A LETTER FROM A GRAVE GENTLEMAN once a Member of this House of COMMONS to his friend remaining a Member of the same House in LONDON CONCERNING HIS REASONS WHY he left the House and concerning the late Treaty Printed in the Yeare 1643. SIR I Am extreamly glad that in this time of generall Distraction and Ruine of which Pragmaticalnesse and want of Charity are both the effect and the cause there is yet so much Leizure and kindnesse left even in the most busy and most ill-natur'd place to admit a thought of a Person no more considerable and to afford a letter to a Malignant and a Cavalier and that you put me not out either of your Memory or Your Care when those you live with put me out of the House And truly if you could in despight of the Infection of Your Climate have as well preserv'd your Logick as your good Nature either you might have brought me to your Opinions or have left me hopes that I might perswade you into mine Whereas now I see no probability of either your way of arguing being so different from your own usuall rationall way that you seem to mee to have burnt your Aristotles Organon and to have learnt a new manner of making Syllogismes from Mr Gordon and Serjeant Wilde Sir I assure you that though you have there inflicted a Punishment upon me which in the beginning of the Parliament would have broke my Heart and that for no other cause for ought appeared to you then for having businesse at Yorke when you had banisht the King from London yet I am more troubled with the decay of Reputation which both Houses suffer by such unreasonable and unjust Votes then for my own Concerne in their unreasonablenes and Injustice being sufficiently comforted against my share in them by the Company you have given me having expel'd whole Sholes sometimes twenty in a morning of Gentlemen first chosen and still esteemed by their Countries for continuing in and demeaning themselves according to the same Principles by which they had obtained that Choyce and Estimation 1. You know Sir you and I were both at once both committed about the Loanes and put out of the Commission of the Peace for opposing Shipmony and how sensible We after found the Parliament of all mens sufferings in that kind and for those causes And did either of us then think to have lived to have seen any so much as discountenanced by both Houses of Parliament for refusing a loane though it were called a Contribution or opposing an Ordinance as illegall as that Writ grounded upon a Necessity as hard to be discovered as that which was then pretended How often have you told me when you have heard the Courtiers argue that without such a Power in the Crowne no Parliament sitting the Kingdom might be unavoydably destroyed that with or without that Power We should be liable to mighty dangers but the Wisdom of the Law had avoyded those most that were likely to come oftnest That now besides the Question was not what was best to be Law but what was Law That Arguments from Convenience are good considerations in framing of Lawes or founding of States but that the State being framed it was most ridiculous and dangerous to retyre from the Law to a disputable convenience or Necessity and put our selves back again into the same Maze of Debates and Questions which Lawes were framed to be rules to us to deliver us from And yet then Sir We might have known this present fundamentall and indeed only Law now left of nature and Necessity And Salus Populisuprema Lex was a sentence that was no stranger to Vs and these are sure better Pretences for one Estate when the other two are not in being then for two Estates in the presence and in the despight of the Third 2. You and I Sir were both of that Parliament in which my Lord of Bristolls dispute with my Lord Duke of Buckingham and our dislike of my Lord Duke got my Lord of Bristoll all those that dislikt the other to labour to assist and protect him and you know how studious most men were in that work when my Lord of Bristoll was accus'd of Treason by the Kings Atturney in the Lords House and yet the accusation stood received till the end of the Parliament And could We ever have then believed that an Accusation in the same manner by the same Officer in the same Court before almost all the very same men no difference in the case but between Bristoll and Kimbolton should be voted a high breach of Priviledge should be a Reason to censure the Atturney and the maine and most sufficient Pretence for most necessary and defensive Armes at least for a horrid Rebellion under that Title 3. You and I were both of that Parliament in which my Lord of Arundell being Committed you know how both Houses laboured his Discharge You know how tender we were then of Our Priviledges and how much more likely to claime a Priviledge that we had not then to quit a Priviledge we had and how many able honest judicious Lawyers we had of the House that would not have suffered us to have overseen Our Right And when in that Parliament a Petition framed by both Houses did admit their Priviledge of Parliament not to extend to Cases either of Treason Felony or refusing to give sureties for the Peace could we ever have thought to see it claimed as a Priviledge that no member be restrained without order of the House though in case of Treason to be immediatly acted upon the Kings Person And could we ever have thought to have seen the People engaged by Order of the House of Commons alone and under Pretence of an uncommanded Protestation to have assisted all such as should be so restrained in despight of this Declaration of both Houses and in Opposition to the known Lawes of the Land 4. You and I Sir have been of many other Parliaments and when we saw so many Bills offered and some pass't and others laid by sometime with Our sorrow but never with our complaint when we all acknowledged with the old Act of Parliament that is was of the Kings Regality to grant or deny them and no one of us so much as whispered to any friend that the King had done illegally in doing so or broke the Oath taken at His Coronation because of the Clause Quas vulgus Elegerit could we ever have thought then to have seen the whole frame of Monarchy destroyed by seeing the Kings Negative voyce denyed Him and He call'd by consequence a perjur'd man for not consenting to any publique Bill from both Houses though it were to depose Himselfe 5. When in those Parliaments We saw so little prevalency in the Puritan party that they were never able to passe a Bill even in the House of Commons for such an ease of weake consciences in the point of indifferent Ceremonies as I alwayes wish't them and as the
Peace it selfe is not more desirable then the Conditions of it would be reasonable which would then be had from them But Feares and jealousies keep you still on that side And to this I can only answer First that of the King there is no ground of Fears and Iealousies If there be they must be both of His Will and of His Power and I can see no pretence for either Here have been during His Government many and great Illegalities suffered and committed by His Ministers But was He ever bred in any of the Innes of Court and then is it reasonable to lay the fault of that to His Charge which as He often knew not to be done at all So He never knew to be illegally done Did He not ever leave the tryall to the lawes Did He ever Sollicite or threaten any Iudge to say that was Law which was not Did He ever offer to protect any from this Parliament that had either offended against Law or Iudg'd amisse of Law though in the Cases most to His own advantage And hath he not given all possible Personall Satisfaction for other mens faults both by publique acknowledgements a thing unusuall for Princes to descend to of things past by extraordinary Provisions for the future by the Punishment of His nearest and most trusted Setvants in no ordinary way by quitting many Rights pretended to by His Ancestors and many more confest to be Legally in Him by frequent and Solemne Protestations and Execrations which are much strengthned by the Person of the Protestor known to be neither revengefull nor guilty of any of those Crimes or liable to any of those temptations which most usually engage men into breach of so publique a faith And lastly which should most worke with them who are most wrought upon by that Is it not evident that His Interest joynes with His Conscience in the requiring this observance from Him and that for Him to break what the promises to His whole Kingdom and in the observance of which the whole Kingdome is concern'd were the way to turne the Cavaliers into Roundheads and the same thing as for Him to mediate a League between His Friends and His Enemies against Himselfe The King Sir hath had great Experience by what meanes the Court lost their Interest in the People and by the Advantage that hath been since made out of it upon Him of what Consequence that Interest is and He is more to be trusted that He will never hazard the like losse by the same way then any new Prince in whose time there had been no misgovernments and misfortunes He cannot but know that a Kingdome is like a Torch which having been once on Fire though after put out will take Fire againe much more easily then another which was never kindled Secondly I answer That the King hath reason to have Fears and Iealousies not only in Case He accepted of their Propositions but although His own Propositions were granted to Him if His care of His People did not prevaile with Him above them For both the Will and the Power of others doth sufficiently appeare by what hath been already attempted and effected both by them and against Him And when His Army is once disbanded with no fuller satisfaction in their Pay and perhaps with much lesse to some of their Hopes then He is able to give them He will be so much more unlikely to be able to raise another if a Necessity of it should come againe and the zeale of their Army of Separatists is so well known and in how short warning upon the least signe they would flock together againe And how much they are the more Plotting more united more industrious and more violent Party of the Houses and of the Kingdom and what influence Arts union Industry and violence have upon the People to mislead carry away or bear down the divided and the indifferent that is the Major part of the rest is so well known too that whether by beginning a new warre if they see Cause or by awing the Parliament againe for they will be ready to travail farther then twenty miles in so good an errand or by perpetuall Diligence in the House observing and complying with the Interests and affections of the Members to gain them over or in watching when the House is emptiest and fittest for their Turne or by any other Art that can conduce to their ends with the People first to seduce and then to inflame them they are likely to have no small advantage of His Majesty and are most unlikely not to improve to the uttermost any Advantage they shall have Thirdly I answer That the Kingdom hath as much Cause as the King to have Fears and Iealousies of the same Persons And that in those poynts which are most deere and most important to them Doth Alteration of the Religion establisht deserve a Iealousy What Printing Preaching and violence doe we daily heare and see against the Government and Liturgy of this famous Protestant Church Doe they not avowedly fight to take it away What swarmes of Lay Tub-Preachers what strange unheard of Innovations daily arise among us Nor are those Innovations only about words or Actions in themselves indifferent as calling a Table an Altar a Minister a Priest or receiving the Communion rather at the window then in the middle of the Chancell Innovations which yet you know Sir I never approved nor yet about opinions meerly speculative as some of those are which have formerly troubled Parliaments but in such opinions as disorder all Government and dissolve civill society in order to setting up Iesus Christ in a Throne in which no History can tell us that ever he sate yet throughout any one Province or in any one Parish And all this I will not say how unpunisht but how countenanc't and by whom but by those men who make use of Your Authority to produce none of your ends Doth the danger or rather the destruction of the Property and Liberty of the Subject deserve a Iealousy Is not all they have or as much as is thought fit taken from them by Orders of both Houses who have no more right to that power then a Grand-jury Are not men committed in an arbitrary way no cause exprest nor Legall cause known by both Houses and then in despight of all Habeas Corpusses retayn'd Nay Are not they ordinarily committed by the House of Commons alone which till of late never pretended to any right of committing any Body but the Members of their own House or such out of it as had broken some Priviledge of theirs Nay is not the publique Liberty given up into the Hands of Committees and strangers delegated by them and all this done by the Power of these men Doth the Alteration of the Civill State and of the very frame and Constitution of Parliaments deserve a Iealousy Have not the Arts Industry and violence of those Men and of their Party so wrought and framed both Houses as to
will hold the Crowne it selfe by no better a Tenure then durante bene placito Nor could you expect that He should grant you that together with such other things having an Army at Oxford which alone and naked He refus'd at Hampton-Court and Windsor What else doe you except at in the Treaty Why say you the King pretends to aske nothing but what is Law why doth He require us to adjourne from London Sir He never required it He required a security from Tumults and violence for Himselfe and both Houses and this sure is due to Him by the Law the other course He only propos'd as that which in his Opinion could only effect it and truly if the minds of the Rabble of London be not much altered since I left it I must be much of his mind But say you The King was ever offered that He was indeed Sir but at the same time they defended that there had been no Tumults so that the King could not receive so much of Security from their Offer as the Tumults must needs receive of encouragement from their Defence the sense of what they said put together being only this That they would secure Him and us from any thing which they would confesse to be a Tumult But for my part if I be cōstrained in danger it is not enough for me that you vote me free and safe Call them Tumults or not as you please if there be that which lookes as like Tumults as the last did I shall be though perhaps in more safety yet in no more security then at Edgehill But say you what an ungratefull thing were it of the Parliament to desert that City from which they have received so large Assistance Truly Sir the Country God forgive it hath contributed not a little to your Assistance too and ought to have some part of your Care and for the City it selfe besides that Allegiance is a duty as well as Gratitude and a precedent Bond to this in my Opinion even for their sake you ought to consent to this advice Doe you thinke That City will be able to beare that burthen of Envy which must fall upon them from all the rest of the Nation if they see you for this consideration expose them to all the miseries of Warre rather then remove twenty miles from thence though the King allow you your owne Choice of a place out of all the whole Kingdome besides Nay doe you thinke that if the Armies were disbanded the Peace againe begunne and the whole Parliament now met at St Albans that the City would not find both their charge much diminisht and their Trade and gettings much increased and a miraculous change of their condition to the better Nor can any inconvenience come by it unlesse you thinke Freedome not only not essentiall to but not consistent with such meetings and unlesse it be your opinion that no Tumults no Parliament But say you suppose the King in Iustice might aske and refuse all He does Were it not yet prudent for the King rather to consent to part with some of His Right then to venture all the rest And were it Iustifiable in Him to destroy His Kingdome and so many Innocents by not ending the Warre when now He may Sir I am confident since you are able to say nothing against it or if you are why doe you not you would as well have granted as have supposed this if you had not feard Sr Robert Pyes fortune That your Letter might have been read at the close Committee and till you give me Reasons why you cannot grant it I must assume it as if you did And then truly I must tell you that this Logicke will in all times render the wise and the welnatured a Prey to the unreasonable and the furious and that as there are some outward medicines for the Stone and the Gout which only stupifying and not removing the Cause give only a little ease for the present but make the fits both more frequent and more fierce so the accepting of such Conditions might ease us for the present of this Rebellion but when it were seen that to seize and usurp all the Kings Rights and peremptorily to resolve rather to destroy the Kingdome then to give them up againe were the way to perswade Him to relinquish a good part of them it may so farre encourage future Rebellions that We may doubt they would be hereafter as Trienniall as Parliaments till the King by this Logicke and little by little have given so much to appease them that nothing will be left Him either to give or to keep and out of His Care of His People He have made them none of His and have engag'd them besides into the miseries of many Warres by paying so dearly for the end of this But Sir I pray turne your Argument on the other side Both Houses have not Kingdomes of their own to see destroyed by the Warre but they have Rights as Houses and Estates as Persons which being their all is to be prudentially of the same Concern to them And suppose the King did ask them to part with some of their Rights or Estates were it prudent or justifiable in them by the same reason to venture all their Rights rather then part with some and to destroy their fortunes the Kingdome and so many Innocents by not ending the Warre when they might But Alas how much more imprudent and unjustifiable is it in them to venture all and destroy the Kingdom and so many Innocents by continuing this War rather then to grant to the King what is justly and notoriously His own or forbeare to insist that He should grant that to them which you do not so much as pretend in Iustice to belong to them And do you think whether the People will not be excellently satisfied and whō they will adhere unto in it when they see the cause of the Continuance of this miserable Warre thus shortly truly and clearly stated and layd open Can you Sir pretend any longer to be thought one of the moderate by any other title then by living among those who are somewhat madder then your selfe if you can beleeve that the requiring much that is neither reasonable nor theirs argue Inclinatiō to Peace in both Houses the Kings asking but somwhat that is reasonable and his own show an Aversion to it in His Majesty if you continue to blame the King for not granting what you only suppose it Prudence to grant continue to joyne with assist those against your Allegiance and against Him who insist upon that which the same Rule of Prudence doth oblige them not to insist upon and the Rule of Iustice obliged them not to have askt Especially since If your Assistance and that of such as you are did not give them their strength there were then no Colour of any Argument left so much as from Prudence to perswade the King to grant what they now ask Him and