it to be read A most audacious insolency for any to presume to do that of their own heads which if the whole House had done in that manner had been above their power and had deserved the highest censure But the Speaker refusing to read it the Author of it took on him most seditiously and factiously to declare the contents of it and he and other his Adherents required it should be put to the question Which being misliked by many grave and wise men in the House and refused by the Speaker as We doubt not but all good men will believe he had cause and even abhor the memory of that insolent and seditious Act yet many bitter taunts and invectives were uttered against the Speaker by those factious persons and the doors being fast locked such as were well-affected to Our service were against their wills kept in the House all the time of this tumult and disorder And when some Advertisement came to Us that the House was in great distemper We first sent for the Serjeant of the House whom they after they knew Our pleasure therein presumptuously detained And after We sent a Message unto them by the Gentleman-usher of the Higher House but he coming to the door and declaring that he had a Message from Us was refused to be admitted and being kept at the door a long time at last the House adjourned themselves without receiving Our Message A proceeding so irregular as no Parliament can parallel when Our absolute Commands warranted by Law and precedents of former times were disobeyed the Speaker violated Our Messenger and message excluded which ought to have been admitted if they were a House and if they were not a House they ought not at all to have disputed much less to blast the honour of Our Servants to proscribe Our best Subjects and give Law to Sovereignty striking at the very essence of Monarchy By all which it appears that there wanted not men in that House that would get themselves a name by setting Diana's Temple on fire and make themselves popular by putting all the Kingdom in combustion For what other end could there be in that malicious speech whereby a wicked Shimei at that time would make Us odious in the eyes of all Our people as if it were meant to transfer all Trade and give the fatness of the Land to Strangers A conceipt We call God to witness which never entred into Our Soul and We think never harboured in any heart but that seditious heart which first broached it For God forbid We should love any ends so well as by any necessity to be driven to forget that indissoluble bond between Us and Our people We could and would have expected longer had We conceived any hope of their returning to their duty Whilest the Duke of Buckingham lived He was intituled to all the distempers and ill events of former Parliaments and therefore much endeavour was used to demolish him as the only wall of separation between us and Our people But now he is dead no alteration was found amongst those envenomed spirits which troubled then the blessed harmony between Us and Our Subjects and continue still to trouble it For now under the pretence of publick care of the Common-wealth they suggest new and causeless fears which in their own hearts they know to be false and devise new engines of mischief so to cast a blindness upon the good affections of Our people that they may not see the truth and largeness of Our heart towards them so that now it is manifest the Duke was not alone the mark that those men shot at but was only as a near Minister of Ours taken upon the by and in their passage to their more secret designs which only were to cast Our Affairs into a desperate condition to abate the powers of Our Crown and to bring Our Government into obloquy that in the end all things may be overwhelmed with anarchy and confusion We do not impute these disasters to the whole House of Commons knowing that there were amongst them many religious grave and well-minded men but the sincerer and better part of the House being over-born by the practices and clamors of the other who careless of their duties and taking advantage of the Times and Our Necessities have forced Us to break off this meeting which had it been answered with like duty on their parts as it was invited and begun with love on Ours might have proved happy and glorious both to Us and this whole Nation We have thus declared the manifold causes We had to dissolve this Parliament whereby all the world may see how much they have forgotten their former ingagements at the entry into the War themselves being perswaders to it promising to make us feared by Our Enemies and esteemed by Our Friends and how they turned the necessities grown by that War to enforce Us to yield conditions incompetible with Monarchy And now that Our people may discern that these provocations of evil men whose punishment We reserve to a due time have not changed Our good intentions to Our Subjects We do here profess to maintain the true Religion and Doctrine established in the Church of England without admitting or conniving at any backsliding either to Popery or Schism We do also declare that We will maintain the ancient and just Rights and Liberties of Our Subjects with so much constancy and justice that they shall have cause to acknowledge that under Our Government and gracious protection they live in a more happy and free estate than any Subjects in the Christian world Yet let no man hereby take the boldness to abuse that Liberty turning it to licentiousness nor misinterpret the Petition by perverting it to a lawless liberty wantonly or frowardly under that or any other colour to resist lawful and necessary Authority For as We will maintain Our Subjects in their just Liberties so We do and will expect that they yield as much submission and duty to Our Royal Prerogatives and as ready obedience to Our Authority and Commandments as hath been performed to the greatest of Our Predecessors And for Our Ministers We will not that they be terrified by those harsh proceedings that have been strained against some of them For as We will not command any thing unjust or dishonourable but shall use Our Authority and Prerogatives for the good of Our People so We will expect that Our Ministers obey Us and they shall assure themselves We will protect them As for Our Merchants We let them know We shall always endeavour to cherish and enlarge the trade of such as be dutiful without burthening them beyond that which is fitting but the duty of five in the hundred for the guarding of the Seas and defence of the Realm to which We hold Our selves still obliged and which duty hath continued without interruption so many successions of Ages We hold no dutiful or good Subject will deny it being so necessary for the good of
in which we march and what I leave behind Me for the safety of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire I leave 2000 foot and wherewithal to arm 500 more 20 Companies of Horse all this to be under Charles Cavendish whom the Gentlemen of the Country have desired Me not to carry with Me against his will for he desired extreamly not to go The Enemies have left within Nottingham 1000. I carry with Me 3000 Foot 30 Companies of Horse and Dragoons 6 pieces of Cannon and two Morters Harry Jermyn commands the Forces which go with Me as Colonel of My Guard and Sir Alexander Lesley the Foot under Him and Gerard the Horse and Robin Legg the Artillery and Her She-Majestie Generalissima and extreamly diligent with 150 Waggons of Baggage to govern in case of a Battle Have a care that no Troop of Essex's Army incommodate us for I hope that for the rest we shall be strong enough for at Nottingham we have had the experience one of our Troops having beaten six of theirs and made them fly I have received Your Proclamation or Declaration which I wish had not been made being extreamly disadvantagious for You for You shew too much fear and do not what You had resolved upon Farewell My Dear Heart 27. June 1643. VIII The QUEEN to the KING BATH Apr. 21. MDCXLIV My Dear Heart F Red. Cornwallis will have told You all our voyage as far as Adbury and the state of My health Since My coming hither I find My self ill as well in the ill rest that I have as in the increase of My Rheum I hope that this days rest will do Me good I go to morrow to Bristol to send You back the Carts many of them are already returned My Lord Dillon told Me not directly from You though he says You approve it that it was fit I should write a Letter to the Commissioners of Ireland to this effect That they ought to desist from those things for the present which they had put in their Paper and to assure them that when You shall be in another condition than You are now that You will give them contentment I thought it to be a matter of so great engagement that I dare not do it without Your command Therefore if it please You that I should do so send Me what You would have Me write that I may not do more than what You appoint and also that it being Your command You may hold to that which I promise for I should be very much grieved to write any thing which I would not hold to and when You have promised it Me I will be confident I believe also that to write to My Lord Muskery without the rest will be enough for the Letter which I shall write to him shall be with My own hand and if it be to all Your Commissioners it shall be by the Secretary Farewel My Dear Heart I cannot write any more but that I am absolutely Yours IX To the Earl of ESSEX at LESTITHIEL LISKARD August 6. MDCXLIV Essex I Have been very willing to believe that whenever there should be such a conjuncture as to put it in your power to effect that happy settlement of this miserable Kingdom which all good men desire you would lay hold of it That season is now before you you have it at this time in your power to redeem your Country and the Crown and to oblige your King in the highest degree an Action certainly of the greatest Piety Prudence and Honour such an opportunity as perhaps no Subject before you hath ever had or after you shall have To which there is no more required but that you join with Me heartily and really in the setling of those things which we have both professed constantly to be our only aims Let us do this and if any shall be so foolishly unnatural as to oppose their King's their Country's and their own good we will make them happy by God's blessing even against their wills The only impediment can be want of mutual confidence I promise it you on My part as I have endeavoured to prepare it on yours by My Letter to Hertford from Evesholm I hope this will perfect it when as here I do I shall have engaged unto you the word of a King that you joyning with Me in that blessed work I shall give both to you and your Army such eminent marks of My Confidence and value as shall not leave room for the least distrust amongst you either in relation to the Publick or your self unto whom I shall then be Liskard Aug. 6. 1644. Your faithful Friend C. R. If you like of this hearken to this Bearer whom I have fully instructed in particulars But this will admit of no delay X. To the Prince ELECTOR TAVESTOCK September 17. MDCXLIV Nephew IT being a Natural curiosity in Me to know the reason of your Actions I had never so much reason as now to desire it As I wondred at so as yet I never knew the reason of your journey from York to Holland But your coming at this time into the Kingdom is in all respects much more strange unto Me yet 't is possible that the latter may interpret the former And believe Me the consideration of your Mother's Son is the chief I may say the only cause of My curiosity For as to My Affairs your being here in the way you are is not of that importance as to make Me curious to inquire upon your Actions But the great affection I bear My Sister being a sufficient reason for Me to desire that all who appertain to Her should give a fair account of their Actions makes Me now ask you first upon what invitation you are come then the design of your coming wishing by your Answer I may have the same cause and comfort I have heretofore had to be Tavestock Sept. 17. 1644. Your Loving Uncle and faithful Friend C. R. XI To the Marquess of ORMOND OXFORD December 15. MDCXLIV Ormond I Am sorry to find by Colonel Barry the sad condition of your particular fortune for which I cannot find so good and speedy remedy as the Peace of Ireland it being likewise most necessary to redress affairs here wherefore I command you to dispatch it out of hand for the doing of which I hope My publick Dispatch will give you sufficient Instruction and Power yet I have thought it necessary for your more encouragement in this necessary work to make this addition with My own hand As for Poining's Act I refer you to My other Letter And for matter of Religion though I have not found it fit to take publick notice of the Paper which Brown gave you yet I must command you to give him My L. Muskery and Plunket particular thanks for it assuring them that without it there could have been no Peace and that sticking to it their Nation in general and they in particular shall have comfort in what they have done And to shew that this is more
We utterly profess against it being most confident of the Loyalty good Affections and Integrity of the intentions of that great Body and knowing well that very many of both Houses were absent and many dissented from all those particulars We complain of But we do believe and accordingly profess to all the world that the Malignity of this Design as dangerous to the Laws of this Kingdom the Peace of the same and the Liberties of all Our good Subjects as to Our Self and Our just Prerogative hath proceeded from the subtle Informations mischievous Practices and evil Counsels of ambitious turbulent Spirits disaffected to God's true Religion and the Unity of the Professors thereof Our Honour and Safety and the publick Peace and Prosperity of Our People not without a strong influence upon the very actions of both Houses But how faulty soever others are We shall with God's assistance endeavour to discharge Our Duty with uprightness of heart and therefore since these Propositions come to Us in the name of both Houses of Parliament We shall take a more particular notice of every of them If the 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 15 16 19. Demands had been writ and printed in a tongue unknown to Us and Our People it might have been possible We and they might have charitably believed the Propositions to be such as might have been in order to the ends pretended in the Petition to wit the establishing of Our Honour and Safety the Welfare and Security of Our Subjects and Dominions and the removing those Jealousies and Differences which are said to have unhappily fallen betwixt Vs and Our People and procuring both Vs and them a constant course of Honour Peace and Happinss But being read and understood by all We cannot but assure Our Self that this Profession joyned to these Propositions will rather appear a Mockery and a Scorn the Demands being such as We were unworthy of the Trust reposed in Us by the Law and of Our Descent from so many great and famous Ancestours if We could be brought to abandon that Power which only can inable Us to perform what We are sworn to in protecting Our People and the Laws and so assume others into it as to devest Our Self of it although not only Our present Condition which it can hardly be were more necessitous then it is and We were both vanquish'd and a Prisoner and in a worse condition then ever the most unfortunate of Our Predecessours have been reduced to by the most criminal of their Subjects and though the Bait laid to draw Us to it and to keep Our Subjects from indignation at the mention of it the promises of a plentiful and unparallel'd Revenue were reduced from generals which signifie nothing to clear and certain particulars since such a Bargain would have but too great a resemblance of that of Esau's if We should part with such Flowers of Our Crown as are worth all the rest of the Garland and have been transmitted to us from so many Ancestours and have been found so useful and necessary for the Welfare and Security of Our Subjects for any present Necessity or for any low and sordid considerations of Wealth and Gain And therefore all men knowing that those Accommodations are most easily made and most exactly observed that are grounded upon reasonable and equal Conditions We have great cause to believe that the Contrivers of these had no intention of setling any firm Accommodation but to increase those Jealousies and widen that Division which not by Our fault is now unhappily fallen between Us and both Houses It is asked That all the Lords and others of Our Privy Council and such We know now what you mean by such but We have cause to think you mean all great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas For care is taken to leave out no Person or Place that Our Dishonour may be sure not to be bounded within this Kingdom though no subtle Insinuations at such a distance can probably be believed to have been the cause of our Distractions and Dangers should be put from our Privy Council and from those Offices and imployments unless they be approved by both Houses of Parliament how faithful soever We have found them to Us and the publick and how far soever they have been from offending against any Law the only rule they had or any others ought to have to walk by We therefore to this part of this Demand return you this Answer That We are willing to grant that they shall take a larger Oath then you your selves desire in your Eleventh Demand for maintaining not of any part but of the whole Law and We have and do assure you That We will be careful to make election of such Persons in those places of trust as shall have given good testimonies of their abilities and integrities and against whom there can be no just cause of exception whereon reasonably to ground a diffidence That if We have or shall be mistaken in Our election We have and do assure you that there is no man so near to Us in place or affection whom we will not leave to the Justice of the Law if you shall bring a particular charge and sufficient proofs against him and that We have given you the best pledge of the effects of such a promise on Our part and the best security for the performance of their duty on theirs a Triennial Parliament the apprehension of whose Justice will in all probability make them wary how they provoke it and Us wary how We chuse such as by the discovery of their faults may in any degree seem to discredit Our Election But that without any shadow of a Fault objected only perhaps because they follow their Conscience and preserve the established Laws and agree not in such Votes or assent not to such Bills as some persons who have now too great an Influence even upon both Houses judge or seem to judge to be for the publick good and as are agreeable to that new Vtopia of Religion and Government into which they endeavour to transform this Kingdom for We remember what names and for what Reasons you left out in the Bill offered Us concerning the Militia which you had your selves recommended in the Ordinance We will never consent to the displacing of any whom for their former Merits from and Affection to Us and the publick We have intrusted since We conceive that to do so would take away both from the affection of Our Servants the care of Our Service and the Honour of Our Justice And We the more wonder that it should be ask'd by you of Us since it appears by the Twelfth Demand That your selves count it reasonable after the present turn is served that the Judges and Officers who are then placed may hold their places quamdiu se bene gesserint And We are resolved to be as careful of those We have chosen as you are of those you would
judge as well by former Passages as by Our two last Messages which have been so fruitless that though We have descended to desire and press it not so much as a Treaty can be obtained unless We would denude Our Self of all force to defend Vs from a visible strength marching against Vs and admit those Persons as Traitors to Vs who according to their Duty their Oaths of Allegiance and the Law have appeared in defence of Vs their King and Liege Lord whom We are bound in Conscience and Honour to preserve though We disclaimed all our Proclamations and Declarations and the erecting of Our Standard as against Our Parliament All We have now left in Our Power is to express the deep sense We have of the publick Misery of this Kingdom in which is involved that of Our distressed Protestants of Ireland and to apply Our Self to Our necessary Defence wherein We wholly rely upon the Providence of God the Justice of Our Cause and the Affection of Our good People so far We are from putting them out of Our Protection When you shall desire a Treaty of Vs We shall piously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this Quarrel and chearfully embrace it And as no other Reason induced Vs to leave Our City of London but that with Honour and Safety We could not stay there nor raise any Force but for the necessary defence of Our Person and the Law against Levies in opposition to both so We shall suddenly and most willingly return to the one and disband the other as soon as those causes shall be removed The God of Heaven direct you and in mercy divert those Judgments which hang over this Nation and so deal with Vs and Our Posterity as We desire the Preservation and Advancement of the true Protestant Religion the Laws and the Liberty of the Subject the just Rights of Parliament and the Peace of the Kingdom But as if all these gracious Messages had been the effects only of Our Weakness and instances of Our want of Power to resist that torrent they deal at last more plainly with Us and after many sharp causeless and unjust Reproaches they tell Us in plain English that without putting Our Self absolutely into their hands and deserting all Our own Force and the Protection of all those who have faithfully appeared for Us according to their Duty there would be no means of a Treaty although Our extraordinary desire of Peace had prevailed with Us to offer to recall Our most just Declarations and to take down Our Standard set up for Our necessary defence so their unjustifiable Declarations might be likewise recalled Their Answer follows in these words WE the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled do present this our humble Answer to Your Majesty's Message of the 11th of this instant Month of September When we consider the Oppressions Rapines Firing of Houses Murthers even at this time whilst Your Majesty propounds a Treaty committed upon Your good Subjects by Your Soldiers in the presence and by the Authority of their Commanders being of the number of those whom Your Majesty holds Your self bound in Honour and Conscience to protect as Persons doing their Duties We cannot think Your Majesty hath done all that in You lies to prevent or remove the present Distractions nor so long as Your Majesty will admit no Peace without securing the Authors and Instruments of these Mischiefs from the Justice of the Parliament which yet shall be ever dispens'd with all requisite Moderation and distinction of Offences although some of those Persons be such in whose Preservation Your Kingdom cannot be safe nor the unquestionable Rights and Priviledges of Parliament be maintain'd without which the Power and Dignity thereof will fall into contempt We beseech Your Majesty therefore to consider Your Expressions That God should deal with You and Your Posterity as Your Majesty desires the Preservation of the just Rights of Parliament which being undeniable in the Trying of such as we have declared to be Delinquents we shall believe Your Majesty both towards Your self and Parliament will not in this Priviledge we are most sensible of deny us that which belongs unto the meanest Court of Justice in this Kingdom Neither hath Your Majesty cause to complain that You are denied a Treaty when we offer all that a Treaty can produce or Your Majesty expect Security Honour Service Obedience Support and all other effects of an Humble Loyal and Faithful Subjection and seek nothing but that our Religion Liberty Peace of the Kingdom Safety of the Parliament may be secured from the open Violence and cunning Practices of a wicked party who have long plotted our ruin and destruction And if there were any Cause of Treaty we know no competent Persons to Treat betwixt the King and Parliament and if both Cause and Persons were such as to invite Treaty the Season is altogether unfit whilst Your Majesty's Standard is up and Your Proclamations and Declarations unrecalled whereby Your Parliament is charged with Treason If Your Majesty shall persist to make Your self a shield and defence to those Instruments and shall continue to reject our faithful and necessary Advice for securing and maintaining Religion and Liberty with the Peace of the Kingdom and Safety of the Parliament we doubt not but to indifferent judgments it will easily appear who is most tender of that Innocent Blood which is like to be spilt in this Cause Your Majesty who by such persisting doth endanger Your self and Your Kingdoms or we who are willing to hazard our selves to preserve both We humbly beseech Your Majesty to consider how impossible it is that any Protestation though published in Your Majesty's name of Your tenderness of the Miseries of Your Protestant Subjects in Ireland of Your Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and Laws of this Kingdom can give satisfaction to reasonable and indifferent men when at the same time divers of the Irish Traitors and Rebels the known Favourers of them and Agents for them are admitted to Your Majesty's presence with Grace and Favour and some of them imployed in Your service when the Cloaths Munition Horses and other Necessaries bought by your Parliament and sent for the supply of the Army against the Rebels there are violently taken away some by Your Majesty's Command others by Your Ministers and applied to the maintenance of an unnatural War against Your People here All this notwithstanding as we never gave Your Majesty any just cause of withdrawing Your self from Your great Council so it hath ever been and shall ever be far from us to give any impediment to Your Return or to neglect any proper means of curing the Distempers of the Kingdom and closing the dangerous Breaches betwixt Your Majesty and Your Parliament according to the great Trust which lies upon us and if Your Majesty shall now be pleased to come back to Your Parliament without Your Forces we shall be ready to secure Your Royal Person
against any such persons according to Law His Majesty being resolved not to protect them against the publick Justice And well knowing that when any of those places shall be void the Nomination and free Election is a Right belonging to and inherent in His Majesty and having been enjoyed by all His Royal Progenitors His Majesty will not believe that His well-affected Subjects will desire to limit Him in that Right His Majesty intends the Garrison of Portsmouth to be of such a proportion as it was in the year 1641. except He finds good cause to enlarge or diminish that proportion His Majesty cannot give a more full Answer to that Clause concerning the admission of Forces into any of His Forts Castles and Towns than He hath already given His Majesty having therein made the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom the Rule of what is or what is not to be done which will be always the most impartial Judge between Him and His People Falkland April 10. 1643. BY Instructions yesterday received from both Houses of Parliament we are commanded humbly to desire another Answer from Your Majesty concerning the Cinque-ports Towns Forts and Castles Your Majesty's former Answers concerning them being in the most material points express Denials as both Houses of Parliament understand them Northumberland J. Holland W. Armyne W. Pierrepont B. Whitelocke April 14. 1643. HIS Majesty will not at this time remember the many Acts of Grace and Favour He hath passed this Parliament for the good of His People but He must say He hath not denied any one thing proposed to Him by both Houses which in Justice could be required of Him or in Reason expected and He hath been and is still so unwilling to give a denial to both His Houses that as they shall be sure to receive none to any Proposition they shall make of right so in matters of Grace and Favour He shall be willing to receive any information and reason which at any time may invite him to consent and therefore will gladly receive any Reason from the Committee or both Houses which may induce His Majesty to give another Answer than what He hath already given in the point of the Cinque-ports Forts and Castles but till such be given He cannot consent to dispossess any of His Servants of what they are legally possest of without a just Cause exprest or to quit His own Right of sole disposing of their Commands no other cause yet appearing to Him than that the places they command have been taken from Him Falkland April 14. 1643. YOur Majesty in one of Your Papers this day delivered unto us mentions that You would gladly receive any Reason from both Houses or their Committee which may induce Your Majesty to give another Answer than what you have already given in the point of the Cinque-ports Forts Castles and Magazines We did according to our Instructions humbly desire Your Majesty that the Cinque-ports Forts and Castles might be put into the hands of such Noble persons and persons of Quality and Trust to be nominated by Your Majesty as the two Houses of Parliament should confide in and to be kept for Your Majesty's Service and the Safety of the Kingdom that no Forein Forces or other Forces raised without Your Majesty's Authority and Consent of the two Houses of Parliament should be admitted into any of them and the Commanders to use their utmost endeavours to suppress all Forces raised without such Authority and Consent and to seize all Arms and Ammunition provided for any such Forces Unto which we humbly desire Your Majesty's Gracious assent and to our other desires concerning Your Majesty's first Proposition and the first Proposition of both Houses of Parliament for that we humbly conceive Your Consent thereunto will be the best means for such a Peace to be made as will be safe firm and lasting the which is not to be hoped for except there be a cure for Fears and Jealousies for which an apparent Remedy is to disband all Forces and the same to be so mutually done as neither part to have any Force remaining of which the other may be jealous or in fear But if for other causes not concerned in these unhappy Differences Forces are to be retained as in the Cinque-ports and in some Forts Towns and Castles for the Defence of the whole Kingdom against forein Enemies that then the same may remain in the hands of such persons with such powers as both parts might believe themselves secure for if the same places were considered in relation only to these unnatural Destempers and to the settling thereof the Forces in them were likewise to be disbanded Northumberland J. Holland Will. Pierrepont Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 15. 1643. AS His Majesty was and is very desirous to receive any Reason from both Houses or their Committee which might induce His Majesty to give other Answers if what He hath or shall give do not satisfie so He rather expected those Reasons should have had their foundation in the Law of the Land and have shewed Him that by Law He had not the Right He pretended or that by that or by some fundamental Law they had a Right superiour to His in what was now in question or have shewed Him some Legal Reason why the Persons trusted by Him were incapable of that trust than only have insisted upon Fears and Jealousies of which as He knows not the Ground so He is ignorant of the Cure But this His Majesty knows that if readiness to acknowledge retract and provide against for the future any thing of errour that hath hapned against Law and having actually passed more important Bills and parted with more of His known Rights for the satisfaction of His Subjects than not only any one but all His Predecessors would have been thought a sufficient Remedy for Fears and Jealousies the Kingdom might still have injoyed a safe firm and lasting Peace and those would not first have been made a reason to seize upon His Rights and then after have been made an Argument to perswade Him to part with them And His Majesty wonders the Committee should not see that this Argument might extend to the depriving Him of or at least sharing with Him in all His just Regal Power since Power as well as Forces may be the object of Fears and Jealousies and there will be always a power left to hurt whilest there is any left to protect and defend and that if those Rights which He received from His Predecessors were really so formidable that would have been more feared before which is now feared so much and His Forts and Castles would either not have been attempted or at least have enabled Him to defend and keep them and have kept this from being a Question now between them Which since they could not do His Majesty if He had as much inclination as He hath more right to Fears and Jealousies might have more reason to insist upon some adition
the Supplies of Money being scanty and slow the Fleet could not go forth till Octob. 8. an unseasonable time in the British Seas and their first contest was with Winds and Tempests which destroying some scattered all the Ships When they met a more dangerous Storm fell among the Souldiers and Seamen where small Pay caused less Discipline and a Contempt of their General the Lord Wimbleton rendred the attempt upon Cades vain and fruitless This was followed by a Contagion to which some conceive discontented minds make the Bodies of Men more obnoxious in the Navy which forced it home more empty of Men and less of Reputation The Infection decreasing at London the King performed the Solemnities of His Coronation Feb. 2. with some alterations from those of His Predecessors for in the Civil He omitted the usual Parade of riding from the Tower through the City to White-Hall to save the Expences that Pomp required for more noble undertakings In the Spiritual there was restored a Clause in the Prayers which had been pretermitted since Henry VI. and was this Let Him obtain favour for this People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the Waters Zacharias in the Temple give Him Peter ' s Key of Discipline Paul ' s Doctrine Which though more agreeing to the Principles of Protestantism which acknowledgeth the Power of Princes in their Churches and was therefore omitted in the times of Popery yet was quarrelled at by the Factious Party who take advantages of Calumny and Sedition from good as well as bad circumstances and condemned as a new invention of Bishop Laud and made use of to defame both the King and him After this He began a second Parliament Feb. 2. wherein the Commons voted Him four Subsidies but the Demagogues intended them as the price of the Duke of Buckingham's Blood whom Mr Cook and Dr Turner with so much bitterness inveighed against as passing the modesty of their former dissimulation they taxed the King's Government Sir Dudley Digges Sir John Elliot and others carried up Articles against him to the Lords House in which to make the Faction more sport the Duke and the Earl of Bristol did mutually impeach each other By these contrasts the Parliament were so highly heated that the Faction thought it fit time to put a Remonstrance in the Forge which according to their manner was to be a publick Invective against the Government But the King having notice of it dissolves the Parliament June 18. An. 1626. and the Bill for the Subsidies never passed An. 1626 This misunderstanding at home produced another War abroad For the King of France taking advantage of these our Domestick embroilments begins a War upon us and seiseth upon the English Merchants Ships in the River of Bourdeaux His pretence was because the King had sent back all the French Servants of the Queen whose insolencies had been intolerable But the World saw the vanity of this pretext in the Example of Lewis himself who had in the like manner dimitted the Spanish Attendants of his own Queen and that truly the unhappy Counsels in Parliament had exposed this just Prince to Foreign Injuries Which He Magnanimously endeavoured to revenge and to recover the Goods of His abused Subjects and therefore sent the Fleet designed for Justice upon Spain to seek it first in France But the want of Money made the Preparations slow and therefore the Navy putting out late in the Year was by Storms forced to desist the Enterprize So that what was the effect only of the malice of His Enemies was imputed by some to a secret Decree of Heaven which obstructed His just Undertakings for Glory The next Year the King An. 1627 quickened by the Petitions of the Rochellers who now sued for His Protection as well as by the Justice of His own Cause more early prosecuted His Counsels and sent the Duke of Buckingham to attach the Isle of Rhe which though alarmed to a greater strength by the last Year's vain attempt yet had now submitted to the English Valour had not the Duke managed that War more with the Gayeties of a Courtier than the Arts of a Soldier And when it was wisdom to forsake those Attempts which former neglects had made impossible being too greedy of Honour and to avoid the imputation of fear in a safe retreat he loaded his overthrow with a new Ignominy and an heavier loss of Men the common fate of those Who seek for Glory in the parcels lose it in the gross Which was contrary to the temper of his Master who was so tender of humane Blood that therefore He raised no Wars but found them and thought it an opprobrious Bargain to purchase the fruitless Laurels or the empty name of Honour with the Lives of Men but where the publick Safety required the hazard and loss of some particulars This Expedition being so unhappy and the Miseries of Rochel making them importunate for the King's Assistance His Compassionate Soul was desirous to remove their Dangers but was restrained by that necessitous condition the Faction had concluded Him under To free Himself from which that He might deliver the oppressed he doth pawn His own Lands for 120000 Pounds to the City and borrows 30000 l. more of the East-India Company but this was yet too narrow a Foundation to support the Charges of the Fleet and no way so natural to get adequate supplies as by a Parliament which He therefore summons to meet March 17. intending to use all Methods of Complacency to unite the Subjects Affections to Himself Which in the beginning proved successful for the modesty of the Subjects strove with the Piety of the King An. 1628 and both Interests contended to oblige that they might be obliged The Parliament granted the King five Subsidies and He freely granted their Petition of Right the greatest Condescension that ever any King made wherein He seemed to submit the Royal Scepter to the Popular Fasces and to have given Satisfaction even to Supererogation These auspicious beginnings though full of Joy both to Prince and People were matter of Envy to the Faction and therefore to form new Discontents and Jealousies the Demagogues perswaded the Houses that the King 's Grant of their Petition extended beyond their own hopes and the limits themselves had set and what He had expresly mentioned and cautioned even to the taking away His Right to Tonnage and Poundage Besides this they were again hammering a Remonstrance to reproach Him and His Ministers of male-administration Which Ingratitude He being not able to endure on June 26. adjourns the Parliament till Oct. 20. and afterward by Proclamation till Jan 20. following In the interim the King hastens to send Succours to Rochel and though the General the Duke of Buckingham was at Portsmouth Assassinated by Felton armed as he professed with the publick Hatred yet the Preparations were not slackned the King by His personal Industry doing more to the necessary furnishing of the Fleet in ten or twelve
Popish Lords and Bishops had the greatest Power and there it stuck whose Names they desired to know And in this they were so earnest that they would not willingly withdraw whilest it was debated and then they had leave to depart with this Answer That the House of Commons had already endeavoured Relief from the Lords in their Requests and shall so continue till Redress be obtained Such Petitions as these were likewise from the several Classes of the inferiour Tradesmen about London as Porters Water-men and the like and that nothing of testifying an universal Importunity might be left unattempted Women were perswaded to present Petitions to the same effect While the Faction thus boasted in the success of their Arts Good men grieved to see these daily Infamies of the Supreme Council of the Nation all whose Secrets were published to the lowest and weakest part of the People and they who clamoured it as a breach of their Privilege that the King took notice of their Debates now made them the subjects of discourse in every Shop and all the corners of the Street where the good and bad were equally censured and the Honour and Life of every Senator exposed to the Verdict of the Rabble No Magistrate did dare to do his Office and all things tended to a manifest Confusion So that many sober Persons did leave the Kingdom as unsafe where Factions were more powerful than the Laws And Just Persons chose rather to hear than to see the Miseries and Reproaches of their Country On the other side to make the King more plyable they tempt him by danger in His most beloved Part the Queen concerning whom they caused a Rumour that they did intend to impeach Her of High Treason This Rumour made the deeper Impression because they had raised most prodigious Slanders which are the first Marks for destruction of Princes on Her and when they had removed all other Counsellors from the King She was famed to be the Rock upon which all hopes of Peace and Safety were split That She commanded no less His Counsels than Affections and that His Weakness was so great as not to consent to or enterprise any thing which She did not first approve That She had perverted Him to Her Religion and formed Designs of overthrowing the Protestant Profession These and many other of a portentuous falshood were scattered among the Vulgar who are always most prone to believe the Worst of Great Persons and the uncontrolled Licence of reporting such Calumnies is conceived the first Dawning of Liberty But the Parliament taking notice of the Report sent some of their House to purge themselves from it as an unjust Scandal cast upon them To which the Queen mildly answers That there was a general Report thereof but She never saw any Articles in writing and having no certain Author for either She gave little Credit thereto nor will She believe they would lay any Aspersion upon Her who hath been very unapt to misconstrue the Actions of any One Person and much more the Proceedings of Parliament and shall at all times wish an Happy Vnderstanding between the King and His People But the King knowing how usual it was for the Faction by Tumults and other Practices to transport the Parliament from their just Intentions in other things and that they might do so in this resolved to send Her into Holland under colour of accompanying their eldest Daughter newly married to the Prince of Orange but in truth to secure Her so that by the fears of Her danger who was so dear unto Him He might not be forced to any thing contrary to His Honour and Conscience and that Her Affections and Relations to Him might not betray Her Life to the Malice of His Enemies With Her He also sent all the Jewels of the Crown that they might not be the Spoils of the Faction but the means of the support of Her Dignity in Forein Parts if His Necessities afterwards should not permit Him to provide for Her otherwise Which yet She did not so employ but reserved them for a supply of Ammunition and Arms when His Adversaries had forced Him to a necessary Defence It was said that the Faction knew of this Conveyance and might have prevented it but that they thought it for their greater advantage that this Treasure should be so managed that the King in confidence of that Assistance might take up Arms to which they were resolved at last to drive Him For they thought their Cause would be better in War than Peace because their present Deliberations were in the sense of the Law actual Rebellions and a longer time would discover those Impostures by which they had deluded the People who would soon leave them as many now did begin to repent of their Madness to the Vengeance which was due to their Practices unless they were more firmly united by a communion of Guilt in an open assaulting their Lawful Prince The King hastens the Security of the Queen and accompanies Her as far as Dover there to take His Farewel of Her a Business almost as irksom as Death to be separated from a Wife of so great Affections and eminent Endowments and that which made it the more bitter was that the same Cause which forced Her Separation from Him set Her at a greater distance from His Religion the onely thing wherein their Souls were not united even the Barbarity of His Enemies who professed it yet were so irreconcileable to Vertue that they hated Her for Her Example of Love and Loyalty to Him While He was committing Her to the mercy of the Winds and Waves that She might escape the Cruelty of more unquiet and faithless men they prosecute Him with their distasteful Addresses and the Canterbury present Him with a Bill for taking away Bishops Votes in Parliament Which having been cast out of the House of Peers several times before ought not by the Course and Order of Parliament to have been admitted again the same Session But the Faction had now used their accustomed Engine the Tumult and it was then passed by the Lords and brought hither together with some obscure Threats that if it were not signed the Queen should not be suffered to depart By such impious Violences did they make way for that which they call'd Reformation This His Majesty signs though after it made a part of His penitential Confessions to God in hopes that the Bill being once consented to the Fury of the Faction which with so great Violence pursued an absolute Destruction of the Ecclesiastical Government would be abated as having advanced so far in their Design to weaken the King's Power in that House by the loss of so many Voices which would have been always on that side where Equity and Conscience did most appear But He soon found the Demagogues had not so much Ingenuity as to be compounded with and they made this but a step to the Overthrow of that which He designed to preserve When His
whether by a prosperous Success they could change their Crimes to Vertue Therefore they hastened all they could to raise Horse and Foot to form an Army equal to their Usurpation which was not difficult for them to do for they being Masters of London whose multitudes desirous of Novelty were easily amassed for any enterprise especially when the entring into this Warfare might make the Servant freer than his Master for such was the Licence was indulged to those Youths that would serve the Cause 20000 were sooner gathered that the King could get 500. The City also could afford them more Ordnance than the King could promise to Himself common Muskets and to pay their Souldiers besides the vast summs that were gathered for Ireland which though they by their own Act had decreed should not be used for any other enterprise yet now dispense with their Faith and imploy it to make England as miserable as that Island and the Contributions of the deluded Souls for this War they seized also upon the Revenues of the King Queen Prince and Bishops and plunder the Houses of those Lords and Gentlemen whom they suspected to be Favourers of the King's Cause And in contemplation of these advantages they promised their credulous Party an undoubted Victory and to lead Majesty Captive in Triumph through London within a Month by the Conduct of the Earl of Essex whom they appointed General Thus did they drive that Just and Gracious Prince to seek His Safety by necessary Arms since nothing worse could befall Him after a stout though unhappy Resistance than He was to hope for in a tame Submission to their Violence Therefore though He perfectly abhorred those Sins which are the Consequences of War yet He wanted not Courage to attempt at Victory notwithstanding it seemed almost impossible against so well-appointed an Enemy Therefore with an incredible diligence moving from place to place from York to Nottingham from thence to Shrewsbury and the Confines of Wales by discovering those Abilities with which His Soul was richly fraught unto His deluded Subjects He appeared not only worthy of their Reverence but of their Lives and Fortunes for His Defence and in all places incouraging the Good with His Commendations exciting the fearful by His Example dissembling the Imperfections of His Friends but alwaies praising their Vertues He so prevailed upon those who were not Men of many Times nor by a former Guilt debauch'd to Inhumanity that He had quickly contracted an Army greater than His Enemies expected and which was every day increased by those Lords and Gentlemen who refused to be polluted any longer with the practices of the Faction by sitting among them and being Persons of large Fortunes had raised their Friends and Tenants to succour that Majesty that now laboured under an Eclipse Most Men being moved with Pity and Shame to see their Prince whose former Reign had made them wanton in Plenty to be driven from His own Palaces and concluded under a want of Bread to be necessitated to implore their Aid for the Preservation of His and their Rights So that notwithstanding all the Impostures of the Faction and the Corruptions of the Age there were many great Examples of Loyalty and Vertue Many Noble Persons did almost impoverish themselves to supply the King with Men and Money Some Private Men made their way through numerous dangers to joyn with the fight under His Colours Many great Ladies and vertuous Matrons parted with the Ornaments of their Sex to relieve His wants and some bravely defended their Houses in His Cause when their Lords were otherwhere seeking Honour in His service Both the Universities freely devoted their Plate to succour their Prince the Supreme Patron and Incourager of all Learning and the Queen pawned Her Jewels to provide necessaries for the Safety of Her Husband Which Duty of Hers though it deserved the Honour of all Ages was branded by the Demagogues with the imputation of Treason This sudden and unexpected growth of the Strength of the King after so many years of Slanders and such industrious Plots to make him odious and contemptible raised the admiration of all Men and the fears of the credulous Party who had given up their Faith to the Faction when they represented the King guilty of so much Folly and Vice and some corrupted Citizens had represented Him as a Prodigie of both in a Scene at Guild-Hall in London an Art used by Jesuites to impress more deeply a Calumny that they could not imagine any Person of Prudence or Conscience would appear in His Service and they expected every day when deserted by all as a Monster He should in Chains deliver Himself up to the Commands of the Parliament Some attributed this strange increase in power to the natural Affection of the English to their Lawful Sovereign from whom though the Arts and Impulses of Seditiouc Demagogues may a while estrange and divorce their minds yet their Genius will irresistibly at last force them to their first Love and therefore they urged the saying of that Observing States-man that if the Crown of England were placed but on a Hedge-stake he would be on that side where the Crown was Others referred it to the full evidence of the wickedness of His Adversaries for their Counsels were now discovered and their Ends manifest not to maintain the common Liberty which was equally hateful to them as Tyranny when it was not in their hands but to acquire a Grandeur and Power that might secure and administer to their Lusts and it was now every where published what Mr Hambden answered to one who inquired What he did expect from the King he replied That He should commit Himself and all that is His to our Care Others ascribed it to the fears of ruine to those numerous Families and Myriads of People which the change of Government designed by the Parliament must necessarily effect But this though it argued that Cause exceeding bad by which so great a part of a Community is utterly destroyed without any absolute necessity for preserving the whole yet made but an inconsiderable Addition to the King whose greatest Power was built upon Persons of the Noblest Extract and the fairest Estates in England of which they could not easily suspect to be devested without an absolute overthrow of all the Laws of Right and Wrong which nevertheless was to be feared by their invasions on the King's most undoubted Rights For when Majesty it self is assaulted there can be no security for private Fortunes and those that decline upon design from the paths of Equity will never rest till they come to the Extremity of Injustice as these afterwards did Besides those that imputed the speedy amassing of these Forces to the Equity of the King's Cause His most Powerful Eloquence indesatigable Industry and most Obliging Converse there were another sort that suspending their Judgments till all the Scenes of War were passed resolved all into the Providence of God Who though He were pleased
Himself by perfection for He did not proudly scoff at but gently laboured to mend the defects of His Subjects When Doctor Hammond had in some degree lost the Manage of His Voice His Majesty shewed him his Infirmity and taught him to amend it which that Excellent Person often mentioned as an instance of a Gracious Condescension of Majesty When Noble Youths came to take their leaves of Him before they went to foreign travel He would not let them go without His Instructions of which this was one My Lord Keep always the best Company and be sure never to be Idle Thus He would confer the Vertues as well as the Titles of Nobility He laboured to keep them as Majesty had made them and that that blood might not be tainted in them which was honoured in their Ancestors Nor did He desire that they should be otherwise than He directed as Tyrants and weak Princes will commend those Vertues which they are afraid of for they dread or envy their Subjects Parts and Abilities Aristotle observes that a Tyrant cares not to hear his Vassals speak any thing that is either Grave or Generous and it is reckoned among the Usurpations of such Monsters that they would have the opinion to be the Only Wise and Gallant Plato indangered his Life when he conversed with the Sicilian Tyrant because he was thought to understand more than his Host It was observed of Cromwell by one of his confident Teachers that in the time of his Tyranny he loved no man that spoke Sense and had several Artifices to disparage it among his Slaves that attended him and he would highly extol those Pulpit-Speakers that had most Canting and least Reason But the King thought it the Honour of Principality to rule over Excellent Persons and affected to be Great only by being Better and to raise their Spirits would stoop with His own Of these He always chose the most accomplished that He knew to be His Ministers of State and closest Confidents for as the fortune of Princes stands in need of many Friends which are the surest supports of Empire so He would always seek the Best and those He thought fittest for His Employments which a bad or weak King would hate or fear Therefore He had always the finest Pens and ablest Heads in His Cause and Persons likewise of Integrity in His Service for the Archbishop and Earl of Strafford that were clamoured against as the greatest Criminals were not guilty enough even by those accusations which they were loaded with and yet not proved to receive the Censure of the Law but were to be condemned in an unaccustomed way of spilling English blood When some discovered their Abilities even by opposing His Counsels He preferr'd the Publick Benefit which might be by their Endowments to His private Injuries He would either buy them off to His Service by some Place of Trust or win them to His Friendship unless He saw them to be such whose Natures were corrupted by their Designs for He had a most excellent Sagacity in discerning the Spirits of men or they were such who polluted their parts by prostituting Religion to some base ends the injuries of which He could never neglect and such He neither conceived Honourable in a Court nor hoped they would ever be faithful and quiet in a Community Among these Purchaces were reckoned the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the Lord Falkland and others now living whose Perfections honoured His Judgment and justified His Choice He had no Favorite as a Minister of Pleasures to gratifie whose Lusts and Vanities He might be sollicited to do things contrary to the benefit of the Community but all were Instruments of Government and must be able to serve the Publick whom He took to serve Himself For no Prince was ever more affectionate of His People than He was nor did He think His Interest separate from theirs Those nice distinctions and cautious limits of Prerogative and Liberty which the Faction invented to enjealous the People with were all indistinctly comprised by Him in an Uniform and Constant care of a just Government none dared to advise Him to attempt at a power His Predecessors had parted with or the Laws had concluded Him from For He told the Lords when He purged the Earl of Strafford from the Accusation of Sir Henry Vane that He had advised His Majesty to make use of some Irish to reduce this Kingdom on which though it had but a single and various testimony the Faction built their Practices against His Life I think no body durst ever be so impudent as to move Me to it for if they had I should have made them such an Example and put such a mark upon them that all Posterity should know my Intentions by it For my Intention was ever to govern by the Law and not otherwise He thought He could not be happy unless His People were so as we found our selves miserable when He was not prosperous Therefore He parted with so much of His Prerogative to buy our Peace and purchase our Content He sought their Love by affecting them the only way of gaining it because that Passion only is free and impatient of Command Nor was He ever more pleased than in the enjoyment of it When His Third Parliament granted five Subsidies and it was told Him that there was not One Voice dissenting it is said He wept for joy and it had been happy for the People if the King had always had such cause of Tears and His Eyes had been always wet with the same Contests for Liberty could never have been more unseasonable than under this Prince for He never denied His Subjects the removal of any just Grievance yea He parted sometimes through their own importunity deluded by the Faction with that which should have kept them Free And when He made such Concessions which tended to the prejudice of those that desired it He would say to some about Him that He would never have granted these things but that He hoped they would see the Inconvenience of that Power which they begg'd from Him yet themselves could not manage and return it to its proper place before it became their Ruine He was far from the ambition of Ill Princes to seek an unlimited Power but He thought it the Office of the best Sovereign to set bounds to Liberty He despised His Life if it were to be bought by the Misery of the Nation and therefore rejected the Propositions of the Army as the Conditions of His Safety when tendred to Him the day before His Murther because they would inslave the People Neither would He expose particular persons to an evident and inevitable danger though it were to secure Himself for when my Lord Newburgh and his Noble Lady at whose house in Bagshot He did stay as He was removed from Carisbrook to Windsor proposed to Him a way to escape from that bloody Guard that hurried Him to the Slaughter He rejected it saying If I
tendred such Propositions that might occasion the World to judge that they have yielded up not only their Wills and Affections but their Reasons also and Judgments for obtaining a true Peace or good Accommodation It is true that if they can shew what reasonably they could have asked more or wherein the King's Offers were deficient either in Point of Security or by with-holding from any His Subjects a jot of their just Priviledges then they said somewhat to challenge Belief But bare Asseverations even against what a Man sees will not get credit with any but such who abandon their Judgments to an implicite Faith nor can the Determinations of all the Parliaments in the World make a thing Just or Necessary if it be not so of it self And can it be imagined that any who were ever acquainted with the Passages at the Treaties of Oxford and Vxbridge will believe though it be said that the Propositions tendred at Newcastle were the same in effect which had been presented to the King before in the midst of all His strength and Forces Indeed methinks such gross slips as these should at least make a man be wary how to believe such things for which He sees no Proofs And yet it should seem that a man must either take their words for good payment or remain unsatisfied for a little after it is said that the Kings strange unexpected and conditional Answers or Denials might justly have made them consider some other course for setling the Kingdom in Peace and Safety without any farther Application but never shewn wherein the strangeness of His Answers or Denials consists And I should think that those Reasons upon which the laying by of a King's Authority is grounded for it is no less ought to be particularly mentioned for the Worlds satisfaction and not involved in general big words for it thereby seems that it is their force of Arms more than that of Reason which they trust to for procuring of obedience to their Determinations or belief to what they say Otherways can it be imagined that their saying that their last Propositions were so qualified that where it might stand with the publick Safety the wonted Scruples and Objections were prevented or removed can give satisfaction to any rational man who hath seen all their former Propositions for it is most evident that their Demands have always encreased with their good Fortune And for their great Condescension to a Personal Treaty which under favour can scarcely be called so for the King though He had granted what was desired was not to come either to or near London but to stay in the Isle of Wight and there to Treat with Commissioners upon signing the Four Bills surely they incurred therein but little danger for it is most evident that they contain the very substance of the most essential parts of their Demands which being once granted the King would neither have had power to deny nor any thing left worth the refusing for after He had confessed that He had taken up Arms to invade the Liberty of His People whereas it was only for the Defence of His own Rights and had likewise condemned all those who had faithfully served Him of Rebellion and that He had totally devested Himself His Heirs and Successors for ever of the power of the Sword whereby the Protection of His Subjects which is one of the most essential and necessary Rights belonging to Regal Authority is totally torn away from the Crown and that by a silent Confession He had done Himself and Successors an irreparable prejudice concerning the great Seal I speak not of the other two Bills neither of which are of little importance what was there more for Him to grant worth the insisting upon after such Concessions or indeed what power was left Him to deny any thing So that the King's necessity of giving the Answer He did for it was no absolute Refusal is most evident unless He had resolved to have lived in quiet without Honour and to have given His People Peace without Safety by abandoning them to an arbitrary and unlimited power of the two Houses for ever concerning the levying of Land or Sea-Forces without stinting of numbers or distinction of persons and for Payments to levy such summes of Monies in such sort and by such ways and means as they shall think fit and appoint And now I cannot but ask is this the Militia that the King contends for or did ever any King of England pretend to or seek for such a Power surely no but this is a new Militia and take heed lest this should prove like the Roman Praetorian Cohorts that what they did in chusing and changing Emperours these do not to this Government by moulding and altering it according to their Fancies Now my eagerness to clear this Point concerning the four Bills had almost made me forget a most material Question I wonder much wherein the Danger consists of a Personal Treaty with the King ever since He was last at Newcastle Surely He cannot bring Forces along with Him to awe His two Houses of Parliament and it is as well known that He hath not Money to raise an Army and truly there is as little fear that the Eloquence of His Tongue should work Miracles but on the contrary if He were so ill a man as you describe Him to be whatsoever He shall say or write must more prejudice Him than You for let Him never flatter Himself it must be clear not doubtful Reason that can prevail against that great visible prevailing Power which now opposes Him nor do I say it will but certainly less cannot do it Where is then the Danger Believe it Reason will hardly maintain those who are afraid of her After this it is said that they had cause enough to remember that the King sometimes denied to receive their humble Petitions but they neither tell where nor when which I am most confident they cannot but I am certain that the King hath sent divers Messages of Peace to them unto which He hath yet had no Answer namely His last from Oxford of the 15. January 1645. and all the rest since As for the Fight at Brainford whosoever will read the Collection of the Declarations in print upon that subject will clearly find that the King hath more reason to complain that they under colour of Treaty sought to environ Him with their Forces than they for what He then did and His retreat was neither for Fear nor with Shame for the appearing of the Enemy made Him retard not hasten His orders for retiring which divers hours before their appearing He had given which He did without any loss at all but on the contrary retreated with more Arms eleven Colours and fifteen pieces of Ordnance beside good store of Ammunition than He had before And for Cruelty there was not a drop of Blood shed but in the heat of the Fight for I saw above five hundred Prisoners who only promising
You ten thousand men Dr. Goffe whom I have sent into Holland shall treat with him in his passage upon this business and I hope very speedily to send good news of this as also of the Money Assure Your self I will be wanting in nothing You shall desire and that I will hazard My Life that is to die by famine rather than not to send to You. Send Me word always by whom You receive My Letters for I write both by the Ambassadour of Portugal and the Resident of France Above all have a care not to abandon those who have served You as well the Bishops as the poor Catholicks Adieu You will pardon Me if I make use of another to write not being able to do it yet My self in Cyphers shew to My Nephew Rupert that I intreat You to impart all that I write to You to the end that he may know the reason why I write not to him I know not how to send great Packets My Wife 17. 27. Jan. 1644. 5. XX. To My Wife 14. January MDCXLIV V by CHOQUEN Dear Heart POoly came the 12. 22. Jan. to whose great Dispatch though for some dayes I cannot give a full answer I cannot but at this opportunity reply to something in Thy Letter not without relating to something of his discourse As I confess it a misfortune but deny it a fault Thy not hearing oftner from Me so excuse Me to deny that it can be of so ill consequence as Thou mentionest if their affections were so real as they make shew to Thee for the difficulty of sending is known to all and the numbers of each Letter will shew My diligence and certainly there goes no great wit to find out waies of sending wherefore if any be neglected more then our wits are faulty But to imagine that it can enter into the thought of any flesh living that any body here should hide from Thee what is desired that every one should know Excuse Me to say it is such a folly that I shall not believe that any can think it though he say it And for My affection to Thee it will not be the miscarrying of a Letter or two that will call it in question But take heed that these discourses be not rather the effect of their weariness of thy company than the true image of their thoughts and of this is not the proposal of thy journey to Ireland a pretty instance for seriously of it self I hold it one of the most extravagant proposition that I have heard Thy giving ear to it being most assuredly only to express Thy love to Me and not Thy judgment in My Affairs As for the business it self I mean the Peace of Ireland to shew Thee the care I have had of it and the fruits I hope to receive from it I have sent Thee the last Dispatches I have sent concerning it earnestly desiring Thee to keep them to Thy self only Thou mayest in general let the Queen Regent and Ministers there understand that I have offered My Irish Subjects so good satisfaction that a Peace will shortly ensue which I really believe But for God's sake let none know the particulars of My Dispatches I cannot but tell Thee that I am much beholding to the Portugal Agent and little to the French it being by his means that I have sent Thee all My Letters besides Expresses since I came hither though I expected most from Sabran I will not trouble Thee with repetitions of News Digby's dispatch which I have seen being so full Yet I cannot but paraphrase a little upon that which he calls his superstitious observation It is this Nothing can be more evident than that Strafford's innocent blood hath been one of the great causes of God's just Judgments upon this Nation by a furious civil War both sides hitherto being almost equally punished as being in a manner equally guilty but now this last crying blood being totally theirs I believe it is no presumption hereafter to hope that his hand of Justice must be heavier upon them and lighter upon us looking now upon our Cause having passed by our Faults XXI The QUEEN to the KING PARIS March 13. MDCXLIV V. Paris this 13. of March MY Dear Heart since My last I have received one of Your Letters marked 16. by which You signifie the receipt of My Letters by Pooly which hath a little surprized Me seeming to Me that You write as if I had in My Letter something which had displeased You. If that hath been I am very innocent in My intention I only did believe that it was necessary You should know all There is one other thing in Your Letter which troubles Me much where You would have Me keep to My self Your Dispatches as if you believe that I should be capable to shew them to any only to Lord Jer. to uncypher them My Head not suffering Me to do it My self but if it please You I will do it and none in the world shall see them Be kind to Me or You kill Me I have already affliction enough to bear which without You I could not do but Your service surmounts all Farewel My Dear Heart Behold the mark which You desire to have to know when I desire any thing in earnest And I pray begin to remember what I spake to You concerning Jack Barkly for Master of the Wards I am not engaged nor will not for the places of L. Per. and others Do You accordingly 13. March 1644. XXII To the QUEEN OXFORD Jan. 22. MDCXLIV V. Dear Heart SInce My last by Choquen I have had no means of writing and as little new matter That which is now is the progress of the Treaty of which these enclosed Papers will give Thee a full accompt but if Thou have them sooner from London than Me Thou hast no reason to wonder considering the length and uncertainty of the way I am forced to send by in respect of the other For the business it self I believe Thou wilt approve of My choice of Treaters and for My Propositions they differ nothing in substance very little in words from those which were last wherefore I need to say nothing of them and for My Instructions they are not yet made but by the next I hope to send them Now upon the whole matter I desire Thee to shew the Queen and Ministers there the improbability that this present Treaty should produce a Peace considering the great strange difference if not contrariety of grounds that are betwixt the Rebels Propositions and Mine and that I cannot alter Mine nor will they ever theirs until they be out of hope to prevail by force which a little assistance by Thy means will soon make them be for I am confident if ever I could put them to a defensive which a reasonable sum of money would do they would be easily brought to reason Concerning our interferings here at Oxford I desire Thee to suspend Thy Judgement for I believe few but partial relations will
that if in this time instead of mending your Errors by delay you persist in your Errors you make them greater and irreconcileable whereas on the other side if you do go on chearfully to mend them and look to the distressed state of Christendom and the Affairs of the Kingdom as it lyeth now by this great Engagement you will do your selves honour you shall incourage Me to go on with Parliaments and I hope all Christendom shall feel the good of it V. To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER May 11. MDCXXVI MY Lords The Cause and only Cause of My coming to you this day is to express the sense I have of all your Honours for he that toucheth any of you toucheth Me in a very great measure I have thought fit to take order for the punishing some insolent Speeches lately spoken I have been too remiss heretofore in punishing such Speeches as concern My self Not that I was greedy of their Monies but that Buckingham through his importunity would not suffer Me to take notice of them lest he might be thought to have set Me on and that he might come the forwarder to his Trial. And to approve his Innocency as touching the matters against him I My self can be a Witness to clear him in every one of them I speak not this to take any thing out of your hands but to shew the reason why I have not hitherto punished those insolent Speeches against My self And now I hope you will be as tender of My Honour when time shall serve as I have been sensible of yours VI. To the French Servants of the QUEEN at Somerset-House July 1. MDCXXVI GEntlemen and Ladies I am driven to that extremity as I am personally come to acquaint you that I very earnestly desire your return into France True it is the deportment of some amongst you hath been very inoffensive to Me But others again have so dallied with My Patience and so highly affronted Me as I cannot I will no longer endure it VII To the Lords and Commons at the opening of His Third Parliament at WESTMINSTER Mar. 17. MDCXXVII VIII MY Lords and Gentlemen The Times are now for Action for Action I say not for Words therefore I shall use but a few And as Kings are said to be exemplary to Their Subjects so I wish you would imitate Me in this and use as few falling upon speedy Consultation No man is I conceive such a Stranger to the Common Necessity as to expostulate the cause of this Meeting and not to think Supply to be the end of it And as this Necessity is the product and consequent of your Advice so the true Religion the Laws and Liberties of this State and just Defence of our Friends and Allies being so considerably concerned will be I hope arguments enough to perswade Supply For if it be as most true it is both My Duty and yours to preserve this Church and Common-wealth this Exigency certainly requires it In this time of Common danger I have taken the most antient speedy and best way for Supply by calling you together If which God forbid in not contributing what may answer the quality of My occasions you do not your duties it shall suffice I have done Mine in the Conscience whereof I shall rest content and take some other course for which God hath impowered Me to save that which the folly of particular men might hazard to lose Take not this as a Menace for I scorn to threaten any but My Equals but as an Admonition from Him who is tied both by Nature and Duty to provide for your preservations And I hppe though I thus speak your Demeanours will be such as shall not only make Me approve your former Counsels but oblige Me in thankfulness to meet you oftner than which nothing can be more pleasing to Me. I will only add one thing more and then leave My Lord Keeper to make a short Paraphrase upon the Text I have delivered you which is to Remember a thing to the end we may forget it Remembring the Distractions of our last Meeting you may suppose I have no Confidence of good success at this time But be assured I shall freely forget and forgive what is past hoping you will follow that sacred advice lately inculcated to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace VIII To the Lords and Commons at WHITE-HALL April 4. MDCXXVIII MY Lords and Gentlemen I do very well approve the Methods of your Proceedings in this Parliament A Jove Principium hoping that the rest of your Consultations will succeed the happier And I like the Preamble of My Lord Keeper otherwise I should a little have suspected that you thought Me not so careful of Religion as I have and ever shall be wherein I am as forward as you can desire As for your Petition I answer first in general that I like that well and will use these as well as all other means for the maintenance and propagation of that Religion wherein I have lived and do resolve to die But for the particulars you shall receive more full Answer hereafter And now I will only add this That as we pray to God to help us so we must help our selves for we can have no assurance of his assistance if we do lie in a Bed and only pray without using other means And therefore I must remember you that if we do not make provision speedily we shall not be able to put a Ship to Sea this year Verbum sat sapienti est IX To the Speaker and House of Commons April 14. MDCXXVIII MAster Speaker and you Gentlemen When I sent to you My last Message I did not expect to Reply for I intended to hasten you not to find fault with you I told you at your first meeting that this time was not to be spent in Words and I am sure it is less fit for Disputes which if I had a desire to entertain Master Speaker's Preamble might have given Me ground enough The Question is not now What Liberty you have in disposing of matters handled in the House but rather at this time what is fit to be done Therefore I hope you will follow My example in eschewing Disputations and fall to your important business You make a Protestation of your affection and zeal to My Prerogative grounded upon so good and just reasons that I must believe you But I look that you use Me with the like charity to believe what I have declared more than once since your meeting which is that I am as forward as you for the preservation of your true Liberties Let us not spend so much time in this that may hazard both My Prerogative and your Liberties to our Enemies To be short Go on speedily with your business without any fear or more Apologies for time calls fast upon you which will neither stay for you nor Me Wherefore it is My Duty to press you to hasten as knowing the necessity of
the end of the last Session was not to challenge Tonnage and Poundage as of Right but de bene esse shewing you the Necessity not the Right by which I was to take it until I had it granted unto Me assuring My self according to your general professions that you wanted time not will to grant it unto Me. Wherefore now having opportunity I expect that without loss of time you make good your professions and so by passing the Bill put an end to all Questions arising from this subject especially since I have cleared all scruples that may trouble you in this business To conclude Let us not be jealous of one anothers Actions for if I had been easily moved at every occasion the Order made on Wednesday last might have made Me startle there being some shew to suspect that you had given your selves the liberty to be Inquirers after Complaints the words of your Order being somewhat largely penned but looking into your Actions I find you here only Complainers not seeking Complaints for I am certain you neither intend nor desire the liberty to be Inquisitors after mens Actions before particular Complaints be made This I have spoken to shew how slow I am to believe harshly of your Proceedings likewise to assure you that the Houses Resolution not particular mens speeches shall make Me judge well or ill Not doubting but according to mine example you will be deaf to ill reports concerning Me until My Words and Actions speak for themselves but this Session beginning with Confidence one towards the other it may end with a perfect good understanding between us which God grant XV. To the Lords and Commons in Answer to their Petition for a Publick Fast January 31. MDCXXVIII IX MY Lords and Gentlemen the chiefest motive of your Fast being the deplorable estate of the Reformed Churches abroad is too true and our duties are so much as in us possibly lyeth to give them help But certainly Fighting will do them more good than Fasting Though I do not wholly disallow the latter yet I must tell you that this Custom of Fasts every Sessions is but lately begun and I confess I am not so fully satisfied with the necessity of it at this time Yet to shew you how smoothly I desire our business to go on eschewing as much as I can Questions and Jealousies I do willingly grant your request herein But with this note that I expect that this shall not hereafter be brought into Precedent for frequent Fasts except upon great occasions As for the Form and Time I will advise with My Lords the Bishops and then send you a particular to both Houses XVI To the House of Commons in Answer to their Declaration concerning Tonnage and Poundage Feb. 3. MDCXXVIII IX YOur Declaration being somewhat long may by reason require some time to reply unto it since as most of you cannot but judge that this giveth Me no satisfaction Therefore I shall give you some short Notes upon it I cannot think that whereas you alledge that the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage was brought in against the Priviledge of your House that you will offer to take so much Priviledge from any one of your Members as not to allow them the liberty to bring in any Bill whatsoever though it be in your power when it is brought in to do with it what you think good And I cannot imagine how coming hither only by My Power and to treat of things I propound unto you you can deny Me that Prerogative to recommend or offer any Bill unto you Though in this particular I must profess that this Bill was not to have been offered you in My Name as that Member of your House can bear Me witness As for the cause of delay of My business being Religion there is none of you shall have a greater care for the true preservation of it than My self which since it is confessed by your Answer ye must either think I want Power which cannot be or that I am very ill-counselled if it be in such danger as you affirm Though I may say much of this point I will say no more but that for all this I shall not stop My Ears unto you upon this subject so that in form and matter you transgress not your limits As for Tonnage and Poundage I do not desire it out of greediness being perswaded you will make no stop in it when you take it in hand as out of a desire to put an end to all Questions that daily arise between Me and some of My Subjects thinking it a strange thing if you should give ear unto those Complaints and not take the sure and speedy way to decide them Besides I must think it strange that this business of Religion should be only a hinderer of My Affairs whereas I am certainly informed that all other things go on according to their ordinary course Therefore I must still be instant with you that you proceed with this business of Tonnage and Poundage with diligence not looking to be denied in so just a desire And you must not think it much if finding you slack I shall give you such further quickening as I find cause XVII To the House of Lords at the Dissolving of His Third Parliament at WESTMINSTER Mar. 10. MDCXXVIII IX MY Lords I never came here upon so unpleasing an occasion it being the Dissolution of a Parliament Therefore men may have some cause to wonder why I should not rather chuse to do this by Commission it being a general Maxime of Kings to leave harsh Commands to their Ministers Themselves only executing pleasing things Yet considering that Justice as well consists in reward and praise of Vertue as punishing of Vice I thought it necessary to come here to day to declare to you My Lords and all the world that it was merely the undutiful and seditious carriage of the Lower House that hath caused the Dissolution of this Parliament and that You My Lords are so far from being causes of it that I take as much Comfort in your dutiful demeanours as I am justly distasted with their Proceedings Yet to avoid mistakings let Me tell you that it is so far from Me to adjudge all that House guilty that I know there are many there as dutiful Subjects as any in the world it being but some few Vipers among them that cast this Mist of undutifulness over most of their Eyes Yet to say truth there was a good number there that would not be infected with this Contagion insomuch that some did express their duties in speaking which was the general fault of the House the last day To conclude As these Vipers must look for their reward of punishment so you My Lords may justly expect from Me that Favour and Protection that a Good King oweth to His loving and dutiful Nobility And now My Lord Keeper do what I have commanded you XVIII To the Speaker of the House of Commons April MDCXL MAster Speaker I
will only say one word to you Now that you are the Speaker I command you to do the office of a Speaker which is faithfully to report the great Cause of the Meeting that My Lord Keeper in My Name did represent unto you the last day with this assurance That you giving Me your timely help in this great Affair I shall give a willing ear to all your just Grievances XIX To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER April 24. MDCXL His Majesty said THAT the cause of His coming was to put them in mind of what had been delivered by the Lord Keeper in His Name unto both Houses the first day of the Parliament and after at White-Hall How contrary to His expectation the House of Commons having held Consultation of matter of Religion Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament and voted some things concerning those three Heads had therefore given them the precedence before the matter of His Supply That His Necessities were such they could not bear delay That whatsoever He had by the Lord Keeper promised He would perform if the House of Commons would trust Him For Religion that His Heart and Conscience went together with the Religion established in the Church of England and He would give Order to His Arch-Bishops and Bishops that no Innovation in matter of Religion should creep in For the Ship-money that He never made or intended to make any profit to Himself of it but only to preserve the Dominion of the Seas which was so necessary that without it the Kingdom could not subsist But for the way and means by Ship-money or otherwise He left it to them For Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament He ever intended His People should injoy them holding no King so Great as he that was King of a rich and free People and if they had not Property of Goods and Liberty of Persons they could be neither rich nor free That if the House of Commons would not first trust Him all His Affairs would be disordered and His business lost That though they trusted Him in part at first yet before the Parliament ended He must totally trust them and in conclusion they must for execution of all things wholly trust Him Therefore since the matter was no more than who should be first trusted and that the trust of Him first was but a trust in part He desired the Lords to take into their consideration His and their own Honour the Safety and Welfare of this Kingdom with the great Danger it was in and that they would by their Advice dispose the House of Commons to give His Supply the precedence before the Grievances XX. To the Lords and Commons at the Dissolving of His Fourth Parliament at WESTMINSTER May 5. MDCXL MY Lords There can no occasion of My coming to this House be so unpleasing to Me as this is at this time The fear of doing that which I am to do at this day made Me not long agoe come to this House where I expressed as well My fears as the remedies I thought necessary for the eschewing of it Unto which I must confess and acknowledge that you My Lords of the Higher House did give me so willing an ear and with such affection did shew your selves thereafter that certainly I may say if there had been any means to have given an happy end to this Parliament you took it So that it was neither your Lordships fault nor Mine that it is not so Therefore in the first place I must give your Lordships thanks for your good endeavours I hope you remember what My Lord Keeper said to you the first day of the Parliament in My Name what likewise he said in the Banquetting-House in White-Hall and what I lately said to you in this place My self I name all this unto you not in doubt that you do not well remember it but to shew that I never said any thing in way of favour to My People but that by the Grace of God I will really and punctually perform it I know that they have insisted very much on Grievances and I will not say but that there may be some though I will confidently affirm that there are not by many degrees so many as the publick voice doth make them Wherefore I desire you to take notice now especially at this time that out of Parliament I shall be as ready if not more willing to hear and redress any just Grievances as in Parliament There is one thing which is much spoken of though not so much insisted on as others and that is Religion Concerning which albeit I expressed My self fully the last day in this place to your Lordships yet I think it fit again on this occasion to tell you that as I am most concerned so I shall be most careful to preserve that purity of Religion which I thank God is so well established in the Church of England and that as well out as in Parliament My Lords I shall not trouble you long with words it being not My fashion wherefore to conclude What I offered the last day to the House of Commons I think is well known to you all as likewise how they accepted it which I desire not to remember but wish that they had remembred how at first they were told in My Name by My Lord Keeper That Delay was the worst kind of Denial Yet I will not lay this fault on the whole House for I will not judge so uncharitably of those whom for the most part I take to be Loyal and well-affected Subjects but that it hath been the malicious cunning of some few seditiously-affected men that hath been the cause of this Misunderstanding I shall now end as I began in giving your Lordships thanks for your affection shewed to Me at this time desiring you to go on to assist Me in the maintaining of that Regal Power that is truly Mine And as for the Liberty of the People that they now so much seem to startle at know My Lords that no King in the World shall be more careful to maintain them in the Property of their Goods Liberty of their Persons and true Religion than I shall be And now My Lord Keeper do what I have commanded you XXI To the Great Council of Lords at YORK September 24. MDCXL MY Lords Upon sudden Invasions where the dangers are near and instant it hath been the custom of My Predecessors to assemble the Great Council of the Peers by their Advice and Assistance to give a timely remedy to such evils as cannot admit a delay so long as must of necessity be allowed for the assembling the Parliament This being our condition at this time and an Army of Rebels lodged within the Kingdom I thought it most fit to conform My self to the practice of My Predecessors in like cases that with your advice and assistance we might joyntly proceed to the chastisement of their Insolencies and securing of Our good Subjects In the first
place I must let you know that I desire nothing more than to be rightly understood of My People and to that end I have of My self resolved to call a Parliament having already given order to My Lord Keeper to issue out the Writs instantly so that the Parliament may be assembled by the third of November next Whither if My Subjects bring the like good affections as I do it shall not fail on My part to make it a happy Meeting In the mean time there are two points to be considered wherein I shall desire your Advice which indeed is the chief cause of your Meeting First What Answer to give to the Petition of the Rebels and in what manner to treat with them Of which that you may give a sure judgement I have ordered that your Lordships shall be clearly and truly informed of the state of the whole business and upon what reasons the Advices that My Privy Counsel unanimously gave Me were grounded Secondly How My Army shall be kept on foot and maintained till the supplies of a Parliament may be had For so long as the Scots Army remains in England I think no man will counsel Me to disband Mine for that would be an unspeakable loss to all this part of the Kingdom by subjecting them to the greedy appetite of the Rebels beside the unspeakable dishonour that would thereby fall upon this Nation XXII To the Lords and Commons at the Opening of His Fifth Parliament at WESTMINSTER November 3. MDCXL MY Lords The knowledge that I had of the Designs of My Scotish Subjects was the cause of My calling the last Assembly of Parliament wherein had I been believed I sincerely think that things had not fallen out as now we see But it is no wonder that men are so slow to believe that so great a Sedition should be raised on so little ground But now My Lords and Gentlemen the Honour and Safety of this Kingdom lying so nearly at stake I am resolved to put My self freely and clearly on the love and affections of My English Subjects as those of My Lords that did wait on Me at York very well remember I there declared Therefore My Lords I shall not mention Mine own Interest or that Support I might justly expect from you till the Common Safety be secured Though I must tell you I am not ashamed to say those charges I have been at have been meerly for the securing and good of this Kingdom though the success hath not been answerable to My desires Therefore I shall only desire you to consider the best way both for the safety and security of this Kingdom wherein are two things chiefly considerable First the chasing out of the Rebels and secondly that other in satisfying your just Grievances wherein I shall promise you to concur so heartily and clearly with you that all the world may see My intentions have ever been and shall be to make this a glorious and flourishing Kingdom There are only Two things more that I shall mention to you The one is to tell you that the lone of Money which I lately had from the City of London wherein the Lords that waited on Me at York assisted Me will only maintain My Army for two months from the beginning of that time it was granted Now My Lords and Gentlemen I leave it to your considerations what dishonour and mischief it might be in case for want of Money My Army be disbanded before the Rebels be put out of this Kingdom Secondly the securing the Calamities the Northern People endure at this time and so long as the Treaty is on foot And in this I may say not only they but all this Kingdom will suffer the harm Therefore I leave this also to your Consideration For the ordering of these Great Affairs whereof you are to treat at this time I am so confident of your love to Me and that your care is such for the Honour and Safety of the Kingdom that I shall freely and willingly leave to you where to begin Only this that you may the better know the state of all the Affairs I have commanded My Lord Keeper to give you a short and free account of those things that have happened in this interim with this Protestation that if his account be not satisfactory as it ought to be I shall whensoever you desire it give you a full and perfect account of every particular One thing more I desire of you as one of the greatest means to make this an happy Parliament That you on your parts as I on Mine lay aside all suspicion one of another As I promised My Lords at York it shall not be My fault if this be not a happy and good Parliament XXIII To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER Nov. 5. MDCXL MY Lords I do expect that you will hastily make Relation to the House of Commons of those Great Affairs for which I have called you hither at this time and of the trust I have reposed in them and how freely I put My self on their love and affections at this time And that you may know the better how to do so I shall explain My self concerning one thing I spake the last day I told you the Rebels must be put out of this Kingdom 'T is true I must needs call them so so long as they have an Army that does invade us although I am under Treaty with them and under My Great Seal do call them Subjects and so they are too But the state of My Affairs in short is this It 's true I did expect when I did will My Lords and Great ones to be at York to have given a gracious Answer to all their Grievances for I was in good hope by their Wisdoms and Assistances to have made an end of that business but I must tell you that My Subjects of Scotland did so delay them that it was not possible to end there Therefore I can no ways blame My Lords that were at Rippon that the Treaty was not ended but must thank them for their pains and industry And certainly had they as much power as affections I should by this time have brought these distempers to a happy period So that now the Treaty is transported from Rippon to London where I shall conclude nothing without your knowledge and I doubt not but by your approbation for I do not desire to have this great Work done in a corner for I shall lay open all the steps of this Misunderstanding and the causes of the great Differences between Me and My Subjects of Scotland And I doubt not but by your assistance to make them know their Duty and also by your assistance to make them return whether they will or no. XXIV To the Lords and Commons at the Banquetting-House in WHITE-HALL Jan. 25. MDCXL XLI MY Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses The principal cause of My coming here at this time is by reason of the slow proceedings in Parliament
concerned But the Duty I owe to God in the preservation of the true Liberty of My People will not suffer Me at this time to be silent For how can any free-born Subject of England call Life or any thing he possesseth his own if Power without Right daily make new and abrogate the old Fundamental Law of the Land which I now take to be the present Case Wherefore when I came hither I expected that you would have endeavoured to have satisfied Me concerning these grounds which hinder Me to answer to your pretended Impeachment But since I see that nothing I can say will move you to it though Negatives are not so naturally proved as Affirmatives yet I will shew you the Reason why I am confident you cannot Judge Me nor indeed the meanest man in England For I will not like you without shewing a Reason seek to impose a belief upon My Subjects There is no proceeding just against any man but what is warranted either by God's Laws or the Municipal Laws of the Countrey where he lives Now I am most confident this dayes proceeding cannot be warranted by God's Law for on the contrary the authority of Obedience unto Kings is clearly warranted and strictly commanded both in the Old and new Testament which if denyed I am ready instantly to prove And for the question now in hand there it is said That where the Word of a King is there is Power and who may say unto him What dost thou Eccl. 8. 4. Then for the Law of this Land I am no less confident that no learned Lawyer will affirm that an Impeachment can lye against the King they all going in His Name and one of their Maxims is That the King can do no wrong Besides the Law upon which you ground your proceedings must either be old or new if old shew it if new tell what Authority warranted by the Fundamental Laws of the Land hath made it and when But how the House of Commons can erect a Court of Judicature which was never one it self as is well known to all Lawyers I leave to God and the world to judge And it were full as strange that they should pretend to make Laws without King or Lords House to any that have heard speak of the Laws of England And admitting but not granting that the People of England's Commission could grant your pretended Power I see nothing you can shew for that for certainly you never asked the question of the tenth man in the Kingdom and in this way you manifestly wrong even the poorest Plough-man if you demand not his free consent nor can you pretend any colour for this your pretended Commission without the consent at least of the major part of every man in England of whatsoever quality or condition which I am sure you never went about to seek so far are you from having it Thus you see that I speak not for My own Right alone as I am your King but also for the true Liberty of all My Subjects which consists not in the power of Government but in living under such Laws such a Government as may give themselves the best assurance of their Lives and propriety of their Goods Nor in this must or do I forget the Privileges of both Houses of Parliament which this days Proceedings do not only violate but likewise occasion the greatest breach of their publick Faith that I believe ever was heard of with which I am far from charging the two Houses for all pretended Crimes laid against Me bear Date long before this late Treaty at Newport in which I having concluded as much as in Me lay and hopefully expecting the Houses agreement thereunto I was suddenly surprized and hurried from thence as a Prisoner upon which account I am against My will brought hither where since I am come I cannot but to My power defend the ancient Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom together with My own just Right Then for any thing I can see the Higher House is totally excluded And for the House of Commons it is too well known that the major part of them are detained or deterred from sitting so as if I had no other this were sufficient for Me to protest against the Lawfulness of your pretended Court. Besides all this the Peace of the Kingdom is not the least in My thoughts and what hopes of Settlement is there so long as Power reigns without Rule or Law changing the whole frame of that Government under which this Kingdom hath flourished for many hundred years nor will I say what will fall out in case this Lawless unjust proceeding against Me do go on And believe it the Commons of England will not thank you for this Change for they will remember how happy they have been of late years under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the King My Father and My self until the beginning of these unhappy Troubles and will have cause to doubt that they shall never be so happy under any new And by this time it will be too sensibly evident that the Arms I took up were only to defend the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom against those who have supposed My Power hath totally changed the ancient Government Thus having shewed you briefly the Reasons why I cannot submit to your pretended Authority without violating the Trust which I have from God for the Welfare and Liberty of My People I expect from you either clear Reasons to convince My Judgment shewing Me that I am in an Error and then truly I will answer or that you will withdraw your proceedings This I intended to speak in Westminster-Hall on Monday 22. January but against Reason was hindred to shew My Reasons Westminster-Hall Tuesday Jan. 23. Afternoon O Yes made Silence commanded The Court called Seventy one present The King brought in by the Guard looks with a Majestick Countenance upon his pretended Judges and sits down After the second O yes and Silence commanded Cooke began more insolently May it please your Lordship my Lord President this is now the third time that by the great grace and favour of this High Court the Prisoner hath been brought to the Bar before any Issue joyned in the Cause My Lord I did at the first Court exhibite a Charge against him containing the Highest Treason that ever was wrought upon the Theatre of England That a King of England trusted to keep the Law that had taken an Oath so to do that had Tribute pay'd him for that end should be guilty of a wicked Design to subvert and destroy our Laws and introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government in the defence of the Parliament and their Authority set up his Standard for War against the Parliament and People and I did humbly pray in the behalf of the People of England that he might speedily be required to make an Answer to the Charge But My Lord in stead of making any Answer he did then dispute the Authority of this High
done and Signed and Sealed accordingly as followeth At the High Court of Justice for the Trying and Judging of CHARLES STUART King of England Januar. 29. 1648. WHereas Charles Stuart King of England is and standeth Convicted Attainted and Condemned of High Treason and other high Crimes and Sentence upon Saturday last was pronounced against him by this Court to be put to death by the severing of his Head from his Body of which Sentence Execution yet remains to be done These are therefore to will and require you to see the said Sentence executed in the open Street before White-hall upon the morrow being the 30. day of this instant Month of January between the hours of Ten in the Morning and Five in the Afternoon of the same day with full effect And so doing this shall be your sufficient Warrant And these are to require all Officers and Souldiers and other the good People of this Nation of England to be assisting unto you in this Service To Colonel Francis Hacker Colonel Huncks and Lieutenant Colonel Phayre and to every of them Given under our hands and seals John Bradshaw Thomas Gray Ol. Cromwel Edw. Whaley Mi. Livesey John Okey Jo. Danvers Jo. Bourchier Rich. Ingoldsby W. Cawley J. Barkestead Isaac Ewer J. Dixwell Val. Wauton Symon Meyne Tho. Horton H. Ireton Tho. Maleverer John Blakeston Jo. Hutchinson Will. Goffe Tho. Pride Pe. Temple Tho. Harrison Hen. Smith Per. Pelham Ri. Dean Rob. Tichburne Hum. Edwards Dan. Blagrave Owen Rowe William Purefoy Ad. Scroope James Temple A. Garland Edm. Ludlow Hen. Marten Vincent Potter W. Constable Jo. Jones Jo. Moore Ha. Waller Gilb. Millington G. Fleetwood J. Alured Rob. Lilburne W. Saye Anth. Stapeley Gre. Norton Tho. Chaloner Tho. Wogan Jo. Venne Greg. Clement Jo. Downes Tho. Waite Tho. Scott Jo. Carew Miles Corbet Tuesday the thirtieth of January the Fatal Day being come the Commissioners met and ordered four or five of their Ministers to attend upon the King at James's where they then kept Him but his Majesty well knowing what miserable comforters they were like to prove refused to have conference with them That Morning before his Majesty was brought thence the Bishop of London who with much ado was permitted to wait upon Him a day or two before and to assist Him in that sad instant read Divine Service in his presence in which the 27th of Saint Matthew the History of our Saviour's Crucifixion proved the second Lesson The King supposing it to have been selected on purpose thank'd him afterwards for his seasonable choice But the Bishop modestly declining that undue thanks told him that it was the Lesson appointed by the Calendar for that day He also then and there received of the Bishop the holy Sacrament and performed all His Devotions in preparation to His Passion Which ended about ten of the clock His Majesty was brought from Saint James's to White-Hall by a Regiment of Foot with Colours flying and Drums beating part marching before and part behind with a private guard of Partisans about Him the Bishop on the the one hand and Colonel Tomlinson who had the charge of Him on the other both bare-headed His Majesty walking very fast and bidding them go faster added That He now went before them to strive for an Heavenly Crown with less solicitude than He had often incouraged His Souldiers to fight for an Earthly Diadem Being come to the end of the Park He went up the Stairs leading to the long Gallery in White-Hall and so into the Cabinet Chamber where He used formerly to lodge There finding an unexpected delay in being brought upon the Scaffold which they had not as then fitted He past the time at convenient distances in Prayer About twelve of the clock His Majesty refusing to dine only eat a bit of Bread and drank a Glass of Claret and about an hour after Colonel Hacker with other Officers and Souldiers brought Him with the Bishop and Colonel Tomlinson through the Banqueting-house to the Scaffold to which the passage was made through a Window Divers Companies of Foot and Troups of Horse were placed on each side of the Street which hindred the approach of the very numerous Spectators and the King from speaking what He had premeditated and prepared for them to hear Whereupon His Majesty finding Himself disappointed omitted much of His intended matter and for what He meant to speak directed Himself chiefly to Colonel Tomlinson I Shall be very little heard of any body here I shall therefore speak a word unto you here Indeed I could hold My peace very well if I did not think that holding My peace would make some men think that I did submit to the Guilt as well as to the Punishment But I think it is My Duty to God first and to My Country for to clear My self both as an honest Man and a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with My Innocency In troth I think it not very needful for Me to insist long upon this for all the World knows that I never did begin a War first with the two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witness to whom I must shortly make an account that I never did intend for to incroach upon their Privileges they began upon Me it is the Militia they began upon they confest that the Militia was Mine but they thought it fit for to have it from Me. And to be short if any body will look to the Dates of Commissions of their Commissions and Mine and likewise to the Declarations they will see clearly that they began these unhappy Troubles not I. So that as to the guilt of these enormous Crimes that are laid against Me I hope in God that God will clear Me of it I will not I am in Charity God forbid that I should lay it on the two Houses of Parliament there is no necessity of either I hope they are free of this Guilt For I do believe that ill Instruments between them and Me have been the chief cause of all this blood-shed So that by way of speaking as I find my self clear of this I hope and pray God that they may too Yet for all this God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that God's Judgments are just upon Me many times he does pay Justice by an unjust Sentence that is ordinary I will only say this That an unjust Sentence that I suffered for to take effect is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon Me. That is So far I have said to shew you that I am an innocent man Now for to shew you that I am a good Christian I hope there is a good man that will bear Me witness that I have forgiven all the World and even those in particular that have been the chief causers of My Death Who they are God knows I do not desire to know I pray God forgive them But this is not all My Charity must go further I
wish that they may repent for indeed they have committed a great Sin in that particular I pray God with Saint Stephen that this be not laid to their charge Nay not only so but that they may take the right way to the Peace of the Kingdom For My Charity commands me not only to forgive particular men but My Charity commands Me to endeavour to the last gasp the Peace of the Kingdom So Sirs I do wish with all My Soul and I do hope there is some here will carry it further that they may endeavour the Peace of the Kingdom Now Sirs I must shew you both how you are out of the way and will put you in a way First you are out of the way For certainly all the way you ever have had yet as I could find by any thing is in the way of Conquest Certainly this is an ill way For Conquest Sir in My opinion is never just except there be a good just Cause either for matter of Wrong or just Title and then if you go beyond it the first quarrel that you have to it that makes it unjust at the end that was just at the first But if it be only matter of Conquest then it is a great Robbery as a Pirate said to Alexander that He was the great Robber he was but a petty Robber And so Sir I do think the way that you are in is much out of the way Now Sir for to put you in the way believe it you will never do right nor God will never prosper you until you give God his Due the King his Due that is My Successors and the People their Due I am as much for them as any of you You must give God his due by regulating rightly his Church according to his Scripture which is now out of order For to set you in a way particularly now I cannot but only this A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle this when that every Opinion is freely and clearly heard For the King indeed I will not Then turning to a Gentleman that touched the Axe He said Hurt not the Axe that may hurt Me. For the King the Laws of the Land will clearly instruct you for that therefore because it concerns My Own particular I only give you a touch of it For the People And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any body whomsoever but I must tell you that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government those Laws by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own It is not for having share in Government Sir that is nothing pertaining to them a Subject and a Soveraign are clear different things And therefore until they do that I mean that you do put the People in that Liberty as I say certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sirs It was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword I needed not to have come here and therefore I tell you and I pray God it be not laid to your charge that I am the Martyr of the People In troth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer for I will only say this to you That in truth I could have desired some little time longer because that I would have put this that I have said in a little more order and a little better digested than I have done and therefore I hope you will excuse Me. I have delivered My Conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are best for the good of the Kingdom and your own Salvation Then the Bishop said Though it be very well known what Your Majesty's affections are to the Protestant Religion yet it may be expected that You should say somewhat for the Worlds satisfaction in that particular Whereupon the King replied I thank you very heartily My Lord for that I had almost forgotten it In troth Sirs My Conscience in Religion I think is very well known to all the World and therefore I declare before you all That I die a Christian according to the Profession of the Church of England as I found it left Me by My Father and this honest man I think will witness it Then turning to the Officers he said Sirs Excuse Me for this same I have a good Cause and I have a gracious God I will say no more Then to Colonel Hacker He said Take care that they do not put Me to pain And Sir this and it please you But a Gentleman coming near the Axe the King said Take heed of the Axe pray take heed of the Axe And to the Executioner He said I shall say but very short Prayers and when I thrust out My hands Then He called to the Bishop for His Cap and having put it on asked the Executioner Does My Hair trouble you Who desired Him to put it all under His Cap which as he was doing by the help of the Bishop and the Executioner He turned to the Bishop and said I have a good Cause and a gracious God on My side The Bishop said There is but one Stage more which though turbulent and troublesome yet is a very short one You may consider it will soon carry You a very great way it will carry You from Earth to Heaven and there You shall find to Your great joy the prize You hasten to a Crown of Glory The King adjoyns I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where no disturbance can be no disturbance in the world Bishop You are exchanged from a Temporal to an Eternal Crown A good Exchange Then the King asked the Executioner Is My Hair well And taking off His Cloak and George He delivered His George to the Bishop saying Remember Then putting off His Doublet and being in His Wast-coat He put on His Cloak again and looking upon the Block said to the Executioner You must set it fast Execut. It is fast Sir KING It might have been a little higher Execut. It can be no higher Sir KING When I put out My hands this way then Then having said a few words to Himself as He stood with hands and eyes lift up immediately stooping down He laid His Neck upon the Block and the Executioner again putting His Hair under His Cap His Majesty thinking he had been going to strike bad him Stay for the Sign Execut. Yes I will and it please Your Majesty After a very short pause His Majesty stretching forth his hands the Executioner at one blow severed His Head from His Body Which being held up and shewed to the People was with His Body put into a Coffin covered with black Velvet and carried into His Lodging His Blood was taken up by divers persons for different ends by some as Trophies of their Villany by others as Reliques of a Martyr and in some hath had the
on either part would have ruled the cause which His Majesty allowed they were not therewith content but in their intemperate passions and desires to seek for errors in another fell into a greater error themselves and not only neglected to give just satisfaction to His Majesty in several cases which happened concerning His Regality but wholly forgot their ingagements to His Majesty for the publick defence of the Realm whereupon His Majesty wrote a Letter to the Speaker dated the ninth day of June 1626. in these words TRusty and well-beloved We greet you well Our House of Commons cannot forget how often and how earnestly We have called upon them for the speeding of that aid which they intend unto Vs for Our great and weighty Affairs concerning the safety and honour of Vs and Our Kingdoms and now the time being so far spent that unless it be presently concluded it can neither bring Vs money nor credit by the time which themselves have prefixed which is the last of this month and being further deferred would be of little use We being daily advertised from all parts of the great preparation of the Enemy ready to assail us We hold it necessary by these Our Letters to give them Our last and final admonition and to let them know that We shall account all further delays and excuses to be express denials and therefore We will and require you to signifie unto them that We do expect that they forthwith bring forth their Bill of Subsidy to be passed without delay or condition so as it may fully pass that House by the end of the next week at the furthest which if they do not it will force Vs to take other resolutions But let them know that if they finish this according to Our desire that We are resolved to let them sit together for the dispatch of their other affairs and after their recess to bring them together again the next Winter And if by their denial or delay any thing of ill consequence shall fall out either at home or abroad We may call God and man to witness that We have done Our part to prevent it by calling Our people together to advise with Vs by opening the weight of Our occasions unto them and by requiring their timely help and assistance in those Actions wherein We stand ingaged by their own Counsels And We will and command you that this Letter be publickly read in the House Notwithstanding which Letter read in the House being a clear and gracious manifest of His Majesty's resolutions they never so much as admitted one reading to the Bill of Subsidies but in stead thereof they prepared and voted a Remonstrance or Declaration which they intended to prefer to His Majesty containing though palliated with glosing terms as well many dishonourable aspersions upon His Majesty and upon the Sacred memory of His deceased Father as also dilatory excuses for their not proceeding with the Subsidies adding thereto also coloured conditions crossing thereby His Majestie 's direction which His Majesty understanding and esteeming as He had cause to be a denial of the promised Supply and finding that no admonitions could move no reasons or perswasions could prevail when the time was so far spent that they had put an impossibility upon themselves to perform their promises when they esteemed all gracious Messages unto them to be but interruptions His Majesty upon mature advisement discerning that all further patience would prove fruitless on the fifteenth day of this present month He hath dissolved this unhappy Parliament the acting whereof as it was to his Majesty an unexpressible grief so the memory thereof doth renew the hearty sorrow which all His good and well-affected Subjects will compassionate with Him These passages his Majesty hath at the more length and with the true Circumstances thereof expressed and published to the world lest that which hath been unfortunate in it self through the Malice of the authors of so great a mischief and the malevolent Report of such as are ill-affected to this State or the true Religion here professed or the fears or jealousies of Friends and dutiful Subjects might be made more unfortunate in the Consequences of it which may be of worse effect than at the first can be well apprehended And his Majesty being best privy to the integrity of His own heart for the constant maintaining of the sincerity and unity of the true Religion professed in the Church of England and to free it from the open contagion of Popery and secret infection of Schism of both which by His publick Acts and Actions He hath given good testimony and with a single heart as in the presence of God who can best judge thereof purposeth resolutely and constantly to proceed in the due execution of either and observing the subtilty of the adverse party He cannot but believe that the hand of Joab hath been in this disaster that the common Incendiaries of Christendom have subtilly and secretly insinuated those things which unhappily and as his Majesty hopeth beyond the intentions of the Actors have caused these diversions and distractions and yet notwithstanding His most Excellent Majesty for the comfort of His good and well-affected Subjects in whose loves He doth repose Himself with confidence and esteemeth it as his greatest riches for the assuring of his Friends and Allies with whom by God's assistance He will not break in the substance of what he hath undertaken for the discouraging of his Adversaries and the adversaries of his Cause and of his Dominions and Religion hath put on this resolution which He doth hereby publish to all the world That as God hath made him King of this great People and large Dominions famous in former Ages both by Land and Sea and trusted him to be a Father and Protector both of their persons and fortunes and a Defender of the Faith and true Religion so He will go on chearfully and constantly in the defence thereof and notwithstanding so many difficulties and discouragements will take his Scepter and Sword into his hand and not expose the persons of the people committed to his charge to the unsatiable desires of the King of Spain who hath long thirsted after an universal Monarchy nor their Consciences to the yoke of the Pope of Rome and that at home he will take care to redress the just Grievances of his good Subjects as shall be every way fit for a good King And in the mean time his Majesty doth publish this to all his loving Subjects that they may know what to think with truth and speak with duty of his Majesties Actions and Proceedings in these two last dissolved Parliaments Given at His Majestie 's Palace at White-Hall this thirtieth day of June in the Second year of His Majestie 's Reign of Great Britain France and Ireland His MAJESTIE's Declaration to all His Loving Subjects of the Causes which moved Him to dissolve His Third Parliament Published by His Majestie 's special command By the
KING A Proclamation about the dissolving of the Parliament WHereas We for the general good of Our Kingdom caused Our High Court of Parliament to assemble and meet by Prorogation the twentieth day of January last past sithence which time the same hath been continued and although in this time by the malevolent dispositions of some ill-affected persons of the House of Commons We have had sundry just causes of offence and dislike of their proceedings yet We resolved with patience to try the uttermost which We the rather did for that We found in that House a great number of sober and grave persons well affected to Religion and Government and desirous to preserve Unity and Peace in all parts of Our Kingdom and therefore having on the five and twentieth day of February last by the uniform Advice of Our Privy Council caused both Houses to be adjourned until this present day hoping in the mean time that a better and more right understanding might be begotten between Us and the Members of that House whereby this Parliament might have an happy end and issue and for the same intent We did again this day command the like Adjournment to be made until the tenth day of this month It hath so happened by the disobedient and seditious carriage of those said ill-affected persons of the House of Commons that We and Our Regal authority and Commandment have been so highly contemned as Our Kingly Office cannot bear nor any former Age can parallel And therefore it is Our full and absolute resolution to dissolve the same Parliament whereof We thought good to give notice unto all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and to the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of this present Parliament and to all others whom it may concern that they may depart about their needful affairs without attending any longer here Nevertheless We will that they and all others should take notice that We do and ever will distinguish between those who have shewed good affection to Religion and Government and those that have given themselves over to Faction and to work disturbance to the Peace and good order of our Kingdom Given at Our Court at White-hall this second day of March in the fourth year of Our Reign of Great Britain France and Ireland God save the KING His MAJESTIE's Speech at the Dissolving of the Parliament My Lords I Never came here upon so unpleasant an occasion it being the Dissolution of a Parliment Therefore men may have some cause to wonder why I should not rather chuse to do this by Commission it being a general Maxim of Kings to leave harsh commands to their Ministers Themselves only executing pleasing things Yet considering that Justice as well consists in reward and praise of Vertue as punishing of Vice I thought it necessary to come here to day to declare to you and all the world that it was meerly the undutiful and seditious carriage in the lower House that hath made the Dissolution of this Parliament And you my Lords are so far from being causes of it that I take as much comfort in your dutiful demeanors as I am justly distasted with their proceedings Yet to avoid mistakings let me tell you that it is so far from me to adjudge all the House alike guilty that I know that there are many there as dutiful Subjects as any in the world it being but some few Vipers amongst them that did cast this mist of undutifulness over most of their eyes yet to say truth there was a good number there that could not be infected with this contagion insomuch that some did express their duties in speaking which was the general fault of the House the last day To conclude as these Vipers must look for their reward of punishment so you my Lords may justly expect from Me that favour and protection that a good King oweth to His loving and dutiful Nobility And now my Lord Keeper do what I have commanded you His MAJESTIE's Declaration to all His loving Subjects of the Causes which moved Him to Dissolve the Parliament HOwsoever Princes are not bound to give account of their Actions but to God alone yet for the satisfaction of the minds and affections of Our loving Subjects We have thought good to set down thus much by way of Declaration that We may appear to the world in the truth and sincerity of Our own Actions and not in those colours in which We know some turbulent and ill-affected Spirits to masque and disguise their own wicked intentions dangerous to the State would represent Us to the publick view We assembled Our Parliament the seventeenth day of March in the third year of Our Reign for the safety of Religion for securing Our Kingdoms and Subjects at home and Our Friends and Allies abroad and therefore at the first sitting down of it We declared the miserable afflicted estate of those of the Reformed Religion in Germany France and other parts of Christendom the distressed extremities of Our dearest Uncle the King of Denmark chased out of a great part of his Dominions the strength of that party which was united against Us that besides the Pope and house of Austria and their ancient Confederates the French King professed the rooting out of the Protestant Religion that of the Princes and States on Our party some were over run others diverted and some disabled to give assistance For which and other important motives We propounded a speedy supply of Treasure answerable to the necessities of the Cause These things in the beginning were well resented by the House of Commons and with much alacrity and readiness they agreed to grant a liberal aid But before it was brought to any perfection they were diverted by a multitude of questions raised amongst them concerning their Liberties and Priviledges and by other long disputes that the Bill did not pass in a long time and by that delay Our affairs were put into far worse case than at the first Our forein actions then in hand being thereby disgraced and ruined for want of timely help In this as We are not willing to derogate from the merit and good intentions of those wise and moderate men of that House to whose forwardness We attribute it that it was propounded and resolved so soon so We must needs say that the delay of passing it when it was resolved occasioned by causless jealousies stirred up by men of another temper did much lessen both the reputation and reality of that supply and their spirit infused into many of the Commissioners and Assessors in the Country hath returned up the Subsidies in such a scanty proportion as is infinitely short not only of Our great Occasions but of the precedents of former Subsidies and of the intentions of all well-affected men in that House In those large disputes as We permitted many of Our high Prerogatives to be debated which in the best times of Our Predecessors had never been questioned without punishment or sharp reproof so We
did endeavour to have shortned those debates for winning of time which would have much advantaged Our great Affairs both at home and abroad And therefore both by Speeches and Messages We did often declare Our gracious and clear resolution to maintain not only the Parliament but all Our People in their ancient and just liberties without either violation or diminution and in the end for their full satisfaction and security did by an answer framed in the from by themselves desired to their Parliamentary Petition confirm their ancient and just Liberties and Rights which We resolve with all Constancy and Justice to maintain This Parliament howsoever besides the setling Our necessary Supply and their own Liberties they wasted much time in such proceedings blasting Our Government as We are unwilling to remember yet We suffered to sit until themselves desired us to appoint a time for their recess not naming either Adjournment or Prorogation Whereupon by advice of Our Council We resolved to Prorogue and make a Session and to that end prefixed a day by which they might as was meet in so long a sitting finish some profitable and good Laws and withal gave order for a gracious pardon to all Our Subjects which according to the use of former Parliaments passed the higher House and was sent down to the Commons All which being graciously intended by Us was ill entertained by some disaffected persons of that House who by their artifices in a short time raised so much heat and distemper in the House for no other visible cause but because We had declared Our resolution to prorogue as Our Counsel advised and not to adjourn as some of that House after Our resolution declared and not before did manifest themselves to affect that seldom hath greater passion been seen in that House upon the greatest occasions And then some glances in the House but open rumors abroad were spread that by the Answer to the Petition We had given away not only Our Impositions upon goods exported and imported but the Tonnage and Poundage whereas in the debate and hammering of that Petition there was no speech or mention in either House concerning those Impositions but concerning Taxes and other charges within the Land much less was there any thought thereby to debar Us of Tonnage and Poundage which both before and after the Answer to that Petition the House of Commons in all their Speeches and Treaties did profess they were willing to grant And at the same time many other misinterpretationss were raised of that Petition and Answer by men not well distinguishing between well-ordered liberty and licentiousness as if by Our Answer to that Petition We had let loose the Reins of Our Government And in this distemper the House of Commons laying aside the pardon a thing never done in any former Parliament and other businesses fit to have been concluded that Session some of them went about to frame and contrive a Remonstrance against Our receiving of Tonnage and Poundage which was so far proceeded in the night before the prefixed time for concluding the Session and so hastened by the contrivers thereof that they meant to have put it to the Vote of the House the next morning before We should prorogue the Session And therefore finding Our gracious favaours in that Session afforded to Our people so ill requited and such sinister strains made upon Our Answer to that Petition to the diminution of Our Profit and which was more to the danger of Our Government We resolved to prevent the finishing of that Remonstrance and other dangerous intentions of some ill-affected persons by ending the Session the next morning some few hours sooner than was expected and by Our own mouth to declare to both Houses the causes thereof and for hindring the spreading of those sinister interpretations of that Petition and Answer to give some necessary directions for setling and quieting Our Government until another meeting which We performed accordingly the six and twentieth of June last The Session thus ended and the Parliament risen that intended Remonstrance gave Us occasion to look into that business of Tonnage and Poundage And therefore though Our necessities pleaded strongly for Us yet We were not apt to strain that point too far but resolved to guide Our self by the practice of former Ages and examples of Our most Noble Predecessors thinking those Counsels best warranted which the wisdom of former Ages concurring with the present occasions did approve And therefore gave order for a diligent search of Records upon which it was found that although in the Parliament holden in the first year of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth the Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage was not granted unto that King but was first granted unto him by Parliament in the third year of his Reign yet the same was accounted and answered to that King from the first day of his Reign all the first and second years of his Reign and until it was granted by Parliament and that in the succeeding times of King Richard the Third King Henry the Seventh King Henry the Eighth King Edward the Sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage was not only enjoyed by every of those Kings and Queens from the death of each of them deceasing until it was granted by Parliament unto the Successor but in all those times being for the most part peaceable and not burthen'd with like charges and necessities as these modern times the Parliament did most readily and chearfully in the beginning of every of those Reigns grant the same as a thing most necessary for the guarding of the Seas safety and defence of the Realm and supportation of the Royal Dignity And in the time of Our Royal Father of blessed memory He enjoyed the same a full year wanting very few days before his Parliament began and above a year before the Act of Parliament for the grant of it was passed and yet when the Parliament was assembled it was granted without difficulty And in Our own time We quietly received the same three years and more expecting with patience in several Parliaments the like grant thereof as had been made to so many of Our Predecessors the House of Commons still professing that multitude of other business and not want of willingness on their part had caused the setling thereof to be so long deferred And therefore finding so much reason and necessity for the receiving of the ordinary duties in the Custom-House to concur with the practice of such a Succession of Kings and Queens famous for Wisdom Justice and Government and nothing to the contrary but that intended Remonstrance hatched out of the passionate brains of a few particular persons We thought it so far from the wisdom and duty of a House of Parliament as We could not think that any moderate and discreet man upon composed thoughts setting aside passion and distemper could be against receiving of Tonnage and Poundage especially since We do
for their persons for no other cause but because they had Petitions depending in that House and which is more strange they resolved that a Signification should be made from that House by a Letter to issue under the hand of their Speaker unto the Lord Keeper of Our Great Seal that no Attachments should be granted out against the said Chambers Fowkes Gilman or Philips during their said Priviledge of Parliament whereas it is far above the power of that House to give direction to any of Our Courts at Westminster to stop Attachments against any man though never so strongly priviledged the breach of priviledge being not in the Court that grants but in the party or Minister that puts in execution such Attachments And therefore if any such Letter had come to the Lord Keeper as it did not he should have highly offended Us if he had obeyed it Nay they went so far as they spared not the Honour of Our Council-board but examined their proceedings in the case of Our Customers interrogating what this or that man of Our Council said in direction of them in the business committed to their charge And when one of the members of that House speaking of Our Counsellers said We had wicked Counsel and another said That the Council and Judges sought to trample under feet the Liberty of the Subject and a third traduced Our high Court of Star-Chamber for the sentence given against Savage they passed without check or censure by the House By which may appear how far the members of that House have of late swollen beyond the rules of moderation and the modesty of former times and this under pretence of priviledge and freedom of speech whereby they take liberty to declare against all authority of Council and Courts at their pleasure They sent for Our Sheriff of London to examine him in a cause whereof they had no jurisdiction their true and ancient jurisdiction extending only to their own Members and to the conservation of their Priviledges and not to the censure of forein persons and causes which have no relation to their Priviledges the same being but a late Innovation And yet upon an enforced strain of a contempt for not answering to their satisfaction they committed him to the Tower of London using that outward pretext for a cause of their committing him the true and inward cause being for that he had shewed himself dutiful to Us and Our Commandments in the matter concerning Our Customs In these Innovations which We will never permit again they pretended indeed Our service but their drift was to break by this means through all respects and ligaments of Government and to erect an universal overswaying power to themselves which belongs only to Us and not to them Lastly in their proceedings against Our Customers they went about to censure them as Delinquents and to punish them for staying some goods of some factious Merchants in Our Store-house for not paying those duties which themselves had formerly payed and which the Customers without interruption had received of all other Merchants many years before and to which they were authorized both by Our great Seal and by several directions and commandments from Us and Our Privy Council To give some colour to their proceedings herein they went about to create a new Priviledge which We will never admit That a Parliament-man hath priviledge for his goods against the King the consequence whereof would be that he may not be constrained to pay any duties to the King during the time of Priviledge of Parliament It is true they would have made this case to have been between the Merchant and Our Farmers of Our Custom and have severed them from Our Interest and Commandment thereby the rather to make them liable to the censure and punishment of that House But on the other side We holding it both unjust and dishonourable to withdraw Our self from Our Officers in any thing they did by Our Commandment or to disavow any thing that We had enjoyned to be done upon Monday the three and twentieth day of February sent a Message unto them by Secretary Coke thanking them for the respect they had shewed in severing the Interest of Our Farmers from Our own Interest and Commandment nevertheless We were bound in Honour to acknowledge as truth that what was done by them was done by Our express direction and commandment and if for doing thereof Our Farmers should suffer it would highly concern Us in Honour Which Message was no sooner delivered unto them but in a tumultuous and discontented manner they called Adjourn Adjourn and thereupon without any cause given on Our part in a very unusual manner adjourned themselves until the Wednesday following on which day by the uniform advice of Our Privy Council We caused both Houses to be adjourned until the second day of March hoping that in the mean time a better and more right understanding might be begotten between Us and the members of that House whereby the Parliament might come to an happy issue But understanding by good advertisement that their discontent did not in that time digest and pass away We resolved to make a second Adjournment until the tenth of March which was done as well to take time to Our self to think of some means to accommodate those difficulties as to give them time to advise better and accordingly We gave commandment for a second Adjournment in both Houses and for cessation of all businesses till the day appointed Which was very dutifully obeyed in the Higher House no man contradicting or questioning it But when the same commandment was delivered in the House of Commons by their Speaker it was straightways contradicted and although the Speaker declared unto them it was an absolute Right and power in Us to adjourn as well as to prorogue or dissolve and declared and read unto them divers precedents of that House to warrant the same yet Our commandment was most contemptuously disobeyed and some rising up to speak saying they had business to do before the House should be adjourned the Speaker again declared Our express and peremptory command to adjourn and that himself should presently leave the House and come unto Us which he offered to do but was withstood by two that had of purpose placed themselves one on either side of the Speaker's Chair and by force held him in for a time yet the Speaker finding means to get out of the Chair and purposing to come to Us as We had commanded those two and divers others caught hold of him and by strong hand brought him back and set him in the Chair against his will and then a member of that House cast out a most seditious paper framed by himself and his Adherents without any warrant from the House and containing a proscription of such as in duty and obedience to Us should advise or assist Us in the receipt of Tonnage and Poundage or should pay that duty as Enemies to the State and required
The Authors of the many Innovations in Doctrine and Ceremonies the Ministers that have been scandalous in their lives have been so terrified in just Complaints and Accusations that we may well hope they will be more modest for the time to come either inwardly convicted by the sight of their own folly or outwardly restrained by the fear of punishment The Forests are by a good Law reduced to their right bounds the encroachments and oppressions of the Stannary Courts the Extortions of the Clark of the Market and the Compulsion of the Subject to receive the Order of Knight-hood against his will paying of Fines for not receiving it and the vexatious proceedings thereupon for levying of those Fines are by other beneficial Laws reformed and prevented Many excellent Laws and provisions are in preparation for removing the inordinate power vexation and usurpation of Bishops for reforming the pride and idleness of many of the Clergy for easing the people of unnecessary Ceremonies in Religion for censuring and removing unworthy and unprofitable Ministers and for maintaining godly and diligent Preachers through the Kingdom Other things of main importance for the good of this Kingdom are in proposition though little could hitherto be done in regard of the many other more pressing businesses which yet before the end of this Session we hope may receive some progress and perfection The establishing and ordering the Kings Revenue that so the abuse of Officers and superfluity of expences may be cut off and the necessary disbursements for His Majesties Honour the defence and government of the Kingdom may be more certainly provided for The regulating of Courts of Justice and abridging both the delaies and charges of Law-suits The setling of some good courses for preventing the exportation of Gold and Silver and the inequality of exchanges betwixt us and other Nations for the advancing of native Commodities increase of our Manufactures and well-balancing of Trade whereby the stock of the Kingdom may be increased or at least kept from impairing as through neglect hereof it hath done for many years last past for improving the Herring-fishing upon our own Coasts which will be of mighty use in the imployment of the poor and a plentiful Nursery of Mariners for inabling the Kingdom in any great action The Oppositions Obstructions and other Difficulties wherewith we have been encountred and which still lye in our way with some strength and much obstinacy are these The malignant party whom we have formerly described to be the Actors and Promoters of all our Misery they have taken heart again They have been able to prefer some of their own Factors and Agents to degrees of Honour to places of Trust and imployment even during the Parliament They have indeavoured to work in His Majesty ill impressions and opinions of our proceedings as if we had altogether done our own work and not his and had obtained from Him many things very prejudicial to the Crown both in respect of Prerogative and Profit To wipe out this Slander We think good ouly to say thus much That all that we have done is for His Majesty His Greatness Honour and Support When we yielded to give twenty five thousand pounds a month for the relief of the Northern Countries this was given to the King for he was bound to protect His Subjects they were His Majesties evil Counsellors and their ill instruments that were actors in these Grievances which brought in the Scots and if His Majesty please to force those who were the Authors of this War to make satisfaction as He might justly and easily do it seems very reasonable that the people might well be excused from taking upon them this burthen being altogether innocent and free from being any causes of it When we undertook the charge of the Army which cost above 50000 pound a month was not this given to the King was it not His Majesties Army were not all the Commanders under contract with His Majesty at higher rates and greater wages then ordinary And have not we taken upon us to discharge all the brotherly assistance of three hundred thousand pounds which we gave the Scots was it not toward repair of those damages and losses which they received from the Kings Ships and from His Ministers These three particulars amount to above eleven hundred thousand pounds besides His Majesty hath received by Impositions upon Merchandise at least four hundred thousand pounds so that his Majesty hath had out of the Subjects purse since the Parliament began one million and an half and yet these men can be so impudent as to tell His Majesty that we have done nothing for Him As to the second branch of this Slander we acknowledge with much thankfulness that his Majesty hath passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many Ages but withall we cannot forget that these venomous counsels did manifest themselves in some endeavours to hinder these good Acts. And for both Houses of Parliament we may with truth and modesty say thus much That we have ever been careful not to desire any thing that should weaken the Crown either in just Profit or useful Power The Triennial Parliament for the matter of it doth not extend to so much as by Law we ought to have required there being two Statutes still in force for a Parliament to be once a year and for the manner of it it is in the Kings power that it shall never take effect if he by a timely summons shall prevent any other way of assembling In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament there seems to be some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion onely which was so necessary for the Kings own security and the publick Peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to blood and rapine The Star-chamber was much more fruitful in oppression then in profit the great Fines being for the most part given away and the rest stalled at long times The Fines of the High-Commission were in themselves unjust and seldom or never came into the Kings purse These four Bills are particularly and more specially instanced in the rest there will not be found so much as a shadow of prejudice to the Crown They have sought to diminish our reputation with the people and to bring them out of love with Parliaments the aspersions which they have attempted this way have been such as these That we have spent much time and done little especially in those Grievances which concern Religion That the Parliament is a burthen to the Kingdom by the abundance of Protections which hinder Justice and Trade and by many Subsidies granted much more heavy then any they formerly endured To which there is a ready answer
they please to call it of the tenth of June will surely believe the Peace of this Kingdom to be extreamly shaken and at least the King himself to be consulted with and privy to these Propositions But We hope that when Our good Subjects shall find that this goodly pretence of the Defence of the King is but a specious bait to seduce weak and inconsiderate men into the highest Acts of Disobedience and Disloyalty against Us and of Violence and Destruction upon the Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom they will no longer be captivated by an implicite Reverence to the name of both Houses of Parliament but will carefully examine and consider what number of persons are present and what persons are prevalent in those Consultations and how the Debates are probably managed from whence such horrid and monstrous Conclusions do result and will at least weigh the Reputation Wisdom and Affection of those who are notoriously known out of the very horrour of their Proceedings to have withdrawn themselves or by their skill and violence to be driven from them and their Counsels Whilst their Fears and Jealousies did arise or were infused into the people from Discourses of the Rebels in Ireland of Skippers at Roterdam of Forces from Denmark France or Spain how improbable and ridiculous soever that bundle of Informations appeared to all wise and knowing men it is no wonder if the easiness to deceive and the willingness to be deceived did prevail over many of Our weak Subjects to believe that the Dangers which they did not see might proceed from Causes which they did not understand But for them to declare to all the world That We intend to make War against Our Parliament whilest We sit still complaining to God Almighty of the Injury offered to Us and to the very Being of Parliaments and that We have already begun actually to levy Forces both of Horse and Foot whilest We have only in a Legal way provided a smaller Guard for the security of Our own Person so near a Rebellion at Hull than they have had without lawful Authority above these eight Months upon imaginary and impossible Dangers to impose upon Our peoples Sense as well as Understanding by telling them We are doing that which they see We are not doing and intending that they all know as much as Intentions can be known We are not intending is a boldness agreeable to no power but the Omnipotence of those Votes whose absolute Supremacy hath almost brought Confusion upon King and People and against which no Knowledge in matter of Fact or Consent and Authority in matter of Law they will endure shall be opposed We have upon all occasions with all possible Expressions professed Our fast and unshaken Resolutions for Peace And We do again in the presence of Almighty God Our Maker and Redeemer assure the World that We have no more thought of making a War against Our Parliament than against Our own Children that We will maintain and observe the Acts assented to by Us this Parliament without Violation of which that for the frequent assembling of Parliaments is one and that We have not or shall not have any thought of using any force unless We shall be driven to it for the security of Our Person and for the defence of the Religion Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom and the just Rights and Privileges of Parliament And therefore We hope the Malignant Party who have so much despised Our Person and usurped Our Office shall not by their specious fraudulent insinuations prevail with Our good Subjects to give credit to their wicked Assertions and so to contribute their Power and Assistance for the ruine and destruction of Us and themselves For Our Guard about Our Person which not so much their Example as their Provocation inforced Us to take 't is known it consists of the prime Gentry in Fortune and Reputation of this County and of one Regiment of Our Trained Bands who have been so far from offering any Affronts Injuries or Disturbance to any of Our good Subjects that their principal end is to prevent such and so may be Security can be no Grievance to our People That some ill affected persons or any persons have been employed in other parts to raise Troops under colour of Our Service or have made large or any offers of Reward and Preferment to such as will come in is for ought We know and as We believe an Untruth devised by the Contrivers of this false Rumour We disavow it and are confident there will be no need of such Art or Industry to induce Our loving Subjects when they shall see Us oppressed and their Liberties and Laws confounded and till then We shall not call on them to come in to Us and to assist Us. For the Delinquents whom We are said with a high and forcible hand to protect let them be named and their Delinquency and if We give not satisfaction to Justice when We shall have received satisfaction concerning Sir John Hotham by his legal Trial then let Us be blamed But if the Design be as it is well known to be after We have been driven by force from Our City of London and kept by force from Our Town of Hull to protect all those who are Delinquents against Us and to make all those Delinquents who attend on Us or execute Our lawful Commands We have great reason to be satisfied in the Truth and Justice of such Accusation lest to be Our Servant and to be a Delinquent grow to be terms so convertible that in a short time We be left as naked in Attendance as they would have Us in Power and so compel Us to be waited on only by such whom they shall appoint and allow and in whose presence We should be more miserably alone than in Desolation it self And if the seditious Contrivers and Fomenters of this Scandal upon Us shall have as they have had the power to mis-lead the major part present of either or both Houses to make such Orders and send such Messages and Messengers as they have lately done for the apprehension of the great Earls and Barons of England as if they were Rogues or Felons and whereby Persons of Honour and Quality are made Delinquents merely for attending upon Us and upon Our Summons whilst other men are forbid to come near Us though obliged by the Duty of their Places and Oaths upon Our lawful Commands 't is no wonder if such Messengers are not very well intreated and such Orders not obeyed Neither can there be a surer and a cunninger way found out to render the Authority of both Houses scorned and vilified than to assume to themselves merely upon the Authority of the Name of Parliament a power monstrous to all Understandings and to do Actions and to make Orders evidently and demonstrably contrary to all known Law and Reason as to take up Arms against Us under colour of defending Us to cause Money to be brought in to
them and to forbid Our own Money to be paid to Us or to Our use under colour that We will imploy it ill to beat Us and starve Us for Our own good and by Our own Power and Authority which must in short time make the greatest Court and the greatest Person cheap and of no estimation Who those sensible men are of the publick Calamities of the Violations of the Privileges of Parliament and the Common Liberty of the Subject who have been baffled and injured by Malignant men and Cavaliers about Us We cannot imagine And if those Cavaliers are so much without the fear of God and Man and so ready to commit all manner of Outrage and Violence as is pretended Our Government ought to be the more esteemed which hath kept them from doing so insomuch as We believe no Person hath cause to complain of any injury or of any damage in the least degree by any man about or who hath offered his service to Us. All which being duly considered if the Contrivers of these Propositions and Orders had been truly sensible of the Obligation which lies upon them in Honour Conscience and Duty according to the high Trust reposed in them by Us and Our People they would not have published such a sense and apprehension of imminent Danger when themselves in their Consciences know that the greatest and indeed only Danger which threatens this Church and State the blessed Religion and Liberty of Our People is in their own desperate and seditious Designs and would not endeavour upon such weak and groundless Reasons to seduce Our good Subjects from their Affection and Loyalty to Us to run themselves into Actions unwarrantable and destructive to the Peace and Foundation of the Commonwealth And that all Our loving Subjects may see how causless and groundless this scandalous Rumour and Imputation of Our raising War upon Our Parliament is We have with this Our Declaration caused to be printed the Testimony of those Lords and other Persons of Our Counsel who are here with Us who being upon the place could not but discover such Our Intentions and Preparations and cannot be suspected for their Honours and their Interests to combine in such mischievous and horrid Resolutions And therefore We streightly charge and command all Our loving Subjects upon their Allegiance and as they will answer the contrary at their peril That they yield no Obedience or Consent to the said Propositions and Orders and that they presume not under any such Pretences or by colour of any such Orders to Raise or Levy any Horse or Men or to bring in any Money or Plate to such purpose But if notwithstanding this clear Declaration and Evidence of Our Intentions these men whose Design is to compell Us to raise War upon Our Parliament which all their Skill and Malice shall never be able to effect shall think fit by these Alarms to awaken Us to a more necessary care of the defence of Our Self and Our People and shall themselves under colour of Defence in so unheard-of a manner provide and seduce others to do so too to offend Us having given Us so lively testimony of their Affections what they are willing to do when they have once made themselves able all Our good Subjects will think it necessary to look to Our Self and We do then excite all Our well-Affected people according to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and according to their solemn Vow and Protestation whereby they are obliged to defend Our Person Honour and Estate to contribute their best Assistance to the Preparations necessary for the opposing and suppressing of the Traitorous Attempts of such wicked and Malignant persons who would destroy Our Person Honour and Estate and ingage the whole Kingdom in a Civil War to satisfie their own lawless Fury and Ambition and so rob Our good Subjects of the blessed fruit of this present Parliament which they already in some degree have and might still reap to the abundant satisfaction and joy of the whole Kingdom if such wicked hands were not ready to ruine all their possession and frustrate all their hopes We do therefore declare That whosoever of what degree or quality soever shall then upon so urgent and visible necessity of Ours and such an apparent Distraction of the Kingdom caused and begotten by the Malice and Contrivance of this Malignant Party bring in to Us and to Our use ready Money or Plate or shall underwrite to furnish any number of Horse Horsemen and Arms for the preservation of the publick Peace the defence of Our Person and the vindication of the Privilege and Freedom of Parliament We shall receive it as a most acceptable Service and as a testimony of his singular Affection to the Protestant Religion the Laws Liberties and Peace of the Kingdom and shall no longer desire the continuance of that Affection than We shall be ready to justifie and maintain those with the hazard of Our Life And We do farther declare That whosoever shall then bring in any sums of Money or Plate to assist Us in this great Extremity shall receive consideration after the rate of eight pounds per cent for all such Moneys as he shall furnish Us withall and shall upon the payment of such Money to such persons whom We shall appoint to receive the same receive Security for the same by good lawful Assurance of such of Our Lands Forests Parks and Houses as shall be sufficient for the same and more real Security than the name of Publick Faith given without Us and against Us as if We were no part of the Publick and besides We shall always look upon it as a service most affectionately and seasonably performed for the preservation of Us and the Kingdom But We shall be much gladder that their submission to those Our Commands and their desisting from any such attempts of raising Horse or Men may ease all Our good subjects of that trouble charge and vexation His MAJESTY's Declaration and Profession disavowing any Preparations or Intentions in Him to Levy War against His Houses of Parliament By the KING THere having been many Rumours spread and Informations given which may have induced many to believe that We intend to make War against Our Parliament We profess before God and declare to all the World that We always have and do abhorr all such Designs and desire all Our Nobility and Council who are here upon the place to declare whether they have not been witnesses of Our frequent and earnest Declarations and Professions to this purpose whether they see any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such Design and whether they be not fully perswaded that We have no such Intention but that all Our Endeavours according to Our many Professions tend to the firm and constant settlement of the true Protestant Religion the just Privileges of Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Law Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom Given at
yet He cannot but be pleased with the ingenuity of this confession that the implicite faith of His seduced Subjects begins to wear out so fast that the authority of Declaring new unknown Fundamental Laws doth not now so work with them to believe that these Taxes are laid according to the Laws of God and Man nor the many pretences of imminent Dangers and inevitable ruine of their Religion Laws and Liberties so perswade them to believe this Cause to be the Cause of the Kingdom but that if their Cause Authority and Eloquence were not assisted by force and Rapine their Army must needs be dissolved for want of being thought fit much less necessary to be pay'd by those who have equal right to judge of the Necessity and Danger and for whose sakes interests and concernments only it was pretended to be raised and who are defended by it against their wills Nor is it strange that His Majesty cannot receive these Charges upon Him as a reason to make Him contented and acquiesce with these Injuries to His Subjects or that they who saw His Majesties condition the last year till continued Violence against Him opened the eyes and hearts of His Subjects to His assistance should not believe that He began that War which they saw Him so unlikely to resist or that they who could never find nor hear from them who use not too modestly to conceal what is for their advantage that from the beginning of the world to this present Parliament ever one man was raised before by Commission from both Houses should not believe the raising of that their Army to be so warranted as is pretended and any more approve of their Law than of their Necessity or that they who know that His Majesty in whom the power of making War and Peace was never denyed to be till these new Doctrines which make it unlawful for Him to do any thing and lawful to do any thing against Him were of late discovered though he can legally raise an Army is not allowed to be legally able to raise money to maintain it will not allow of the Argument from the power of Raising to the power of Taxing and are as little satisfied with their Logick as with their Law and extreamly troubled to pay an Army they do not desire for a Necessity they cannot see by a Law they never heard of and that other men without their consent must be jealous fearful and quicksighted at their Charges and they have great reason to be apt to suspect that those made most haste to make a War and have least desire of making Peace who in time of War pretend their legal power to be so vastly inlarged His Majesty therefore hath great reason to insist that no Violence or Plundering be offered to His Subjects for not submitting to the illegal Taxes of one or both Houses which in it self is equal His Majesty being willing to be obliged from the like course and relying wholly upon the known Justice of His Cause and the Affection of His People and in which if the Kingdom be of their mind and believe the Cause of the contrary Army to be really their own the advantage will be wholly theirs and this Judgment will be best given when the People is left to their liberty in this decision His Majesty's real desire of disbanding the Armies may fully appear by His often seeking and earnest endeavours to continue and conclude this Treaty in order to that disbanding VI. His Majesty leaves their Preamble to all the world to consider and to judge whether any man by their saying they were ready to agree to His Majesty's Articles in the manner as was exprest would not have expected to have found after that expression that they had agreed at least to some one thing material in them and had not only meant by agreeing as was exprest to express they would not agree at all For the Clause of Communication of Quarters so quietly left out His Majesty looks upon it as of most infinite importance the leaving out of that having discomposed the whole many things having in the rest been assented to which were therefore only yielded because the Inconveniences growing by these Clauses if they were alone were salved by that Addition and some things in the other very dark and doubtful were by that interpreted and cleared And His Majesty is sufficiently informed how highly it concerns Him that every thing be so clear that after no differences may arise upon any disputable point since they whose Union Industry Subtilty and Malice could perswade any of His People that in the business of Brainceford He had broken a Cessation before any was made or offered would have a much easier work to lay the breach of a made Cessation to His Majesty's charge if the ground of that Breach would bear the least dispute His Majesty doth agree that to preserve things in the same state on both sides with as little advantage or disadvantage to either as the matter will possibly bear is truly the nature of a Cessation and is willing this Principle should be made the Rule and never intended any thing that should contradict it but cannot see the inequality in this which is pretended For could Sir Ralph Hopton and the Earl of Newcastle come by this means to the King and not the Earl of Stamford and Lord Fairfax to the Earl of Essex Nor can His Majesty find any stronger Passes or Forces to hinder His Armies from joyning with Him than hinders theirs from joyning with them If the Forces be unequal theirs will hardly hinder the passage of His without a Cessation if they be equal their coming in time of Cessation will be of equal use and advantage to their side somewhat in point of Supplies to come with them excepted and some advantage to one side will be poize it how you will But on the other side if this clause be not in how much greater is the disadvantage the other way by some Clauses and how are His Forces principally the Earl of Newcastle's cooped up in old and eaten-up Quarters or necessitated to retire to such as are more barren and more eaten So that if this were yielded to under the disguise of a Cessation He must admit that which will much endanger the dissolving of the Army and destruction of the Cause which is such a disadvantage as is against the nature of a Cessation formerly agreed and stated Notwithstanding all this His Majesty to shew His extraordinary and abundant desire of Peace and to prevent the effusion of blood is contented if both Houses shall refuse to consent to His Propositions which are so much for the benefit and advancement of the publick Trade and advantage of His good Subjects to admit a Cessation upon the matter of their own Articles excepting that liberty be given to the Committee to word it according to the real meaning and intention and that the remove of Quarters within their own bounds which
Subjects of a future Peace and no ground left for the continuance or growth of these bloody Dissentions Northumberland W. Pierrepont W. Armyne J. Holland B. Whitelocke April 6. 1643. HIS Majesty desires to know from the Committee of both Houses whether they acquiesce with His Majesty's Replies to their Answers concerning His first Proposition which yesterday they received from Him and to which they have yet made no return His Majesty likewise desires to know whether they have yet received power and Instructions to treat with His Majesty concerning His Return to His two Houses of Parliament which is a part of the first Proposition of both Houses Falkland April 6. 1643. WE shall transmit Your Majesty's Replies to our Answers concerning Your first Proposition to both Houses of Parliament without farther Reply We likewise humbly answer that we have not received any power or Instructions to treat with Your Majesty concerning Your Return to Your two Houses of Parliament but we assure our selves they will give Your Majesty satisfaction therein Northumberland Joh. Holland Will. Pierrepont Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 7. 1643. HIS Majesty conceives His Answers already given for He hath given two to be very clear and significant And if the Conclusion of the present Treaty on His Majesty's first Proposition and the Proposition of both Houses shall be so full and perfectly made that the Law of the Land may have a full free and uninterrupted Course for the defence and preservation of the Rights of His Majesty both Houses and His good Subjects there will be thence a clear evidence to His Majesty and His good Subjects of a future Peace and no ground lest for the continuance and growth of these bloody Dissentions and it will be such a Conclusion as His Majesty intended His Majesty never intending that both Armies should remain undisbanded until all the Propositions of both sides were fully concluded But His Majesty is very sorry that in that point of the first Proposition of both Houses which hath seemed to be so much wished and which may be so concluded as alone much to conduce to the evidence desired viz. His Return to both Houses to which His Majesty in His Answer hath expressed Himself to be most ready whensoever He may do it with Honour and Safety they have yet no manner of power nor Instructions so much as to treat with His Majesty Falkland April 7. 1643. WE have not transmitted Your Majesty's Answer to the Proposition of Disbanding wherein Your Majesty mentions Your Self to be most ready to return to both Houses of Parliament whensoever you may do it with Honour and Safety for that we humbly conceive we were to expect Your Majesty's Answer to that Proposition this day received before we could give a due account thereof to both Houses of Parliament the which we will presently send away without farther Reply Northumberland J. Holland W. Pierrepont W. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 8. 1643. BY Instructions this day received from both Houses of Parliament we humbly conceive that we are to acquaint Your Majesty That they have taken into consideration Your Majesty's Answer to their Reasons concerning the Cessation wherein there are divers expressions which will occasion particular Replies which at this time they desire to decline their wishes and endeavours being earnestly bent upon the obtaining a speedy Peace for which cause they do not think good to consume any more of the time allowed for the Treaty in any farther debates upon the Cessation concerning which they find Your Majesty's expressions so doubtful that it cannot be suddenly or easily resolved and the remainder of the time for the whole Treaty being but seven days if the Cessation were not presently agreed it would not yield any considerable advantage to the Kingdom Wherefore we are required to desire Your Majesty to give a speedy and positive Answer to the first Proposition concerning the Disbanding that so Your Subjects may not only have a shadow of Peace in a short time of Cessation but the substance of it in such manner as may be a perpetual blessing to them by freeing the Kingdom from these miserable effects of War the effusion of English blood and defolation of many parts of the Land Northumberland Joh. Holland Will. Pierrepont Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 10. 1643. BY Instructions yesterday received from both Houses of Parliament we are commanded humbly to insist upon that part of the first Proposition of both Houses of Parliament concerning the Disbanding according to the Papers we have formerly presented to Your Majesty thereupon and we are humbly to acquaint Your Majesty That both Houses of Parliament do conceive Your Majesty's Answer concerning the Disbanding to be in effect a Denial unless they desert all those Cautions and Limitations which they have desired in their Answer to Your Majesty's first Proposition Northumberland Will. Pierrepont Joh. Holland Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 10. 1643. BY Instructions from both Houses of Parliament yesterday received we are commanded to declare unto Your Majesty the desire of both Houses for Your Majesty's coming to Your Parliament which they have often expressed with full offers of Security to Your Royal Person agreeable to their Duty and Allegiance and they know no cause why Your Majesty may not return thither with Honour and Safety but they did not insert it into our Instructions because they conceived the Disbanding of the Armies would have facilitated Your Majesty's Resolution therein which they likewise conceived was agreeable to Your Majesty's sense who in declaring Your consent to the order of the Treaty did only mention that part of the first Proposition which concerned the Disbanding and did omit that which concerned Your Majesty's coming to both Houses of Parliament Northumberland Will. Pierrepont Joh. Holland Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke April 14. 1643. HIS Majesty had great reason to expect that as He answered to every part of the first Proposition of both Houses so the Committee should likewise have had power and Instructions to Treat with His Majesty concerning both parts of the same nor had the Houses any reason to suppose their course agreeable to His Majesty's sense for His Majesty in declaring His consent to the order of the Treaty indeed mentioned their first Proposition by the style of the first Proposition which concerned Disbanding but did not style it that part of the first Proposition which concerned Disbanding as if He had meant to have excluded any part of that Proposition from being treated on He would and ought to have done But though His Majesty's Answers in the point of Disbanding and Return to His Parliament were as particular and as satisfactory as His Majesty had cause to make or could well give till this latter part were consented to be treated upon yet out of His great desire of Peace and of complying with both Houses His Majesty hath made a full and particular Answer and Offer to both Houses concerning as well the first part
that his Consent was as much forced from Him as these Particulars were forced from His Majesty or if they were so far out of Danger of any farther Encroachments upon their Power that He could have no cause of Fears and Jealousies in granting some of these to them nay that their advice in the Choice arose wholly from His Majesty's Desire and not their Demand then the Precedents fit not this Case and so make nothing for their purpose But now that the Perpetuity of this Parliament hath so far encouraged those who by Arts and Violence have gotten Power over it that they may probably hope to make this Power as perpetual as it and have given so sufficient Evidence what further use they would make of any Power His Majesty supposes Himself to have more reason to be cautious in that Point than any of His Predecessors who were content to share any part of this Power but for once with but a temporary Assembly especially since their several Propositions have shewed how much more they wish and M. Prinne's Books printed by Order of a Committee of the House of Commons signified by Warrant under M. White 's hand have shewed how much more they pretend to and since any Grant of His is desired by these Men but to enable them to obtain the rest of their pretences or desires what he yielded to them concerning my Lord of Essex and Sir John Conyers being Lieutenants of Yorkshire and the Tower being prest in these very Precedents as an Argument to Him why he should grant all they ask now On the other side if his Majesty should make use of their own kind of Weapon and do the same or as great things or make them the like or as great demands as their Predecessors have tacitely approved of or directly assented to when they were done or made by His as in the just Famous time of Queen Elizabeth in the Case of Stanhope and Savile or in the same time in Wentworth's Case or in the Reign of Henry the Eighth in the Power given to Him to dispose of the Kingdom by His Will and Testament and others of the like and near as high kinds He believes both Houses would think what others then did to be no Argument to perswade them either to approve or consent but would rather for ever wave all Arguments from Precedents than direct themselves by the same Rule Their third Argument is That His Majesty had formerly exprest that His Forts and Castles should be only in such hands as both Houses might safely confide in And His Majesty expresseth still as much and till some just legal cause be shewed him why the Persons now in those Commands cannot be safely Confided in by them He conceives they might safely confide in them if they pleas'd But His Majesty did likewise once say He would put all those places both of the Forts and Militia into such hands as both Houses should approve or recommend unless such were named against whom He had just and unquestionable Exceptions To which His Majesty replies That His Offer not giving them satisfaction then for they would then limit no time for the Militia which was the Condition of that Offer of His Majesty's and since it seems it would give none yet for they now ask no less for the Ships than for those and more for both as to the time and other Circumstances than He then offered for these and they by forcing those Places from Him since and some of the Persons legally vested in those Places by their faithfulness to him in this War having given Him so much more cause not to yield to it now He conceives the case to be so altered by all these differences that though out of His earnest desire to satisfie them as long as He thought them capable of satisfaction by it He then intended what He spoke yet He may insist upon what He now insists without being said to have receeded from His Word Did not they refuse to accept of four Persons named in His Majesty's Bill concerning the Militia which themselves had but newly offered Him in their Ordinance concerning it And had those Persons in that time given them so great cause for that refusal as His Majesty hath had given Him for this And yet will they confess that ill Counsel prevail'd with them to recede from their Words and that therefore His Majesty had the more cause to be farther secured Their fourth Argument is That unless these Limitations be granted those secret and wicked Councellors that have been Instruments of the present Miseries will have the disposing of those Places and His Majesty carry but the Name To this His Majesty replies That knowing who have been the Instruments of these Miseries He should by that believe the secret and wicked Councellors spoken of to be the active part of the close Committee for if He have any wicked Councellors about him He confesseth they have cause to call them Secret as well as Wicked since they have not only wholly concealed themselves from Him but He having often press'd to have some named could never obtain from them the Name so much as of one nor since hath heard so much as one proof or charge either of being wicked Councellors or of any Legal Crime against any of His Servants whom they have named though they have publisht them withal to be incapable of Pardon However He finds that if what they say were true the ends of these Councellors and of their violent Party is but just the same that is to dispose of these Places and that His Majesty may only carry the Name But they have found a Letter of His Majesty 's to the Queen which shews that the great and eminent Places of the Kingdom are disposed of by Her Advice and then conclude from Her Religion that they are by consequence disposed of by the advice of Papists and Jesuits and that the Persons there named even during the sitting of Parliament are either all impeacht by them or bear Arms against them To this His Majesty replies First That He cannot but deplore the condition of the Kingdom when Letters of all sorts of Husbands to Wives even of His Majesty to His Royal Consort are intercepted read brought in Evidence and publisht to the World Secondly That if they will remember how far many of those Persons of both Sexes who have received most notable marks of Favour from Her Majesty are even in their own Opinion from so much as inclining to Popery they must confess her Favours and Recommendations not to be disposed of by Priests and Jesuits Thirdly That the Places there named in which Her Majesty's Advice may seem to be desired are not places as they call it of the Kingdom but private menial places a Treasurer of the Household a Captain of the Pensioners and a Gentleman of the Bed-chamber That concerning the other more publick Places His Majesty absolutely declares Himself without leaving room for Her Advice
great proportions of all necessary Supplies unto the Protestants there whereby they have subsisted and have very lately sent thither and have already provided to be speedily sent after in Money Victuals Cloaths Ammunition and other Necessaries to the value of sevenscore thousand Pounds and they have not desired any other Provision from His Majesty but what He was well able to afford herein only His assistance and Consent in joyning with His two Houses of Parliament for the better enabling them in the prosecution of that War And we are so far from apprehending any impossibility of reducing that Kingdom during the unhappy distractions here that although many of the Forces provided by the two Houses for that end were diverted and imployed against the Parliament to the increasing of our Distractions yet the Protestants in Ireland have subsisted and do still subsist and we have just cause to believe that if this Cessation had not been obtained by the Rebels and that in the time of their greatest Wants and that these Forces had not been withdrawn they might in probability have subdued those bloody Rebels and finished the War in that Kingdom For the pretended Necessities offered as grounds of this Cessation we have already given your Lordships we hope clear information For the Persons whose Advice His Majesty followed therein your Lordships have not thought fit to make them known unto us and we cannot conceive their Interest in that Kingdom to be of such consideration as is by your Lordships supposed But we know very well that many Persons of all sorts have forsaken that Kingdom rather then they would submit unto this Cessation and great numbers of considerable Persons and other Protestants yet remaining there have opposed and still do oppose that Cessation as the visible means of their Destruction The two Houses sent their Committees into Ireland for the better supplying and encouraging of the Armies there and to take an account of the state of the War to be represented hither that what should be found defective might be supplied What Warrants they issued we are ignorant of but are well assured that what they did was in pursuance of their Duty and for advancement of the publick Service and suppressing of that horrid Rebellion and we cannot but still affirm they were discountenanced and commanded from the Council there where the prosecution of that War was to be managed and that it was declared from His Majesty that he disapproved of the Subscriptions of the Officers of the Army by means whereof that course was diverted Concerning the Moneys raised for Ireland we have in our former Papers given your Lordships a full and just Answer and we are sorry the same cannot receive credit Those Moneys raised upon charitable Collections we do positively affirm were only imployed to those ends for which they were given and we cannot but wonder the contrary should be suggested We are confident the Commission desired by the two Houses for the Lord Wharton and which your Lordships acknowledged was denied was only such as they conceived most necessary for advancement of that Service and the denial thereof proved very prejudicial thereunto And we must again inform your Lordships that it was well known at the time when the Goods were seized by His Majesties Forces as your Lordships allege near Coventry that the same were then carrying for the supply of the Protestants in Ireland and some other Provisions made and sent for the same purpose were likewise seized and taken away by some of His Majesties Forces as we have been credibly informed not without His Majesties own knowledge and direction Your Lordships may believe that those who signed the Letters mentioned in your Papers have done nothing but what they may well justifie and if the same be well done they need not fear to give an Account thereof nor your Lordships to suppose that if they come within our Quarters they shall be otherwise dealt withal then shall be agreeable to Justice Upon the whole matter notwithstanding the Allegations Pretences and Excuses offered by your Lordships for the Cessation made with the Rebels in Ireland we are clearly satisfied that the same was altogether unjust unlawful and destructive to His Majesties good Subjects and of advantage to none but the Popish bloody Rebels in that Kingdom And therefore we still earnestly insist as we conceive our selves in Conscience and Duty obliged upon our former Demands concerning Ireland which we conceive most Just and Honourable for his Majesty to consent unto We know no other ways to propound more probable for the reducing of the Rebels there but these being granted we shall chearfully proceed in the managing of that War and doubt not by God's blessing we shall speedily settle that Kingdom in their due Obedience to His Majesty Their other Paper 20. Feb. VVE cannot understand how out of any of the Papers Articles and Ordinances delivered by us unto your Lordships there should be a ground for your Opinion that upon any Differences between the Committees or Commanders imployed about the War of Ireland the War should stand still or be dissolved nor do we find that the Ordinance of the 11. of April can produce any such inconvenience as your Lordships do imagine nor doth the making of the Earl of Leven Commander in chief of the Scotish and British Forces and the settling of the prosecution of the War of Ireland in the two Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms take away the relation to His Majesties Authority or of the two Houses of Parliament or of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland For in the first place His Majesties Consent is humbly desired and the whole Power is derived from him only the Execution of it is put into such a way and the General is to carry on the War according to the Orders he shall receive from the Committee of both Kingdoms and in case of Disagreement in the Committee the two Houses of Parliament are to prosecute that War as is expressed in our Answer to your Lordships second Paper of the 19. of February And when there shall be a Lieutenant of Ireland and that he shall joyn with the Commander in chief of the Scotish Army the said Commander is to receive Instructions from him according to the Orders of the Commissioners of both Kingdoms as we have said in our Answer to your Lordships second Paper of this day Nor doth the naming of the Earl of Leven to be General any more take away the Power of the two Houses then if he were a Native of this Kingdom or is there any part of the Kingdom of Ireland delivered over into the hands of his Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland who do only joyn with their Councils and Forces for carrying on the War and reducing that Kingdom to his Majesties Obedience And we conceive it most conducing for the good of his Majesties Service and of that Kingdom that
the Lords Justices and Council there yet we were assured even by some who were of the Council at that time when the Letters were written that the same was done only to press for Supplies from hence without the least intention in them of inducing a Cessation neither do the Copies contain any thing tending to a Cessation or the least mention thereof And we have cause to grieve not only at what your Lordships express concerning the complaints from Ireland and their great extremities but that the same being procured and increased by the Popish Party yet we should find such earnest endeavours to lay the blame and neglect therein upon the two Houses of Parliament here who have been so zealous for their Relief and whose only care under the Blessing of God hath been their Preservation and that in the heat of our own miserable Distractions have continued their Supplies and from our own great Wants have not spared to afford our Brethren there the means of their subsistance The Protestants in Munster Connaught and Vlster who opposed this Cessation were many of them English and both they and the Scots suffering under as great Wants and Failer of Supplies as the Protestants in other places and in no better posture of their own defence notwithstanding in a true sense of their own Duty and Conscience they have opposed and still do oppose the same neither were the English there neglected as your Lordships have been misinformed by such who labour to destroy both Nations and as a means thereto to divide them Besides the Goods seised near Coventry we have mentioned other particulars asserted to be seised not without His Majesties own knowledge and direction as we are informed and are most unwilling to believe Neither do we understand it to be an excuse for seising some Goods to say that His Majesty did forbear to seise others in His Power but when His Majesty shall rightly ponder the horridness of that Rebellion we hope those wicked Instruments who contrived and do support the same will have no power to alter His Majesties tender sense of the miseries of His Protestants Subjects in that Kingdom nor at all to lessen His Piety and gracious Care for quenching the Flames of that unhappy Rebellion We do again affirm unto your Lordships the truth of what we said before concerning the Supplies of Ireland by the two Houses and it seems strange that what hath been lately sent should not be looked upon as a Support of the War against the Rebels by which only the Protestants were enabled to defend themselves and to infest their Enemies nor can we imagine any other means as a Support of that just War being most assured that if this had not been done the Rebels must certainly have prevailed and the remnant of His Majesties good Subjects of that Kingdom have perished Your Lordships are pleased to remember some moneys by us imployed particularly one hundred thousand Pounds which was raised for Ireland all which have been re-satisfied with advantage and we must as often as you are pleased to repeat it refer your Lordships to our former just and clear Answers concerning the same and the like for the Forces under the Command of the Lord Wharton And we believe what your Lordships express concerning the Forces brought hither to His Majesty out of Ireland after the Cessation it being one end for which the Cessation was made that those Forces might be imployed against the two Houses of Parliament here and those Scotish Forces which came over were not sent for We know of no Persons who have returned into Ireland since the Cessation except such as were Agents for the procuring thereof and divers principal Rebels who presumed to address themselves unto His Majesty at Oxford and were there countenanced It is probable that some might endeavour to alienate the hearts of the Officers of the Army there from the two Houses whereby their Service against the Rebels might be interrupted To that particular of the Subscriptions of the Officers and of the Committee sent into Ireland and of the diversions of moneys alledged and of the Copies of Letters given us by your Lordships without the Names of those who subscribed them we have already given your Lordships a full and clear Answer but have not received satisfaction concerning the denial of the Lord Wharton's Commission whereby the Service of that Kingdom was much prejudiced It is so far from being made appear that His Majesties English Protestant Subjects in Ireland could not subsist without a Cessation that the contrary is undeniable and that His Majesties Protestant Subjects there both English and Scotish who have opposed that Cessation have subsisted and do still subsist and we are sorry to find any inclination to continue that Cessation which whensoever made will be esteemed by all good Protestants a countenancing of that bloody Rebellion We do insist upon our former Demands concerning Ireland and doubt not but those being granted notwithstanding our present miserable Distractions here we shall by the Blessing of God bring those bloody Rebels to a speedy and just Punishment and settle that unhappy Kingdom in their due Obedience to His Majesty and the Crown of England Their other Paper 22. Feb. IT is not possible for us to give a more clear Answer than we have done to shew that there can no such Inconvenience follow upon confirming the Ordinance of the 11. of April by Act of Parliament as your Lordships do imagine it being desired that the Treaty of the sixth of August be in like manner confirmed by which the Commanders of the Scotish Forces in Ireland are to be answerable to His Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament of England for their whole deportment and proceeding there and it being desired by the 13. Proposition that the Prosecutions of the War of Ireland should be settled in both Houses of Parliament all which taken together it cannot follow that upon any Disagreement between the Committees there the Earl of Leven may carry on the War according to his own discretion As for our Expression when there shall be a Lieutenant in Ireland which was used in Answer to your Lordships second Paper of the 20. of February it was to satisfie your Lordships that there could be no interfering between the Powers of the Lord Lieutenant and of the Earl of Leven and still we say when there shall be a Lord Lieutenant chosen as is expressed in our 20. Proposition for we do not admit the Marquiss of Ormond to be so the Commander in chief of the Scotish Army is to receive Instructions from him in such manner as we have laid it down in that Answer of ours to your Lordships Paper above-mentioned which will we hope satisfie your Lordships other Objection that this is not to deliver over the whole Kingdom of Ireland into the hands of His Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland seeing such of that Nation as are there imployed are to be subordinate
Quarterings nor Marchings and when it shall be found fit to send Troops out of either Army that the Persons to be sent out of the Scotish Army shall be commanded out by their own General the Lieutenant of Ireland prescribing the number which shall not exceed the fourth part of the whole Foot of the Scotish Army nor of the Horse appointed to joyn therewith whereunto they shall return when the Service is done And that no Officer of the Scotish Army shall be commanded by one of his own Quality and if the Commanders of the Troops so sent out of either Army be one of Quality that they command the Party by turns And it is nevertheless provided that the whole Scotish Army may be called out of the Province of Vlster and the Horses appointed to joyn with them by His Majesties Lieutenant of Ireland or other chief Governour or Governours of that Kingdom for the time being if he or they shall think fit before the Rebellion be totally suppressed therein Eleventhly it is agreed That the Scotish Army shall be entertained by the English for three Months from the twentieth of June last and so along after until they be discharged and that they shall have a Months Pay advanced when they are first mustered in Ireland and thereafter shall be duely paid from Month to Month and that there shall be one Muster-master appointed by the English Muster-master General to make strict and frequent Musters of the Scotish Army and that what Companies of Men shall be sent out of Scotland within the compass of the Ten thousand Men shall be paid upon their Musters in Ireland although they make not up compleat Regiments Twelfthly it is agreed That the Scotish Army shall receive their discharge from the King and Parliament of England or from such Persons as shall be appointed and authorized by His Majesty and both Houses of Parliament for that purpose and that there shall be a Months warning before-hand of their disbanding which said discharge and Months warning shall be made known by His Majesty and them to the Council of Scotland or the Lord Chancellor a Month before the discharging thereof and that the Common Souldiers of the Scotish at their dismission shall be allowed fourteen days Pay for carrying of them home Thirteenthly it is provided and agreed That at any time after the Three Months now agreed upon for the entertainment of the Scotish Army shall be expired and that the Two Houses of Parliament or such persons as shall be authorized by them shall give notice to the Council of Scotland or to the Lord Chancellor there that after one Month from such notice given the said Two Houses of Parliament will not pay the said Scotish Army now in Ireland any longer then the said Two Houses of Parliament shall not be obliged to pay the said Army any longer then during the said Month any thing in this Treaty contained to the contrary notwithstanding The Ordinances of the 9. of March and 11. of April Die Sabbati 9. Martii 1643-44 Resolved upon the Question by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled THat he who doth or shall command in chief over the said Army by joynt Advice of both Kingdoms shall also command the rest of the British Forces in Ireland and for the further managing of that War and prosecuting the Ends expressed in the Covenant that the same be done by joynt Advice with the Committees of both Kingdoms Die Jovis 11. April 1644. Resolved upon the Question by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled THat the Earl of Leven Lord General of the Scots Forces in Ireland being now by the Votes of both Houses agreed to be Commander in chief over all the Forces as well British as Scots according to the Fourth Article of the result of the Committees of both Kingdoms passed both Houses be desired with all convenient speed by the Advice of the said Committees to appoint and nominate a Commander in chief under his Excellency over the said Forces to reside with them upon the place Resolved c. THat Committees be nominated and appointed by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms of such Numbers and Qualities as shall be by them agreed on to be sent with all convenient speed to reside with the said Forces and enabled with all ample Instructions by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms for the Regulating of the said Forces and the better carrying on of that War The Letter of the Lords Justices and Council of Ireland to the Speaker of the House of Commons in England 4. April 1643. a Duplicate whereof the Original being sent to VVestminster was by them sent to Master Secretary Nicholas for His Majesty SIR OUR very good Lord the Lord Marquess of Ormond having in his March in his last Expedition consulted several times with the Commanders and Officers of the Army in a Council of War and so finding that subsistence could not be had abroad for the Men and Horses he had with him or for any considerable part of them it was resolved by them that his Lordship with those Forces should return hither which he did on the six and twentieth of March. In his return from Rosse which in the case our Forces stand he found so difficult to be taken in as although our Ordinance made a breach in their Walls it was found necessary to desert the Siege he was encountred by an Army of the Rebels consisting of about six thousand Foot and six hundred and fifty Horse well armed and horsed yet it pleased God so to disappoint their counsels and strength as with those small Forces which the Lord Marquess had with him being of fighting men about two thousand five hundred Foot and five hundred Horse not well armed and for the most part weakly horsed and those as well Men as Horses much weakned by lying in the Fields several Nights in much Cold and Rain and by want of Mans-meat and Horse-meat the Lord Marquess obtained a happy and glorious deliverance and Victory against those Rebels wherein were slain about three hundred of them and many of their Commanders and others of Quality and divers taken Prisoners and amongst those Prisoners Colonel Cullen a Native of this City who being a Colonel in France departed from thence and came hither to assist the Rebels and was Lieutenant-General of their Army in the Province of Leimster and the Rebels Army were totally routed and defeated and their Baggage and Munition seized on by His Majesties Forces who lodged that Night where they had gained the Victory and on our side about twenty slain in the fight and divers wounded We have great cause to praise God for magnifying his Goodness and Mercy to His Majesty and this His Kingdom so manifestly and indeed wonderfully in that Victory However the Joy due from us upon so happy an occasion is we confess mingled with very great Distraction here in the apprehension of our Unhappiness to be such as although the
the Articles of the Peace they may in order thereunto upon pretence it is for the preservation of the Peace entertain and determine any Cause or Difference they please especially their Power by the Propositions being not only to preserve the Peace but to prevent the violation of the Articles of the Peace and having the power of the Sword in their hands and being not tied up to any certain Law whereby to judge for ought appears by their Answers to the Questions proposed by Our Commissioners and the Common Law not being the Rule in such case because part of them are to be of the Scotish Nation they may without controul exercise what Arbitrary Power they please And whereas it is insisted upon in this Paper That an Answer be given to the fifteenth Proposition which is That the Subjects be appointed to be Armed Trained and Disciplined in such manner as both Houses shall think fit which Our Commissioners thought fit to have deferred till after the Peace established and then to be settled by Us and the two Houses it is apparent that Proposition concerned not that which was desired as the end of their Propositions the security for the observation of the Articles and We conceive there is already sufficient Provision made by the Law in such cases and if there were not it were fit that that defect were supplied by Law not to be left at large as the two Houses should think fit without expressing the manner of it but to proceed by a Bill wherein We might see before We consented to it how Our Subjects should be charged We being as much concerned and sensible of the burthen to be put upon Our Subjects as the two Houses can be who We are sure since they took upon them the Authority of imposing upon their fellow-Subjects without Us have laid the heaviest Impositions that ever were And whereas they say The scope of these their Propositions touching the Militia was to take away occasions of future Differences to prevent the raising of Arms and to settle a firm and durable Peace If We look upon the whole frame of their Militia as they have proposed it to Us We cannot but conclude those Propositions to be most destructive to those ends For first they have proposed it to Us as they have settled it already by their Ordinance That the whole Militia of Ireland as well of Our English Subjects as Scotish shall be Commanded by Lesley Earl of Leven their Scotish General and be managed by the joynt Advice of the Scotish and English Commissioners and therein the Scotish as well as the English to have a Negative Voice and so by consequence subjecting the whole Government of that Kingdom to the manage of Our Scotish Subjects And having thus ordered the Militia of Ireland where they will be sure to keep Forces on Foot for that is another part of the Propositions That we shall assent to whatsoever Acts shall be proposed for Moneys for the VVar of Ireland which Forces shall be ready upon all occasions to serve them for the Militia and Navy of England that is likewise to be ordered and Commanded by these Commissioners and though We their Sovereign are denied to nominate any to be joynt-Commissioners they are content to admit those of Scotland who though Our Subjects yet are strangers to their Government to a nomination of Scotish Commissioners to be joyned with them These Scotish Commissioners in matters wherein both Kingdoms are joyntly concerned and they may easily call and make what they will to be of joynt concernment are to have a Negative Voice so that the English can do nothing without them not so much as to raise Force to suppress a Commotion or prevent an Invasion if the Scotish Commissioners though not a third part of the number of the English say it is of joynt concernment and in matters solely concerning England the Scotish Commissioners to a third part of the whole number of the Commissioners are to reside in England and to Vote as single Persons These Commissioners as well Scotish as English as they have the sole Power of the Forces by Sea and Land so they must have a Court in a Civil way to hear and determine whatsoever Civil action that shall tend to the preservation of the Peace or whatsoever else is for the prevention of the violation of it within which general words and in order thereunto they may comprehend any cause or thing they please And as these Commissioners as well Scotish as English are to name all Commanders and Officers in Our Forts and Ships so in the Intervals of Paliament lest there should be too much dependance upon Us they are to name all the great Officers and Judges of both Our Kingdoms of England and Ireland To these so unreasonable Propositions wherein the Parliament and Subjects of Scotland would have so great an Influence and Power over the Kingdoms of England and Ireland if as reflecting meerly upon Our selves and not entertaining such thoughts of Our Scotish Subjects as perhaps some may by the danger of such a Power We should have agreed as hoping that the good Affections of Our Subjects in Scotland might in time have restored Us to that Power which the two Houses of England would take away yet when We consider that We are in Conscience obliged to maintain the Rights of Our Crown so far as to be able to protect Our Subjects and what jealousies and heart-burnings it might probably produce betwixt Our Subjects of the two Kingdoms what reluctancy all Our Subjects here may have when they shall see Our Power so shaken and they must have so much dependency upon their fellow Subjects both English and Scotch We conceive it so far from being a Remedy to the present Distempers as they affirm in their Papers that as at present it would alter the whole frame and constitution of the Government of this Kingdom both Civil and Military so in the conclusion it would occasion the Ruin and Desolation of all Our Kingdoms His MAJESTIES Answer to the two Papers concerning Ireland IT hath been one of the chiefest designs of the Authors of the present Distractions to insinuate unto Our People that We were either privy to the Rebellion in Ireland or assenting to the continuance of it and if it could not be personally fixed upon Our self yet to perswade them into a belief that evil Counsellors and others prevalent with Us did encourage and assist it By this means having a colour to raise Forces and to levy Money for the supply of those Forces they might so dispose of both as under a pretence of suppressing the Rebels in Ireland they might thereby also raise a War in England for the effecting of their Ambitious and Covetous desires in both Kingdoms And they so carried on this Design that whereas out of Our earnest desire of the relief of Our poor Subjects in Ireland and to shew the great sense We had of their Miseries We had
We should wholly give up that Kingdom to be managed solely by their Counsels secluding Our selves from all Interest therein especially when We consider that which Experience hath taught Us if they have the sole Power of that War by which all the Soldiers and Commanders being to be nominated and pay'd removed and advanced by them the necessary application passing by Us must be made to such as are powerful with them how easie a matter it will be for a prevalent Faction if they shall have a mind to demand other things hereafter not fit to be granted again to bring over an Army raised and payed by them into this Kingdom especially so much composed of Our Scotish Subjects And whereas they desire further the nomination of the Lord Lieutenant and other great Officers and Judges in that Kingdom which they also desire in this of England they cannot but know that it must of necessity take away all dependency upon Us and application to Us when the power to reward those who are worthy of publick Trust shall be transferred to others and having neither force left Us to punish nor power to reward We shall be in effect a titular contemptible Prince We shall leave all Our Ministers to the known Laws of the Land to be tried and punished according to those Laws if they shall offend but We cannot consent to put so great a Trust and Power out of Us and VVe have just cause to conceive that notwithstanding all their specious pretences this desire of nomination of those great Officers is but a cloak to cover the Ambition of those who having been the Boutefeus of this Rebellion desire to advance themselves and their own Faction And to that which is said that Our bad choice of Our Lieutenants of Ireland was the loss of many thousand Lives 〈◊〉 and almost of the whole Kingdom from Our Obedience they cannot but witness who know that Kingdom that during the Government there by Lieutenants of Our Choice that Kingdom enjoyed more Plenty and Peace than it ever had since it was under subjection to the Crown of England Traffick by Sea and Trade by Land encreased values of Land improved Shipping multipâ—ied beyond belief never was the Protestant Religion more advanced nor the Protestant protected in greater security against the Papists And VVe must remember them that that Rebellion was begun when there was no Lieutenant there and when the Power and Government which had been formerly used in that Kingdom was questioned and disgraced when those in the Parliament there by whom that Rebellion was hatched were countenanced in their complaints and prosecution But they are not content to demand all the Power over Ireland and the nomination of all Officers but We must also engage Our self to pass such Acts as shall be presented to Vs for raising of Moneys and other necessaries for that War Our former readiness to pass Acts for Ireland because they were advised by the two Houses when they were apparently prejudicial to Our self and contrary to Our own Judgment might sufficiently satisfie them We would make no difficulty to consent to such Acts as should be for the good of that Kingdom but they have been already told it was unreasonable to make a general engagement before We saw the Acts whether reasonable or no and whether those other necessaries may not in truth comprehend what is not only unnecessary but very inconvenient But the People they say who have trusted them with their Purse will never begrudg what they make them lay out upon that occasion The two Houses indeed were entrusted that Our Subjects should not be charged without them but they never were solely trusted by Our Subjects with a Power to charge them the care that no pressure in that or any other kind should be upon Our Subjects is principally in Us without whose Consent notwithstanding the late contrary and unexampled practice no such Charge can or ought to be levied and We ought not to give that Consent but where it is visibly for the good of Our Kingdoms which upon such an unbounded power of raising Moneys may fall out otherwise especially in so unusual a case as this where those who must have the sole manage of the VVar shall have the sole command of the Purse without any check or controll upon them But they say again VVe have heretofore been possessed against the Parliament for not giving away the Money of the Subject when VVe had desired it but never yet did VVe restrain them from it It is true We had no great cause heretofore to restrain the two Houses from giving the Subjects Money to Us having found more difficulty to obtain from them three or four Subsidies than they have met with in raising so many Millions But Our People cannot think themselves well dealt with by Us if We shall consent to put an unlimited power of raising what Moneys they please in those Persons who have drained more wealth from them in four years than We believe all the Supplies given to the Crown in 400. years before have amounted unto In the last place We wish every man to consider how the Rebels in Ireland can be reduced by War whilst these unhappy Distractions continue here whilst contrary Forces and Armies are raised in most parts of this Kingdom and the blood of Our People is spilt like water upon the ground whilst the Kingdom is wasted by Soldiers and the People exhausted by maintaining them and as if this Kingdom were not sufficient to destroy it self whilst an Army of Scots is brought into the bowels of this Kingdom and maintained at the charge of it whilst this Kingdom labours under such a War how is it possible that a considerable supply of men or money can be sent into Ireland To this with much fervour of expression they say It must not depend upon the condition of Our other Kingdoms to revenge God's Quarrel upon such perfidious Enemies to the Gospel of Christ who have embrewed their hands in so much Protestant Blood that the Cessation is for their Advantage Arms and Ammunition and all manner of Commodities may be brought to them that it is not fit there be any Agreement of Peace or respite from Hostility with such creatures as are not fit to live more than with VVolves or Tigers or any ravenous Beasts destroyers of mankind VVe are most sensible of the blood and horror of that Rebellion and would be glad that either a Peace in this Kingdom or any other Expedient might furnish Us with means and power to do Justice upon it If this cannot be We must not desperately expose Our good Subjects to their Butchery without means or possibility of protection God will in His due time revenge His Own Quarrel in the mean time His Gospel gives Us leave in case of War to sit down and cast up the cost and estimate Our Power to go through with it and in such case where Prudence adviseth it is lawful to
as far from meditating a War as I was in the eye of the world from having any preparation for one I find that comfort that in the midst of all the unfortunate successes of this War on My side I do not think My Innocency any whit prejudiced or darkned nor am I without that Integrity and Peace before God as with humble confidence to address my Prayer to him For Thou O Lord seest clearly through all the cloudings of humane affairs Thou judgest without prejudice Thy Omniscience eternally guides thy unerrable Judgment O my God the proud are risen against Me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my Soul and have not set Thee before their eyes Consider my Enemies O Lord for they are many and they hate Me with a deadly hatred without a cause For thou knowest I had no Passion Design or Preparation to embroil My Kingdoms in a Civil War whereto I had least temptation as knowing I must adventure more than any and could gain least of any by it Thou O Lord art my witness how oft I have deplored and studied to divert the necessity thereof wherein I cannot well be thought so prodigally thirsty of my Subjects blood as to venture my own Life which I have been oft compelled to do in this unhappy War and which were better spent to save than to destroy my People O Lord I need much of thy grace with Patience to bear the many Afflictions Thou hast suffered some men to bring upon Me but much more to bear the unjust reproaches of those who not content that I suffer most by the War will needs perswade the world that I have raised it first or given just cause to raise it The confidence of some mens false tongues is such that they would make Me almost suspect my own Innocency Yea I could be content at least by my silence to take upon Me so great a guilt before men if by that I might allay the Malice of my Enemies and redeem my People from this miserable War since thou O Lord knowest my Innocency in this thing Thou wilt find out bloody and deceitful men many of whom have not lived out half their days in which they promised themselves the enjoyment of the fruits of their violent and wicked Counsels Save O Lord thy Servant as hitherto Thou hast and in thy due time scatter the people that delight in War Arise O Lord lift up thy self because of the rage of mine Enemies which encreaseth more and more Behold them that have conceived mischief travelled with iniquity and brought forth falshood Thou knowest the chief design of this War is either to destroy My Person or force My Judgment and to make Me renege My Conscience and Thy Truth I am driven to cross David's choice and desire rather to fall into the hands of men by denying them tho their mercies be cruel than into thy hands by sinning against My Conscience and in that against Thee who art a consuming fire Better they destroy Me than thou shouldst damn Me. Be thou ever the defence of My Soul who wilt save the upright in heart If nothing but My Blood will satisfie My Enemies or quench the flames of My Kingdoms or Thy temporal Justice I am content if it be Thy will that it be shed by Mine own Subjects hands But O let the Blood of Me tho their King yet a Sinner be washed with the Blood of My innocent and peace-making Redeemer for in that Thy Justice will find not only a temporary expiation but an eternal plenary satisfaction both for My sins and the sins of My People whom I beseech thee still own for Thine and when Thy wrath is appeased by My Death O remember thy great Mercies toward them and forgive them O My Father for they know not what they do X. Vpon their seizing the KING's Magazines Forts Navy and Militia HOW untruly I am charged with the first raising of an Army and beginning the Civil War the eyes that only pity Me and the Loyal hearts that durst only pray for Me at first might witness which yet appear not so many on My side as there were men in Arms lifted against Me. My unpreparedness for a War may well dishearten those that would help Me while it argues truly my unwillingness to fight yet it testifies for Me that I am set on the defensive part having so little hopes or power to offend others that I have none to defend My self or to preserve what is Mine own from their prereption No man can doubt but they prevented Me in their purposes as well as their injuries who are so much before-hand in their Preparations against Me and surprizals of My strength Such as are not for Them yet dare not be for Me so over-aw'd is their Loyalty by the others Numbers and Terrors I believe My Innocency and unpreparedness to assert My Rights and Honour makes Me the more guilty in their esteem who would not so easily have declared a War against Me if I had first assaulted them They knew My chiefest Arms left Me were those only which the ancient Christians were wont to use against their Persecutors Prayers and Tears These may serve a good mans turn if not to Conquer as a Soldier yet to Suffer as a Martyr Their preventing of Me and surprizing My Castles Forts Arms and Navy with the Militia is so far best for Me that it may drive Me from putting any trust in the arm of flesh and wholly to cast My self into the protection of the living God who can save by few or none as well as by many He that made the greedy Ravens to be Elias's Caterers and bring him food may also make their surprisal of outward Force and Defence an opportunity to shew Me the special support of his Power and Protection I thank God I reckon not now the want of the Militia so much in reference to My own protection as My Peoples Their many and sore Oppressions grieve Me I am above My own what I want in the hands of Force and Power I have in the wings of Faith and Prayer But this is the strange method these men will needs take to resolve their Riddle of making Me a Glorious King by taking away My Kingly Power Thus I shall become a Support to My Friends and a Terror to my Enemies by being unable to succour the one or suppress the other For thus have they designed and proposed to Me the new modelling of Soveraignty and Kingship as without any reality of Power so without any necessity of Subjection and Obedience That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Mahomet's Tomb by a magnetick Charm between the Power and Priviledges of the Two Houses in an aiery imagination of Regality But I believe the surfeit of too much Power which some men have greedily seized on and now seek wholly to devour will ere long make the Common-wealth sick both of it and them since they cannot well
I am afflicted by those whose Prosperity I earnestly desire and whose Seduction I heartily deplore If they had been my open and forein Enemies I could have born it bur they must be my own Subjects who are next to my Children dear to Me and for the restoring of whose Tranquility I could willingly be the Jonah if I did not evidently foresee that by the divided Interests of their and Mine Enemies as by contrary winds the storm of their Miseries would be rather encreased than allayed I had rather prevent my Peoples Ruine than rule over them nor am I so ambitious of that Dominion which is but my Right as of their Happiness if it could expiate or countervail such a way of obtaining it by the highest Injuries of Subjects committed against their Soveraign Yet I had rather suffer all the miseries of Life and die many Deaths than shamefully to desert or dishonourably to betray my own just Rights and Soveraignty thereby to gratify the Ambition or justifie the Malice of my Enemies between whose Malice and other mens Mistakes I put as great a difference as between an ordinary Ague and the Plague or the Itch of Novelty and the Leprosie of Disloyalty As Liars need have good memories so Malicious persons need good inventions that their Calumnies may fit every mans fancy and what their Reproaches want of truth they may make up with number and shew My Patience I thank God will better serve Me to bear and my Charity to forgive than my Leisure to answer the many false aspersions which some men have cast upon Me. Did I not more consider my Subjects Satisfaction than My own Vindication I should never have given the Malice of some men that pleasure as to see Me take notice of or remember what they say or object I would leave the Authors to be punished by their own evil Manners and seared Consciences which will I believe in a shorter time than they be aware of both confute and revenge all those black and false Scandals which they have cast on Me and make the world see there is as little truth in them as there was little worth in the broaching of them or Civility I need not say Loyalty in the not-suppressing of them whose credit and reputation even with the People shall ere long be quite blasted by the breath of that same fornace of Popular obloquy and detraction which they have studied to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and wherein they have sought to cast and consume my Name and Honour First nothing gave Me more cause to suspect and search My own Innocency than when I observed so many forward to engage against Me who had made great professions of singular Piety For this gave to vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon Me and My Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to Me and not withal depart from God to think or speak well of Me and not to blaspheme him so many were perswaded that these two were utterly inconsistent to be at once Loyal to Me and truly Religious toward God Not but that I had I thank God many with Me which were both Learned and Religious much above that ordinary size and that vulgar proportion wherein some men glory so much who were so well satisfied in the cause of my Sufferings that they chose rather to suffer with Me than forsake Me. Nor is it strange that so religious Pretensions as were used against Me should be to many well-minded men a great temptation to oppose Me especially being urged by such popular Preachers as think it no sin to lye for God and what they please to call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them looking so much at and crying up the goodness of the End propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the Means used nor the depth of the Mischief chiefly plotted and intended The weakness of these mens Judgments must be made up by their Clamors and activity It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize Me and Mine they thought theirs could not be true if they cryed not down Mine as false I thank God I have had more tryal of his Grace as to the constancy of My Religion in the Protestant profession of the Church of England both abroad and at home than ever they are like to have Nor do I know any Exception I am so lyable to in their opinion as too great a Fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give My Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which the bold ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon Me and My People Contrary to those well-tryed foundations both of Truth and Order which men of far greater Learning and clearer Zeal have setled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calm and unpassionate times have oft confirmed in which I should ever by Gods help persevere as believing it hath most of Primitive Truth and Order Nor did My using the assistance of some Papists which were my Subjects any way fight against My Religion as some men would needs interpret it especially those who least of all men cared whom they imployed or what they said or did so they might prevail 'T is strange that so wise men as they would be esteemed should not conceive that differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegiance and Subjection The first they owe as Men and Christians to God the second they owe to Me in common as their KING Different professions in point of Religion cannot any more than in civil Trades take away the community of Relations either to Parents or to Princes And where is there such an Oglio or medly of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with Me without any scruple as to the diversity of their Sects and Opinions It was indeed a foul and indeleble shame for such as would be counted Protestants to enforce Me a declared Protestant their Lord and King to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Me to defend My self Nor did I more than is lawful for any King in such exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects I am sorry the Papists should have a greater sense of their Allegiance than many Protestant Professors who seem to have learned and to practise the worst Principles of the worst Papists Indeed it had been a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in Me and very pleasing no doubt to My Enemies to have been then disputing the points of different Beliefs in My Subjects when I was disputed with by Swords points and when I needed the help of My Subjects as Men no less than their Prayers as Christians The
see them only scared and humbled not broken by that shaking I never had so ill a thought of those Cities as to despair of their Loyalty to Me which Mistakes might eclipse but I never believed Malice had quite put out I pray God the Storm be yet wholly passed over them upon whom I look as Christ did sometime over Jerusalem as objects of My Prayers and Tears with compassionate Grief foreseeing those severer scatterings which will certainly befall such as wantonly refuse to be gathered to their Duty fatal blindness frequently attending and punishing wilfulness so that men shall not be able at last to prevent their Sorrows who would not timely repent of their Sins nor shall they be suffered to enjoy the Comforts who securely neglect the Counsels belonging to their Peace They will find that Brethren in iniquity are not far from becoming insolent Enemies there being nothing harder than to keep ill men long in one mind Nor is it possible to gain a fair period for those motions which go rather in a round and circle of Fancy than in a right line of Reason tending to the Law the only Center of publick consistency whither I pray God at last bring all sides Which will easily be done when we shall fully see how much more happy we are to be subject to the known Laws than to the various Wills of any men seem they never so plausible at first Vulgar compliance with any illegal and extravagant ways like violent motions in Nature soon grows weary of it self and ends in a refractory sullenness Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes For the Army which is so far excusable as they act according to Soldiers Principles and Interests demanding Pay and Indemnity I think it necessary in order to the Publick Peace that they should be satisfied as far as is just no man being more prone to consider them than My self tho they have fought against Me yet I cannot but so far esteem that Valour and Gallantry they have some time shewed as to wish I may never want such men to maintain My self My Laws and My Kingdoms in such a Peace as wherein they may enjoy their share and proportion as much as any men But Thou O Lord who art perfect Vnity in a Sacred Trinity in Mercy behold those whom thy Justice hath divided Deliver Me from the strivings of my People and make Me to see how much they need my Prayers and Pity who agreed to fight against Me and yet are now ready to fight against one another to the continuance of my Kingdoms Distractions Discover to all sides the ways of Peace from which they have swerved which consists not in the divided Wills of Parties but in the joynt and due observation of the Laws Make Me willing to go whither Thou wilt lead Me by thy Providence and be Thou ever with Me that I may see thy Constancy in the worlds variety and Changes Make Me even such as Thou wouldst have Me that I may at last enjoy that Safety and Tranquillity which Thou alone canst give Me. Divert I pray Thee O Lord thy heavy Wrath justly hanging over those populous Cities whose Plenty is prone to add fewel to their Luxury their Wealth to make them wanton their Multitudes tempting them to Security and their Security exposing them to unexpected Miseries Give them eyes to see hearts to consider wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to thy Glory and the publick Peace lest their Calamity come upon them as an armed man Teach them that they cannot want Enemies who abound in Sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and un-destroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against Thee and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against Me. Their Sins exposing them to thy Justice their Riches to others Injuries their Number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion Tho they have with much forwardness helped to destroy Me yet let not my Fall be their Ruine Let Me not so much consider either what they have done or I have suffered chiefly at first by them as to forget to imitate my crucified Redeemer to plead their Ignorance for their Pardon and in my dying extremities to pray to Thee O Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did The tears they have denied Me in my saddest condition give them grace to bestow upon themselves who the less they weep for Me the more cause they have to weep for themselves O let not my Blood be upon them and their Children whom the Fraud and Faction of some not the Malice of all have excited to crucifie Me. But Thou O Lord canst and wilt as Thou didst my Redeemer both exalt and perfect Me by my Sufferings which have more in them of thy Mercy than of mans Cruelty or thy own Justice XXVII To the PRINCE of Wales SON if these Papers with some others wherein I have set down the private reflections of My Conscience and My most impartial thoughts touching the chief passages which have been most remarkable or disputed in My late Troubles come to Your hands to whom they are chiefly design'd they may be so far useful to You as to state Your Judgment aright in what hath passed whereof a Pious is the best use can be made and they may also give You some directions how to remedy the present Distempers and prevent if God will the like for time to come It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of My long Restraint when I find My leisure and Solitude have produced something worthy of My self and useful to You that neither You nor any other may hereafter measure My Cause by the Success nor My Judgment of things by My Misfortunes which I count the greater by far because they have so far lighted upon You and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as My self and of whose unmerited Sufferings I have a greater sense than of Mine own But this advantage of Wisdom You have above most Princes that You have begun and now spent some years of Discretion in the experience of Troubles and exercise of Patience wherein Piety and all Virtues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in Winter than in the warmth and serenity of times or amidst those Delights which usually attend Princes Courts in times of Peace and Plenty which are prone either to root up all Plants of true Virtue and Honour or to be contented only with some Leaves and withering Formalities of them without any real Fruits such as tend to the Publick good for which Princes should always remember they are born and by Providence designed The evidence of which different Education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam the one prepared by many Afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other softned
intended do You perform when God shall give you Power Much Good I have offered more I purposed to Church and State if Times had been capable of it The deception will soon vanish and the Vizards will fall off apace This mask of Religion on the face of Rebellion for so it now plainly appears since My Restraint and cruel Usage that they fought not for Me as was pretended will not long serve to hide some mens Deformities Happy times I hope attend You wherein Your Subjects by their Miseries will have learned That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their Sin and their Infelicity I pray God bless You and establish Your Kingdoms in Righteousness Your Soul in true Religion and Your Honour in the Love of God and Your People And if God will have Disloyalty perfected by My Destruction let My Memory ever with My Name live in You as of Your Father that loves You and once a KING of Three flourishing Kingdoms whom God thought fit to honour not only with the Scepter and Government of them but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely Death for them while I studied to preserve the rights of the Church the power of the Laws the Honour of My Crown the Priviledg of Parliaments the Liberties of My People and My own Conscience which I thank God is dearer to Me than a thousand Kingdoms I know God can I hope he yet will restore Me to My Rights I cannot despair either of his Mercy or of My Peoples Love and Pity At worst I trust I shall but go before You to a better Kingdom which God hath prepared for Me and Me for it through My Saviour Jesus Christ to whose Mercies I commend You and all Mine Farewell till We meet if not on Earth yet in Heaven XXVIII Meditations upon Death after the Votes of Non-addresses and His MAJESTIES closer Imprisonment in Carisbrook-Castle AS I have leisure enough so I have cause more than enough to meditate upon and prepare for my Death for I know there are but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes It is God's Indulgence which gives Me the space but Man's Cruelty that gives Me the sad occasions for these thoughts For besides the common burthen of Mortality which lies upon Me as a Man I now bear the heavy load of other mens Ambitions Fears Jealousies and cruel Passions whose Envy or Enmity against Me makes their own lives seem deadly to them while I enjoy any part of Mine I thank God My Prosperity made Me not wholly a stranger to the contemplations of Mortality Those are never unseasonable since this is always uncertain Death being an Eclipse which oft happeneth as well in clear as cloudy days But My now long and sharp Adversity hath so reconciled in Me those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that I thank God the common terrors of it are dispelled and the special horror of it as to My particular much allayed for altho My Death at present may justly be represented to Me with all those terrible aggravations which the policy of Cruel and Implacable enemies can put upon it affairs being drawn to the very dregs of Malice yet I bless God I can look upon all those stings as unpoisonous tho sharp since My Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given Me the Antidote of his Death against them which as to the Immaturity Unjustice Shame Scorn and Cruelty of it exceeded whatever I can fear Indeed I never did find so much the Life of Religion the Feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious Integrity and Constancy as since I came to these closer conflicts with the thoughts of Death I am not so old as to be weary of Life nor I hope so bad as to be either afraid to dye or ashamed to live true I am so afflicted as might make Me sometime even desire to dye if I did not consider that it is the greatest glory of a Christians life to die daily in conquering by a lively Faith and patient Hopes of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill us as it were by piece-meals and make us overlive our own fates while we are deprived of Health Honour Liberty Power Credit Safety or Estate and those other Comforts of dearest relations which are as the Life of our lives Tho as a KING I think My self to live in nothing temporal so much as in the Love and good will of My People for which as I have suffered many deaths so I hope I am not in that point as yet wholly dead notwithstanding My Enemies have used all the poison of Falsity and violence of Hostility to destroy first the Love and Loyalty which is in my Subjects and then all that content of Life in Me which from these I chiefly enjoyed Indeed they have left Me but little of Life and only the husk and shell as it were which their further Malice and Cruelty can take from Me having bereaved Me of all those worldly Comforts for which Life it self seems desirable to men But O my Soul think not that life too long or tedious wherein God gives Thee any opportunities if not to do yet to suffer with such Christian Patience and Magnanimity in a good Cause as are the greatest Honour of our lives and the best improvement of our Deaths I knows that in point of true Christian Valour it argues Pusillanimity to desire to dye out of weariness of life and a want of that heroick greatness of spirit which becomes a Christian in the patient and generous sustaining those Afflictions which as shadows necessarily attend us while we are in this Body and which are lessened or enlarged as the Sun of our Prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompenced with the dew of Heaven The assaults of Affliction may be terrible like Sampsom's Lion but they yield much sweetness to those that dare to encounter and overcome them who know how to overlive the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God That I must dye as a man is certain that I may dye a King by the hands of my own Subjects a violent sudden and barbarous death in the strength of my years in the midst of my Kingdoms my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators my Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over me living dying and dead is so probable in humane reason that God hath taught Me not to hope otherwise as to mans Cruelty however I despair not of God's infinite Mercy I know my Life is the object of the Devils and Wicked mens Malice but yet under God's sole custody and disposal whom I do not think to flatter for longer Life by seeming prepared to die but I humbly desire to depend upon him and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he
is pleased to lay them out to Me. I confess it is not easie for Me to contend with those many horrors of Death wherewith God suffers Me to be tempted which are equally horrid either in the suddenness of a Barbarous Assassination or in those greater Formalities whereby my Enemies being more solemnly cruel will it may be seek to add as those did who crucified Christ the Mockery of Justice to the Cruelty of Malice That I may be destroyed as with greater Pomp and artifice so with less Pity it will be but a necessary policy to make my Death appear as an act of Justice done by Subjects upon their Soveraign who know that no Law of God or Man invests them with any power of Judicature without Me much less against Me and who being sworn and bound by all that is Sacred before God and Man to endeavour my preservation must pretend Justice to cover their Perjury It is indeed a sad fate for any man to have his Enemies to be his Accusers Parties and Judges but most desperate when this is acted by the insolence of Subjects against their Soveraign wherein those who have had the chiefest hand and are most guilty of contriving the publick Troubles must by shedding My Blood seem to wash their own hands of that innocent blood whereof they are now most evidently guilty before God and man and I believe in their own Consciences too while they carried on unreasonable demands first by tumults after by Armies Nothing makes mean spirits more cowardly-cruel in managing their usurped power against their lawful Superiors than this the Guilt of their unjust Vsurpation notwithstanding those specious and popular pretensions of Justice against Delinquents applied only to disguise at first the monstrousness of their designs who despaired indeed of possessing the power and profits of the Vineyard till the Heir whose right it is be cast out and slain With them my greatest Fault must be that I would not either destroy My self with the Church and State by my word or not suffer them to do it unresisted by the Sword whose covetous Ambition no Concessions of Mine could ever yet either satisfie or abate Nor is it likely they will ever think that Kingdom of Brambles which some men seek to erect at once weak sharp and fruitless either to God or man is like to thrive till watered with the Royal Blood of those whose right the Kingdom is Well God's will be done I doubt not but my innocency will find him both my Protector and my Advocate who is my onely Judge whom I own as King of Kings not onely for the eminency of his Power and Majesty above them but also for that singular Care and Protection which he hath over them who knows them to be exposed to as many Dangers being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth as there be either Men or Devils which love Confusion Nor will he suffer those men long to prosper in their Babel who build it with the Bones and cement it with the Blood of their KINGS I am confident they will find Avengers of my Death among themselves the Injuries I have sustained from them shall be first punished by them who agreed in nothing so much as in opposing Me. Their impatience to bear the loud cry of my Blood shall make them think no way better to expiate it then by Shedding theirs who with them most thirsted after Mine The sad Confusions following my Destruction are already presaged and confirmed to Me by those I have lived to see since my Troubles in which God alone who onely could hath many ways pleaded my Cause not suffering them to go unpunished whose confedaracy in Sin was their only Security who have cause to fear that God will both further divide and by mutual Vengeance afterward destroy them My greatest conquest of Death is from the Power and Love of Christ who hath swallow'd up Death in the Victory of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension My next Comfort is That he gives Me not only the Honour to imitate his Example in suffering for Righteousness sake though obscured by the foulest charges of Tyranny and Injustice but also that Charity which is the noblest Revenge upon and Victory over my Destroyers by which I thank God I can both forgive them and pray for them that God would not impute my Blood to them further than to convince them what need they have of Christs Blood to wash their Souls from the guilt of shedding Mine At present the Will of my Enemies seems to be their only rule their Power the measure and their Success the exactor of what they please to call Justice while they flatter themselves with the fancy of their own Safety by My Danger and the security of their Lives and Designs by My Death forgetting that as the greatest temptations to Sin are wrapped up in seeming Prosperities so the severest Vengeances of God are then most accomplished when men are suffered to compleat their wicked purposes I bless God I pray not so much that this bitter cup of a Violent Death may pass from Me as that of his Wrath may pass from all those whose hands by deserting Me are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to my Death are embrued with my Blood The will of God hath confined and concluded Mine I shall have the pleasure of dying without any pleasure of desired Vengeance This I think becomes a Christian toward his Enemies and a King toward his Subjects They cannot deprive Me of more than I am content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from Me whose Mercy I believe will more than infinitely recompence whatever by mans Injustice he is pleased to deprive me of The glory attending my Death will far surpass all I could enjoy or conceive in Life I shall not want the heavy and envied Crowns of this world when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his Graces with Glory and exchanged the shadows of my Earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that Heavenly Kingdom with Himself For the censures of the world I know the sharp and necessary Tyranny of my Destroyers will sufficienly confute the Calumnies of Tyranny against Me I am perswaded I am happy in the judicious Love of the ablest and best of my Subjects who do not only pity and pray for Me but would be content even to die with Me or for Me. These know how to excuse my Failings as a man and yet to retain and pay their Duty to Me as their KING there being no Religious necessity binding any Subjects by pretending to punish infinitely to exceed the faults and errors of their Princes especially there where more than sufficient Satisfaction hath been made to the publick the enjoyment of which private Ambitions have hitherto frustrated Others I believe of softer tempers and less advantaged by My Ruin do already feel sharp Convictions and some remorse in their Consciences where they
touching which is a great deal of inconvenience Therefore I think it very necessary to lay before you the state of My Affairs as they now stand thereby to hasten not to interrupt your proceedings First I must remember you that there are two Armies in the Kingdom in a manner maintained by you the very naming of which doth more clearly shew the inconvenience thereof than a better tongue than Mine can express Therefore in the first place I shall commend unto you the quick dispatch of that business In the next place I must recommend unto you the state of My Navy and Forts the condition of both which is so well known unto you that I need not tell you the particulars Only thus much they are the walls and defence of this Kingdom which if out of order all men may easily judge what encouragement it will be to our Enemies and what disheartning to our Friends Last of all and not the least to be considered I must lay before you the Distractions that are at this present occasioned through the connivence of Parliament for there are some men that more maliciously than ignorantly will put no difference between Reformation and Alteration of Government Hence it cometh that Divine Service is irreverently interrupted and Petitions in an ill way given in neither disputed nor denied But I will enter into no more particulars but shew you a way of Remedy by shewing you My clear intentions and some Rocks that may hinder this Good Work I shall willingly and chearfully concur with you for the Reformation of all Innovations both in Church and Commonwealth and consequently that all Courts of Justice may be reformed according to Law For My intention is clearly to reduce all things to the best and purest times as they were in the time of Queen Elizabeth Moreover whatsoever part of My Revenue shall be found illegal or heavy to My Subjects I shall be willing to lay down trusting in their Affections Having thus clearly and shortly set down My intentions I will shew you some Rubs and must needs take notice of some very strange I know not what term to give them Petitions given in in the names of divers Counties against the present established Government of the Church and of the great threatnings against the Bishops that they will make them to be but Cyphers or at least their Voices to be taken away Now I must tell you that I make a great difference between Reformation and Alteration of Government Though I am for the first I cannot give way to the latter If some of them have overstretched their power and incroached too much upon the Temporalty if it be so I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed as all other Abuses according to the wisdom of former times So far I shall go with you Nay further if upon serious debate you shall shew Me that Bishops have some Temporal Authority inconvenient to the State and not so necessary for the Government of the Church and upholding Episcopal Jurisdiction I shall not be unwilling to desire them to lay it down But this must not be understood that I shall any way consent that their Voices in Parliament should be taken away For in all the times of My Predecessors since the Conquest and before they have enjoyed it and I am bound to maintain them in it as one of the Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom There is another Rock you are on not in Substance but in Form yet the Form is so essential that unless it be reformed it will marr the Substance There is a Bill lately put in concerning Parliaments The thing I like well to have frequent Parliaments But to give power to Sheriffs and Constables and I know not whom to use My Authority that I cannot yield unto But to shew you that I am desirous to give you contentment â—n Forms which destroy not the Substance you shall have a Bill for this purpose so that it trench neither against My Honour nor against the ancient Prerogative of the Crown concerning Parliaments To which purpose I have commanded My Learned Counsel to wait on you My Lords with such Propositions as I hope will give you content For I ingenuously confess that frequent Parliaments are the best means to keep a right understanding between Me and My People which I so much desire To conclude I have now shewed you the state of My Affairs My Own clear intentions and the Rocks I wish you to eschew in all which you may perceive the desire I have to give you content as you shall find also by those Ministers I have or shall have about Me for the effecting of these My good intentions which I doubt not will bring peace and happiness to My Subjects and contentment to you All. Concerning the Conference you shall have a direct Answer on Monday which shall give you satisfaction XXV To the Lords and Commons in Answer to their Remonstrance about Papists Feb. 3. MDCXL XLI HAving taken into My serious Consideration the late Remonstrance of the Houses of Parliament I give you this Answer That I take in good part your care of the true Religion established in this Kingdom from which I will never depart as also your tenderness of My Safety and the Security of this State and Government It is against My mind that Popery or Superstition should any way increase within this Kingdom I will restrain the same by causing the Laws to be put in execution I am resolved to provide against the Jesuits and Papists by setting forth a Proclamation with all speed commanding them to depart the Kingdom within one Month of which if they fail or shall return then they shall be proceeded against according to the Laws Concerning Rosetti I give you to understand that the Queen hath always assured Me that to Her knowledge he hath no Commission but only to retain a Personal Correspondence between Her and the Pope in things requisite for the exercise of Her Religion which is warranted to Her by the Articles of Marriage which gave Her a full liberty of Conscience Yet I have perswaded Her that since the misunderstanding of that Persons condition gives offence She will within a convenient time remove him Moreover I will take a special care to restrain My Subjects from resorting to Mass at Denmark-House Saint James's and the Chappels of Ambassadors Lastly concerning John Goodman the Priest I will let you know the reason why I reprieved him that as I am informed neither Queen Elizabeth nor My Father did ever avow that any Priest in their times was executed merely for Religion which to Me seems to be this particular Case Yet seeing that I am pressed by both Houses to give way to this because I will avoid the inconvenience of giving so great discontent to My People as I conceive this Mercy may produce therefore I do remit this particular case to both the Houses But I desire them to take into their