent on the War and imployed for raising money to defray the charge may haply be thrivers by the War But for the means of obtaining Peace standers by may be able to discern wise to observe and contemplate on the means Howbeit none are called none sent none on whom the power and authority of managing the Peace is devolved save the Court of Parliament alone in whom we have entrusted all expedients to our Safety If they shall judge the PROPOSITIONS formerly tendred to His Majecty to be the onely and effectual means The Subjects are to abide by their Judgement which PROPOSITIONS may seem in number many in their strict quality extream and harsh especially in the Kings friends eye as seeming to abate His accustomed Regal Dignity Extreme diseases require extreme remedies for their cure and when Jealousies are a long time breeding the task will be as difficult in the means of dispelling them Evils when grown strong multiplied and closely wrought need a proportionate instrument to lance and remove to stop the new springing up of the same or the like The PROPOSITIONS are of two sorts the The PROPOSITIONS to be sent suitable to the present exigent in hand viz. the Preservation of the Honor and just Power of a King displeased the Parliament and people threatned are not of a tumultuary and easie dispatch not to be concluded in haste nor quarrelled with for the delay in sending them when as many interveening accidents may give occasion for altering them Nor can every looker on be a fit Dictator or judge in this most weighty Cause and Controversie touching the quality and fitnesse of what is to be insisted on the Parliaments most choice elaborate and well weighed Councels are no more then needs to deliberate compute and a long time to be advising what is once and for ever to be established that His Majesty may be no more a loser nor the welfare of His Subjects which is the foundation of His happinesse endangered for the future If the PROPOSITIONS be too high His Majesty may think the Parliament to be His King and Himself may seem to stoop too low and beneath His Soveraignty to grant and sign them If they be of too low and short assurance to secure the Subjects peace The Parliaments forepast Acts and Councels are wholly frustrate the labour of their endeavors lost And what is like to be the sequel any man may guesse one a calling Delinquents to accompt demanding Justice according to the degree of their offendings The other of their tendring to the King the Counsels and result of their own experience and maturity of Wisdom for the Government of His Kingdom wherein they only prompt and dictate to His Majesty what they desire Him to assist and joyn with them in the compleating and establishing the same The first of calling offenders to accompt expressely named in the PROPOSITIONS whither they all shall suffer in their livelihoods accordingly as they are challenged Or only some few known to be the Principal and long since contrivers of these mischiefs the subversion of the Protestant Religion and the Laws is left to the Judgement of the Parliament which being a Court of mercy mercy no negative of Justice can in case they are able to maintain their own proper Power make use of what the Heathens Judgement with a Christians spirit hath advised ut pena ad paâ—cos metus ad omnes perveniat Bis vicit qui pepercit and honestum ac nobile genus vindictae est ignoscere to have Cicer. Senec. forgiven or given a longer time for offenders to come in shews their Clemency whether or no the deep lodged envy and discontented anger of many the offenders throughly convinced of their own offending shall apprehend and make use of the Clemency of their forgivers The quality of the PROPOSITIONS thus examined and His Majesty altogether refusing to sign any of the same as judging them unequal and incompetent to His Regal dignity He propounds His return to LONDON there to Treat in Person as an expedient means of Peace But on what terms to Treat is not proposed For His Majesty with His party and the Parliament there to meet to recapitulate and argue the Reason Authors and Accidents of this War were to revive the heat thereof His * See His Letter March 1646. Majesty laying the guilt of shedding all this Christian blood at the Parliaments doors His professing not to desert His friends which the Parliament accompt their Enemies when the persons with whom He is to Treat against whom He hath waged War near four years the place whereunto He is to come against which he hath denounced His displeasure are all considered without any retractation of His former anger without Repealing His bitter Messages expressed against those persons that place and the people assisting them a meeting once had for a Peace made frustrate When those are any way salved any Act passed by His Majesty to remove these doubts and dangers when he shall have changed His inclination to severity denounced against His Subjects when He shall in His serious and sad regard had to His people and their sufferings have His heart turned within Him when his repentings shall be rowled together as God himself by his Prophet disdains not to his people their hearts will fill with Hosea 11. Acclamation and joy to receive and welcome him a tender and nursing Father to his Church and people and the common and easie objection wiped away that whereas the Parliament and people have petitioned and prayed for His return they now shew their Inconstancy in refusing that which they have so earnestly desired The motion of Petitionings doth cease when the end whereunto they move the hopes of a Peace to be had by His Majesties return seems frustrated
above the rest was in these sad and suspitious times unseasonably moved by His party for they having conplained of late of extraordinary wrongs and losses befaln His Majesty His Treasure and Revenues denyed unto Him His Houses and Castles spoyled His Woods cut down and wasted c. It will now be feared That to repair and make whole those losses His Subjects Estates and Lands must satisfie most mens demeanor questioned when He shall have totally Conquered His peoples faults and negligences set out to the full to render the owners culpable or else His Majesty cannot but be the greatest Sufferer Nor to be the last no man can think His Majesty will survive the losse of all His people a good Subjects Prayer ought to be with a small insertion in the Poets addresse to his Maecenas Serus in caelum redeat c. serus é terra then in caelum redeat diuque laeto fruatur nomine And if it were possible without insolency to wish that many days may be yet added to those of His which God hath numbred to the end that He may live to see a new Generation spring up of stout and constant English Hearts to succeed in the room of those whom this unnatural War hath wasted But these exceptions moved by the Assembly at OXFORD of too curious and suspitious spirit are proposterous to the pursuit of Peace their Imputations of Treason and the like Crimes to render their fellow-Members sitting at WESTMINSTER odious to their fellow Subjects are no fit preparatives to Peace nor their calling the Parliaments Intentions so deeply protested to be real Counterfeit Neither is this Contention by the Sword alone but by the Pen on which side whither on the Kings or the Parliaments the Arguers in print touching the subject of this War since it first began have wrote the more solidly and rationally concerning it which have more candidly and succinctly without railing or expatiating terms set down the Arguments the Reader is to compare the difference and judge For Rhetorique and strength of Wit or for a sublimate and fine stile of Expression the Assembly at OXFORD as having the more youthful facere and nimble Wits in their party and Quarters the help and influence of the pregnant conceits and nimble Fancies in the University there may seem to have the start But let the Writings on both sides be examined according to Reason and Judgement and the Reader will judge the difference Let it be instanced in three or four the most remarkable Messages in Writing and the Answers thereunto no other being so opposite to each other as these here mentioned First The Letter to the Governor and Counsel of See the Letter and the answer War at BRISTOL from the Lord General of His Majesties Forces demanding a forbearing of putting to death the two Citizens there with the Governors Answer thereunto The Answer is for-judged already and the Reader saved his pains of judging it by being termed by the Kings party The Governors * In a Book of an unknown Author called The States Martyr insolent Answer when as it is adjudged by other more impartial Readers to be a well weighed apposite sober Answer Secondly That for the Marques of Argyle and Sir William Armyne the Commissioners from both Kingdoms fully and in few words delivering their See their Message and Sir Thomas his answer Intentions and Reasons thereof to Sir Thomas Glenham a Commander in chief in His Majesties Army with His Answer unto them full also of words and of suspition Which in a Treaty sincerely meant should be left out and the Objections answered with Reason and Judgement no perverting or wresting of the sense against the Authors meaning no total and universal dislike had by His Majesties party to every thing which the Parliament shall declare or do And it is requisite withal that the matter of a Treaty to be disputed to and fro should have an equal and free passage and reciprocal intercourse which the Parliament judgeth to be denyed to them sitting at WESTMINSTER that when Declarations have been published and set forth against them they are by His Majesties Proclamation inhibiting all Trade and Traffique thither denyed their reasonable Answer to be likewise published so they cannot be heard nor set forth to the world what they can say in defence of themselves so the Accusations from the one side His Majesties party are bitter concluding and offensive whatsoever the War is and their Challenges in print not to be answered by their fellow-Members for the reason above recited One other intercourse of Messages between both parties of a latter time this April the Summons sent by the Committee of both Kingdoms to the Lord Bellasis Governor of NEWARK for surrendring that Town and Fort the Summons expressing perswasive and important Motives to surrender * See His Majesties Letter dated Mar. 23. and the Secretaries Answer to the Committees summons Apr 1. 1646. The Governor his Secretary's Answer full of good Language Courage and strength of Wit wherein mentioning His Majesties Letter sent the 23 of March last past unto both Houses of Parliament he urges the Kings most gracious conditions in that He will disband His Forces dismantle His Garisons The Secretary recites not all the Kings proposals of having His Friends pardoned the Sequestrations taken from their Estates Either the Secretary saw not the Kings whole Letter whereof he recites one part only or else he smiles in his sleeve thinking by his short Comment on the Letter to satisfie the Committee there and the whole Kingdom besides His Majesties Letter is full and genuine in its meaning to be taken collectively not apart as of disbanding dismantling c. without pardoning c. and such collective maner of speaking is alwayes conditional the one to be done on the one if the rest be performed on the other side The Secretaries reciting them is short of His Majesties meaning and mentions it as the Tempter in the Gospel tels our Saviour All these will I give thee which was as much as his eye could behold but on what condition If Christ would fall down and worship him The condition which he annexes to his promise annihilates the gift The conditions which the Secretary cals Gracious in His Majesties Letter of disbanding His Forces c. if nothing else were to be expected are in every mans judgement as in the Secretaries most gracious But to have His Friends His party pardoned the Sequestrations wholly taken off from their Estates were to put them whom the Parliament accounteth offendors and their Enemies into a better condition then their own Friends The Secretary if knowing His Majesties whole Letter and would contract it into parts reciting that only which serves his turn the Committee being presumed to be solid and able men will follow their own Judgement without replying to that Answer This sophisticate and defective manner of Arguings abates the merit of their cause and
might make them unlesse better armed with Reasons incapable of a solid and sincere Treating with their opposites But in that a not entertaining of a Treaty hath been charged on the Parliament and therefore they are named The Refusers and Disturbers of Peace a Reason may be given if they be justly charged that if they do not at every beck send and imploy their fellow-Members the reason of their forbearing may relate to their small number whereby the Assembly at OXFORD upbraideth them For in that there be but a few Peers left to assist their fellow-Peers they cannot spare a competent number out of a few those few also it may be feared in danger of being by degrees tempted either secretly to comply with the party tempting them if not to be wrought off yet to make them lesse zealous and constant to their own party The various wayes of tempting are not unknown and it is much that neither the fair promisings nor angry threatnings have more generally wrought In this continued course of their Accusings which they print at OXFORD and set forth to the publique view to possesse the world with the Justice of their Cause the Injustice of their Adversaries a Treaty notwithstanding is proposed for the composure of these differences for the setling a firm and happy Peace Commissioners appointed on either part and a place named for the dispatch thereof How the Treaty was carryed an OXFORD See the Book called A Relation of the Treaty at Vxbridge printed at Oxford Writer hath undertaken to state it truly which he might more easily then the Commissioners deputed to the businesse could carve out even terms whereon to ground a Peace when as there must be in every Quarrel one offending part one suffering more or lesse yet both seem willing by their meeting to conclude a Peace each party the Kings the Parliaments could not but discern the War would prove chargeable to the Subject the payments for maintaining it prove irksome unto all that many of their Friends would grow weary and fall off upon every light occasion or surmise of their being grieved and taxed with payments in case the War should last long they having no other reward of their Assistance but the uncertain event of a hoped for Peace That other of their Friends to avoid the miseries of a Civil War in this Kingdom would transplant themselves transport their Estates beyond Sea That there may be many Motives to desist from farther contending for the requiring an Accord and Peace many revolutions and vicissitudes of successe in War Prosperous begets Security keeps off a farther pursuit of Concurrency and Assistance as if the victory were already had and the War ended Advers breeds Discouragement in the common Souldier especially in a Civil War where they are inconstant to their own party and many of them ignorant of what they fight for Besides in the managing of an Army there be many Contingencies and crosse Accidents to impair their strength Commanders may want Fidelity common Souldiers pay or victual few or none an excuse to leave off the Service the War the longer it continues the more implacable and fierce the Enmity and that Friends do fall by the Sword as well as Enemies Each party might be unwilling to put it to the hazzard of a total Conquest by the Sword the contests about which could not but bring forth a total ruine and in the pursuit thereof the more the Conquering party shall prevail the more subject they are to divide and contend within themselves Victory being by nature * Victoria natura insolens superba Cicer. proud and by pride Contention cometh and the more potent and stout the Conquered party hath been the more prone to pride the Conquering will be That the War would not be alwayes doubtfully carried but that one side would sometimes have the upper hand and which side should begin to have the prevailing power must to continue and maintain that power do many things harsh Irksome and detrimental to the Subject as levying and imposing Taxes forcing the people even to the provoking displeasing of those who were not their Enemies withal that the weaker and more conquered party having lost their strength whether through Gods Judgement upon the injustice of their Cause or for some humane and more visible reasons would notwithstanding try all wayes and leave none unassayed to reinforce their strength the thirsting after Conquest being so extream and vehement either in plotting wicked or contriving fained and false pretexts that what honest and good means could not false and hellish must according to that desperate resolve of the Wretch in the Poet Flectere si nequeant superos Acheronta movebunt not caring though their wicked Machinations and attempts adde yet to the filling up the vials of Gods Wrath upon this Nation wherein they live These and the like considerations necessarily to have been foreseen might have moved against the wageing of a War at first much more against the continuing this War these and the Arguments above recited might after the effusion of much blood move to treat to prevent the shedding more A Treaty hath been agreed upon and PROPOSITIONS suited whereon to Treat the one side real and sincere to conclude a Peace exposed to the Publique view nothing to be objected against the reality of their meaning If on the other side there were reservations of fraud and a pretence only of Peace set forth to gain advantage by as there be presumptions to prove the same the pretenders can answer for themselves All ways are honest and fraud and falshood are vertues in Adversaries to Rebellion contending to subdue and scatter Rebels Peace is a pledge of Friendship and Friendship hath no other terms of intercourse then goodness as that there cannot be just * Amicitia est tantum inter bonos Arist Ethic. friendship had betwixt a good Subject and a Rebel no more then between an honest a leud man These Arguments of excusing this fraud may please and satisfie the party framing them and whether the Parliament and their Assistants in this War be Rebels needs no farther Treatise But to the PROPOSITIONS whereon the Treaty was to work and the Difference between those sent by the King and those sent by the Parliament Those that His Majesty insists upon are three 1. Church-Government by Episcopacy 2. Lyturgy and Common-Prayer Book 3. The Clergy to enjoy for a time their several Livings All which are matters of Form accidental and private concernment in respect of what the Parliament demands necessary for the Publique good namely The Protestant Religion The Businesse concerning IRELAND The Militia the security of the whole So the Contention rather the mistake grows about granting or refusing these betwixt the subject of which two demands there cannot be so great a difference as betwixt natural humanity to spare from killing and unnatural cruelty to persist in killing or so important as that Peace and War