aforesaid Answer the Propositions for which We shall willingly receive whereever We are and desire if it may be to receive them at Brainford this Night or early to Morrow Morning that all possible speed may be made in so good a work and all inconveniences otherwise likely to intervene may be avoided VII From OXFORD April 12. MDCXLIII At the Close of the Treaty Concerning the Disbanding of all Forces and His Return to the Houses TO shew to the whole World how earnestly His Majesty longs for Peace and that no success shall make Him desire the continuance of His Army to any other end or for any longer time than that and until things may be so setled as that the Law 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 1. As soon as His Majesty is satisfied in His first Proposition concerning His own Revenue Magazines Ships and Forts in which He desires nothing but that the Just Known Legal Rights of His Majesty devolved to him from His Progenitors and of the Persons trusted by Him which have been violently taken from both be restored unto Him and unto them unless any just and legal exceptions against any of the persons trusted by Him which are yet unknown to His Majesty can be made appear to Him 2. As soon as all the Members of both Houses shall be restored to the same capacity of sitting and Voting in Parliament as they had upon the first of January 1641. the same of right belonging unto them by their birth-rights and the free election of those that sent them and having been voted from them for adhering to His Majesty in these Distractions His Majesty not intending that this should extend either to the Bishops whose Votes have been taken away by Bill or to such in whose places upon new Writs new Elections have been made 3. As soon as His Majesty and both Houses may be secured from such tumultuous Assemblies as to the great breach of the Priviledges and the high dishonour of Parliaments have formerly assembled about both Houses and awed the Members of the same and occasioned two several complaints from the Lords House and two several desires of that House to the House of Commons to join in a Declaratien against them the complying with which desire might have prevented all these miserable Distractions which have ensued which security His Majesty conceives can be only setled by adjourning the Parliament to some other place at the least twenty Miles from London the choice of which His Majesty leaves to both Houses His Majesty will most cheerfully and readily consent that both Armies be immediately disbanded and give a present meeting to both His Houses of Parliament at the time and place at and to which the Parliament shall be agreed to be adjourned His Majesty being most confident that the Law will then recover the due credit and estimation and that upon a free debate in a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament such provisions will be made against seditious Preaching and Printing against His Majesty and the established Laws which hath been one of the chief causes of the present Distractions and such care will be taken concerning the legal and known Rights of His Majesty and the Property and Liberty of His Subjects that whatsoever hath been published or done in or by colour of any illegal Declaration Ordinance or Order of one or both Houses or any Committee of either of them and particularly the power to raise Arms without His Majesty's consent will be in such a manner recalled disclaimed and provided against that no seed will remain for the like to spring out of for the future to disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and to endanger the very Being of it And in such a Convention His Majesty is resolved by His readiness to consent to whatsoever shall be proposed to Him by Bill for the real good of His Subjects and particularly for the better discovery and speedier conviction of Recusants for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion for the prevention of the practices of Papists against the State and the due execution of the Laws and true levying of the penalties against them to make known to all the world how causeless those Fears and Jealousies have been which have been raised against Him and by that so distracted this miserable Kingdom And if this offer of His Majesty be not consented to in which He asks nothing for which there is not apparent Justice on His side and in which He defers many things highly concerning both Himself and People till a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament which in Justice He might now require His Majesty is confident that it will then appear to all the World not only who is most desirous of Peace and whose fault it is that both Armies are not now disbanded but who have been the true and first cause that this Peace was ever interrupted or these Armies raised and the beginning or continuance of the War and the destruction and desolation of this poor Kingdom which is too likely to ensue will not by the most interessed passionate or prejudicate person be imputed to His Majesty VIII From OXFORD May 19. MDCXLIII In pursuance of the former SInce His Majesty's Message of the twelfth of April in which He conceived He had made such an Overture for the immediate disbanding of all Armies and composure of these present miserable Distractions by a full and free Convention in Parliament that a perfect and settled Peace would have ensued hath in all this time above a full month procured no Answer from both Houses His Majesty might well believe Himself absolved before God and man from the least possible charge of not having used His utmost endeavour for Peace yet when he considers that the Scene of all this Calamity is in the Bowels of His own Kingdom that all the bloud which is spilt is of His own Subjects and that what Victory soever it shall please God to give Him must be over those who ought not to have lifted up their hands against Him when He considers That these desperate civil Dissentions may incourage and invite a foreign Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation That Ireland is in present danger to be totally lost That the heavy Judgments of God Plague Pestilence and Famine will be the inevitable attendants of this unnatural Contention and That in a short time there will be so general a habit of Uncharitableness and Cruelty contracted throughout the Kingdom that even Peace it self will not restore His People to their old temper and security His Majesty cannot but again call for an Answer to that His Message which gives so fair a rise to end these unnatural Distractions And His Majesty doth this with the more earnestness because He doubts not the condition of His Armies in several parts His strength
is intended may be so exprest and understood that no mistakes may arise so that His Majesty may not be understood to consent to any imposing upon levying distraining or imprisoning His good Subjects to force them to contribute or assist against Him which He shall always continue to inhibit requiring all men to resist those Illegal acts of Injustice and Violence against which He doth absolutely protest and so that there may not be a liberty for any Rapine Plundering or seizing upon His Subjects by any of the Soldiers of that Army for not submitting to such Illegal Impositions as aforesaid For otherwise they may during this Cessation besides what is already imposed impose new Taxes not only to the Nineteenth part but if they please for their pleasure is all their bound to the half of or all their Estates upon His good Subjects in His City of London and all Counties within their reach and their Army would then be at leisure to be employed as Collectors as well of the old Impositions which in most places without their Army they cannot levy as of any such new one and vast summs would and might by this means be raised to the destruction of His Subjects extraordinary advantage to them and great disadvantage to His Majesty who can neither obtain His own Consent to take the like courses nor in case He could is He so quartered as to have within the power of His Army without breach of the Cessation by drawing nearer to their Forces any such City or so many so rich and so fresh Counties as they have to retire into to that purpose So that as nothing is more just in it self and for His People than such a limitation so nothing can be more unequal to His Majesty or more advantagious to them than the admission of or connivance to any such practices upon His People This Cessation to begin on the 9. of April and to continue to the end of 20. days from the 25. of March. And His Majesty desires that the Treaty may proceed upon the Propositions in order upon which His Majesty hath an earnest desire that a firm and stable Peace may be agreed on and both Armies speedily disbanded otherwise if during this Cessation in the Articles of which His Majesty in order to Peace hath yielded to things manifestly unreasonable and prejudicial to His Army the Treaty be not dispatched His Majesty cannot without manifest ruine to His Army principally that of the North be able to contain Himself beyond this time now limited for the Cessation in the Quarters in which He hath so long been and now is and which will hardly be able to hold out so long but must be forced to remove as He shall find agreeable for His Occasions And in case any delay be made in consenting to these His Majesty's limitations or that the Houses shall reject this His offer of Cessation His Majesty as He hath lately desired by a Proposition to both Houses delivered to their Committee to which He hath yet received no Answer so He doth earnestly continue to desire that the Treaty it self may not be delayed or interrupted by it but that their Committee may be enabled to proceed upon it in the mean while Jo. Brown Cler. Parliamentorum Copia vera Addition of four days longer to Treat April 4. 1643. WE humbly acquaint Your Majesty that we received this morning the resolution of both Houses of Parliament whereby farther time is given to us to Treat upon the two first Propositions viz. the first Proposition of Your Majesty and the first Proposition of both Houses and that the time prescribed for the Treaty upon the two first Propositions shall be until Friday night Northumberland John Holland B. Whitelocke Will. Pierrepont Will. Armyne A Letter from both Houses received April 8. 1643. WE are commanded to send these inclosed Instructions to you from both Houses of Parliament by which the resolutions of the Houses will appear unto you This is all we have in command and rest Westminster the 7. of April 1643. Your humble Servants Manchester Speaker pro tempore William Lenthall Speaker of the Commons House Instructions concerning the Cessation received April 8. 1643. A farther Addition of Instructions agreed upon by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for Algernon Earl of Northumberland William Pierrepont Esq Sir William Armyne Baronet Sir John Holland Baronet and Bulstrode Whitelocke Esquire Committees of both Houses of Parliament attending His Majesty at Oxon. YOU are hereby to take notice That the two Houses have considered His Majesty's Answer to their Reasons concerning the Cessation wherein there are divers expressions which reflect much upon the Honour and Justice of the Houses and might occasion particular Replies yet at this time they desire to decline all Contestation 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 that time allowed for the Treaty in any farther debates upon the Cessation concerning which they find His 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 presently agreed it would not yield any considerable advantage to the Kingdom Wherefore you shall desire His Majesty that He will be pleased to give a speedy and positive Answer to their first Proposition concerning the Disbanding that so the People may not have only 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 those miserable effects of War the effusion of English blood and Desolation of many parts of the Land For the obtaining of which Happiness the Lords and Commons have resolved to enlarge your Power That if you shall not have fully agreed upon the two first Propositions before Friday night you may notwithstanding any former restraint proceed to treat upon them according to the Instructions formerly given you although the Articles of the Cessation are not agreed upon And those two first Propositions being concluded the two Houses will thereupon give you further Instructions to proceed to the other Propositions that so the whole Treaty may be determined within the twenty days formerly limited to be reckoned from the 25 of March last which can admit no alteration or enlargement without manifold Prejudice and Danger to the whole Kingdom Joh. Brown Cler. Parliamentorum The KING's Reply touching Cessation and His desire to enable the Committee to treat upon the Propositions in the mean time and touching His coming to the Parliament C. R. IF the Committee according to His Majesty's desire had had but power to agree in the wording of Expressions in the Articles of Cessation His Majesty's which are as clear as the matter would bear and as He could make them had not appeared so doubtful to any but that the Cessation
the desire of both Houses of His Majesty's coming to His Parliament which they have often exprest with as full offers of security to His Royal Person as was agreeable to their Duty and Allegiance and they know no cause why His Majesty may not repair hither with Honour and Safety but they did not insert it into your Instructions because they conceived the Disbanding of the Armies would have facilitated His Majesty's Resolution therein which they likewise conceived was agreeable to His Majesty's Sense who in declaring His 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 His coming to the Parliament Oath of Officers They conceive the ordinary Oaths of the Officers mentioned are not sufficient to secure them against the extraordinary causes of Jealousie which have been given them in these troublesome times and that His Majesty's Answer lays some tax upon the Parliament as if defective and thereby uncapable of making such a Provisional Law for an Oath therefore you shall still insist upon their former desires of such an Oath as is mentioned in your Instructions If you shall not have received His Majesty's positive Answer to the humble desire of both Houses in these two first Propositions according as they are exprest in your Instructions before the twenty days limited for the Treaty shall be expired you shall then with convenient speed repair to the Parliament without expecting any further direction Jo. Brown Cler. Parliamentorum CHARLES REX TO shew to the whole World how earnestly His Majesty longs for Peace and that no Success shall make Him desire the continuance of His Army to any other end or for any longer time than that and until things may be so settled as that the Law 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 1. As soon as His Majesty is satisfied in His first Proposition concerning His own Revenue Magazines Ships and Forts in which He desires nothing but that the just known Legal Rights of His Majesty devolved to Him from His Progenitors and of the Persons trusted by Him which have violently been taken from both be restored unto Him and unto them unless any just and legal exceptions against any of the Persons trusted by Him which are yet unknown to His Majesty can be made appear to Him 2. As soon as all the Members of both Houses shall be restored to the same capacity of sitting and voting in Parliament as they had upon the first of January 1641. the same of right belonging unto them by their birth-rights and the free election of those that sent them and having been voted from them for adhering to His Majesty in these Distractions His Majesty not intending that this should extend either to the Bishops whose Votes have been taken away by Bill or to such in whose places upon new Writs new Elections have been made 3. As soon as His Majesty and both Houses may be secured from such tumultuous assemblies as to the great breach of the Priviledges and the high dishonour of Parliaments have formerly assembled about both Houses and awed the Members of the same and occasioned two several complaints from the Lords House and two several desires of that House to the House of Commons to joyn in a Declaration against them the complying with which desire might have prevented all these miserable Distractions which have ensued which security His Majesty conceives can be only settled by adjourning the Parliament to some other place at the least twenty miles from London the choice of which His Majesty leaves to both Houses His Majesty will most chearfully and readily consent that both Armies be immediately disbanded and give a present meeting to both His Houses of Parliament at the time and place at and to which the Parliament shall be agreed to be adjourned His Majesty being most confident that the Law will then recover the due credit and estimation and that upon a free debate in a full and peaceable convention of Parliament such provisions will be made against seditious Preaching and Printing against His Majesty and the established Laws which hath been one of the chief causes of the present Distractions and such care will be taken concerning the legal and known Rights of His Majesty and the Property and Liberty of His Subjects that whatsoever hath been publisht or done in or by colour of any illegal Declaration Ordinance or Order of one or both Houses or any Committee of either of them and particularly the power to raise Arms without His Majesty's Consent will be in such manner recalled disclaimed and provided against that no seed will remain for the like to spring out of for the future to disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and to endanger the very Being of it And in such a Convention His Majesty is resolved by His readiness to consent to whatsoever shall be proposed to Him by Bill for the real good of His Subjects and particularly for the better discovery and speedier conviction of Recusants for the education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion for the prevention of practices of Papists against the State and the due execution of the Laws and true levying of the Penalties against them to make known to all the World how causless those Fears and Jealousies have been which have been raised against Him and by that so distracted this miserable Kingdom And if this Offer of His Majesty be not consented to in which He asks nothing for which there is not apparent Justice on His side and in which He defers many things highly concerning both Himself and People till a full and peaceable convention of Parliament which in Justice He might now require His Majesty is confident that it will then appear to all the World not only who is most desirous of Peace and whose default it is that both Armies are not now disbanded but who hath been the true and first cause that this Peace was ever interrupted or these Armies raised and the beginning or continuance of the War and the destruction and desolation of this poor Kingdom which is too likely to ensue will not by the most interessed passionate or prejudicate person be imputed to His Majesty His MAJESTY's Questions before the Treaty and the Committees Answers March 25. 1643. Mis MAJESTY desires to be answered these Questions in writing by the Committee of both Houses 1. WHether they may not shew unto Him those Instructions according to which they are to Treat and Debate with His Majesty upon the two first Propositions of which the last Message from both Houses takes notice and refers unto 2. Whether they have power to pass from one Proposition to the other in the Debate before His Majesty have exprest His mind concerning the Proposition first entred into 3. Whether they have power
Parliament as they had upon the first of January 1641. the same of right belonging unto them by their Birth-rights and the free Election of those that sent them and having been Voted from them for adhering to His Majesty in these Distractions His Majesty not intending that this should extend either to the Bishops whose Votes have been taken away by Bill or to such in whose places upon new Writs new Elections have been made 3. As soon as His Majesty and both Houses may be secured from such tumultuous Assemblies as to the great breach of the Privileges and the high Dishonour of Parliaments have formerly assembled about both Houses and awed the Members of the same and occasioned two several complaints from the Lords House and two several desires of that House to the House of Commons to joyn in a Declaration against them the complying with which desire might have prevented all these miserable Distractions which have ensued which Security His Majesty conceives can be only settled by Adjourning the Parliament to some other place at the least twenty Miles from London the choice of which His Majesty leaves to both Houses His Majesty will most chearfully and readily consent that both Armies be immediately disbanded and give a present meeting to both His Houses of Parliament at the time and place at and to which the Parliament shall be agreed to be Adjourned His Majesty being most confident that the Law will then recover the due credit and estimation and that upon a free debate in a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament such Provisions will be made against Seditious Preaching and Printing against His Majesty and the established Laws which hath been one of the chief causes of the present Distractions and such care will be taken concerning the Legal and known Rights of His Majesty and the Property and Liberty of His Subjects that whatsoever hath been published or done in or by colour of any illegal Declaration Ordinance or Order of one or both Houses or any Committee of either of them and particularly the Power to raise Arms without His Majesty's Consent will be in such manner recalled disclaimed and provided against that no seed will remain for the like to spring out of for the future to disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and to endanger the very Being of it And in such a Convention His Majesty is resolved by His readiness to consent to whatsoever shall be proposed to Him by Bill for the Real good of His Subjects and particularly for the better discovery and speedier conviction of Recusants for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion for the prevention of practices of Papists against the State and the due execution of the Laws and true levying of the Penalties against them to make known to all the World how causeless those fears and jealousies have been which have been raised against Him and by that so distracted this miserable Kingdom And if this Offer of His Majesty be not consented to in which He asks nothing for which there is not apparent Justice on His side and in which He defers many things highly concerning both Himself and People till a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament which in Justice He might now require His Majesty is confident that it will then appear to all the World not only who is most desirous of Peace and whose fault it is that both Armies are not now disbanded but who have been the true and first cause that this Peace was ever interrupted or these Armies raised and the beginning or continuance of the War and the Destruction and Desolation of this poor Kingdom which is too likely to ensue will not by the most interessed passionate or prejudicate Person be imputed to His Majesty His MAJESTY'S Message to both Houses May 19. in pursuance of the foregoing Message SInce His Majesty's Message of the twelfth of April in which he conceived He had made such an Overture for the immediate Disbanding of all Armies and Composure of these present miserable Distractions by a full and free Convention in Parliament that a perfect and settled Peace would have ensued hath in all this time above a full Month procured no Answer from both Houses His Majesty might well believe Himself absolved before God and Man from the least possible Charge of not having used His utmost endeavour for Peace Yet when He considers that the Scene of all this Calamity is in the Bowels of His own Kingdom that all the Blood which is spilt is of His own Subjects and that what Victory soever it shall please God to give Him must be over those who ought not to have lifted up their hands against Him when He considers that these desperate civil Dissentions may encourage and invite a Foreign Enemy to make a Prey of the whole Nation that Ireland is in present danger to be totally lost that the heavy Judgments of God Plague Pestilence and Famine will be the inevitable Attendants of this unnatural Contention and that in a short time there will be so general a habit of uncharitableness and Cruelty contracted throughout the Kingdom that even Peace it self will not restore His People to their old Temper and Security His Majesty cannot but again call for an Answer to that His Message which gives so fair a Rise to end these unnatural Distractions And His Majesty doth this with the more earnestness because He doubts not the condition of His Armies in several parts His strength of Horse Foot and Artillery His plenty of Ammunition which some Men lately might conceive He wanted is so well known and understood that it must be confessed that nothing but the Tenderness and Love to His People and those Christian Impressions which always have and He hopes always shall dwell in His heart could move Him once more to hazard a Refusal And He requires them as they will answer to God to Himself and all the World That they will no longer suffer their fellow-Subjects to welter in each others Blood that they will remember by whose Authority and to what end they met in that Council and send such an Answer to His Majesty as may open a door to let in a firm Peace and Security to the whole Kingdom If His Majesty shall again be disappointed of His Intentions herein the Blood Rapine and Distraction which must follow in England and Ireland will be cast upon the Account of those who are deaf to the motion of Peace and Accommodation CHARLES R. May 19. 1643. OUR express Pleasure is That this Declaration of the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Oxford be read by the Parson Vicar or Curate in every Church and Chapel within Our Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales MDCXLIV April 15. The Petition of the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Oxford Presented to His MAJESTY the day before the Recess And His MAJESTY'S Gracious Answer to the same To the Kings most excellent
not to be exercised till a Peace concluded upon the Treaty and then We had been secured by the Laws of the Kingdom and by the Duties and Affections of Our Subjects We think it far more matter of wonder since it is confessed that We and such Our Loyal Subjects who have faithfully and constantly adhered to Us were equally to be secured that they would allow Us no security at all but to put Our selves wholly upon them who even afterwards in this Paper deny Our Just Power of the Militia and of making Peace and War and might with much more colour hereafter do so if by Our Consent that Power should be once though for a time only put wholly into their Hands It is true the Laws of the Land and the Hearts of the People are the best security for a Prince that He shall enjoy what belongs to Him But it is as true that the Laws of the Land and the Love of the Prince towards His People are likewise their best security that they shall enjoy what belongeth to them It is a mutual confidence each in other that secures both but this is to be understood in calm and quiet times The present Distempers have bred mutual Jealousies and if they think it not at this time reasonable wholly to trust the Laws and Us concerning their security but require the Power of the Militia in which they have no right much less is it reasonable that We should wholly trust them concerning Our security who avowedly bear Arms against Us but if for the love of Peace We are content for a time to part with this great Power which is Our Known Right it is reasonable that We should have the nominating of some of those who should be trusted with it Yet on Our part We were well content to repose Our selves in that security they mention if the two Houses would likewise have relied upon the same security of the Laws and Affections of the People to which they so much pretend But though it was offered that We should return to Our two Houses whereby all Armies being Disbanded both they and We might have been restored to the Laws and guarded by those Affections of the People yet that was not admitted They say This Power of the Militia was not to be exercised till after a Peace but they do not remember it is to be agreed on before a Peace and proposed in order to a Peace and We might with as much Reason and far more Justice in respect of Our undoubted Right over the Militia of this Kingdom have insisted upon the sole nomination of the Commissioners because their Power was not to be exercised till a Peace concluded as they for that cause to have excluded Us from the nomination of an equal number and assumed that Power wholly to themselves not affording Us so much as the liberty to except against any of them And whereas they say these Commissioners for the Militia have a Rule prescribed and being removable and lyable for any miscarriage to a severe punishment cannot do any thing to Our prejudice contrary to the Trust reposed in them If they had such a Rule which yet by their Propositions and Papers We cannot find having by general and indefinite terms an unlimited Power given to them it proves they should not not that they would not break it He that hath Power as these Commissioners would have the greatest that ever Subjects had and Will to abuse that Power may extend and interpret the Rule prescribed him as he shall please himself And therefore since out of Our ardent desire of Peace We were content to part with this Power We had reason to require that at least some of those who should execute it might be such whom We Our selves should nominate and could trust For that which is said That if the Commissioners had been severally chosen the memory of these unnatural Divisions must needs have been continued and probably being severally named they would have acted dividedly according to several Interests and the War thereby might be more easily revived It is apparent the memory of the War must as much continue where any Commissioners are named at all as where they are named by either Party since by putting that Power into their hands it is put out of the proper Chanel But it is not the memory of a past War that is dangerous but such a remembrance of it as is joyned with a desire or inclination to revive it And if it were probable as is alledged that if the Commissioners were partly chosen by Us and partly by them that being severally named they would have acted dividedly according to several Interests it would be much more probable that being wholly named by them they would have acted only according to their Interest and so on Our part instead of an equal Security We must have been contented with what Laws an Conditions they would have imposed But We shall again remember that the offer on Our part was to name such against whom there could be no just Exception if the Persons were named equally betwixt us It was likewise offered That those Commissioners should take an Oath for the true discharge of their Trust that We Our selves were willing to take an Oath to observe the Articles of the Treaty and that all Persons of any immediate Trust by Offices or attendance upon Vs and all others whom they should nominate should take the like Oath and with such penalties that whosoever should infringe the Agreement should be accounted most pernicious Enemies to Vs and the Kingdoms And if this way of mutual nomination were not approved there was another proposed that the Persons should be nominated between Our Commissioners and theirs by whose mutual consent it might well have been hoped such Persons might have been named in whom We and they might have confided But to this no Answer hath been vouchsafed nor could any thing satisfie concerning the Militia unless without knowing who the Persons were who should be entrusted We should with an implicite Faith in Persons whom We did not know put that Power into their hands They say that though by their Propositions the Commissioners were to continue without any limitation of time yet they have since proposed a time of seven years We know not that they have during the whole Treaty in any one particular receded from insisting on their Demands as they are set down in their Propositions in terminis And in this point though they seem to reduce the time which in their Propositions was indefinite to a certainty to which yet the Scotish Commissioners have not absolutely agreed the alteration is more in shew than in deed and rather to the heightning than abating their Demands For whereas they have limited the time to seven years yet it is with an additional Clause That after those seven years it was to be executed as We and they should agree and not otherwise so that though the
think in my Conscience to be against thy Glory the good of my Subjects and the discharge of my own duty to Reason and Justice Make Me willing to suffer the greatest Indignities and Injuries they press upon Me rather than commit the least sin against my Conscience Let the just Liberties of my People be as well they may preserved in fair and equal ways without the slavery of my Soul Thou that hast invested Me by thy Favours in the power of a Christian King suffer Me not to subject my Reason to other mens Passions and Designs which to Me seem unreasonable unjust and irreligious So shall I serve Thee in the truth and uprightness of my Heart tho I cannot satisfie these men Though I be driven from among them yet give Me grace to walk always uprightly before Thee Lead Me in the way of Truth and Justice for these I know will bring Me at last to Peace and Happiness with Thee though for these I have much trouble among men This I beg of Thee for my Saviours sake VII Vpon the QUEENS Departure and Absence out of ENGLAND ALthough I have much cause to be troubled at my Wifes departure from Me and out of my Dominions yet not her absence so much as the scandal of that Necessity which drives Her away doth afflict Me That She should be compelled by My own Subjects and those pretending to be Protestants to withdraw for her Safety This being the first example of any Protestant Subjects that have taken up Arms against their King a Protestant For I look upon this now done in England as another Act of the same Tragedy which was lately begun in Scotland the brands of that fire being ill quenched have kindled the like flames here I fear such motions so little to the adorning of the Protestant profession may occasion a further alienation of Mind and divorce of Affections in Her from that Religion which is the only thing wherein We differ Which yet God can and I pray he would in time take away and not suffer these practices to be any obstruction to her Judgment since it is the motion of those men for the most part who are yet to seek and settle their Religion for Doctrine Government and good Manners and so not to be imputed to the true English Protestants who continue firm to their former setled Principles and Laws I am sorry my relation to so deserving a Lady should be any occasion of her Danger and Affliction whose Merits would have served her for a protection among the savage Indians while their Rudeness and Barbarity knows not so perfectly to hate all Virtues as some mens Subtilty doth among whom I yet think few are so malicious as to hate Her for Her self The fault is That She is my Wife All Justice then as well as Affection commands Me to study Her Security who is only in danger for My sake I am content to be tossed weather-beaten and shipwrackt so as She may be in safe Harbor This comfort I shall enjoy by Her Safety in the midst of My Personal Dangers that I can perish but half if She be preserved In whose Memory and hopeful Posterity I may yet survive the Malice of My Enemies altho they should be satiated with my Blood I must leave her and Them to the Love and Loyalty of my good Subjects and to his Protection who is able to punish the Faults of Princes and no less severely to revenge the Injuries done to Them by those who in all duty and Allegiance ought to have made good that Safety which the Laws chiefly provide for Princes But common Civility is in vain expected from those that dispute their Loyalty Nor can it be safe for any relation to a King to tarry among them who are shaking hands with their Allegiance under pretence of laying faster hold on their Religion 'T is pity so noble and peaceful a Soul should see much more suffer the Rudeness of those who must make up their want of Justice with Inhumanity and Impudence Her sympathy with Me in my Afflictions will make her Virtues shine with greater lustre as Stars in the darkest nights and assure the envious world that She loves Me not my Fortunes Neither of Us but can easily forgive since We do not much blame the unkindness of the Generality and Vulgar for we see God is pleased to try both our Patience by the most self-punishing sin the Ingratitude of those who having eaten of our Bread and being enriched with our Bounty have scornfully lift up themselves against Us and those of our own Houshold are become our Enemies I pray God lay not their sin to their charge who think to fatisfie all obligations to duty by their Corban of Religion and can less endure to see than to sin against their Benefactors as well as their Soveraigns But even that Policy of my Enemies is so far venial as it was necessary to their designs by scandalous Articles and all irreverent demeanor to seek to drive Her out of my Kingdoms lest by the influence of her Example eminent for Love as a Wife and Loyalty as a Subject She should have converted to or retained in their Love and Loyalty all those whom they had a purpose to pervert The less I may be blest with her company the more I will retire to God and my own Heart whence no Malice can banish Her My Enemies may envy but they can never deprive Me of the enjoyment of her Virtues while I enjoy My self Thou O Lord whose Justice at present sees fit to scatter Vs let thy Mercy in the due time re-unite Vs on Earth if it be thy Will however bring Vs both at last to thy Heavenly Kingdom Preserve Vs from the hands of our despiteful and deadly Enemies and prepare Vs by our Sufferings for thy presence Tho We differ in some things as to Religion which is my greatest temporal Infelicity yet Lord give and accept the sincerity of our Affections which desire to seek to find to embrace every Truth of thine Let both our hearts agree in the Love of thy self and Christ crucified for us Teach Vs both what Thou wouldst have Vs to know in order to thy Glory our publick relations and our Souls eternal good and make Vs careful to do what good We know Let neither Ignorance of what is necessary to be known nor Vnbelief or Disobedience to what We know be our misery or our wilful default Let not this great Scandal of those my Subjects which profess the same Religion with Me be any hindrance to her love of any Truth thou wouldst have Her to learn nor any hardning of Her in any Error Thou wouldst have cleared to Her Let mine and other mens Constancy be an Antidote against the poyson of their Example Let the truth of that Religion I profess be represented to Her Judgment with all the beauties of Humility Loyalty Charity and Peaceableness which are the proper fruits and ornaments of it not
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
to single Him out of all the Kings of the Earth as the fittest Champion to wrestle with Adversity and to make Him glorious by Sufferings which being well born truly prove men Great yet would He furnish Him almost by a Miracle likewise with such Advantages in the conduct of which His Prudence and Magnanimity might evidence that He did deserve Propserity and by clearing up even this way His eminent Vertues warn the following Ages from a Credulity to unquiet Persons since the best of Princes was thus infamously slandered From all these concurring Causes each one in their Way and Order did the King's Strength so far increase as that He won many Battles and was not far from Conquest in the Whole War had not God seen fit to afflict this sinful Nation with Numerous and most Impious Tyrants and make us feel that no Oppressions are so unsupportable as those which are imposed by such as have made the highest Pretensions to Liberty of which we had bitter experience after the War was finished that was now begun For there had been some slight Conflicts ere this in the several Countries betwixt the Commissioners of Array and the Militia with various Successes which require just Volumes and compleat Histories to relate and cannot be comprehended in the short View of the King's Life where it is only intended to speak of those Battles in which the King in Person gave sufficient evidence of His Wisdom and Valour The first of which was at Edge-Hill on Oct. 23. For the King had no sooner gotten a considerable Force though not equal to those of His Enemies but He matched towards London and in His way thither met with Essex's Army that were come from thence to take Him The King having viewed their Army by a Prospective-glass from the top of that Hill and being asked afterwards by His Officers what He meant to do To give them battle said He with a present Courage it is the first time I ever saw the Rebels in a Body God and good Mens Prayers to Him assist the Justice of My Cause and immediately prepared for the Fight which was acted with such a Fury that near 6000 were slain according to the common account but some say a far less number were slain upon the place Night concluded this Battle which had comprehended the whole War had not the King 's prevailing Horse preferr'd the Spoils to Victory and left the Enemy some advantage to dispute for her But the King had all the fairest marks of her Favour For though He had lost His General yet he kept the Field possessed the dead Bodies opened His way toward London and in the sight of some part of the Army of Essex who accounted it a Victory that He was not totally routed and killed took Banbury and entred Triumphantly into Oxford which He had designed for His Winter-quarters with 150 Colours taken in fight And having assured that place He advances towards London whither Essex had gotten before Him and disposed his baffled Regiments within 10 Miles of the City yet the King fell upon two Regiments of them at Brainford took 500 Prisoners and sunk their Ordnance From thence intending to draw nearer London He had intelligence that the City had powred forth all their Auxiliaries to re-inforce Essex's Troops to which being unwilling to oppose His Souldiers wearied with their March nor thinking it safe to force an Enemy to fight upon Necessity which inspires a more than Ordinary Fury He retreats to Oxford having taught His Enemies that He was not easily to be overcome For in the management of this Battle He did not only undeceive the abused World of those Slanders which His Enemies had polluted Him with but He exceeded that Opinion His own Party had of His Abilities and though He parted from London altogether unexperienced in Martial Affairs yet at Edge-Hill He appeared a most Excellent Commander His Valour was also equal to His Prudence and He could as well endure Labours as despise Dangers And by a communication of toils encouraged His Souldiers to keep the Field all the Night when they saw He refused the refreshments of a Bed for He sought no other Shelter from the injuries of the Air than His own Coach These Vertues and this Success made such an impression on the Parliament that though they took all courses to hide the Infamy of their worsted Army yet in more humble Expressions than formerly they Petitioned the King for a Treaty of Peace which His Majesty very earnestly embraced But the Faction who were frighted with these Tendencies to an Accommodation cause some of the City to Petition against it and to make proffer of their Lives and Fortunes for the prosecution of the War Encouraged by this they form their Propositions like the Commands of Conquerours and so streighten the Power and time of their Commissioners that the Treaty at Oxford became fruitless which there had taken up all the King's Employment this Winter though abroad His Forces were busie in several Parts of the Nation not without Honour At the Opening of the Spring the Queen comes back to England An. 1643 bringing with Her some considerable Supplies of Men Money and Ammunition and Her coming was entertained with such a Series of Successes that the King that Summer was Master of the North and West except some few Garrisons Which so dismaied the Parliament that very many of them were preparing to quit the Kingdom and had the King followed His own Counsels to march immediately towards London and not been fatally over-born at a Council of War which it is said His Enemies at London did assure their Party would so be first to attempt Gloucester He had in the judgment of all discerning men then finished the War with Glory But here He lay so long till Essex had gotten a Recruit from London and came time enough to Relieve the Town though in his Return the King necessitated him to fight worsted him near Newbery and so bravely followed him the next day that He forced the Parliaments Horse which were left in the Reer to seek their safety by making their way over a great part of their Foot yet lost on His side much Noble Blood as the Earls of Carnarvan and Sunderland and Viscount Falkland This last was lamented by all being equally dexterous at the Pen and Sword had won some Wreaths in those Controversies that were to be managed by Reason and was eminent in all the Generous parts of Learning above any of his Fortune and Dignity After this Encounter the King returns to Oxford to consult with those Members of both Houses that had left the Impostures and Tumults at London to joyn with Him for the Common Benefit who being as to the Peers the far greater and as to the Commons an equal Number with those at Westminster they assumed the Name and Authority of Parliament and deliberated of the ways of Peace and means to prevent the Desolations which the Faction so
furiously designed who were now resolving to encrease our Miseries by Calling in the Scots to their assistance For though they pretended so highly to God's Cause as if they had the certainty of some Divine Revelation yet they would not trust Him for their Preservation notwithstanding their Pretences to his Cause had furnished them with so vast a Treasure and so mighty a Strength but would invite others to the Violation of most Sacred Oaths to sin against all Laws and every Rule of Justice that themselves might be secure in their Usurpations And that perfidious Party that then ruled in Scotland hoping for as great Advantages as their former Wickedness had yielded contrary to all Obligations which the King's Goodness had laid on them and their free and voluntary Execrations as was that of Alexander Lesley who lifting up His arms and hands to Heaven wished they might rot to his body before he died if ever he should heave them up hereafter or draw his Sword against so gude a King drew that people once more into Rebellion against their Prince and to make them more eager and think the Enterprize easie they first raised a Report that the King was deserted by most of His Nobility The Parliament at Oxford having by a Letter moved the Earl of Essex to endeavour Peace did also declare against this Invasion of the Scots by another Letter sent to them in which also they acquaint them with the falseness of their officious Lye and shew how inconsiderable a Number of Lords were with those that invited them in The King Himself writes also to put them in mind of their several Ingagements to be Quiet But with an Insolency fit for most perjured Souls they commanded the Letters to be burned by the hand of the Hangman A more secret falshood He also found in the Marquess Hamilton whose Treasons now came to be more suspected For His Majesty having written to him to use all his Power and Interest to keep his Country-men at home which had not been difficult for one of his Grandeur in that unquiet Nation he by some secret arts doth more inflame them and to cover his Perfidiousness flies from Scotland to Oxford as seeking a shelter for his Loyalty but indeed to be a Spy in the King's Counsels But his Treasons had out-stripp'd him and his Brother the Earl of Lanerick who came with him therefore they were both forbidden the Court. Lanerick not willing to tarry till a further Discovery gets out of Oxford flies to those at London and by them was employed in the Scotch Army which made Hamilton's Treachery more evident and he was sent Prisoner to Pendennis Castle But the dishonour of that Nation was in a great measure repaired by the Gallantry and Faithfulness of the Marquess Montrosse who being Commission'd by the King with an incredible Industry by small numbers of men won many Battels and overthrew well-formed Armies and had not the Fate of his Master which was to be betrayed by those He trusted been likewise common to him he had forced that Nation to Justice and Quiet But ere Montrosse could get his Commission the Scots were entred into England whose coming that it might be less odious to the People who now grew cold in their Zeal to the Cause and saw themselves deluded into so continued Dangers the Faction make use of such Frauds as should make the People either think them necessary Assistances or might divert their Thoughts from apprehending the Miseries they brought with them to this Nation therefore they invent new Slanders of the King and His Party That His Majesty did intend to translate Monarchy into a Tyranny that He would seize upon all their Estates who had any way opposed Him and make their Persons Slaves and that there was no hope of Pardon from Him who was so merciless that He would take away all their Liberties and Privileges as forfeited destroy the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery which at Oxford He did practise Himself and that all men must be forced to go to Mass As for His Party they set them out to be such Monsters that the lower sort of People doubted whether the Cavaliers had the shapes of men For sad Relations were Printed and Published of their Inhumanity and barbarous Murders That they did feast upon the Flesh of Men and that they fed their Dogs and their Horses with the same Diet to make them more fierce for the blood of the Godly Party that no man's house was so poor and mean that a Cavalier would think beneath his Rapine Thus they wrought upon the Melancholy Spirits of some by Fear For those of a Morose and Cholerick temper they had proper Divertisements they permitted to them a tumultuary Reformation to pull down the Pictures and Images of Christ the Virgin Mary and the Saints which with great Solemnity they committed to the Flames that they might suffer as it were another Martyrdom All Crosses though set up for Ornament and Use in the Streets of London and other places they pulled down they invade the Churches and there deface what their Humour or Rapine would call Superstition pull down the Organs tear the Surplices and all this was suffered to please the Rabble who delight in Violences and such Ostentations of their Fury and to make them in something or other guilty that they might despair of Pardon For others who were to be wrought upon by Religion they entertain them with Fasts publick Thanksgivings for slight Victories and solemn Spiritual Meetings as they called them where whatsoever the Faction dictated was commended by the Speakers to their unwary Hearers as the Oracles of Heaven and being thus wrapp'd up in those true Delights which accompany the Worship of God they were securely swallowed by them as Poyson when it is offered in a Sacramental Chalice To please their Ministers whom hitherto they had used as their Properties and Instruments of their Arts Presbytery is set up that they also might have an Imaginary Empire but it was not intended they should exercise it For the Pretensions of that to a Divine Right did so terrifie them who were resolved against all Government that was not subject unto or dependent on theirs that they presently raised all the other Sects Independents Erastians who for the most part were Lawyers that could not endure to hear of any Thunderbolts of Excommunication but what was heated in their own Forges Anabaptists Seekers and Atheists of which there were many sprung up who seeing how Religion was abused to carnal and unjust Ends began first to despise that and afterwards to deny God to write and declame against this new Polity as the most severe and absolute Tyranny under the Sun and the Tenth Persecution But this seeming Modesty of admitting a Church Government served their Ends for the present till they could acquire a greater strength in confidence of which they might slight the Terrors of the Law and the Anathema's of the Church The Liturgy
prevent the Miseries which are ready to overwhelm this whole Nation by a Civil War and tho' all Our endeavours tending to the composing of those unhappy Differences betwixt Us and our two Houses of Parliament though pursued by us with all zeal and sincerity have been hitherto without that success We hoped for yet such is Our constant and earnest care to preserve the publick Peace that we shall not be discouraged from using any expedient which by the blessing of the God of Mercy may lay a firm foundation of Peace and Happiness to all Our good Subjects To this end observing that many mistakes have arisen by the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt Us and Our two Houses of Parliament which happily may be prevented by some other way of Treaty wherein the matters in difference may be more clearly understood and more freely transacted We have thought fit to propound to you that some fit persons may be by you enabled to treat with the like Number to be authorized by Us in such a manner and with such freedom of debate as may best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desire The peace of the Kingdom wherein as We promise in the word of a King all safety and encouragement to such as shall be sent unto Us if you shall chuse the place where We are for the Treaty which we wholly leave to you presuming on the like care of the safety of those We shall imploy if you shall name another place so We assure you and all Our good Subjects that to the best of Our Understanding nothing shall be therein wanting on Our part which may advance the true Protestant Religion oppose Popery and Superstition secure the Law of the land upon which is built as well Our just Prerogative as the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject confirm all just Power and Priviledges of Parliament and render Us and Our People truly happy by a good understanding betwixt Us and Our two Houses of Parliament Bring with you as firm resolutions to do your Duty and let all Our People joyn with Us in Our Prayers to Almighty God for his blessing upon this Work If this Proposition shall be rejected by you We have done Our duty so amply that God will absolve Us from the guilt of any of that Blood which must be spilt And what opinion soever other men may have of Our Power We assure you nothing but Our Christian and pious care to prevent the effusion of Blood hath begot this motion Our provision of Men Arms and Money being such as may secure Us from further Violence till it please God to open the Eyes of Our People IV. From ...... Sept. 5. MDCXLII In pursuance of the former WE will not repeat what means We have used to prevent the dangerous and distracted Estate of the Kingdom nor how these means have been interpreted because being desirous to avoid effusion of Blood We are willing to decline all memory of former bitterness that might make Our offer of a Treaty less readily accepted We never did declare nor ever intended to declare both Our Houses of Parliament Traytors or set up Our Standard against them and much less to put them and this Kingdom out of Our protection We utterly profess against it before God and the World And further to remove all possible scruples which may hinder the Treaty so much desired by Us We hereby promise so that a day be appointed by you for the revoking of your Declarations against all Persons as Traytors or otherwise for assisting Us We shall with all chearfulness upon the same day recal Our Proclamations and Declarations and take down Our Standard in which Treaty We shall be ready to grant any thing that shall be really for the good of Our Subjects Conjuring you to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the dangerous condition of England in as high a degree as by these Our offers We have declared Our Self to do And assuring you that Our chief desire in this World is to beget a good Understanding and mutual Confidence betwixt Us and Our two Houses of Parliament V. From ...... Sept. 11. MDCXLII In Replie to the Answer of both Houses to the former WHO have taken most ways used most endeavours and made most real expressions to prevent the present Distractions and Dangers let all the World judge as well by former passages as 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 Us from a visible strength marching against Us and admit those persons accounted as Traytors to Us who according to their Duty their Oaths of Allegiance and the Law have appeared in defence of Us 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 relie 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 Us We shall piously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this quarrel and chearfully embrace it And as no other reason induced Us to leave Our City of London but that with Honour and Safety We could not stay there nor to 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 Us and Our Posterity as We desire the preservation and advancement of the true Protestant Religion and the Law and Liberty of the Subject the just Rights of Parliament and the Peace of the Kingdom VI. From BRAINFORD Nov. 12. MDCXLII After the Defeat of the Parliament Forces at EDGE-HILL and at BRAINFORD WHereas the last Night being the eleventh of November after the departure of the Committee of both Our Houses with Our gracious Answer to their Petition We received certain information having till then heard nothing of it either from the Houses Committee or otherwise that the L. of Essex had drawn his Forces out of London towards Us which hath necessitated Our sudden resolution to march with Our Forces to Brainford We have thought hereby fit to signifie to both Our Houses of Parliament that we are no less desirous of the Peace of the Kingdom than We express in Our
time appoint whereof the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs for the time being to be three to be imployed and directed from time to time during the said space of ten years in such manner as shall be agreed upon and appointed by both Houses of Parliament and that no Citizen of the City of London nor any of the Officers of the said City shall be drawn forth or compelled to go out of the said City or Liberties thereof for Military service without their own free consent That an Act be passed for granting and confirming the Charters Customs Liberties and Franchises of the City of London notwithstanding any Non-user Mis-user or Abuser And that during the said ten years the Tower of London may be in the government of the City of London and the Chief Officer and Governour from time to time during the said space to be nominated and removeable by the Common Council as are desired in your Propositions His Majesty having thus far expressed His consent for the present satisfaction and security of His two Houses of Parliament and those that have adhered unto them touching your four first Propositions and other the particulars before specified as to all the rest of your Propositions delivered to Him at Hampton-Court not referring to those heads and to that of the Court of Wards since delivered as also to the remaining Propositions concerning Ireland His Majesty desires only when He shall come to Westminster personally to advise with His two Houses and to deliver His Opinion and the reasons of it which being done He will leave the whole matter of those remaining Propositions to the determination of His two Houses which shall prevail with Him for His consent accordingly And His Majesty doth for His Own particular only propose that He may have liberty to repair forthwith to Westminster and be restored to a condition of absolute Freedom and Safety a thing which He shall never deny to any of His Subjects and to the possession of His Lands and Revenues and that an Act of Oblivion and Indemnity may pass to extend to all persons for all matters relating to the late unhappy Differences which being agreed by His two Houses of Parliament His Majesty will be ready to make these His Concessions binding by giving them the Force of Laws by His Royal assent HIS MAJESTIES DECLARATIONS I. His MAJESTIES DECLARATION After the Votes of no further Address Carisbrook Jan. 18. MDCXLVII To all My People of whatsoever Nation Quality or Condition AM I thus laid aside and must I not speak for My self No I will speak and that to all My People which I would have rather done by the way of My two Houses of Parliament but that there is a publick Order neither to make Addresses to or receive Messages from Me. And who but you can be judge of the differences betwixt Me and My two Houses I know none else for I am sure you it is who will enjoy the Happiness or feel the Misery of good or ill Government and we all pretend who should run fastest to serve you without having a regard at least in the first place to particular Interests And therefore I desire you to consider the state I am and have been in this long time and whether My Actions have more tended to the Publick or My own particular good For whosoever will look upon Me barely as I am a Man without that liberty which the meanest of My Subjects enjoys of going whither and conversing with whom I will as a Husband and Father without the comfort of My Wife and Children or lastly as a King without the least shew of Authority or Power to protect My distressed Subjects must conclude Me not onely void of all Natural Affection but also to want common understanding if I should not most cheerfully embrace the readiest way to the settlement of these distracted Kingdoms As also on the other side do but consider the form and draught of the Bills lately presented unto Me and as they are the Conditions of a Treaty ye will conclude that the same Spirit which hath still been able to frustrate all My sincere and constant endeavours for Peace hath had a powerful influence on this Message For though I was ready to grant the substance and comply with what they seem to desire yet as they had framed it I could not agree thereunto without deeply wounding My Conscience and Honour and betraying the Trust reposed in Me by abandoning My People to the Arbitrary and Unlimited Power of the two Houses for ever for the levying and maintaining of Land or Sea Forces without distinction of quality or limitation for Money-Taxes And if I could have passed them in terms how unheard-of a Condition were it for a Treaty to grant beforehand the most considerable part of the subject matter How ineffectual were that Debate like to prove wherein the most potent Party had nothing of moment left to ask and the other nothing more to give so consequently how hopeless of mutual compliance without which a settlement is impossible Besides if after My Concessions the two Houses should insist on those things from which I cannot depart how desperate would the condition of these Kingdoms be when the most proper and approved remedy should become ineffectual Being therefore fully resolved that I could neither in Conscience Honour or Prudence pass those four Bills I onely endeavoured to make the Reasons and Justice of my Denial appear to all the World as they do to me intending to give as little dis-satisfaction to the two Houses of Parliament without betraying My own Cause as the matter would bear I was desirous to give My Answer of the 28 th of December last to the Commissioners sealed as I had done others heretofore and sometimes at the desire of the Commissioners chiefly because when My Messages or Answers were publickly known before they were read in the Houses prejudicial interpretations were forced on them much differing and sometimes contrary to My meaning For example My Answer from Hampton-Court was accused of dividing the two Nations because I promised to give satisfaction to the Scots in all things concerning that Kingdom And this last suffers in a contrary sense by making Me intend to interest Scotland in the Laws of this Kingdom than which nothing was nor is further from my thoughts because I took notice of the Scots Commissioners protesting against the Bills and Propositions as contrary to the Interests and Engagements of the two Kingdomes Indeed if I had not mentioned their dissent an Objection not without some probability might have been made against Me both in respect the Scots are much concern'd in the Bill for the Militia and in several other Propositions and My silence might with some Justice have seemed to approve of it But the Commissioners refusing to receive My Answer sealed I upon the engagement of their and the Governor's Honour that no other use should be made or notice taken of it than as if it had
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
People leaving such debates to a time that may better bear them If this be not accepted the fault is not Mine that this Bill pass not but theirs that refuse so fair an offer To conclude I conjure you by all that is or can be dear to you or Me that laying away all disputes you go on chearfully and speedily for the reducing of Ireland XXXV To the House of Commons about the Five Members January 4. MDCXLI II. GEntlemen I am sorry for this occasion of coming unto you Yesterday I sent a Serjeant at Arms upon a very important occasion to apprehend some that by My Command were accused of High Treason whereunto I did expect Obedience and not a Message And I must declare unto you here that albeit no King that ever was in England shall be more careful of your Priviledges to maintain them to the uttermost of His Power than I shall be yet you must know that in cases of Treason no person hath a Priviledge And therefore I am come to know if any of those persons that were accused are here For I must tell you Gentlemen that so long as those persons that I have accused for no slight crime but for Treason are here I cannot expect that this House can be in the right way that I do heartily wish it Therefore I am come to tell you that I must have them wheresoever I find them Well sithence I see all the Birds are flown I do expect from you that you shall send them unto Me as soon as they return hither But I assure you in the word of a King I never did intend any force but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way for I never meant any other And now sithence I see I cannot do what I came for I think this no unfit occasion to repeat what I have said formerly That whatsoever I have done in favour and to the good of My Subjects I do mean to maintain it I will trouble you no more but tell you I do expect as soon as they do come to the House you will send them to Me otherwise I must take My Own course to find them XXXVI To the Citizens of LONDON at GUILD-HALL January 5. MDCXLI II. GEntlemen I am come to demand such Prisoners as I have already attained of High Treason and do believe they are shrowded in the City I hope no good man will keep them from Me their offences are Treason and Misdemeanours of an high nature I desire your loving assistance herein that they may be brought to a Legal Trial. And whereas there are divers suspicions raised that I am a favourer of the Popish Religion I do profess in the name of a King that I did and ever will and that to the utmost of My power be a prosecutor of all such as shall any ways oppose the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom either Papist or Separatist and not only so but I will maintain and defend that true Protestant Religion which My Father did profess and I will still continue in during Life XXXVII To the Committe of both Houses at the delivery of the Petition for the Militia at THEORALDS Mar. 1. MDCXLI II. I Am so amazed at this Message that I know not what to answer You speak of Jealousies and Fears lay your hands to your hearts and ask your selves whether I may not likewise be disturbed with Fears and Jealousies and if so I assure you this Message hath nothing lessened them For the Militia I thought so much of it before I sent that Answer and am so much assured that the Answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask or I in Honour grant that I shall not alter it in any point For my residence near you I wish it might be so safe and honourable that I had no cause to absent My self from White-Hall Ask your selves whether I have not For My Son I shall take that care of him which shall justifie Me to God as a Father and to My Dominions as a King To conclude I assure you upon My Honour that I have no thought but of Peace and Justice to My People which I shall by all fair means seek to preserve and maintain relying upon the goodness and providence of God for the preservation of My Self and Rights XXXVIII To the Committee of both Houses at the presenting of their Declaration at NEW-MARKET March 9. MDCXLI II. I Am confident that you expect not I should give you a speedy Answer to this strange and unexpected Declaration And I am sorry in the Distractions of this Kingdom you should think this way of Address to be more convenient than that proposed by My Message of the 20th of Jan. last to both Houses As concerning the grounds of your Fears and Jealousies I will take time to answer particularly and doubt not but I shall do it to the satisfaction of all the world God in his good time will I hope discover the secrets and bottoms of all Plots and Treasons and then I shall stand right in the eyes of all My People In the mean time I must tell you that I rather expected a vindication from the imputation laid on Me in Master Pym's Speech than that any more general Rumours and Discourses should get credit with you For My Fears and Doubts I did not think they should have been thought so groundless or trivial while so many seditious Pamphlets and Sermons are looked upon and so great Tumults remembred unpunished uninquired into I still confess My Fears and call God to witness that they are greater for the true Protestant Profession My People and Laws than for My own Rights or Safety though I must tell you I conceive that none of these are free from danger What would you have Have I violated your Laws Have I denied to pass any one Bill for the ease and security of My Subjects I do not ask you what you have done for Me. Have any of My People been transported with Fears and Apprehensions I have offered as free and general a Pardon as your selves can devise All this considered There is a Judgment from Heaven upon this Nation if these Distractions continue God so deal with Me and Mine as all My thoughts and intentions are upright for the maintenance of the true Protestant Profession and for the Observation and Preservation of the Laws of this Land And I hope God will bless and assist those Laws for My preservation As for the Additional Declaration you are to expect an Answer to it when you shall receive the Answer to the Declaration it self Some Passages that happened Mar. 9. between His Majesty and the Committee of both Houses when the Declaration was delivered When His Majesty heard that part of the Declaration which mentioned Master Jermin's Transportation His Majesty interrupted the Earl of Holland in reading and said That 's false which being afterwards touch'd upon again His Majesty then said 'T is a lie And when He
My Crown And when I fail in either of these I will not look for your assistance Till then you are concerned not to see Me suffer XLIII To the Inhabitants of Leicester at LEICESTER July 20. MDCXLII GEntlemen Since I have found My Presence so very acceptable amongst My Good Subjects in these Northern parts and that the Errors and Mistakes among them have wholly proceeded from misinformation and are removed with more satisfaction and ease to them than they were received I hold it a piece of My Duty to take the utmost pains I can fully to inform and undeceive My People and rather to prevent Crimes than to punish them In this Errand I am come to you amongst whom there hath not been the least misunderstanding to shew you that I do not suspect any malice in the Place or in the People though persons of as ill dispositions have been busie in it and amongst you as in any County in England and such who have taken as great pains to do mischief and to bring confusion as good men should for Peace and happiness Though 't is as true that very many worthier Persons amongst you have appeared of contrary affections which I shall always acknowledge I am come to you in a time too when nothing could invite Me to such a journey but My affection to and good esteem of you having sent such Propositions of Peace and Accommodation to My two Houses of Parliament that I hope to have no other use of your affections but in your Prayers being sure they will submit to them with alacrity if the unexcusable enemies of the Peace of the Kingdom be not strong enough to prevail And then you will find your selves so much concerned for I have required nothing that with more justice can be denied Me if it be duly weighed than My Crown or My Life may be taken from Me that I shall not need to ask your assistance I know you will bring Horse Men Money and Hearts worthy such a Cause Your Religion your Liberties your Laws which I will defend with My Life I mean the good known Laws of the Land not Ordinances without My Consent which till within these twelve months were never heard of from the Foundation of this Kingdom will be the Quarrel and in such a Cause the taking away My Towns Ships Arms and Money from Me shall not dishearten Me. The concurrence and affection of My People with God's blessing will supply and recover all XLIV To the Gentry of Yorkshire Aug. 4. MDCXLII GEntlemen when I directed that Summons should be sent out for your meeting here this day My principal end was That I might give you thanks for the great forwardness and expressions you have made of your affections to Me since I came into this Country and to assure you that as the whole Kingdom hath great reason to value you exceedingly for it so I shal be ever unsatisfied with My self till I have found some way to fix a mark of favour and estimation upon this County and this People which may tell Posterity how good Subjects you have been and how much Gentlemen and I am confident the memory of it will grow up with My Sons too in a just acknowledgment This was the most I intended to say to you But there is an unquiet spirit abroad which every day throws in new accidents to disturb and confound the publick Peace How I was driven from London when I chose this place for My Safety is so notorious that all men know it who know any thing With what strange violence and indignities I have been pursued since I came hither needs no other evidence than Sir Hotham's behaviour at Hull who is now arrived to that insolence that he will not suffer his Treason to be longer confined within those walls but makes Sallies out of the Town upon his fellow-Subjects drowns their land burns and plunders their Houses murthers and with unheard of cruelty torments their persons and this with so much delight that he would not have the patience to wait what Answer should be sent to My just Demands though in that respect I engaged My self to forbear to use any force and kept My word but chose the night before that came as if he knew well what Answer I was to receive to act those outrages Ye see the sad effects of Fears and Jealousies the miseries they have produced no man can tell you the least good they have brought forth or the least evil they have prevented What inconvenience and burthen My Presence hath been here what disturbance it hath brought upon the Publick or grievance upon any private person your selves are best judges And whatever scandal some men have pleased to cast upon the Cavaliers which they intend should reach all My Retinue and by degrees shall involve all Gentlemen I am confident there hath not been any eminent disorder or damage befallen any man by any person of My Train or under My protection I am sure My directions have been very strict in that point and if they had not been observed I think I should have heard of it by nearer complaints than from London I pray God the same care may be taken there I am sure it hath not been And to give you the fullest testimony of My affection to you and to the Peace of this County and to shew you that no provocation shall provoke Me to make this place to be the seat of the War I have for your sakes passed over the considerations of Honor and notwithstanding the reproaches every day laid on Me laid no siege to that place that they may not have the least pretence of doing you mischief but resolve by God's help to recover Hull some other way for that I will ever sit down under so bold and unexcusable a Treason no honest man can imagine But it seems other men are not of My mind but resolve to make a War at your own doors whatsoever you do or I suffer To what purpose else is their new General armed with an Authority to kill and destroy all My good Subjects their levies of Horse and Foot some whereof are upon their march towards you with Canon mounted and the sending so many new Soldiers into Hull when there is no approach made towards it but to sally out and to commit rapine and by degrees to pour out an Army upon you In this I must ask you advice what you would do for your selves and what you would have Me do for you You see how I am stript of my Navy at Sea which is employed against Me of My Forts and Towns at Land which are filled with armed men to destroy Me My Money and Provisions of My House taken from Me and all My Subjects forbid and threatned if they come near Me that I may be Famine or Solitariness be compelled to yield to the most dishonourable Propositions and to put My self and Children into the hands of a few Malignant persons who have
Esq Edmond Wilde Esquire James Chaloner Esquire Josias Barners Esquire Dennis Bond Esq Humphry Edwards Esquire Gregory Clement Esquire John Fry Esquire Thomas Wogan Esq Sir Gregory Norton Serjeant John Bradshaw Colonel Edmund Harvey John Dove Esq Colonel John Venne John Foulk Alderman Thomas Scot Esquire Thomas Andrews Alderman William Cawley Esquire Abraham Burrell Esquire Colonel Anthony Stapely Roger Gratwicke Esquire John Downes Esquire Colonel Thomas Horton Colonel Thomas Hammond Colonel George Fenwick Serjeant Robert Nichols Robert Reynolds Esquire John Liste Esquire Nicholas Love Esquire Vincent Potter Sir Gilbert Pickering John Weaver Esquire John Lenthal Esquire Sir Edward Baynton John Corbet Esquire Thomas Blunt Esquire Thomas Boone Esquire Augustine Garland Esquire Augustine Skinner Esquire John Dixwel Esquire Colonel George Fleetwood Simon Maine Esquire Colonel James Temple Colonel Peter Temple Daniel Blagrave Esquire Sir Peter Temple Colonel Thomas Waite John Brown Esquire John Lowry Esquire shall be and are hereby appointed Commissioners and Judges for the hearing Trying and Judging of the said Charles Stuart And the said Commissioners or any twenty or more of them shall be and are hereby Authorized and constituted an High Court of Justice to meet at such convenient times and places as by the said Commissioners or the major part or twenty or more of them under their hands and seals shall be appointed and notified by publick Proclamation in the great Hall or Palace-yard of Westminster and to adjourn from time to time and from place to place as the said High Court or the major part thereof meeting shall hold fit and to take order for the charging of him the said Charles Stuart with the Crimes above mentioned and for the receiving His Personal Answer thereunto and for examination of Witnesses upon Oath if need be concerning the same and thereupon or in default of such Answer to proceed to final Sentence according to Justice and the merit of the Cause to be executed speedily and impartially And the said Court is hereby Authorized and required to chuse and appoint all such Officers Attendanrs and other circumstances as they or the major part of them shall in any sort judge necessary or useful for the orderly and good managing of the premisses and Thomas Lord Fairfax the General with all Officers of Justice and other well-affected persons are hereby Authorized and required to be aiding and assisting unto the said Commissioners in the due execution of the Trust hereby committed unto them Provided that this Ordinance and the Authority hereby granted do continue for the space of one Month from the Date of the making hereof and no longer After the reading of this the several Names of the Commissioners were called over every one who was present rising up and answering to his call The King having again placed Himself in the Chair with His face towards the Commissioners Silence was again ordered and Bradshaw with Impudence befitting his person and his place stood up and said CHARLES STUART King of England The Commons of England assembled in Parliament being deeply sensible of the Calamities that have been brought upon this Nation which is fixed upon you as the principal Author of it have resolved to make inquisition for Blood and according to that Debt and Duty they owe to Justice to God the Kingdom and themselves and according to the Fundamental Power that rests in themselves they have resolved to bring you to Trial and Judgment and for that purpose have constituted this High Court of Justice before which you are brought Then their Solicitor John Cook standing within a Bar on the right hand began My Lord in behalf of the Commons of England and of all the People thereof I do accuse CHARLES STUART here present of high Treason and high Misdemeanures and I do in the name of the Commons of England desire the Charge may be read unto him As he was speaking the King held up his Staffe and laying it on his shoulders two or three times bid him Hold a little But Bradshaw ordered him to go on and the Charge being delivered to their Clerk Bradshaw told the King Sir the Court Commands the Charge to be read If you have any thing to say afterwards you may be heard Then the Clerk being ordered to read began The Charge of the Commons of England against CHARLES STUART King of England of High Treason and other High Crimes exhibited to the High Court of Justice THat the said CHARLES STUART being admitted King of England and therein trusted with a limited Power to govern by and according to the Laws of the Land and not otherwise and by his Trust Oath and Office being obliged to use the Power committed to him for the good and benefit of the People and for the preservation of their Rights and Liberties yet nevertheless out of a wicked Design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and Tyrannical Power to Rule according to his Will and to overthrow the Rights and Liberties of the People yea to take away and make void the Foundations thereof and of all redress and remedy of Mis-government which by the Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom were reserved on the Peoples behalf in the Right Power of frequent and successive Parliaments or National Meetings in Council he the said Charles Stuart for accomplishment of such his Designs and for the protecting himself and his Adherents in his and their wicked practices to the same Ends hath traiterously and maliciously levied War against the present Parliament and the People therein Represented Particularly upon or about the thirtieth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and two at Beverly in the County of York and upon or about the thirtieth day of July in the year aforesaid in the County of the City of York and upon or about the twenty fourth day of August in the same year at the County of the Town of Nottingham when and where he set up his Standard of War and upon or about the twenty third day of October in the same year at Edge-Hill and Kineton field in the County of Warwick and upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the same year at Brainford in the County of Middlesex and upon or about the thirtieth day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and three at Cavesham Bridge near Reading in the County of Berks and upon or about the thirtieth day of October in the year last mentioned at or near the City of Gloucester and upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the year last mentioned at Newbury in the County of Berks and upon or about the one and thirtieth day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and four at Croperdy Bridge in the County of Oxon and upon or about the thirtieth day of September in the year last mentioned at Bodmin and other places near adjacent in the County of Cornwall and
of War And Justice stands a Prisoner at the Bar. This Scene was like the Passion-Tragedy His Saviour's Person none could Act but He. Behold what Scribes were here what Pharisees What Bands of Souldiers what false Witnesses Here was a Priest and that a Chief one who Durst strike at God and His Vicegerent too Here Bradshaw Pilate there This makes them twain Pilate for Fear Bradshaw condemn'd for Gain Wretch couldst not thou be rich till Charles was dead Thou might'st have took the Crown yet spar'd the Head Th' hast justifi'd that Roman Judge He stood And washt in Water thou hast dipt in Blood And where 's the Slaughter-House White-hall must be Lately His Palace now His Calvary Great CHARLES is this Thy dying-place And where Thou wer 't our KING art Thou our MARTYR there Thence thence Thy Soul took flight and there will we Not cease to Mourn where Thou didst cease to Be. And thus blest Soul He 's gone a Star whose fall As no Eclipse proves Oecumenical That Wretch had skill to sin whose Hand did know How to behead three Kingdoms at one blow England hath lost the Influence of her KING No wonder that so backward was her Spring O dismal Day but yet how quickly gone It must be short Our SUN went down at Noon And now ye Senators is this the Thing So oft declar'd is this your Glorious King Did you by Oaths your God and Country mock Pretend a Crown and yet prepare a Block Did you that swore you 'd Mount CHARLES higher yet Intend the Scaffold for His Olivet Was this Hail Master Did you bow the knee That you might murther Him with Loyalty Alas two Deaths what Cruelty was this The Axe design'd you might have spar'd the Kiss London didst thou Thy Prince's Life betray What could Thy Sables vent no other way Or else didst thou bemoan His Cross then ah Why would'st thou be the cursed Golgotha Thou once hadst Men Plate Arms a Treasury To bind thy KING and hast thou none to free Dull beast thou should'st before thy Head did fall Have had at least thy Spirits Animal Did You Ye Nobles envy CHARLES His Crown Jove being fal'n the Puny-gods must down Your Raies of Honour are eclip'st in Night The Sun is set from whence You drew your Light Religion Veils her self and Mourns that she Is forc'd to own such horrid Villany The Church and State do shake that Building must Expect to fall whose Prop is turn'd to Dust But cease from Tears-CHARLES is most blest of men A God on Earth more than a Saint in Heav'n THE END A COLLECTION OF DECLARATIONS TREATIES AND OTHER Principal Passages concerning the DIFFERENCES BETWIXT King Charles I. AND HIS TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT Clearly Manifesting The Justice of His Cause His Sincerity in Religion His Constant Endeavours for Peace Bona agere mala pati Regium est LONDON Printed MDCLXXXVII THE PREFACE TO THE NOBILITY and GENTRY OF ENGLAND I Might call this Collection A Complete Body of English Politicks as comprehending both the Duty and the Interest of all true English-men and those largely set forth in some of the most excellent Discourses that were ever written in this kind Which for their own sakes might claim some better respect from the present Age than to be cast aside as out-dated Pamphlets or at the best confusedly scattered like the Leaves of Sibylla without any care of conserving and transmitting them to Posterity The sad Experience of so many years hath taught this Nation to their cost how miserable even the greatest Subjects make themselves by incroaching upon that Soveraignty which alone can protect them from the Injuries and the Scorn of their Inferiours Here you will discover the Arts the Means and the Degrees by which those Mischiefs were attempted and atchieved Which whensoever you see repeated you will know the Plot is as well against your Privilege and the Liberty of your Countrey as the Prerogative of your Prince Indeed If it were as easie to root out the remembrance of the ill Examples as it is to remit the punishment of the Crimes by Acts of Grace and Pardon and Oblivion it were perhaps no Imprudence to let those Mischiefs sleep with their Authors and leave their Memories buried in the Ruines they have made But since many that are content to take the utmost advantage of a Pardon are yet too good to acknowledge they ever stood in need of any since most will remember only What hath been done and few trouble themselves to inquire How or Why it cannot be thought impertinent together with the Actions to represent also the true Causes that have produced such Effects and the Circumstances that attended them which may remain as Marks to warn Posterity of those Errors which have cost the present Age so dear This is here done not from the private phancies or observations of any one Person or Party but from the Publick and Authentick Writings of Both digested in such order that the Reader may compare what both sides had to say for themselves and thereby discern whose Designs and what Counsels tended most to the Peace and Welfare of the Nation A study most proper for those Ranks of men whom the Favour of Princes hath raised above the Common Multitude to this one End that they may assist Them in the administration of Their Government and in keeping Peace and good order in their Countries To have Collected all that passed in these great Contests would have been the Work of many Volumes But the most material and most necessary to carry on the Series of Times and Things which in a manner comprehend the Sum or at least shew the Result of all the rest are here disposed according to their most natural order of time under these few heads I. His Majesties Declarations concerning His Proceedings in His Four first Parliaments p. 217. II. Declarations and Papers concerning the Differences betwixt His Majesty and His Fifth Parliament p. 241. III. Declarations and Paper concerning the Treaty of Peace at Oxford MDCXLII III. p. 325. IV. A Declaration concerning the Cessation in Ireland Also Declarations and Passages of the Parliament at Oxford p. 401. V. Papers and Passages concerning the Treaty of Peace at Vxbridge p. 437. VI. Messages Propositions and Treaties for Peace With divers Resolutions and Declarations thereupon MDCXLV VI. VII VIII p. 547. HIS MAJESTIES DECLARATIONS CONCERNING HIS PROCEEDINGS IN HIS FOUR FIRST PARLIAMENTS A Declaration of the true Causes which moved His MAJESTY to Assemble and after inforced Him to Dissolve the First and Second Meetings in Parliament THE King 's most Excellent Majesty since His happy access to the Imperial Crown of this Realm having by His Royal Authority summoned and assembled two several Parliaments the first whereof was in August last by adjournment held at Oxford and there dissolved and the other begun in February last and continued until the fifteenth day of this present month of June and then to the unspeakable grief
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
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
If the time spent in this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long growth and deep root of those Grievances which we have removed to the powerful supports of those Delinquents which we have pursued to the great necessities and other charges of the Commonwealth for which we have provided or if it be considered in relation forward to many advantages which not only the present but future ages are like to reap by the good Laws and other proceedings in this Parliament we doubt not but it will be thought by all indifferent judgments that our time hath been much better imployed then in a far greater proportion of time in many former Parliaments put together and the charges which have been laid upon the Subjects and the other inconveniences which they have born will seem very light in respect of the benefit they have and may receive And for the matter of Protections the Parliament is so sensible of it that therein they intend to give them whatsoever ease may stand with Honour and Justice and are in a way of passing a Bill to give them satisfaction They have sought by many subtle practices to cause jealousies and divisions betwixt us and our brethren of Scotland by slandering their proceedings and intentions towards us and by secret endeavours to instigate and incense them and us one against another They have had such a party of Bishops and Popish Lords in the House of Peers as hath caused much opposition and delay in the prosecution of Delinquents hindered the proceedings of divers good Bills passed in the Commons House concerning the reformation of sundry great abuses and corruptions both in Church and State They have laboured to seduce and corrupt some of the Commons House to draw them into Conspiracies and Combinations against the Liberty of the Parliament and by their Instruments and agents they have attempted to disaffect and discontent His Majesties Army and to engage it for the maintenance of their wicked and traiterous designs the keeping up of Bishops in their Votes and Functions and by force to compel the Parliament to order limit and dispose their proceedings in such manner as might best concur with the intentions of this dangerous and potent faction And when one mischievous design and attempt of theirs to bring on the Army against the Parliament and the City of London had been discovered and prevented they presently undertook another of the same damnable nature with this addition to it to endeavour to make the Scotish Army neutral whilst the English Army which they had laboured to corrupt and invenome against us by their false and slanderous suggestions should execute their malice to the subversion of our Religion and the dissolution of our Government Thus they have been continually practising to disturb the Peace and plotting the destruction even of all the Kings dominions and have employed their Emissaries and Agents in them all for the promoting of their devilish designs which the vigilancy of those who were well-affected hath still discovered and defeated before they were ripe for execution in England and Scotland only in Ireland which was farther off they have had time and opportunity to mould and prepare their work and had brought it to that perfection that they had possessed themselves of that whole Kingdom totally subverted the Government of it rooted out Religion and destroyed all the Protestants whom the conscience of their duty to God their King and Countrey would not have permitted to joyn with them if by God's wonderful providence their main enterprise upon the City and Castle of Dublin had not been detected and prevented upon the very Eve before it should have been executed Notwithstanding they have in other parts of that Kingdom broken out into open Rebellion surprized Towns and Castles committed murders rapes and other villanies and shaken off all bonds of Obedience to His Majesty and the Laws of the Realm and in general have kindled such a fire as nothing but God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this State will be able to quench it And certainly had not God in his great mercy unto this Land discovered and confounded their former designs we had been the Prologue to this Tragedy in Ireland and had by this time been made the lamentable spectacle of misery and confusion And now what hope have we but in God when as the only means of our subsistence and power of Reformation is under Him in the Parliament But what can we the Commons without the conjunction of the House of Lords and what conjunction can we expect there when the Bishops and Recusant Lords are so numerous and prevalent that they are able to cross and interrupt our best endeavours for Reformation and by that means give advantage to this malignant party to traduce our proceedings They infuse into the People that we mean to abolish all Church-government and leave every man to his own fancy for the Service and Worship of God absolving him of that Obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty whom we know to be entrusted with the Ecclesiastical Law as well as with the Temporal to regulate all the members of the Church of England by such rules of order and discipline as are established by Parliament which is his great Council in all affairs both of Church and State We confess our intention is and our endeavours have been to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the Prelates have assumed unto themselves so contrary both to the Word of God and to the Laws of the Land to which end we past the Bill for the removing them from their Temporal power and employments that so the better they might with meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions Which Bill themselves opposed and were the principal instruments of crossing it And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a Conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn according to the Word of God and we desire to unburthen the Consciences of men of needless and superstitious Ceremonies suppress innovations and take away the monuments of Idolatry And the better to effect the intended Reformation we desire there may be a general Synod of the most grave pious learned and judicious Divines of this Island assisted with some from foreign parts professing the same Religion with us who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good Government of the Church and represent the results of their consultations unto the Parliament to be there allowed of and confirmed and receive the stamp of Authority thereby to find passage and obedience throughout the Kingdom They have malitiously charged us that we intend to destroy and discourage
Learning whereas it is our chiefest care and desire to advance it and to provide a competent maintenance for conscionable and preaching Ministers throughout the Kingdom which will be a great encouragement to Scholars and a certain means whereby the want meanness and ignorance to which a great part of the Clergy is now subject will be prevented And we intend likewise to reform and purge the fountains of Learning the two Universities that the streams flowing from thence may be clear and pure and an honour and comfort to the whole Land They have strained to blast our proceedings in Parliament by wresting the interpretation of our Orders from their genuine intention They tell the people that our medling with the power of Episcopacy hath caused Sectaries and Conventicles when Idolatry and Popish Ceremonies introduced in the Church by the command of the Bishops have not only debarred the people from thence but expelled them from the Kingdom Thus with El ah we are called by this malignant party the Troublers of the State and still while we endeavour to reform their abuses they make us the Authors of those mischiefs we study to prevent For the perfecting of the Work begun and removing all future impediments we conceive these courses will be very effectual seeing the Religion of the Papists hath such Principles as do certainly tend to the destruction and extirpation of all Protestants when they shall have opportunity to effect it It is necessary in the first place to keep them in such a condition as that they may not be able to do us any hurt And for avoiding of such connivence and favour as hath heretofore been shewed unto them that His Majesty be pleased to grant a standing Commission to some choice men named in Parliament who may take notice of their encrease their counsels and proceedings and use all due means by execution of the Laws to prevent all mischievous designs against the Peace and Safety of this Kingdom That some good course be taken to discover the counterfeit and false conformity of Papists to the Church by colour whereof persons very much disaffected to the true Religion have been admitted into place of greatest authority and trust in the Kingdom For the better preservation of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom that all illegal Grievances and Exactions be presented and punished at the Sessions and Assizes and that Judges and Justices be very careful to give this in charge to the Grand-Jury and both the Sheriff and Justices to be sworn to the due execution of the Petition of Right and other Laws That His Majesty be humbly petitioned by both Houses to employ such Counsellours Ambassadours and other Ministers in managing His business at home and abroad as the Parliament may have cause to confide in without which we cannot give His Majesty such Supplies for support of His own estate nor such assistance to the Protestant party beyond the Sea as is desired It may often fall out that the Commons may have just cause to take exceptions at some men for being Counsellors and yet not charge those men with crimes for there be grounds of diffidence which lye not in proof there are others which though they may be proved yet are not legally criminal To be a known favourer of Papists or to have been very forward in defending or countenancing some great Offendors questioned in Parliament or to speak contemptuously of either House of Parliament or Parliamentary proceedings or such as are Factours or Agents for any foreign Prince of another Religion such are justly suspect to get Counsellours places or any other of trust concerning publick employment for money For all these and divers others we may have great reason to be earnest with His Majesty not to put His great affairs into such hands though we may be unwilling to proceed against them in any legal way of charge or impeachment That all Counsellours of State may be sworn to observe those Laws which concern the Subject in his Liberty That they may likewise take an Oath not to receive or give reward or pension from any foreign Prince but such as they shall within some reasonable time discover to the Lords of His Majesties Council And although they should wickedly forswear themselves yet it may herein do good to make them known to be false and perjured to those who employ them and thereby bring them into as little credit with them as with us That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good counsel and good men by shewing Him in an humble and dutiful manner how full of advantage it would be to Himself to see His own estate settled in a plentiful condition to support His Honour to see His people united in ways of Duty to Him and endeavours of the publick good to see Happiness Wealth Peace and Safety derived to His own Kingdom and procured to His Allies by the Influence of His own Power and Government That all good courses may be taken to unite the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland to be mutually aiding and assisting of one another for the common good of the Island and honour of both To take away all differences amongst our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature concerning Religion and to unite our selves against the common enemies which are the better enabled by our Divisions to destroy us all as they hope and have often endeavoured To labour by all offices of friendship to unite the foreign Churches with us in the same Cause and to seek their liberty safety and prosperity as bound thereunto both by charity to them and by wisdom for our own good For by this means our own strength shall be encreased and by a mutual concurrence to the same common End we shall be enabled to procure the good of the whole body of the Protestant profession If these things may be observed we doubt not but God will crown this Parliament with such success as shall be the beginning and foundation of more Honour and Happiness to His Majesty then ever yet was enjoyed by any of His Royal Predecessours Die Mercurii 15. Decemb. 1641. It is this day resolved upon the Question by the House of Commons that Order shall be now given for the Printing of this REMONSTRANCE of the State of the Kingdom H. Elsinge Cler. Parl. D. Com. His MAJESTIES Answer to the Petition which accompanied the Declaration presented to him at Hampton-Court 1 December 1641. WE having received from you soon after Our return out of Scotland a long Petition consisting of many desires of great moment together with a Declaration of a very unusual nature annexed thereunto We had taken some time to consider of it as befitted Us in a matter of that consequence being confident that your own reason and regard to Us as well as Our express intimation by Our Comptroller to that purpose would have restrained you from the publishing of it till such time as you should have received Our Answer
endeavouring to make any excuse for the Actions of Our Ministers That the measure of Our Justice and Favour by way of Reparation should far exceed the proportion of the Sufferings Our good Subjects had undergone by Us which We were confident would beget so mutual an Affection and confidence between Us that such a foundation of firm and stable Happiness would immediately have been laid for the whole Kingdom that all memory of former Grievances would have been easily buried and that this Parliament should receive a glorious celebration both by King and People to the end of the world And therefore upon the first Convention on the third of November We declared Our resolution in that point and then or soon after desired that whatever mistaking had grown in the Government either of Church or State might be removed and all things reduced to the Order of the time the memory whereof is justly precious to this Nation of Queen Elizabeth and for any expression of their Affection to Us in supply of Our known Necessities We were so far from pressing We resolved not to think of it till all Our good People should be abundantly satisfied in all necessary provision for their Liberty and Property and whatsoever else might disturb them in their Estates or Consciences How firmly We have kept Our Self to this Resolution is evident to all the world At the beginning of the Parliament We quickly discerned by some Circumstances of their proceedings that they meant not to confine or contain themselves within the Paths of their Predecessors which We imputed to the disorder and impatience the former Sufferings of the Kingdom had begot in them and therefore We resolved to take no exceptions to any particular but to do Our part in any point of Reformation as soon and as often as any opportunity should be offered unto Us believing that as soon as they should find themselves restored to their old security and the matter and substance of their Doubts and Fears to be removed they would easily and willingly reduce themselves into their good old way and apply themselves to the usual form of their Predecessors in the course of their proceedings And though We well knew the Combination entred into by several persons for an alteration in the Government of the Church which could not but have an Influence upon the Civil Government of the State too and observed that those men had greatest Interest and power of perswading in both Houses who had entred into such Combination yet Our Resolution was so full for the publick satisfaction of Our People that We believed even those men would either have been converted in their Consciences by the clearness and justice of Our Actions or would have appeared so unreasonable or been discovered so seditious that their Malice and Fury would not have been able to have done mischief And therefore We took no notice of the great labour and skill the prime Leaders amongst them had used to get men of their Faction nominated and elected to serve as Members of the House of Commons and did use to remove others whom they knew to be of different Opinions though they were fairly and legally elected wherein there was no other measure or Rule of Justice observed than singly with reference to the Opinions or Affections of the Persons witness besides their putting out or keeping in men upon questionable Elections without the least colour or shadow of Justice their Order whereby they at one clap expelled a very great number of Persons fairly elected by their Country upon pretence that they had some hand or their names used in some Project Monopoly or Patent without charging them with any Crime or to this day proceeding against them and yet they continue amongst them Sir Henry Mildmay Master Laurence Whitakers and others whose Affections and Opinions they are well pleased with though the first of them is notoriously known to be the chief Promoter of the business of the Gold and Silver Thred a Commission complained of viewed and examined and therefore his name might have been easily taken notice of and the other as conversant and as much imployed as a Commissioner in matters of that nature as any Man We speak not this to excuse Monopolies the Inconveniences of which We are sensible of and shall for the future prevent but to shew the partiality of that Faction and the use they make of them to their own advantage The first Remedy after the impeaching several Persons of High Treason whom they looked upon as the chief causes of the publick Sufferings they proposed was The Bill for the Triennial Parliament to the which though We might justly have paused upon several Expressions and Clauses in it and might very well have insisted upon Our old Priviledge and Custom not to pass any Bill till the end of the Session yet since We really did believe most of the Mischiefs then complained of proceeded from the too-long intermission of Parliaments and were resolved for the future to communicate freely and frequently that way with Our Subjects We passed over those Exceptions and consented to it especially upon this Confidence That when such other Acts should be agreed upon for the ease and security of Our People as We desired and expected should be preferred to Us this Act would be a sufficient earnest and assurance that all those Acts should be faithfully observed by Us and so there should be no room left for any Fears and Jealousies which might prevent that mutual Confidence between Us and Our People We earnestly desired to raise and for some time after the passing this Act We found such an acknowledgment from both Houses of Our singular Grace and Favour in consenting to it and so great expressions of their Affections and purposes towards Us that We believed the sense of it would never have been forgotten and were as much pleased that We had taken that way of obliging Our People as they were with the Benefit it self But We were very well able to discover that whatsoever seemed to be asked of Us or to be complained of to Us there was still a Faction of a few Ambitious Discontented and Seditious persons who under pretence of being enemies to Arbitrary Power and of compassion towards those who out of Tenderness of Conscience could not submit to some things enjoyned or commended in the Government of the Church had in truth a desire and had entred into a Combination to that purpose to alter the Government both of Church and State which they were yet to disguise till by their Art or Industry they had infected some with their Opinions and by their cunning Demeanour and Managery of the publick Interests they had seduced others to an implicite confidence in their Power Wisdom and Integrity And against this Design We only opposed a resolution to contribute all Our assistance for the Peace Happiness and Security of Our People and so to convince their Understandings if their Error proceeded from Weakness
Members and further offfered to grant such a free and a general Pardon to all Our loving Subjects as should be thought fit by the advice of both Houses which We thought to be the best way to compose all Fears and Jealousies of what kind soever But the Business of these Men could not be done that way a general Pardon would never have settled the Militia and dispossessed Us of those Rights and that Power without which they could not compass their Designs They now resort to their old refuge the Common People of the City and Suburbs and whatever they desired these Men must ask for the satisfaction of the Fears and Jealousies of the City The City had been desired to lend a hundred thousand pounds for the relief of Ireland and their Answer is drawn up to their hands of their inability to lend and such Reasons given as might advance what had been upon general Discourses neglected The ten thousand Men proffered by the Scots for Ireland were not accepted A Bill having been offered Us for Pressing and in it a Clause not necessary to the present and therefore purposely as We conceive put in in hope We would upon that refuse it declaring Us to have no power to press a Power constantly practised by Our Ancestors and even in the blessed times of Queen Elizabeth Our pause upon it was urged as a Design to lofe that Kingdom although We had offered to raise ten thousand Voluntiers for that purpose if they would pay them The not securing the Cinque-ports though the Custody of them was in a Noble Person against whom the least exception could not be made and the not settling the Kingdom in a Posture of Defence the not removing Sir John Byron from being Lieutenant of the Tower whereby through distrust they were forced to forbear the bringing in of Bullion to the Mint when'tis notoriously known there was more Bullion brought in to Our Mint in the time that Gentleman was Lieutenant than in the same quantity of time in any Mans Remembrance the Votes of the Bishops and the Popish Lords in the House of Peers and all others things which were then in Design and had in vain been attempted by them by the refusal of the House of Peers several times to joyn with them were now urged as principal reasons by this Petition of London why they could not lend a hundred thousand pounds to Ireland and were pressed by several other Petitions contrived by them and presented to both Houses or to the House of Commons And these Petitions are carried up to the Lords by Master Pym who takes upon him to reproach them for not concurring with the House of Commons and impudently lays that Scandal upon Us That We had suffered many to pass by Our own immediate Warrant who were since Commanders in the head of the Rebels A false and abominable Scandal raised by his own Malice to draw Our good Subjects against Us without the least colour or shadow of truth as appears by those Answers they have published to Our Exception in that point wherein there is not the least Evidence of any such Warrant granted by Us though Master Pym be so great a Person that We can have no Reparation against him for that Calumny but had credit enough with the House of Commons to perswade them to charge themselves unjustly to excuse him and to take upon them that he had said nothing in that Speech but by their directions All this had not that quick operation with the Lords with whom though they had committed Twelve Bishops for Treason a thing themselves blush at and the Popish Lords had absented themselves they could not prevail to joyn in matters so unreasonable in themselves and dishonourable to Us therefore the House of Commons by themselves Petition Us thank Us for Our Message of the twentieth of January though they have since declared it to be a breach of Privilege resolving to take it into serious and speedy Consideration only desire for their security That We will put the Tower of London and all the Forts of the Kingdom and the whole Militia into such hands as should be recommended unto Us by them for the House of Peers had refused to joyn with them and so were upon the matter petitioned against and left out in the power of recommendation Sure this was the strangest Petition that till that time had ever been presented by the House of Commons to their King yet We returned a gracious Answer That if any particular should be presented to Us whereby it might appear that the Lieutenant of the Tower was unfit for the trust We had committed to him We would immediately remove him otherwise We were obliged in Honour and Justice not to put such a Disgrace upon him For the Forts and Castles that We were resolved they should be always in such hands and only in such as Our Parliament should have cause to confide in that We would have the nomination of them Our Self but that they should be always left if any thing were objected against them to the Wisdom and Justice of the Parliament For the Militia that when some particular course should be proposed to Us for the ordering of it We should return an Answer agreeable to Honour and Justice as appears more at large in Our Answer of the 28. of February to that Petition This gave them no better satisfaction than the former but finding that without the Consent of the House of Peers of whom much the major part though the Popish Lords and the Bishops were absent dissented from them and against Our Consent they were not like to prevail over Our People they resolve of another Attempt upon them their old friends the Multitude must be again brought down by the great Conductor Captain Venne who is notoriously known and proof thereof offered to be produced by Master Kirton to the House of Commons to have several times sent to and solicited People to come down out of the City with Swords and Pistols when he hath told them or sent them word by his Wife that the worser Party was like to have the better of the good Party and for all which publick offer neither was Master Venne then suffered to answer to this Charge nor Master Kirton allowed any time though many days were set to bring in the particulars and witnesses Many Persons are importuned to set their hands against the Lieutenant of the Tower That they durst not bring in any Bullion to the Mint for want of Confidence when they never brought in any in their lives and being asked how they could set their hands to such a Certificate when it was known that never greater quantity was brought in than at that time answered That they were directed by Parliament-men to do so or else they could not compass their Ends. And having gotten Multitudes of People of several Counties OF such as pretended to be so to deliver Petitions to both Houses and to desire leave
and any found so unjust so illegal as the proceedings against the Gentlemen of Kent for preparing and presenting a Petition agreeable in form and matter to all the Rules of Law and Justice by which Men are to be informed to ask any thing as the judgment against Mr. Binyon that he should be disfranchised be incapable of ever bearing Office in the Commonwealth imprisoned in the Gaol at Colchester for the space of two years and to pay three thousand pounds fine nothing being charged and proved against him that any Law or Reason could tell him he was not to do Though the Sentences in the other Courts were in some cases too severe and exceeded the measure of the offence there was still an offence somewhat done that in truth was a crime but here Declarations Votes and Judgments pass upon Our People for matters not suspected to be crimes till they are punished And have such proceedings ever been before this Parliament If Monopolies have been granted to the prejudice of Our People the calamity will not be less if it be exercised by a good Lord by a Bill than itt was before by a Patent and yet the Earl of Warwick thinks fit to require the Letter-Office to be confirmed to him for three lives at the same time that 't is complained of as a Monopoly and without the alteration of any Circumstance for the ease of the Subject and this with so much greediness and authority that whilest it was complained of as a Monopoly he procured an Assignment to be made of it to him from the person complained of after he had by his Interest stopped the proceedings of the Committee for the space of five Months before that Assignment made to him upon pretence that he was concerned in it and desired to be heard Of such soveraign Power was his Name as it could be no longer a Grievance to Our People if it might prove an Advantage to him A Precedent very likely to be followed in many Monopolies if they may be assigned to Principal members or their friends witness the connivence now given to Sir John Meldram for his Lights since his undertaking their Service at Hull Have Partiality and Corruption in Judges obstructed the course of Justice was there ever such Partiality and Corruption when their fellow-Members of either House are by them importuned and solicited for their Votes in causes before them and no other measure or Rule to the Justice of that faction than the opinions of the persons contending What sums of mony have been given to and what contracts have been made with some Members of either House who are of this powerful Faction We complain of for preserving this Man from being questioned and promoting an Accusation against that Man for managing such a Cause and procuring such an Order We are very well able to give particular Information which We shall willingly do when there may be such a sober and secure debate as becomes the Dignity and Freedom of Parliament and the Witnesses now within their reach may neither be awed nor tampered with before Trial. For how little care there is taken for discoveries of this nature appears by that which upon complaint of a slander against Master Pym was justified and the Author averred against him for taking thirty pound Bribe to preserve a Papist from legal prosecution which hath been so long suffered to sleep at a Committee Our Case is truly stated so truly that there is scarce any Particular urged or alledged by Us which is not known to many and the most to all Men. And must Our Condition be now irreparable Are the Injuries committed against Us and the Law justifiable And must We be censured for using all possible means to be freed from them or to be repaired for them because they seem to carry the Name Consent and Authority of both Our Houses of Parliament There is not a Particular of which We complain that found not eminent opposition in both Houses and yet for the most part not above a moiety of either House present The Order of the ninth of September an Order to suspend the execution of Laws in force passed when there were not above eighty Commoners of which many dissented and but twenty Lords whereof eleven the major part expresly contradicted it The first unseasonable Remonstrance the fountain from whence all the present mischiefs have flowed was carried but by eleven Voices after fifteen hours sitting when above two hundred were absent and was never approved by the Lords The business of the Militia was at least twice rejected by double their number in the House of Peers who consented to it there being no Popish Lord present and twelve Bishops in the Tower and yet this proposed again the House being made thin of those Lords who had formerly opposed it who went out immediately it being their usual course to watch such opportunities to effect their businesses after Master Hollis his Threats and then carried The Declaration against Us sent to New-market was carried but by one Voice in the House of Peers and by a small number in the House of Commons The justifying Sir John Hotham in his Act of High Treason was opposed by many Persons of great worth though neither House had half its number And We are very far from censuring all those Persons who concurred in these or any other particulars We believe very many of them stood not in so clear a light to discern the Guilt Malice Ambition or Subtilty of their Seducers But if in truth there were a consent entirely in both Houses of Parliament as We are most assured there will never be to alter the whole frame of Government must We submit to those Resolutions and must not Our Subjects help and assist Us in the defence of Laws and Government established because they do not like them Did We intend when we called them to that great Council or did Our good Subjects intend when they sent them thither in their behalfs that they should alter the whole frame of Government according to their own Fancies and Ambition and possess those Places during their Lives What Our opinion and resolution is concerning Parliaments We have fully expressed in Our Declarations We have said and will still say they are so essential a part of the Constitution of this Kingdom that We can attain to no Happiness without them nor will We ever make the least attempt in our thoughts against them We well know that our Self and Our two Houses make up the Parliament and We are like Hippocrates Twins We must laugh and cry live and dye together that no Man can be a friend to the one and an enemy to the other the Injustice Injury and Violence offered to Parliaments is that which We principally complain of and We again assure all Our good Subjects in the presence of Almighty God that all the Acts passed by Us this Parliament shall be equally observed by Us as We desire those to be which
their Actions are declared Treasonable and their Persons Traitors and thereupon Your Majesty hath set up Your Standard against them whereby You have put the two Houses of Parliament and in them this whole Kingdom out of Your Protection so that until Your Majesty shall recall those Proclamations and Declarations whereby the Earl of Essex and both Houses of Parliament and their Adherents and Assistants and such as have obeyed and executed their Commands and Directions according to their Duties are declared Traitors or otherwise Delinquents and untill the Standard set up in pursuance of the said Proclamations be taken down Your Majesty hath put us into such a condition that whilest we so remain we cannot by the fundamental Priviledges of Parliament the publick Trust reposed in us or with the general good and safety of this Kingdom give Your Majesty any other Answer to this Message Joh. Brown Cler. Parliament H. Elsinge Cler. Parl. D. Com. This strange Answer might well have discouraged Us from any thought of proceeding further this way and informed Us sufficiently what spirit still governed amongst those few who continued still in both Houses otherwise after so many bitter and invective Messages and Declarations sent to Us and published against Us We should not have been reproached with Our Proclamations and Declarations set forth by Us as the effect of such evil Counsel as was unparallel'd by any former Examples We believe indeed such Proclamations and Declarations have never been before set forth but were former times ever acquainted with such intolerable Provocations Were there ever before these twelve months Declarations published in the name of eitheir or both Houses of Parliament to make their King odious to the People Have either or both Houses ever before assumed or pretended to a Power to raise Armes or levy War in any Cause or can both Houses together exercise such a Power Are those Actions which the Law hath defined literally and expresly to be Treasonable or such Persons to be Traitors not so because they are done by Members of either House or their appointment And must not We declare such who March with Arms and Force to destroy Us to be Traitors because the Earl of Essex is their General Those whom We have or do accuse We have named together with their Crimes notorious by the known Law of the Land a favour not granted to Our Evil Counsellors and appeal to that known Law to judge between Us And now that by this We should have put the whole Kingdom out of Our Protection in whose behalf We do all that We have done is a corrupt Gloss upon such a Text as cannot be perverted but by the cunning practices of such who wish not well to King or People Yet that no weak persons might be misled by that Imputation upon Us we sent a Reply to that Answer in these words WE will not repeat what means We have used to prevent the dangerous and distracted estate of the Kingdom nor how those means have been interpreted because being desirous to avoid effusion of blood We are willing to decline all memory of former bitterness that might make Our offer of a Treaty less readily accepted We never did declare nor ever intended to declare both Our Houses of Parliament Traitors or set up Our Standard against them and much less to put them and this Kingdom out of Our Protection We utterly profess against it before God and the World And further to remove all possible Scruples which may hinder the Treaty so much desired by Vs We hereby promise so that a day be appointed by you for the revoking of your Declarations against all Persons as Traitors or otherways for assisting of Vs We shall with all chearfulness upon the same day recall Our Proclamations and Declarations and take down Our Standard In which Treaty We shall be read to grant any thing that shall be really for the good of Our Subjects Conjuring you to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the dangerous condition of England in as high a degree as by these Our Offers We have declared Our Self to do and assuring you that Our chief desire in this World is to beget a good understanding and mutual confidence betwixt Vs and Our two Houses of Parliament This Message produced an Answer little differing from the former like Men who had no other measure of the justice of their Cause than their Power to oppress Us forgetting their own Duties they sharply inform Us of Ours in these words May it please Your Majesty IF we the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled should repeat all the ways we have taken the endeavours we have used and the expressions we have made unto Your Majesty to prevent those Distractions and Dangers Your Majesty speaks of likely to fall upon this Kingdom we should too much enlarge this Reply Therefore as we humbly so shall we only let your Majesty know that we cannot recede from our former Answer for the reasons therein expressed for that Your Majesty hath not taken down Your Standard recalled Your Proclamations and Declarations whereby You have declared the Actions of both Houses of Parliament to be Treasonable and their Persons Traitors And You have published the same since Your Message of the 25th of August by Your late Instructions sent to Your Commissioners of Array Which Standard being taking down and the Declarations Proclamations and Instructions recalled if Your Majesty shall then upon this our humble Petition leaving Your Forces return unto Your Parliament and receive their faithful Advice Your Majesty will find such expressions of our Fidelities and Duties as shall assure You that Your Safety Honour and Greatness can only be found in the affections of Your People and the sincere Counsels of Your Parliament whose constant and undiscouraged Endeavours and Consultations have passed through Difficulties unheard-of only to secure Your Kingdoms from the violent Mischiefs and Dangers now ready to fall upon them and every part of them who deserve better of Your Majesty and can never allow themselves representing likewise Your whole Kingdom to be balanced with those Persons whose desperate Dispositions and Counsels prevail still so to interrupt all our endeavours for the relieving of bleeding Ireland as we may fear our labours and vast expences will be fruitless to that distressed Kingdom As Your Presence is thus humbly desired by us so is it in our hopes Your Majesty will in your reason believe there is no other way than this to make Your Self happy and Your Kingdom safe John Brown Cler. Parliament Without any bitterness or reprehension of their neglect of Us and the publick Peace to express Our deep sense of the Calamities at hand We yet once more hoping to awake them to a Christian tenderness towards the whole Kingdom sent to them in these words WHo have taken most ways used most endeavours and made most real expressions to prevent the present Distractions and Dangers let all the World
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
Your Crown and Dignity with our Lives and Fortunes Your Presence in this Your great Council being the only means of any Treaty betwixt Your Majesty and them with hope of Success And in none of our Desires to Your Majesty shall we be swaied by any particular man's advantage but shall give a clear Testimony to Your Majesty and the whole World that in all things done by us we faithfully intend the good of Your Majesty and of Your Kingdoms and that we will not be diverted from this End by any private or self-respects whatsoever Jo. Brown Cler. Parliament They will not believe We have done all that in Us lies to prevent and remove the present Distractions because of the Oppressions Rapines and the like committed upon Our good Subjects by Our Soldiers Let them remember who have compelled Us and against Our Souls desire forced Us to raise those Soldiers and then if the Oppressions and Rapines were indeed such as are falsly pretended Our poor Subjects who suffer under them will look on them and only on them as the Authors of all the Miseries they do or can undergo We confess with grief of heart some Disorders have and many more may befal Our good People by Our Soldiers but We appeal to all those Counties through which We have passed what care We have taken to prevent and what Justice We daily inflict upon such Offendors neither hath the least complaint been ever made to Us of Violences and Outrages which We have not to Our utmost Power repaired or punished however those false and treasonable Pamphlets are suffered which accuse Us of giving Warrant for plundring of Houses Our Mercy and Lenity is so well known to the contrary that it is usually made an excuse by those who against their Consciences assist this Rebellion against Us that they chuse rather to offend Us upon the confidence of Pardon than provoke those Malignant Persons who without Charity or Compassion destroy all who concur not with them in Faction and Opinion How far We are from Rapine and Oppression may appear by Our Lenity to the Persons and Estates of those who have not only exercised the Militia the seed from whence this Rebellion against Us hath grown but contributed Mony and Plate to the maintenance of that Army which now endeavours to destroy Us as of Nottingham Leicester and many other places through which We have passed many of whom then were and now are in that Army to let pass Our passing by Chartly the House of the Earl of Essex without other pressures than as if he were the General of Our own Army and Our express Orders to restrain the liberty Our Soldiers would otherwise have used upon that Place and his Estate about it How contrary the proceedings are of these great Assertors of the publick Liberties appears fully by the sad instances they every day give in the plundring by publick Warrant the Houses of all such whose Duty Conscience and Loyalty hath engaged them in Our Quarrel which every good Man ought to make his own by their declaring all Persons to be out of the Protection of Parliament and so exposing them to the Fury of their Soldiers who will not assist this Rebellion against Us their anointed King by the daily Outrages committed in Yorkshire when contrary to the desire and agreement of that County signed under the hands of both Parties they will not suffer the Peace to be kept but that the Distractions and Confusion may be universal over the whole Kingdom direct their Governour of Hull to make War upon Our good Subjects in that County and so continue the robbing and plundring the Houses of all such who concur not with them in this Rebellion lastly by the barbarous Sacrilegious Inhumanity exercised by their Soldiers in Churches as in Canterbury Worcester Oxford and other Places where they committed such unheard-of Outrages as Jews and Atheists never practised before God in his good time will make them examples of his Vengeance We never did nor ever shall desire to secure the Authors and Instruments of any mischiefs to the Kingdom from the Justice of Parliament We desire all such Persons may be speedily brought to condign Punishment by that Rule which is on ought to be the Rule of all punishment the known Law of the Land If there have seemed to be any interruption in proceedings of this nature it must be remembred how long Persons have been kept under general Accusations without Trial though earnestly desired that the Members who were properly to judge such Accusations have by Violence been driven thence or could not with Honour and Safety be present at such Debates that notorious Delinquents by the known Laws were protected against Us from the Justice of the Kingdom and such called Delinquents who committing no Offence against any known Law were so voted only for doing their Duties to Us and then there will be no cause of complaint found against Us. And for the Priviledges of Parliament We have said so much and upon such reasons which have never been answered but by bare positive Assertions in Our several Declarations that We may well and do still use the same expression That We desire God may so deal with Us and Our Posterity as We desire the preservation of the just Rights of Parliament the violation whereof in truth by these desperate Persons is so clearly known to all Men who understand the Priviledges of Parliament that their Rage and Malice hath not been greater to Our Person and Government than to the Liberty Priviledge and very Being of Parliaments witness their putting in putting out and suspending what Persons they please as they like or dislike their Opinions their bringing down the Tumults to assault the Members and awe the Parliament their posting and prosecuting such Members of either House as concurred not with them in their Designs and so driving them from thence for the safety of their Lives their denying Us against the known established Law and the Constitution of the Kingdom to have a Negative Voice without which no Parliament can consist their making close Committees from whence the Members of the Houses are exempted against the Liberty of Parliament and lastly resolving both Houses into a close Committee of Seventeen persons who undertake and direct all the present Outrages and the managery of this Rebellion against Us in the absence of four parts of five of both Houses and without the privity of those who stay there which is not only contrary but destructive to Parliaments themselves By these gross unheard-of Invasions and Breaches of the Priviledges of Parliament and without them they could not have done the other they made way for their attempts upon the Law of the Land and the introduction of that unlimited Arbitrary Power which they have since exercised to the intolerable Damage and Confusion of the whole Kingdom And We assure Our good Subjects the vindication of these just Liberties and Priviledges of Parliament thus violated
be Treason are so accused and others warned from involving themselves in their Guilt and except We will take down Our Standard that Our good Subjects may not repair to Us for Our Defence when so many Armies are raised against Us in several parts of the Kingdom and ready to destroy Us and such of Our good Subjects who dare continue loyal to Us and except We will return to London from whence with Violence We have been driven We must not be treated with or receive any Answer to so gracious a Message It can no longer be doubted by any Man who hath not wilfully forsaken his Understanding that it is no more a Quarrel undertaken by the Parliament but contrived and somented by the persons We have named and now continued solely in their defence to whose Ambition Faction and Malice the true Reformed Protestant Religion the just Right Honour Safety and Life of Us and Our Posterity the Law of the Land which hath so long preserved this Nation Happy the Liberty of the Subject established by that Law and the glorious Frame and Constitution of this Kingdom must be sacrificed But as We have hitherto left no Action unperformed which in Honour Justice and Conscience We were obliged to do or in Christian Policy and Prudence We could conceive might probably prevent these Calamities so We thank God he hath given Us a full Courage and Resolution to run the utmost hazard of Our Life for the suppression of this Horrible Rebellion in the which no disproportion of Power Arms or Money shall discourage Us. And We hope that all Our good Subjects besides by the common Duty of Allegiance will be stirred up for their own sakes for the preservation of the blessed Protestant Religion and for the upholding this whole admirable Frame of Government which being dissolved all their private and particular Rights and Interests must be immediately confounded to bring in their utmost power and Assistance unto Us in this desperate Exigent And We do declare that whosoever shall lose his life in this Service for Our defence the Wardship of his Heir shall be granted by Us without Rent or Fine to his own use and We shall hold Our Self obliged to take all possible care for the support relief and protection of all their Wives and Children who shall have the hard fortune to dye in this Service CHARLES R. Our express pleasure is That this Our Declaration be published in all Churches and Chappels within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales by the Parsons Vicars or Curates of the same MDCXLII His MAJESTY's Declaration to all His loving Subjects after His late Victory against the Rebels on Sunday the 23. of October AS We must wholly attribute the Preservation of Us and Our Children in the late bloody Battel with the Rebels to the Mercy and Goodness of Almighty God who best knowing the Justice of Our Cause and the Uprightness of Our Heart to his Service and to the good and welfare of Our People would not suffer Us and this whole Kingdom to be made a Prey to those desperate Persons so We hold it Our Duty still to use all possible means to remove that Jealousie and Mis-understanding from Our good Subjects which by the Industry and Subtilty of that Malignant Party which hath brought this Mischiefand Confusion upon the Kingdom hath been infused into them and to that purpose thugh even those Scandals are sufficiently answered by many of Our Declarations and Messages and by Our late Protestation made in the head of Our Army which We shall always by the help of God stedfastly and solemnly observe We shall take notice of those subtile Insinuations by which at this present according to that observation We can make and Information We can receive they endeavour to poyson the hearts and corrupt the Allegiance of such of Our good Subjects who cannot so clearly discern their Malice and Impostures First by urging and pressing that false groundless Imputation of Our favouring Popery and Our imploying many of that Religion now in Our Army secondly by seducing Our good People to believe that this Army raised and kept for Our necessary Defence and without which in all probability the Malice of these Men had before this taken Our Life from Us is to fight against and subdue the Parliament to take away the Privileges thereof and thereby to root out Parliaments If either of which were true We should not have the courage with an Army much greater than Ours to hope for success For the First for Our Affection to that Religion Our continual Practice Our constant Profession and several Protestations will satisfie all the World against which Malice and Treason it self cannot find the least probable Objection We wish from Our heart the zeal and affection of these Men to the true Protestant Religion were as apparent as Ours For the imploying Men of that Religion in Our present Service in the Army whosoever considers the hardness and streights the Malice and Fury of these Men have driven Us to their stopping all passages and ways that neither Men nor money might come to Us their declaring all such to be Traitours who shall assist Us their entertaining Men of all Countries all Religions to serve against Us would not wonder if We had been very well contented to have received the service and assistance of any of Our good Subjects who had Loyalty enough whatsoever their Religion is to bring them to Our Succour All Men know the great number of Papists which serve in their Army Commanders and others the great Industry they have used to corrupt the Loyalty and Affection of all Our Subjects of that Religion the private Promises and Undertakings they have made to them that if they would assist them against Us all the Laws made in their prejudice should be repealed yet neither the weakness of Our own condition nor the other Arts used against Us could prevail with Us to invite those of that Religion to come to Our succour or to recal Our Proclamation which forbad them to do so And We are confident though We know of some few whose eminent Abilities in Command and Conduct and moderate and unfactious Dispositions hath moved Us in this great Necessity to imploy them in this Service that a far greater number of that Religion is in the Army of the Rebels than in Our own And We do assure Our good Subjects though We shall always remember the particular services which particular Men have or shall in this Exigent of Ours perform to Us with that Grace and Bounty which becomes a just Prince yet We shall be so far from ever giving the least countenance or encouragement to that Religion that We shall always use Our utmost endeavour to suppress it by the execution of those good and wholsome Laws already in force against Papists and concurring in such further Remedies as the care and wisdom of Us and both Houses of Parliament shall think most necessary for the
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
Towns and Forts which are within the Jurisdiction of the Cinque-Ports they shall be delivered up into the hands of such a Noble Person as Your Majesty shall appoint to be Warden of the Cinque-ports being such a one as they shall confide in That the Town of Portsmouth shall be reduced to the number of the Garrison as was at the time when the Lords and Commons undertook the custody thereof and such other Forts Castles and Towns as were formerly kept by Garrisons as have been taken by both Houses of Parliament into their care and custody since the beginning of these Troubles shall be reduced to such proportioon of Garrison as they had in the year 1636. and shall be so continued and that all the said Towns Forts and Castles shall be delivered up into the hands of such persons of quality and trust to be likewise nominated by Your Majesty as the two Houses of Parliament shall confide in That the Warden of the Cinque-ports and all Governours and Commanders of Towns Castles and Forts shall keep the same Towns Castles and Forts respectively for the Service of Your Majesty and the Safety of the Kingdom and that they shall not admit into any of them any forein Forces or any other Forces raised without Your Majesty's Authority and Consent of the two Houses of Parliament and they shall use their utmost endeavours to suppress all Forces whatsoever raised without such Authority and Consent and they shall seize all Arms and Ammunition provided for any such Forces They likewise humbly propose to Your Majesty that you would remove the Garrisons out of Newcastle and all other Towns Castles and Forts where any Garrisons have been placed by Your Majesty since these Troubles and that the Fortifications be likewise slighted and the Towns and Forts left in such state and condition as they were in in the year 1636. That all other Towns Forts and Castles where there have been formerly Garrisons before these Troubles may be committed to the charge of such persons to be nominated by Your Majesty as both Houses of Parliament shall confide in and under such Instructions as are formerly mentioned And that those new Garrisons shall not be renewed nor their Fortifications repaired without Consent of Your Majesty and both Houses of Parliament Northumberland Will. Pierrepont John Holland Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke March 28. 1643. HIS Majesty is content that all the Garrisons in any Towns and Forts in the hands of any persons imployed by the two Houses of Parliament wherein there were no Garrisons before these Troubles be removed and all Fortifications made since that time may be slighted and those Towns and Forts shall for the future continue in the same condition they were in before For the Cinque-ports they are already in the Custody of a Noble person against whom His Majesty knows no just Exceptions and who hath such a Legal Interest therein that His Majesty cannot with justice remove Him from it untill some sufficient Cause be made appear to Him but is willing if He shall at any time be found guilty of any thing that may make him unworthy of that Trust that he may be proceeded against according to the rules of Justice The Town of Portsmouth and all other Forts Castles and Towns as were formerly kept by Garrisons shall be reduced to their ancient proportion and the government of them put into the hands of such persons against whom no just Exceptions can be made all of them being before these Troubles by Letters Patents granted to several persons against any of whom His Majesty knows not any Exceptions and who shall be removed if just cause shall be given for the same The Warden of the Cinque-ports and all Governors and Commanders of Towns Castles and Forts shall keep the same Towns Castles and Forts as by the Law they ought to do for His Majesty's Service and the Safety of the Kingdom and they shall not admit into any of them Forein Forces or other Forces raised or brought in contrary to the Law but shall use their utmost endeavour to suppress all such Forces and shall seize all Arms and Ammunition which by the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom they ought to seize The Garrisons of Newcastle and all other Towns Castles and Forts in which Garrisons have been placed by His Majesty since these Troubles shall be removed and all the Fortifications shall be slighted and the Towns and Forts left in such state and condition as they were in the year 1636. All other Towns Forts and Castles where there have been formerly Garrisons before these Troubles shall be committed to the charge of such persons and under such cautions and limitations as His Majesty hath before exprest And no new Garrisons shall be renewed nor their Fortifications repaired otherwise than as by the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom they may or ought to be Falkland March 29. 1643. COncerning the appointing of the Warden of the Cinque-ports and Governors of Your Majesty's Towns Castles and Forts we humbly desire to know if Your Majesty's Reply doth intend that both Houses of Parliament may express their Confidence of the persons to whose trust those places are to be committed for that we are directed by our Instructions that if Your Majesty be pleased to assent thereunto that You would nominate persons of Quality to receive the charge of them that we may forthwith certifie both Houses of Parliament that thereupon they may express their Confidence in those persons or humbly beseech Your Majesty to name others none of which persons to be removed during three years next ensuing without just cause to be approved by both Houses of Parliament and if any be so removed or shall dye within the said space the persons to be put in the same Offices shall be such as both Houses shall confide in We humbly desire to know if Your Majesty intends the Garrison of Portsmouth to be of such a proportion as it was about the year 1641. about which time a new supply was added to the former Garrison to strengthen it which both Houses of Parliament think necessary to continue We humbly desire Your Majesty would be pleased to give a more full Answer to this Clause that they should not admit into them any forein or other Forces Raised without Your Majesty's Authority and Consent of the two Houses of Parliament and that they shall use their utmost endeavours to suppress all Forces whatsoever Raised without such Authority and Consent and that those Garrisons should not be renewed or their Fortifications repaired without Consent of Your Majesty and both Houses of Parliament Northumberland J. Holland Will. Armyne B. Whitelocke Will. Pierrepont April 5. 1643. HIS Majesty doth not intend that both Houses of Parliament shall express their Confidence of the persons to whose trust the Cinque-ports or other His Majesty's Towns Castles and Forts now are or shall be committed but only that they shall have liberty upon any just Exceptions to proceed
Debate like to prove wherein the most potent party had nothing of moment left to ask and the other nothing more to give so consequently how hopeless of mutual compliance without which a Settlement is impossible Besides if after my Concessions the two Houses should insist on those things from which I cannot depart how desperate would the Condition of these Kingdoms be when the most proper and approved Remedy should become ineffectual Being therefore fully resolved that I could neither in Conscience Honour or Prudence pass those Four Bills I only endeavoured to make the Reasons and Justice of my Denial appear to all the World as they do to me intending to give as little dissatisfaction to the two Houses of Parliament without betraying my own Cause as the matter would bear I was desirous to give my Answer of the 28. of December last to the Commissioners sealed as I had done others heretofore and sometimes at the desire of the Commissioners chiefly because when my Messages or Answers were publickly known before they were read in the Houses prejudicial interpretations were forced on them much differing and sometimes contrary to my meaning For example my Answer from Hampton-Court was accused of dividing the two Nations because I promised to give satisfaction to the Scots in all things concerning that Kingdom and this last suffers in a contrary sense by making me intend to interest Scotland in the Laws of this Kingdom then which nothing was nor is further from my thoughts because I took notice of the Scots Commissioners protesting against the Bills and Propositions as contrary to the Interests and Engagements of the two Kingdoms Indeed if I had not mentioned their dissent an Objection not without some probability might have been made against me both in respect the Scots are much concerned in the Bill for the Militia and in several other Propositions and my silence might with some justice seem to approve of it But the Commissioners refusing to receive my Answer sealed I upon the engagement of their and the Governour 's Honour that no other use should be made or notice taken of it than as if it had not been seen read and delivered it open unto them whereupon what hath since passed either by the Governour in discharging most of my Servants redoubling the Guards and restraining me of my former Liberty and all this as himself confest meerly out of his own dislike of my Answer notwithstanding his beforesaid Engagement or afterwards by the two Houses as the Governor affirms in confining me within the circuit of this Castle I appeal to God and the World whether my said Answer deserved the Reply of such proceedings besides the unlawfulness for Subjects to imprison their King That by the permission of Almighty God I am reduced to this sad condition as I no way repine so I am not without hope but that the same God will in due time convert the Afflictions into my Advantage In the mean time I am confident to bear these crosses with Patience and a great equality of Mind but by what means or occasion I am come to this Relapse in my Affairs I am utterly to seek especially when I consider that I have sacrificed to my two Houses of Parliament for the Peace of the Kingdom all but what is much more dear to me than my Life my Conscience and Honour desiring nothing more than to perform it in the most proper and natural way A Personal Treaty But that which makes me most at a loss is the remembring my signal Compliance with the Army and their Interests and of what importance my Compliance was to them and their often-repeated Professions and Engagements for my just Rights in general at Newmarket and Saint-Albans and their particular explanations of those generals by their Voted and revoted Proposals which I had reason to understand should be the utmost extremity would be expected from me and that in some things therein I should be eased herein appealing to the Consciences of some of the chiefest Officers in the Army if what I have said be not punctually true and how I have failed of their expectations or my professions to them I challenge them and the whole World to produce the least colour of Reason And now I would know what it is that is desired Is it Peace I have shewed the way being both willing and desirous to perform my part in it which is a just Compliance with all chief Interests Is it Plenty and Happiness they are the inseparable effects of Peace Is it Security I who wish that all men would forgive and forget like me have offered the Militia for my time Is it Liberty of Conscience He who wants it is most ready to give it Is it the right administration of Justice Officers of trust are committed to the choice of my two Houses of Parliament Is it frequent Parliaments I have legally fully concurr'd therewith Is it the Arrears of the Army Upon a Settlement they will certainly be payed with much ease but before there will be found much difficulty if not impossibility in it Thus all the World cannot but see my real and unwearied endeavours for Peace the which by the Grace of God I shall neither repent me of nor ever be slackned in notwithstanding My past present or future Sufferings But if I may not be heard let every one judge who it is that obstructs the good I would or might do What is it that men are afraid to hear from me It cannot be Reason at least none will declare themselves so unreasonable as to confess it and it can less be impertinent or unreasonable Discourses for thereby peradventure I might more justifie this my Restraint than the causers themselves can do so that of all wonders yet this is the greatest to me But it may be easily gathered how those men intend to govern who have used me thus And if it be my hard Fate to fall together with the Liberty of this Kingdom I shall not blush for my self but much lament the future Miseries of my People the which I shall still pray God to avert whatever becomes of me CHARLES R. Votes for a Treaty Die Veneris 28. Jul. 1648. Resolved THat a Treaty be had with the King in Person in the Isle of Wight by a Committee appointed by both Houses upon the Propositions presented to him at Hampton-Court and for the taking away of Wards and Liveries for settling of a safe and well-grounded Peace Die Mercurii 2. Aug. 1648. Resolved THat a Committee of both Houses be sent to his Majesty to acquaint him with their Resolutions to treat personally with his Majesty by a Committee of both Houses in such place as his Majesty shall make choice of in the Isle of Wight upon the Propositions presented at Hampton-Court and the taking away of Wards and Liveries for the settling of a safe and well-grounded Peace Which Treaty is resolved by the two Houses to be transacted with Honor Freedom and Safety
in the odious disguises of Levity Schism Heresie Novelty Cruelty and Disloyalty which some mens practices have lately put upon it Let Her see thy Sacred and Saving Truths as Thine that She may believe love and obey them as Thine cleared from all rust and dross of human mixtures That in the glass of thy Truth She may see Thee in those Mercies which thou hast offered to us in thy Son Jesus Christ our only Saviour and serve Thee in all those Holy Duties which most agree with his Holy Doctrine and most imitable Example The experience We have of the vanity and uncertainty of all human Glory and Greatness in our scatterings and eclipses let it make Vs both so much the more ambitious to he invested in those durable Honours and Perfections which are only to be found in Thy self and obtained through Jesus Christ. VIII Vpon His MAJESTIES repulse at HVLL and the fates of the HOTHAMS MY repulse at Hull seemed at the first view an act of so rude Disloyalty that my greatest Enemies had scarce confidence enough to abet or own it It was the first overt Essay to be made how patiently I could bear the loss of my Kingdoms God knows it affected Me more with shame and sorrow for others than with Anger for My self nor did the Affront done to Me trouble Me so much as their Sin which admitted no colour or excuse I was resolved how to bear this and much more with Patience But I foresaw they could hardly contain themselves within the compass of this one unworthy act who had effrontery enough to commit or countenance it This was but the hand of that Cloud which was soon after to overspread the whole Kingdom and cast all into Disorder and darkness For 't is among the wicked Maxims of bold and disloyal undertakers That bad actions must always be seconded with worse and rather not be begun than not carried on for they think the retreat more dangerous than the assault and hate repentance more than perseverance in a Fault This gave me to see clearly through all the pious disguises and soft palliations of some men whose words were sometime smoother than oyl but now I saw they would prove very Swords Against which I having as yet no defence but that of a good Conscience thought it my best Policy with Patience to bear what I could not remedy And in this I thank God I had the better of Hotham that no disdain or emotion of Passion transported Me by the indignity of his carriage to do or say any thing unbeseeming My self or unsuitable to that temper which in greatest Injuries I think best becomes a Christian as coming nearest to the great example of Christ And indeed I desire always more to remember I am a Christian than a King for what the Majesty of the one might justly abhor the Charity of the other is willing to bear what the height of a King tempteth to revenge the humility of a Christian teacheth to forgive Keeping in compass all those impotent Passions whose excess injures a man more than his greatest enemies can for these give their Malice a full impression on our Souls which otherways cannot reach very far nor do us much hurt I cannot but observe how God not long after so pleaded and avenged my Cause in the eye of the world that the most wilfully blind cannot avoid the displeasure to see it and with some remorse and fear to own it as a notable stroke and prediction of Divine Vengeance For Sir John Hotham unreproached unthreatned uncursed by any language or secret imprecation of Mine only blasted with the Conscience of his own Wickedness and falling from one Inconstancy to another not long after pays his own and his eldest Sons heads as forfeitures of their Disloyalty to those men from whom surely he might have expected another reward than thus to divide their Heads from their bodies whose Hearts with them were divided from their KING Nor is it strange that they who imployed them at first in so high a service and so successful to them should not find mercy enough to forgive him who had so much premerited of them For Apostasie unto Loyalty some men account the most unpardonable sin Nor did a solitary Vengeance serve the turn the cutting off one Head in a Family is not enough to expiate the affront done to the Head of the Common-weal The eldest Son must be involved in the punishment as he was infected with the sin of the Father against the Father of his Country Root and Branch God cuts off in one day These observations are obvious to every fancy God knows I was so far from rejoicing in the Hothams ruin tho it were such as was able to give the greatest thirst for revenge a full draught being executed by them who first employed him against Me that I so far pitied him as I thought he at first acted more against the light of his Conscience than I hope many other men do in the same Cause For he was never thought to be of that superstitious sowreness which some men pretend to in matters of Religion which so darkens their Judgment that they cannot see any thing of Sin and Rebellion in those means they use with intents to reform to their Models of what they call Religion who think all is gold of Piety which doth but glister with a shew of Zeal and fervency Sir John Hotham was I think a man of another temper and so most liable to those down-right temptations of Ambition which have no cloak or cheat of Religion to impose upon themselves or others That which makes Me more pity him is that after he began to have some inclinations towards a repentance for his sin and reparation of his Duty to Me he should be so unhappy as to fall into the hands of their Justice and not My Mercy who could as willingly have forgiven him as he could have asked that favour of Me. For I think Clemency a debt which we ought to pay to those that crave it when we have cause to believe they would not after abuse it since God himself suffers us not to pay any thing for his Mercy but only Prayers and Praises Poor Gentleman he is now become a notable monument of unprosperous Disloyalty teaching the world by so sad and unfortunate a spectacle That the rude carriage of a Subject towards his Soveraign carries always its own Vengeance as an unseparable shadow with it and those oft prove the most fatal and implacable Executioners of it who were the first Employers in the service After-times will dispute it whether Hotham were more infamous at Hull or at Tower-hill tho 't is certain that no punishment so stains a mans Honour as wilful perpetrations of unworthy actions which besides the conscience of the sin brand with most indeleble characters of infamy the name and memory to Posterity who not engaged in the Factions of the times have the most impartial reflections on the
vigor and due execution or some evil Customs preterlegal and abuses personal had been to be removed or some injuries done by My self and others to the Common-weal were to be repaired or some equable offertures were to be tendred to Me wherein the advantages of my Crown being considered by them might fairly induce Me to condescend to what tended to My Subjects good without any great diminution of My self whom Nature Law Reason and Religion bind Me in the first place to preserve without which 't is impossible to preserve My People according to My place Or at least I looked for such moderate desires of due Reformation of what was indeed amiss in Church and State as might still preserve the Foundation and Essentials of Government in both not shake and quite overthrow either of them without any regard to the Laws in force the Wisdom and Piety of former Parliaments the ancient and universal practice of Christian Churches the Rights and Priviledges of particular men nor yet any thing offered in lieu or in the room of what must be destroyed which might at once reach the good end of the others Institution and also supply its pretended defects reform its abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special piety but with pregnant and solid Reasons both Divine and humane which might justifie the abruptness and necessity of such vast alterations But in all their Propositions I can observe little of these kinds or to these ends Nothing of any Laws dis-jointed which are to be restored of any Right invaded of any Justice to be unobstructed of any Compensations to be made of any impartial Reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion true Policy or any other human motives might induce Me. But as to the main matters propounded by them at any time in which is either great Novelty or Difficulty I perceive that what were formerly look'd upon as Factions in the State and Schisms in the Church and so punishable by the Laws have now the confidence by vulgar clamors and assistance chiefly to demand not only Tolerations of themselves in their vanity novelty and confusion but also Abolition of the Laws against them and a total extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a mind to invade This as to the main Other Propositions are for the most part but as waste paper in which those are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomly Nor do I so much wonder at the variety and horrible novelty of some Propositions there being nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for This casts Me into not an Admiration but an Extasie how such things should have the fortune to be propounded in the name of the Two Houses of the Parliament of England among whom I am very confident there was not a fourth part of the Members of either House whose Judgments free single and apart did approve or desire such destructive changes in the Government of the Church I am perswaded there remains in far the major part of both Houses if free and full so much Learning Reason Religion and just Moderation as to know how to sever between the use and the abuse of things the institution and the corruption the Government and the mis-government the Primitive Patterns and the aberrations or blottings of after Copies Sure they could not all upon so little or no Reason as yet produced to the contrary so soon renounce all regard to the Laws in force to Antiquity to the Piety of their Reforming Progenitors to the Prosperity of former times in this Church and State under the present Government of the Church Yet by a strange fatality these men suffer either by their absence or silence or negligence or supine credulity believing that all is good which is gilded with shews of Zeal and Reformation their private dissenting in Judgment to be drawn into the common Sewer or stream of the present vogue and humor which hath its chief rise and abetment from those popular Clamors and Tumults which served to give life and strength to the infinite activity of those men who studied with all diligence and policy to improve to their Innovating designs the present Distractions Such Armies of Propositions having so little in my Judgment of Reason Justice and Religion on their side as they had Tumult and Faction for their rise must not go alone but ever be back'd and seconded with Armies of Soldiers Tho the second should prevail against my Person yet the first shall never overcome Me further than I see cause for I look not at their Number and Power so much as I weigh their Reason and Justice Had the Two Houses first sued out their Livery and once effectually redeemed themselves from the Wardship of the Tumults which can be no other than the Hounds that attend the Cry and Hollow of those men who hunt after Factious and private Designs to the ruin of Church and State Did my Judgment tell Me that the Propositions sent to Me were the Results of the major part of their Votes who exercise their freedom as well as they have a right to sit in Parliament I should then suspect My own Judgment for not speedily and fully concurring with every one of them For I have Charity enough to think there are wise men among them and Humility to think that as in some things I may want so 't is fit I should use their Advice which is the end for which I called them to a Parliament But yet I cannot allow their wisdom such a compleatness and inerrability as to exclude My self since none of them hath that Part to act that Trust to discharge nor that Estate and Honour to preserve as My self without whose Reason concurrent with theirs as the Suns influence is necessary in all Natures productions they cannot beget or bring forth any one compleat and authoritative Act of publick Wisdom which makes the Laws But the unreasonableness of some Propositions is not more evident to Me than this is That they are not the joynt and free desires of those in their Major number who are of right to sit and Vote in Parliament For many of them savor very strong of that old leaven of Innovations masked under the name of Reformation which in my two last famous Predecessors days heaved at and sometime threatned both Prince and Parliaments but I am sure was never wont so far to infect the whole mass of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom however it dispersed among the Vulgar Nor was it likely so suddenly to taint the major part of both Houses as that they should unanimously desire and affect so enormous and dangerous Innovations in Church and State contrary to their former education practice and judgment Not that I am ignorant how the choice of many Members was carried by much Faction in the Countreys some thirsting after nothing more than a passionate revenge of
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right
height as to interpret all fair Condescendings as Arguments of Feebleness and glory most in an unflexible stifness when they see others most supple and inclinable to them A grand Maxime with them was always to ask something which in reason and Honour must be denied that they might have some colour to refuse all that was in other things granted setting Peace at as high a rate as the worst effects of War endeavouring first to make Me destroy My self by dishonourable Concessions that so they might have the less to do This was all which that Treaty or any other produced to let the world see how little I would deny or they grant in order to the Publick Peace That it gave occasion to some mens further restiveness is imputable to their own depraved tempers not to any Concessions or Negations of Mine I have always the content of what I offered and they the regret and blame for what they refused The highest tide of Success set Me not above a Treaty nor the lowest ebb below a Fight tho I never thought it any sign of true Valor to be prodigal of mens lives rather than to be drawn to produce our own Reasons or subscribe to other mens That which made Me for the most part presage the unsuccessfulness of any Treaty was some mens unwillingness to Treat which implied some things were to be gained by the Sword whose unreasonableness they were loath to have fairly scanned being more proper to be acted by Soldiers than by Counsellors I pray God forgive them that were guilty of that Treaties breaking and give them grace to make their advantages gotten by the Sword a better opportunity to use such Moderation as was then wanting that so tho Peace were for our sins justly deferred yet at last it may be happily obtain'd What we could not get by our Treaties we may gain by our Prayers O Thou that art the God of Reason and of Peace who disdainest not to Treat with Sinners preventing them with offers of Atonement and beseeching them to be reconciled with thy self who wantest not Power or Justice to destroy them yet aboundest in Mercy to save soften our hearts by the Blood of our Redeemer and perswade us to accept of Peace with Thy self and both to procure and preserve Peace among our selves as Men and Christians How oft have I intreated for Peace but when I speak thereof they make them ready to War Condemn us not to our Passions which are destructive both of our selves and of others Clear up our Vnderstandings to see thy Truth both in Reason as Men and in Religion as Christians and encline all our hearts to hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace Take from us that Enmity which is now in our hearts against Thee and give us that Charity which should be among our selves Remove the evils of War we have deserved and bestow upon us that Peace which only Christ our great Peace-maker can merit XIX Vpon the various Events of the War Victories and Defeats THE various Successes of this unhappy War have at least afforded Me variety of good Meditations Sometimes God was pleased to try Me with Victory by worsting my Enemies that I might know how with Moderation and thanks to own and use his Power who is only the true Lord of Hosts able when he pleases to repress the Confidence of those that fought against Me with so great advantages for Power and Number From small beginnings on My part he let me see that I was not wholly forsaken by My Peoples Love or his Protection Other times God was pleased to exercise my Patience and teach Me not to trust in the arm of Flesh but in the living God My Sins sometimes prevailed against the Justice of my Cause and those that were with Me wanted not matter and occasion for his just Chastisement both of them and Me. Nor were my Enemies less punished by that Prosperity which hardened them to continue that Injustice by open Hostility which was begun by most riotous and unparliamentary Tumults There is no doubt but personal and private Sins may oft-times over-balance the Justice of publick engagements nor doth God account every gallant man in the worlds esteem a fit instrument to assert in the way of War a righteous Cause The more men are prone to arrogate to their own Skill Valour and Strength the less doth God ordinarily work by them for his own Glory I am sure the Event or Success can never state the Justice of any Cause nor the peace of mens Consciences nor the eternal fate of their Souls Those with Me had I think clearly and undoubtedly for their Justification the Word of Cod and the Laws of the Land together with their own Oaths all requiring Obedience to My just Commands but to none other under Heaven without Me or against Me in the point of raising Arms. Those on the other side are forced to flie to the shifts of some pretended Fears and wild fundamentals of State as they call them which actually overthrow the present Fabrick both of Church and State being such imaginary Reasons for self-defence as are most impertinent for those men to alledg who being My Subjects were manifestly the first assaulters of Me and the Laws first by unsuppressed Tumults after by listed Forces The same Allegations they use will fit any Faction that hath but power and Confidence enough to second with the Sword all their demands against the Present Laws and Governors which can never be such as some Side or other will not find fault with so as to urge what they call a Reformation of them to a Rebellion against them Some parasitick Preachers have dared to call those Martyrs who died fighting against Me the Laws their Oaths and the Religion established But sober Christians know that glorious Title can with truth be applied only to those who sincerely preferred God's Truth and their Duty in all these particulars before their Lives and all that was dear to them in this world who having no advantagious designs by any Innovation were religiously sensible of those ties to God the Church and My self which lay upon their Souls both for Obedience and just Assistance God could and I doubt not but he did through his Mercy crown many of them with Eternal Life whose lives were lost in so just a Cause the destruction of their Bodies being sanctified as a means to save their Souls Their Wounds and temporal Ruine serving as a gracious opportunity for their eternal Health and Happiness while the evident approach of Death did through Gods Grace effectually dispose their hearts to such Humility Faith and Repentance which together with the Rectitude of their present Engagement would fully prepare them for a better Life than that which their Enemies brutish and disloyal Fierceness could deprive them of or without Repentance hope to enjoy They have often indeed had the better against My side in the Field but never I believe at the Bar of
cannot but see the proportions of their evil dealings against Me in the measure of Gods retaliations upon them who cannot hope long to enjoy their own thumbs and toes having under pretence of paring others nails been so cruel as to cut off their chiefest strength The punishment of the more insolent and obstinate may be like that of Korah and his Complices at once mutining against both Prince and Priest in such a method of Divine Justice as is not ordinary the Earth of the lowest and meanest People opening upon them and swallowing them up in a just disdain of their ill-gotten and wors-used Authority upon whose support and strength they chiefly depended for their building and establishing their Desings against Me the Church and State My chiefest comfort in Death consists in My Peace which I trust is made with God before whose exact Tribunal I shall not fear to appear as to the Cause so long disputed by the Sword between Me and My causless Enemies where I doubt not but his Righteous Judgment will confute their fallacy who from worldly Success rather like Sophisters than sound Christians draw those popular Conclusions for God's Approbation of their actions whose wise Providence we know oft permits many events which his revealed Word the only clear safe and fixed Rule of good Actions and good Consciences in no sort approves I am confident the Justice of my Cause and Clearness of my Conscience before God and toward my People will carry Me as much above them in God's decision as their Successes have lifted them above Me in the Vulgar opinion who consider not that many times those undertakings of men are lifted up to Heaven in the prosperity and applause of the world whose rise is from Hell as to the Injuriousness and Oppression of the Design The prosperous winds which oft fill the sails of Pirats do not justifie their Piracy and Rapine I look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of Soul to have been worsted in my enforced Contestation for and Vindication of the Laws of the Land the Freedom and Honour of Parliaments the Rights of my Crown the just Liberty of my Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrine Government and due Encouragements than if I had with the greatest advantages of Success over-born them all as some men have now evidently done what-ever Designs they at first pretended The Prayers and Patience of my Friends and loving Subjects will contribute much to the sweetning of this bitter Cup which I doubt not but I shall more cheerfully take and drink as from God's hand if it must be so than they can give it to Me whose hands are unjustly and barbarously lifted up against Me. And as to the last event I may seem to owe more to my Enemies than my Friends while those will put a period to the Sins and Sorrows attending this miserable Life wherewith these desire I might still contend I shall be more than Conqueror through Christ enabling Me for whom I have hitherto suffered as he is the Author of Truth Order and Peace for all which I have been forced to contend against Error Faction and Confusion If I must suffer a Violent Death with my Saviour it is but Mortality crowned with Martyrdom where the debt of Death which I owe for Sin to Nature shall be raised as a gift of Faith and Patience offered to God Which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept and altho Death be the wages of My own Sin as from God and the effect of others Sins as men both against God and Me yet as I hope My own Sins are so remitted that they shall be no ingredients to imbitter the cup of my Death so I desire God to pardon their Sins who are most guilty of my Destruction The Trophees of my Charity will be more glorious and durable over them than their ill-managed Victories over Me. Tho their Sin be prosperous yet they had need to be penitent that they may be pardoned Both which I pray God they may obtain that my Temporal Death unjustly inflicted by them may not be revenged by God's just inflicting Eternal Death upon them for I look upon the Temporal Destruction of the greatest King as far less deprecable than the Eternal Damnation of the meanest Subject Nor do I wish other than the safe bringing of the Ship to shore when they have cast Me over-board though it be very strange that Mariners can find no other means to appease the Storm themselves have raised but by drowning their Pilot. I thank God my Enemies Cruelty cannot prevent my Preparation whose Malice in this I shall defeat that they shall not have the satisfaction to have destroyed my Soul with my Body of whose Salvation while some of them have themselves seemed and taught others to despair they have only discovered this that they do not much desire it Whose uncharitable and cruel Restraints denying Me even the assistance of any of my Chaplains hath rather enlarged than any way obstructed my access to the Throne of Heaven Where Thou dwellest O King of Kings who fillest Heaven and Earth who art the fountain of Eternal Life in whom is no shadow of Death Thou O God art both the just Inflicter of Death upon us and the merciful Saviour of us in it and from it Yea it is better for us to be dead to our selves and live in Thee than by living in our selves to be deprived of Thee O make the many bitter aggravations of my Death as a Man and a King the opportunities and advantages of thy special Graces and Comforts in my Soul as a Christian If Thou Lord wilt be with Me I shall neither fear nor feel any evil tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death To contend with Death is the work of a weak and mortal man to overcome it is the Grace of Thee alone who art the Almighty and Immortal God O my Saviour who knowest what it is to die with Me as a man make Me to know what it is to pass through Death to Life with Thee my God Tho I die yet I know that Thou my Redeemer livest for ever tho Thou slayest Me yet Thou hast incouraged Me to trust in Thee for Eternal Life O withdraw not thy Favour from Me which is better than Life O be not far from Me for I know not how near a violent and cruel Death is to Me. As thy Omniscience O God discovers so thy Omnipotence can defeat the Designs of those who have or shall conspire my Destruction O shew Me the goodness of thy Will through the wickedness of theirs Thou givest Me leave as a man to pray that this Cup may pass from Me but Thou hast taught Me as a Christian by the example of Christ to add Not My will but thine be done Yea Lord let our wills be one by wholly resolving Mine into Thine let not the desire of Life in Me be so great as that of doing or
Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for Meekness Wisdom and Charity in mens hearts as there was of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of God's Blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Christians Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformation to such private Designs as must needs hinder the publick good I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civil State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without pulling down Mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirm Mine not overthrow it since as I own Mine from Him so I desire to Rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good Ends cannot justifie evil Means so nor will evil Beginnings ever bring forth good Conclusions unless God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of our Confusions and Peace out of our Passions Thou O Lord who only canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings in stead of Christian Reformings Our greatest Deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls That we may in clearness of Judgment and Vprightness of heart be a means to reform what is indeed amiss in Church and State Create in us clean hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within-us that we may do all by thy directions to thy Glory and with thy Blessing Pity the Deformities which some rash and cruel Reformers have brought upon this Church and State quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their Divisions and Confusions what is the pravity of some mens Intentions and weakness of their Judgments so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of Ambition Revenge Covetousness or Sacrilege may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy Providence in just and lawful ways shall entrnst with so great good and now most necessary a work That I and My People may be so blest with inward Piety as may best teach us how to use the Blessing of outward Peace XXI Vpon His MAJESTIES Letters taken and divulged THE taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine Enemies could hardly have expected so they knew not how with honour and civility to use it Nor do I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My Reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness being discovered in the greatest advantages against an Enemy and the greatest Obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedom and secrecy of which commands a Civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publick view Yet since Providence will have it so I am content so much of My Heart which I study to approve to Gods Omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish my Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired Thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the Love and Care I have not more to preserve My own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and that extreme Grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens Malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My Constancy to my Wife the Laws and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poyson That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just Correspondencies no man can blame who loves Me or the Commonwealth since My Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their Peace and Liberty while I am oppressed The World may see how some Mens design like Absolom's is by enormous Actions to widen differences and exasperate all Sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with Patience bear this as other Indignities but with Charity forgive them The Integrity of My Intentions is not jealous of any injury My Expressions can do them for although the confidence of Privacy may admit greater freedom in Writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief Purposes cannot be so stained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men see that I wish nothing more than an happy composure of Differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own than My Peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdoms Affairs so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have always been very loth should be believed of Me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the name of Evil Counsellors It 's probable some men will now look upon Me as My own Counsellor and having none else to quarrel with under that notion they will hereafter confine their anger to My self Altho I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of My own Thoughts or follow the light of My own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing Me to think their Counsels to be other than good for Me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when My Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of Popular glory among the Vulgar with whom Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause as Adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect As if good fortune were always the shadow of Virtue and Justice and did not oftner attend Vicious and Injurious actions as to this world But
I see no Secular advantages seem sufficient to that Cause which began with Tumults and depends chiefly upon the reputation with the Vulgar They think no Victories so effectual to their designs as those that most rout and waste My Credit with My People in whose hearts they seek by all means to smother and extinguish all sparks of Love Respect and Loyalty to Me that they may never kindle again so as recover Mine the Laws and the Kingdoms Liberties which some men seek to overthrow The taking away of My Credit is but a necessary preparation to the taking away of My Life and My Kingdoms first I must seem neither fit to Live nor worthy to Reign by exquisite methods of Cunning and Cruelty I must be compelled first to follow the Funerals of My Honour and then be destroyed But I know God's un-erring and impartial Justice can and will over-rule the most perverse wills and designs of men He is able and I hope will turn even the worst of Mine Enemies thoughts and actions to My good Nor do I think that by the surprize of My Letters I have lost any more than so many Papers How much they have lost of that reputation for Civility and Humanity which ought to be paid to all men and most becomes such as pretend to Religion besides that of Respect and Honour which they owe to their King present and after-times will judge And I cannot think that their own Consciences are so stupid as not to inflict upon them some secret impressions of that Shame and Dishonour which attends all unworthy actions have they never so much of publick flattery and popular countenance I am sure they can never expect the Divine approbation of such indecent actions if they do but remember how God blest the modest respect and filial tenderness which Noah's Sons bare to their Father nor did his open infirmity justify Cham's impudency or exempt him from that Curse of being Servant of Servants which Curse must needs be on them who seek by dishonourable actions to please the Vulgar and confirm by ignoble acts their dependance upon the People Nor can their Malicious intentions be ever either excusable or prosperous who thought by this means to expose Me to the highest Reproach and Contempt of my People forgetting that duty of Modest concealment which they owed to the Father of their Country in case they had discovered any real Uncomeliness which I thank God they did not who can and I believe hath made Me more respected in the hearts of many as he did David to whom they thought by publishing My private Letters to have rendred me as a vile Person not fit to be trusted or considered under any notion of Majesty But Thou O Lord whose wise and all-disposing Providence ordereth the greatest contingencies of humane affairs make Me to see the constancy of Thy Mercies to Me in the greatest advantages Thou seemest to give the Malice of My Enemies against Me. As Thou didst blast the counsel of Achitophel turning it to David's good and his own ruine so canst Thou defeat their design who intended by publishing My private Letters nothing else but to render Me more odious and contemptible to my People I must first appeal to thy Omniscience who canst witness with my Integrity how unjust and false those scandalous Misconstructions are which My Enemies endeavour by those Papers of Mine to represent to the world Make the evil they imagined and displeasure they intended thereby against Me so to return on their own heads that they may be ashamed and covered with their own Confusion as with a cloak Thou seest how Mine Enemies use all means to cloud Mine Honour to pervert My purposes and to slander the footsteps of thine Anointed But give Me an heart content to be dishonoured for thy sake and thy Churches good Fix in Me a purpose to honour Thee and then I know Thou wilt honour Me either by restoring to Me the enjoyment of that Power and Majesty which Thou hast suffered some men to seek to deprive Me of or by bestowing on Me that crown of Christian Patience which knows how to serve Thee in honour or dishonour in good report or evil Thou O Lord art the fountain of Goodness and Honour Thou art clothed with excellent Majesty make Me to partake of thy Excellency for Wisdom Justice and Mercy and I shall not want that degree of Honour and Majesty which becomes the Place in which thou hast set Me who art the lifter up of my head and my Salvation Lord by thy Grace lead Me to thy Glory which is both true and eternal XXII Vpon His MAJESTIES leaving Oxford and going to the SCOTS ALtho God hath given Me Three Kingdoms yet in these He hath not now left Me any place where I may with safety and Honor rest My Head shewing Me that Himself is the safest Refuge and the strongest Tower of Defence in which I may put My Trust In these Extremities I look not to man so much as to God He will have it thus that I may wholly cast My self and My now distressed Affairs upon his Mercy who hath both the hearts and hands of all men in his dispose What Providence denies to Force it may grant to Prudence Necessity is now My Counsellor and commands Me to study My Safety by a disguised withdrawing from My chiefest Strength and adventuring upon their Loyalty who first began my Troubles Haply God may make them a means honourably to compose them This My Confidence of them may disarm and overcome them My rendring My Person to them may engage their Affections to Me who have oft professed They fought not against Me but for Me. I must now resolve the riddle of their Loyalty and give them opportunity to let the world see they mean not what they do but what they say Yet must God be My chiefest Guard and My Conscience both My Counsellor and My Comforter Tho I put my Body into their hands yet I shall reserve My Soul to God and My self nor shall any Necessities compel Me to desert mine Honour or swerve from My Judgment What they sought to take by Force shall now be given them in such a way of unusual Confidence of them as may make them ashamed not to be really such as they ought and professed to be God sees it not enough to deprive Me of all Military Power to defend My self but to put Me upon using their power who seem to fight against Me yet ought in duty to defend Me. So various are all human affairs and so necessitous may the state of Princes be that their greatest Danger may be in their supposed Safety and their Safety in their supposed Danger I must now leave those that have adhered to Me and apply to those that have opposed Me this method of Peace may be more prosperous than that of War both to stop the effusion of blood and to close those wounds already made And in it I am no less