lawful Government while the Almighty secured the Glory of the King even in His Sufferings provided for the Support and Honour of the Royal Family in its lowest Estate and miraculously preserved the Chief of it from innumerable dangers and made us to see afterwards in the Series of his Providences that he had not withdrawn his loving-kindness from the House of King CHARLES by restoring it to its primitive Grandeur And this he was pleased to signifie to the King by a Passage that appeared little less than a Miracle For while He was at Oxford and the Earl of Southampton now Lord High-Treasurer of England a Person of unquestionable Honour and Veracity of an eminent Integrity above the Flattery of Princes who doth attest this Occurrence as Gentleman of the Bed-chamber lay one Night in the same Chamber with Him the Wax Mortar which according to Custom the King always had in His Chamber was in the night as they both conceived and took notice of fully extinguished But my Lord rising in the Morning found it lighted and said to the KING Sir this Mortar now burns very clearly at which they both exceedingly wondred as fully concluding it had been out in the Night and they could not imagine how any of the Grooms or any other could possibly light it the Door being locked with a Spring within This busying the wonder of both for the present the King afterwards when He saw the Malice of His Enemies press hard upon His Life and Ruine reflecting upon this Occurrence drew it into this Presage That though God would permit His Light to be extinguished for a time yet He would at last light it again which was verified in the Event for though God suffered the Faction to spill His blood yet after many years of Troubles and when he had permitted those Monsters to bring us to the brinks of destruction he restored His Son to the Crown in as much Splendour and Greatness as any of His Predecessors As His Abilities for the Publick administration of Government were all apt to raise Admiration so His Recreations and Privacies gave a Delight to such as communicated in the sight of them and there needed no more to beget an Honour of Him than to behold Him in His Diversions which were all serious and there was no part of His time which either wanted benefit or deserved not Commendation In His younger days His pleasures were in Riding and sometimes in breaking the great Horse and He did it so gracefully that He deserved that Statue of Brass which did represent Him on Horse-back Besides this He delighted in Hunting an active and stirring Exercise to accustom Him to toils and harden that body whose mind abhorred the softness of Luxury and Ease which Vicious Princes think a part of Power and the Rewards of Publick Cares but He used this as the way whereby the Antient Heroes were habituated to Labours and by contending with some beasts in Strength and others in Swiftness first to rout then to chase their flying Enemies When the season of the year did not permit this sport then Tennis Gough Bowls were the ways of His Diversions and in all these He was wonderfully active and excellent His softer pleasures were Books and of His time spent in these there were many Monuments In His Library at St James's there was kept a Collection of His of the excellent Sayings of Authors written with His own hand and in his Youth presented to His Father King JAMES and there is yet extant in the hands of a Worthy Person His Extracts written with His own hand out of My Lord of Canterbury's Book against Fisber of all the Arguments against the Papists digested into so excellent a Method that He gave Light and Strength to them even while He did epitomise them into a sheet or two of Paper The same Care and Pains He had bestowed in reading the most Judicious Hooker and the learned Works of Bishop Andrews out of all which He had gathered whatsoever was excellent in them and fitted them for His ready use When He was tired with Reading then He applied Himself to Discourse wherein He both benefited Himself and others and He was good at the relation of a Story or telling of an Occurrence When these were tedious by continuance He would either play at Chess or please Himself with His Pictures of which He had many choice Pieces of the best Masters as Titian Rafael Tintoret and others with which He had adorned His most frequented Palaces as also with most antique Pieces of Sculpture so that to those that had travelled it seemed that Italy was translated to His Court. As His Spirit was thus accomplished so His Body had its Elegancies His Stature was of a just height rather decent than tall His Body erect and not enclining to a Corpulency nor meager till His Afflictions wrought too strongly upon it to a Leanness His Limbs exactly proportioned His Face full of Majesty and His Brow large and fair His Eyes so quick and piercing that they went farther than the Superficies of men and searched their more Inward parts for at the first sight He would pass a judgment upon the frame of a man's Spirit and Faculties and He was not often mistaken having a strange happiness in Physiognomy and by reason of this He would remember any one He had seen but once many years after His Complexion was enclining to a Paleness His Hair a brown which He wore of a moderate length ending in gentle and easie curles upon His left side He indulged one Lock to a greater length in the youthful part of His Life His Beard He wore picked but after the Faction had passed those Votes of No Addresses He permitted it to grow neglectedly and to cover more of His face His Gestures had nothing of affectation but full of Majestick gravity His motions were speedy and His gate fast which shewed the Alacrity and Vigour of His Mind for His Affections were temperate He was of a most healthful Constitution and after the infirmities of His Childhood was never sick Once He had the small Pox but the Malignity of it was so small that it altered not His Stomach nor put Him to the abstinence of one Meal neither did it detain Him above a fortnight under the Care of His Physicians He was Father of four Sons and five Daughters 1. Charles James born at Greenwich on Wednesday May 13th 1628. but died almost as soon as born having been first christned 2. Charles Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales born at St. James's May 29th 1630. whom after a fellowship in the Sufferings of His Father some brave but unsuccessful attempts to recover the Rights of His Inheritance and twelve years various fortune abroad God was pleased by a wonderful Providence without blood or ruine to conduct to His Native Throne and make Him the Restorer of Peace to a People wearied and wasted almost to a Desolation by several
considered your Propositions and finds it very difficult in respect they import so great an Alteration in Government both in Church and State to return a particular and positive Answer before a full debate wherein those Propositions and all the necessary Explanations and Reasons for assenting dissenting or qualifying and all inconveniences and mischiefs which may ensue and cannot otherwise be so well foreseen may be discussed and weighed His Majesty therefore proposeth and desireth as the best Expedient for Peace That you will appoint such a number of Persons as you shall think fit to Treat with the like number of Persons to be appointed by His Majesty upon the said Propositions and such other things as shall be proposed by His Majesty for the preservation and defence of the Protestant Religion with due regard to the ease of tender Consciences as His Majesty hath often offered the Rights of the Crown the Liberty and Property of the Subjects and the Privileges of Parliament and upon the whole matter to conclude a happy and blessed Peace Unto which Message this Answer of the 27. of December was returned to His Majesty May it please Your most Excellent Majesty VVE Your Majesty's humble and Loyal Subjects of both Kingdoms have considered of Your Majesty's Message of the 13. of December 1644. sent by the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton directed to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland now at London and do in all humbleness return this Answer That we do consent there be a Treaty for a safe and well-grounded Peace but find that it will require some time to resolve concerning the Instructions and manner of that Treaty and therefore that Your Majesty might not be held in suspence touching our readiness to make use of any opportunity for attaining such a blessed and happy Peace in all Your Majesty's Dominions we would not stay Your Majesty's Messengers till we did resolve upon all those particulars which we will take into our serious consideration and present our humble desires to Your Majesty with all convenient speed Westminster the 20. of December 1644. Signed in the name and by warrant of the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland Lowdon Gray of Wark Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore William Lenthal Speaker of the Commons House assembled in Parliament And afterwards upon the 18th of January following Sir Peter Killegrew brought this farther Answer to His Majesty May it please Your most Excellent Majesty VVE Your Majesty's humble and Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland do make our further Answer to Your Majesty's Message of the 13 th of December last 1644. concerning a Treaty for Peace as followeth We do consent that there be a Treaty for a safe and well-grounded Peace between Your Majesty and Your humble and Loyal Subjects assembled in the Parliament of both Kingdoms and for the present have appointed Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembrook and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Basil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wenman Denzill Hollis William Pierrepont Sir Henry Vane junior Oliver St. John Bulstrode Whitelock John Crew Edmund Prideaux for the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and John Earl of Lowdon Lord Chancellor of Scotland Archibald Marquefs of Argyle John Lord Maitland John Lord Balmerino Sir Archibald Johnston Sir Charles Erskin George Dundas Sir John Smith Master Hugh Kennedy and Master Robert Barclay for the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland together with Master Alexander Henderson upon the Propositions concerning Religion Who or any Ten of them there being always some of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms are appointed and authorized to meet at Vxbridge on what day Your Majesty shall be pleased to set down before the last day of this present January with such persons as Your Majesty shall appoint under Your Sign Manual for that purpose and the number of the persons to Treat not to exceed Seventeen on either part unless the persons named for the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland now not here or any of them shall come and then Your Majesty may have the like number if You please there to Treat upon the Matters contained in the Propositions we lately sent unto Your Majesty according to such Instructions as shall be given unto them and the Propositions for Religion the Militia and for Ireland to be first Treated on and agreed and the time for the Treaty upon the said Propositions for Religion the Militia and for Ireland not to exceed Twenty days And for the things mentioned in Your Message to be propounded by Your Majesty when the Persons sent by Your Majesty shall communicate the same to the Committees appointed by us as aforesaid we have directed them to send the same to us that they may receive our Instructions what to do therein And to the end that the Persons that are to be sent from Your Majesty and from us with their Retinue not exceeding the number of one hundred and eight on either part may repair to Vxbridge stay there and return at their pleasure without interruption that mutual safe Conducts be granted to the said Persons according to the several Lists of their Names Signed by Order of the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster Signed in the name and by warrant of the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland Lowdon Grey of Wark Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore William Lenthall Speaker of the Commons House in the Parliament of England Whereunto His MAJESTY returned an Answer inclosed in a Letter from Prince Rupert to the Earl of Essex dated the 21 of January which Letter and Answer were as followeth The Letter My Lord I Am commanded by His Majesty to return this His Answer to the Message lately sent Him from the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland by Sir Peter Killegrew I have likewise sent your Lordship His Majesty's safe Conduct for the persons desired and also a List of the names of those His Majesty hath appointed to Treat for whom together with their Retinue His Majesty hath desired a safe Conduct The Answer inclosed HIS Majesty having received a Message by Sir Peter Killegrew from the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland concerning a Treaty returns this Answer That His Majesty doth very willing consent that there be a Treaty upon the Matters contained in the Propositions lately sent unto Him in such manner as is proposed and at the place appointed in the said Message and to that purpose His Majesty will send the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hartford the Earl of
Southampton the Earl of Kingston the Earl of Chichester the Lord Capell the Lord Seymour the Lord Hatton the Lord Culpeper Secretary Nicholas Master Chancellor of the Exchequer the Lord Chief Baron Lane Sir Orlando Bridgeman Sir Thomas Gardiner M. John Ashburnham M. Jeffrey Palmer together with Dr. Steward Clerk of His Majesty's Closet upon the Propositions concerning Religion to meet with the persons mentioned in the said Message at Vxbridge on Wednesday night the 29 th of this instant January the Treaty to begin the next day which persons or any Ten of them shall be sufficiently authorized by His Majesty to Treat and conclude on His Majesty's part And to the end that the persons aforesaid and their Retinue may repair to Vxbridge stay there and return at their pleasure without interruption or go or send during their abode there to His Majesty as often as occasion shall require His Majesty desires that a safe Conduct may accordingly be sent for the said persons and their Retinue according to a List of their names herewith sent And then also inclosed in a Letter from Prince Rupert to the Earl of Essex His Majesty sent Propositions to be Treated upon on His Majesty's part which Letter and Propositions follow My Lord I Am commanded by His Majesty to send these enclosed Propositions to your Lordship to be presented to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland to the end that there may be as little loss of time as is possible but that the same may be treated on as soon as may be thought convenient after the entry upon the Treaty His MAJESTY'S Propositions to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland for a safe and well-grounded Peace I. THAT His Majesty's own Revenue Magazines Towns Forts and Ships which have been taken or kept from Him by force be forthwith restored unto Him II. That whatsoever hath been done or published contrary to the known Laws of the Land or derogatory to His Majesty's Legal and known Power and Rights be renounced and recalled that no seed may remain for the like to spring out of for the future III. That whatsoever illegal Power hath been claimed or exercised by or over His Subjects as Imprisoning or putting to Death their Persons without Law stopping their Corpus's and imposing upon their Estates without Act of Parliament c. either by both or either House or any Committee of both or either or by any Persons appointed by any of them be disclaimed and all such persons so committed forthwith discharged IV. That as His Majesty hath always professed His readiness to that purpose so He will most chearfully consent to any good Acts to be made for the suppression of Popery and for the firmer settling of the Protestant Religion established by Law as also that a good Bill may be framed for the better preserving of the Book of Common-Prayer from scorn and violence and that another Bill may be framed for the ease of tender Consciences in such particulars as shall be agreed upon For all which His Majesty conceives the best expedient to be that a National Synod be legally called with all convenient speed V. That all such persons as upon the Treaty shall be excepted and agreed upon on either side out of the General Pardon shall be tried per Pares according to the usual course and known Law of the Land and that it be left to that either to acquit or condemn them VI. And to the intent this Treaty may not suffer interruption by any intervening Accidents that a Cessation of Arms and free Trade for all His Majesty's Subjects may be agreed upon with all possible speed Given at the Court at Oxford the 21th day of Jan. 1644. The Earl of Essex upon receipt hereof returned to Prince Rupert together with a safe Conduct this Letter of the 25. of January Sir I AM commanded by both Houses of the Parliament of England and desired by the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland to desire Your Highness to let His Majesty know That they do agree that their Committees do begin the Treaty at Vxbridge on Thursday the 30 th of this January with the Persons appointed by His Majesty on the matters contained in the Propositions lately sent unto His Majesty in such manner as was proposed And their Committees shall have Instructions concerning the Propositions sent from His Majesty in your Highness Letter And you will herewith receive a safe Conduct from the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England for the Persons that are appointed by His Majesty to come to Vxbridge to Treat on the Propositions for a safe and well-grounded Peace with their Retinue in a List hereunto annexed Sir I am Your Highness humble Servant Essex Westminster 25. Jan. 1644. Thursday the 30th of January all the Commissioners named by His Majesty and Commissioners named by the two Houses of Parliament in England and the Estates of the Parliament in Scotland did meet at Uxbridge where their Commissions were mutually delivered in and read and are as followeth His MAJESTY'S Commission CHARLES R. VVHereas after several Messages sent by Us to the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Westminster expressing Our desires of Peace certain Propositions were sent from them and brought unto Us at Oxford in November last by the Earl of Denbigh and others and upon our Answers Messages and Propositions to them and their Returns to Us it is now agreed That there shall be a Treaty for a safe and well grounded Peace to begin at Vxbridge on Thursday the 30 th of this instant January as by the said Propositions Answers Messages and Returns in writing may more fully appear We do therefore hereby appoint assign and constitute James Duke of Richmond and Lenox William Marquess of Hartford Thomas Earl of Southampton Henry Earl of Kingston Francis Earl of Chichester Francis Lord Seymour Arthur Lord Capell Christopher Lord Hatton John Lord Culpeper Sir Edward Nicholas Knight one of Our principal Secretaries of State Sir Edward Hyde Knight Chancellour and Under-Treasurer of Our Exchequer Sir Richard Lane chief Baron of Our said Exchequer Sir Thomas Gardiner Sir Orlando Bridgeman Mr. John Ashburnham and Mr. Jeffrey Palmer together with Doctor Richard Steward upon these Propositions concerning Religion to be Our Commissioners touching the premises and do hereby give unto them and to any Ten or more of them full power and authority to meet and on Our part to Treat with Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Bafil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wenman Denzil Hollis William Pierrepont Esquires Sir Henry Vane the younger Knight Oliver St. John Bulstrode Whitelock John Crew and Edmund Prideaux Esquires for the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and
John Earl of Lowdon Lord Chancellour of Scotland Archibald Marquess of Argyle John Lord Maitland John Lord Balmerino Sir Archibald Johnston Sir Charles Erskin George Dundas Sir John Smith Mr. Hugh Kennedy and Mr. Robert Barclay for the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland together with Master Alexander Henderson upon the Propositions concerning Religion or with any Ten or more of them upon and touching the matters contained in the said Propositions Answers and Messages or any other according to the manner and agreement therein specified or otherwise as they or any Ten or more of them shall think fit and to take all the premises into their serious considerations and to compose conclude and end all differences arising thereupon or otherwise as they or any Ten or more of them in their wisdoms shall think fit and upon the whole matter to conclude a safe and well-grounded Peace if they can And whatsoever they or any Ten or more of them shall do in the premises We do by these presents ratifie and confirm the same Given at Our Court at Oxford the eight and twentieth day of January in the Twentieth year of Our Reign 1644. Their Commission to the English Commissioners Die Martis 28. January 1644. BE it Ordained by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament that Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Basil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wenman Denzil Hollis William Pierrepont Sir Henry Vane junior Oliver St. John Bulstrode Whitelock John Crew and Edmund Prideaux shall have power and authority and are hereby authorized to joyn with the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland together with Alexander Henderson upon the Propositions concerning Religion only to Treat with the Lord Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hartford the Earl of Southampton the Earl of Kingston the Lord Dunsmore Lord Capel Lord Seymour Sir Christopher Hatton Sir John Culpeper Sir Edward Nicholas Sir Edward Hyde Sir Richard Lane Sir Orlando Bridgeman Sir Thomas Gardiner Master John Ashburnham and Master Jeffrey Palmer or any Ten of them upon the Propositions formerly sent to His Majesty for a safe and well-grounded Peace from His Majesty's humble and Loyal Subjects assembled in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms together with Doctor Steward upon the Propositions concerning Religion only and upon His Majesty's Propositions according to such Instructions as have been given to them or as they from time to time shall receive from both Houses of Parliament Jo. Browne Cler. Parliam Their Commission to the Scots Commissioners AT Edenburgh the saxteÃnt day of Julii the Èeir of God M. Vj c fourty four Èeires The Estaites of Parliament presentlie conveined be vertew of the last act of the last Parliament haldin by His Majesty and thrie Estaites in Anno 1641. considdering that this Kingdome efter all uther meanes of supplicationnes Remonstrances and sending of Commissionaris to His Majesty have bein used without successe did enter into a solemne League and Covenant with the Kingdom and Parliament of England for Reformationne and defence of Religionne the Honor and Happines of the King the Peace and Safety of the thrie Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland and ane Treattie aggried upon and ane Armie and Forces raised and sent out of yis Kingdom for these endis Quhairupone the Conventionne of Estaites of this Kingdome the nynt of Jannuary last being desirous to use all good and lawful meanes that Treuth and Peace might be established in all His Majesty's Dominions with such a blessed Pacificationne betwixt His Majesty and His Subjectis as might serve most for His Majesty's trew Honor and the Safety and Happines of His People granted Commissione to Johne Erle of Lowdonne Heigh Chancellor of Scotland Johne Lord Maitland than and Èit in England Sir Archibald Johnestounne of Wariestounne ane of the Lordis of Sessionne and Maister Robert Barclay now in England to repaire to England with powar to thame or any twa of yame to endeavoure the effectuating of ye foirsaides endis conforme to the Commissione and Instructiones than givin to thame as the Commissione of the dait foirsaid proportis Lyke as the saides Johne Lord of Maitland Sir Archibald Johnestounne and Maister Robert Barclay have evir sinceattendit in England in the discharge of the foirsaid Commissione qunhil lately that Sir Archibald Johnestounne returned with some Propositiones prepaired by the Committie of both Kingdomes to be presented to the Estaites of Scotland and to both Howss of the Parliament of England and by thame to be revised and considderit and than by mutual advyse of both Kingdomes to be presented for ane safe and weill-grounded Peace Qwhilkies Propositiones ar revised and considderit and advysed be the Estaites of Parliament now conveined and their sense and resultis drawin up yrupone Whiche Commissione is to endure while the comming of the Commissionaris underwrittin And heirewith also considderin that the endis for the whilk the samen was granted ar not Èit effectuate and that the Propositiones with ye Estaites thair resultis yrupone ar to be returned toye Parliament of England thairfore the Estaites of Parliament be thir presentis gives full powar and Commissione to the said Johne Erle of Lowdonne Lord heigh Chancellor of yis Kingdome Archibald Marqueis of Arg yle and Johne Lord Balmerino for the Nobility Sir Archibald Johnestounne of Wariestounne Sir Charles Erskyne of Cambuskenneth and Maister George Dundas of Maner for the Barrones Sir Johne Smyth of Grottel Proveist of Edenburgh Hew Kennedy Burges of Air and Master Robert Barclay for the Burrowes the thrie Estaites of yis Kingdom and to Johne Lord Maitland supernumerarie in this Commissione or to any thrie or mae of the haill number thair being ane of ilk Estaite as Commissionaris from the Estaites of Parliament of this Kingdome to repaire to the Kingdome of England sick of them as ar not thair already and with powar to thameor any thrie or mae of the whole number thair being ane of ilk Estaite to endeavour the effectuating of ye foirsaides endis the concluding of the Propositions with the Estaites th aire results thairupon and all such uyr materis concerning the good of bothe Kingdomes as ar or sall be from time to time committed unto thame be the Estaites of yis Kingdome or Committies thairof according to the Instructiones givin or to be givin to the Commissionaris abovenameit or thair quorums And for this effect the Estaites Ordeanes Johne Erle of Lowdonne Chancellor Johne Lord Balmerino Sir Archibald Johnestounne of Wariestounne Sir Charles Erskyne of Cambuskenneth and Hew Kennedy repaire with all diligence to the Kingdome of England to the essect before rehearsit conforme to this Commissione and Instructiones As also the Estaites Ordeanes ye saides Archibald Marqueis of Argyle Maister George Dundas of Maner and Sir Johne Smyth Proveist of Edenburgh to repaire to ye Kingdome of England with all sick conveniencie as the occasione of
ye businesse shall require or as they sall be commandit ather be the Committie from the Parliament heir they being in Scotland or be the Committie with the Army they being in England And Ordeanes thame to joyne with the remanent Commissionaris to the effect above-mentionat conforme to the Commissione and Instructiones givin or to be givin to the Commissionaris or thair quorums thairanent be the Estaites of this Kingdom or Committies yrof And the Estaites of Parliament be thir presentis haldis and sall halde firme and stable all and what summe ever thinges the Commissionaris abovenamit or any thrie or mae of thame sall do conforme to this Commissionne and to the Instructionnes givin or to be givin to thame Estractit furthe of the buikes of Parliament be me Sir Alexander Gibsonne of Dunrie Kynt Clerk of His Majesty's Registers and Rollis under my signe and subscriptione Manuel Alexander Gibsonne Cler. Regist After the Commissions read their Commissioners delivered to His Majesty's Commissioners this Paper January the 30. VVE are directed by our Instructions to Treat with your Lordships upon the Propositions concerning Religion the Militia and Ireland three days apiece alternis vicibus during the space of twenty days from the 30 of January beginning first with the Propositions of Religion and accordingly we shall deliver unto your Lordships a Paper to morrow morning upon those Propositions Accordingly the Treaty did proceed upon those Subjects three days apiece alternis vicibus beginning with that of Religion upon Friday the last of January and so continuing Saturday the first and Monday the third of February which was after resumed Tuesday the 11. Wednesday the 12 and Thursday the 13. of February and again the two last days of the 20. And the like course was held touching the Militia and Ireland But because the Passages concerning each Subject severally will be more clearly understood being collected and disposed together under their several heads therefore all those which concern Religion the Militia and Ireland are put together And in like manner the Passages preparatory to the Treaty concerning the Commissions the Manner of the Treaty and a Seditious Sermon made the first day appointed for the Treaty and such as hapned in the Treaty touching His Majesty's Propositions the demands of farther time to Treat and other emergent Passages which have no relation to those of Religion the Militia and Ireland are in like manner digested under their several heads with their particular dates And first those which concern the Commissions Friday the last of January His Majesty's Commissioners delivered unto their Commissioners this Paper Ult. January VVE having perused the Power granted to your Lordships in the Paper delivered by the Earl of Northumberland and finding the same to relate to Instructions we desire to see those Instructions that thereby we may know what Power is granted to you and we ask this the rather because by the Powers we have seen we do not find that your Lordships in the absence of any one of your number have power to Treat Their Answer 31. January BY our Instructions we or any Ten of us whereof some of either House of the Parliament of England and some of the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland to be present have power to Treat with your Lordships Their farther Answer ult Jan. VVHereas your Lordships have expressed unto us a desire of seeing our Instructions to know what Power is granted us and this the rather because you say you find not by what you have seen that in the absence of any one of our number we have power to Treat to this we return in Answer That since the Paper already delivered in by us declaring that by our Instructions any Ten of us whereof some of either House of Parliament of England and some of the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland to be present had power to Treat with your Lordships hath not given you satisfaction in the particular of the Quorum we shall send unto the two Houses of Parliament to have the Quorum inserted in the Commission and do expect the return of it so amended within two or three days when we shall present it unto your Lordships But as for your desire in general to see our Instructions it is that for which we have no Warrant nor is it as we conceive at all necessary or proper for us so to do for that the Propositions upon which we now Treat have been already presented from the Parliaments of both Kingdoms unto His Majesty and whatsoever is propounded by us in order unto them is sufficiently warranted by what both Parliaments have done in the passing and sended of those Propositions and by the Commissions authorizing us to Treat upon them already shewn unto your Lordships so as there can be no need to shew any other Power Accordingly on Saturday the first of February they did deliver their Commission for the English Commissioners renewed as followeth Die Sabbati primo Febr. BE it Ordained by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament that Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Basil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wenman Denzil Hollis William Pierrepont Sir Henry Vane junior Oliver St. John Bulstrode Whitelock John Crew and Edmund Prideaux shall have power and authority and are hereby authorized to joyn with the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland together with Alexander Henderson upon the Propositions concerning Religion only or any Ten of them whereof some of either House of the Parliament of England and some of the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland are to be present to Treat with the Lord Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hartford the Earl of Southampton the Earl of Kingston the Lord Dunsmore Lord Capel Lord Seymour Sir Christopher Hatton Sir John Culpeper Sir Edward Nicholas Sir Edward Hyde Sir Richard Lane Sir Orlando Bridgeman Sir Thomas Gardner Master John Ashburnham and Master Jeffrey Palmer or any Ten of them upon the Propositions formerly sent to His Majesty for a safe and well-grounded Peace from His Majesty's humble and Loyal Subjects assembled in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms together with Doctor Steward upon the Propositions concerning Religion only and upon His Majesty's Propositions according to such Instructions as have been given to them or as they from time to time shall receive from both Houses of Parliament Jo. Browne Cler. Parliam The same last of January their Commissioners delivered to His Majesty's Commissioners this Paper January 31. HAving considered your Commission and Power from His Majesty given in last night by your Lordships we find that you are authorized to Treat only upon certain Propositions sent to His Majesty from the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Westminster and upon His Majesty's Answers Messages and Propositions to them and their Returns to His Majesty wherein we observe that the Propositions sent to His Majesty
propose conditions of Peace though the VVar otherwise might justly be pursued And surely as a Cessation in Ireland may be some advantage to the Rebels as all Cessations in their nature are to both parts they having thereby time and liberty to procure Arms and Ammunition to be brought to them so it is not only for the advantage but necessary preservation of Our good Subjects there whose bleeding Dangers call for Our bowels of Charity and Compassion by suspending the rage of the Adversary by this Cessation till means may be found to turn their hearts or to disable their Malice from pursuing their Cruelty to the utter Ruin of that Remainder of Our good Subjects there it being more acceptable to God and Man to preserve a few good men from destruction than to destroy a multitude though in the way of Justice and perhaps a Cessation may bring some of those Rebels to reflect upon their Offences and to return to their Duty all are not in the same degree of guilt all were not Authors of nor consenting to the Cruelties committed some were inforced to comply with or not resist their proceedings some were seduced upon a belief the Nation was designed to be eradicated and the VVar not against the Rebellion only but their Religion The VVar destroys all alike without distinction even innocent Children have suffered not by the Rebels only and all are not Tigers or Wolves there may be grounds of Mercy to some though no severity be excessive towards others However We cannot desire the destruction even of the worst of those Irish Rebels so much as We do the preservation of the poor English remaining there but should make choice rather to save the Rebels for preserving the lives of those poor Protestants than destroy them to ruine the Rebels And therefore exceeding strange it is to Us and We are sorry to find that any English men who have seen this their Native Country heretofore even in Our time flourishing beyond most of the Kingdoms and Churches in the world and now most hideous and deformed weltring in the blood of her own Children and if this VVar continue like to be a perpetual spectacle of Desolation should express that they desire War in Ireland as much as they do Peace here no more valuing the sparing of English blood here than they do the effusion of the blood of the Rebels in Ireland They say indeed they are willing to lay out their Estates and Lives both for the War in Ireland and Peace in this Kingdom but withal they say they have made Propositions for both if Our Commissioners would agree to them These are the Conditions they offer neither Peace is to be had here without agreeing to their Propositions nor that VVar in Ireland to be managed but according to those Propositions such Propositions as apparently tend to the ruine of the Church to the subversion of all Our Power to the setting up a new frame of popular Government to the destructioo of Our Loyal and true-hearted Subjects Propositions which associate Our Subjects of Scotland in their Counsels and Power and invest them in a great share of the Government and VVealth of this Kingdom and render both the VVealth and Power of Ireland to be at their command These Propositions they insist upon and for the obtaining these they are resolved to engage the Lives and Estates of Our poor People in this unnatural Rebellion But VVe trust God Almighty will open the Eyes and the Hearts of Our People not to assist them any longer against Us in the shedding innocent blood in this VVar. And VVe cast Our selves on Him waiting His good time for the restoring the Peace of Our Kingdoms and Our deliverance from these Troubles which at length VVe are assured He will give unto Us. MESSAGES PROPOSITIONS AND TREATIES FOR PEACE WITH DIVERS RESOLUTIONS AND DECLARATIONS THEREUPON MDCXLV VI. VII VIII His MAJESTIES Message to both Houses from Oxford December 5. 1645. For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore CHARLES R. HIS Majesty being deeply sensible of the continuation of this bloody and unnatural War cannot think himself discharged of the Duty He owes to God or the Affection and regard He hath to the preservation of His People without the constant application of His earnest Endeavours to find some Expedient for the speedy ending of these unhappy Distractions if that may be doth therefore desire That a Safe-Conduct may be forthwith sent for the Duke of Richmond the Earl of Southampton John Ashburnham and Jeffrey Palmer Esquires and their Attendants with Coaches Horses and other Accommodations for their Journey to Westminster during their stay there and return when they shall think fit whom His Majesty intends to send to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland furnished with such Propositions as His Majesty is confident will be the foundation of a happy and well-grounded Peace Given at the Court at Oxford the fifth of December 1645. The Letter of the two Speakers For Sir Thomas Glemham Governour of Oxford SIR VVE have received your Letter of the 5 th of this instant December with His Majesties inclosed and have sent back your Trumpet by command of both Houses who will with all convenient speed return an Answer to His Majesty and rest Your Loving Friends Grey of VVark Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore VVilliam Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons His MAJESTIES Message to both Houses in pursuance of the former From Oxford Dec. 15. 1645. For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore CHARLES R. HIS Majesty cannot but extreamly wonder that after so many expressions on your part of a deep and seeming sense of the Miseries of this afflicted Kingdom and of the Dangers incident to His Person during the continuance of this unnatural War your many great and so often repeated Protestations that the raising these Arms hath been only for the necessary defence of God's true Religion His Majesties Honour Safety and Prosperity the Peace Comfort and Security of His People you should delay a safe Conduct to the Persons mentioned in His Majesties Message of the fifth of this instant December which are to be sent unto you with Propositions for a well-grounded Peace a thing so far from having been at any time denied by His Majesty whensoever you have desired the same that He believes it hath been seldom if ever practised among the most avowed and professed Enemies much less from Subjects to their King But His Majesty is resolved that no Discouragements whatsoever shall make Him fail of His part in doing his uttermost endeavours to put an end to these Calamities which if not in time prevented must prove the ruin of this unhappy Nation and therefore doth once again desire that a safe Conduct may be forthwith sent for those Persons expressed in His former Message and doth therefore conjure you as you
Treason being first declared guilty of such Offence by the said Lords and Commons any Commission under the Great Seal or other Warrant to the contrary notwithstanding And he or they that shall offend herein to be incapable of any Pardon from His Majesty His Heirs or Successors and their Estates shall be disposed as the said Lords and Commons shall think fit and not otherwise Provided that the City of London shall have and enjoy all their Rights Liberties and Franchises Customs and Usages in the raising and imploying the Forces of that City for the defence thereof in as full and ample manner to all intents and purposes as they have or might have used or enjoyed the same at any time before the making of the said Act or Proposition to the end that City may be fully assured it is not the intention of the Parliament to take from them any Priviledges or Immunities in raising or disposing of their Forces which they have or might have used or injoyed heretofore The like for the Kingdom of Scotland if the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit XIV That by Act of Parliament all Peers made since the day that Edward Lord Littleton then Lord Keeper of the Great Seal deserted the Parliament and that the said Great Seal was surreptitiously conveyed away from the Parliament being the One and Twentieth day of May 1642. and who shall be hereafter made shall not sit or Vote in the Parliament of England without Consent of both Houses of Parliament and that all Honour and Title conferred on any without Consent of both Houses of Parliament since the Twentieth of May 1642. being the day that both Houses declared That the King seduced by evil Counsel intended to raise War against the Parliament be declared null and void The like for the Kingdom of Scotland those being excepted whose Patents were passed the Great Seal before the fourth of June 1644. XV. That an Act be passed in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively for Confirmation of the Treaties passed betwixt the Two Kingdoms viz. the large Treaty the late Treaty for the coming of the Scots Army into England and the settling of the Garrison of Barwick of the 29 th of November 1643. and the Treaty concerning Ireland of the 6. of August 1642. for the bringing of Ten Thousand Scots into the Province of Vlster in Ireland with all other Ordinances and Proceedings passed betwixt the Two Kingdoms and whereunto they are obliged by the aforesaid Treaties And that Algernon Earl of Northumberland John Earl of Rutland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery Robert Earl of Essex Theophilus Earl of Lincoln James Earl of Suffolk Robert Earl of Warwick Edward Earl of Manchester Henry Earl of Stamford Francis Lord Dacres Philip Lord Wharton Francis Lord Willoughby Dudly Lord North John Lord Hunsdon William Lord Gray Edward Lord Howard of Escrich Thomas Lord Bruce Ferdinando Lord Fairfax Master Nathaniel Fiennes Sir William Armyne Sir Philip Stapleton Sir Henry Vane senior Master William Pierrepont Sir Edward Aiscough Sir VVilliam Strickland Sir Arthur Hesilrig Sir John Fenwick Sir VVilliam Brereton Sir Thomas VViddrington Master John Toll Master Gilbert Millington Sir VVilliam Constable Sir John VVray Sir Henry Vane junior Master Henry Darley Oliver Saint-John Esquire His Majesties Solicitor General Master Denzill Hollis Master Alexander Rigby Master Cornelius Holland Master Samuel Vassal Master Peregrine Pelham John Glyn Esquire Recorder of London Master Henry Marten Master Alderman Hoyle Master John Blakeston Master Serjeant VVilde Master Richard Barwis Sir Anthony Irby Master Ashurst Master Bellingham and Master Tolson Members of both Houses of the Parliament of England shall be the Commissioners for the Kingdom of England for Conservation of the Peace between the Two Kingdoms to act according to the Powers in that behalf exprest in the Articles of the large Treaty and not otherwise That His Majesty give His Assent to what the Two Kingdoms shall agree upon in prosecution of the Articles of the large Treaty which are not yet finished XVI That an Act be passed in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively for establishing the joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms bearing date the 30 th day of January 1643. in England and 1644. in Scotland with the Qualifications ensuing 1. Qualification That the persons who shall expect no pardon be only these following Rupert and Maurice Count Palatines of the Rhene James Earl of Derby John Earl of Bristol VVilliam Earl of Newcastle Francis Lord Cottington George Lord Digby Matthew Wren Bishop of Ely Sir Robert Heath Knight Doctor Bramhall Bishop of Derry Sir William Widdrington Colonel George Goring Henry Jermin Esquire Sir Ralph Hopton Sir John Biron Sir Francis Doddington Sir John Strangwayes Master Endymion Porter Sir George Radcliffe Sir Marmaduke Langdale Henry Vaughan Esquire now called Sir Henry Vaughan Sir Francis Windebanke Sir Richard Greenvile Master Edward Hyde now called Sir Edward Hyde Sir John Marley Sir Nicholas Cole Sir Thomas Riddell junior Sir John Culpepper Master Richard Lloyd now called Sir Richard Lloyd Master David Jenkins Sir George Strode George Carteret Esquire now called Sir George Carteret Sir Charles Dallison Knight Richard Lane Esquire now called Sir Richard Lane Sir Edward Nicholas John Ashburnham Esquire Sir Edward Herbert Knight His Majesties Attorney General Earl of Traquaire Lord Harris Lord Rae George Gourdon sometime Marquess of Huntley James Graham sometime Earl of Montross Robert Maxwell late Earl of Nithisdale Robert Dalyell sometime Earl of Carnwarth James Gordon sometime Viscount of Aboyne Lodowick Linsey sometime Earl of Crawford James Ogleby sometime Earl of Airley James Ogleby sometime Lord Ogleby Patrick Ruthen sometime Earl of Forth James King sometime Lord Itham Alester Macdonald Irwing younger of Drunim Gordon younger of Gight Lesley of Auchentoule Colonel John Cockram Graham of Gorthie Master John Maxwell sometime pretended Bishop of Rosse and all such others as being Processed by the Estates for Treason shall be condemned before the Act of Oblivion be passed 2. Qualification All Papists and Popish Recusants who have been now are or shall be actually in Arms or voluntarily assisting against the Parliaments or Estates of either Kingdom and by name The Marquess of VVinton Earl of VVorcester Edward Lord Herbert of Ragland Son to the Earl of VVorcester Lord Brudenell Carel Molineaux Esquire Lord Arundel of VVardour Sir Francis Howard Sir John VVinter Sir Charles Smith Sir John Preston Sir Bazill Brook Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven in the Kingdom of Ireland VVilliam Sheldon of Beely Esquire Sir Henry Beddingfield 3. Qualification All persons who have had any hand in the plotting designing or assisting the Rebellion of Ireland except such persons who having only assisted the said Rebellion have rendred themselves or come in to the Parliament of England 4. Qualification That Humfrey Bennet Esquire Sir Edward Ford Sir John Penruddock Sir George Vaughan Sir John Weld Sir Robert Leè Sir John Pate John Ackland Edmund Windham Esquire Sir John Fitz-herbert
to his Majesty in the Isle of Wight Die Jovis 3. Aug. 1648. Instruction from both Houses of the Parliament of England for James Earl of Middlesex Sir John Hippesley Knight and John Bulkeley Esquire Committees of Parliament I. YOu or any two of you whereof one to be a Lord shall with all speed repair unto his Majesty at the Castle of Carisbook in the Isle of Wight II. You or any two of you whereof one to be a Lord shall present unto his Majesty the Resolutions of both Houses of Parliament concerning a Personal Treaty to be had with his Majesty in the Isle of Wight III. You or any two of you whereof one to be a Lord shall desire his Majesties speedy Answer to the said Resolutions IV. You or any two of you whereof one to be a Lord are to acquaint his Majesty that you are only allotted ten days from Friday next for your Going Stay and Return V. You or any two of you whereof one to be a Lord shall have power in case his Majesty desires to see the Propositions which were presented to him at Hampton-Court to present him a Copy of them His MAJESTIES Message in Answer to the Votes Carisbrooke 10. Aug. 1648. For the Speaker of the Lords House pro tempore to be communicated to the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England at Westminster CHARLES R. IF the Peace of my Dominions were not much dearer to me than any particular Interest whatsoever I had too much reason to take notice of the several Votes which passed against me and the sad Condition I have been in now above these seven Months But since you my two Houses of Parliament have opened as it seems to me a fair beginning to a happy Peace I shall heartily apply my self thereunto and to that end I will as clearly and shortly as I may set you down those things which I conceive necessary to this blessed Work so that we together may remove all impediments that may hinder a happy conclusion of this Treaty which with all chearfulness I do embrace And to this wished End your selves have laid most excellent grounds For what can I reasonably expect more then to Treat with Honour Freedom and Safety upon such Propositions as you have or shall present unto me and such as I shall make to you But withal remember that it is the definition not names of things which make them rightly known and that without means to perform no Propositions can take effect And truly my present Condition is such that I can no more Treat then a blind man judge of colours or one run a race who hath both his feet fast tied together Wherefore my first necessary Demand is That you will recal all such Votes and Orders by which people are frighted from coming writing or speaking freely to me Next that such men of all Professions whom I shall send for as of necessary use to me in this Treaty may be admitted to wait upon me In a word that I may be in the same state of Freedom I was in when I was last at Hampton-Court And indeed less cannot in any reasonable measure make good those Offers which you have made me by your Votes For how can I Treat with Honour so long as people are terrified with Votes and Orders against coming to speak or write to me and am I honourably treated so long as there is none about me except a Barber who came now with the Commissioners that ever I named to wait upon me or with Freedom until I may call such unto me of whose services I shall have use in so great and difficult a Work And for Safety I speak not of my Person having no apprehension that way how can I judge to make a safe and well grounded Peace until I may know without disguise the true present state of all my Dominions and particularly of all those whose Interests are necessarily concerned in the Peace of these Kingdoms Which leads me naturally to the last necessary Demand I shall make for the bringing this Treaty to an happy end which is That you alone or you and I joyntly do invite the Scots to send some persons authorized by them to Treat upon such Propositions as they shall make For certainly the publick and necessary Interests they have in this great Settlement is so clearly plain to all the World that I believe no body will deny the necessity of their concurrence in this Treaty in order to a durable Peace Wherefore I will only say that as I am King of both Nations so I will yield to none in either Kingdom for being truly and zealously affected for the good and honour of both my Resolution being never to be partial for either to the prejudice of the other Now as to the Place because I conceive it to be rather a circumstantial than real part of this Treaty I shall not much insist upon it I name Newport in this Isle yet the fervent zeal I have that a speedy end be put to these unhappy Distractions doth force me earnestly to desire you to consider what a great loss of time it will be to Treat so far from the body of my two Houses when every small debate of which doubtless there will be many must be transmitted to Westminster before it be concluded And really I think though to some it may seem a Paradox that peoples minds will be much more apt to settle seeing me Treat in or near London than in this Isle because so long as I am here it will never be believed by many that I am really so free as before this Treaty begin I expect to be And so I leave and recommend this point to your serious consideration And thus I have not only fully accepted of the Treaty which you have proposed to me by your Votes of the third of this Month but also given it all the furtherance that lies in me by demanding the necessary means for the effectual performance thereof All which are so necessarily implied by though not particularly mentioned in your Votes as I can no ways doubt of your ready compliance with me herein I have now no more to say but to conjure you by all that is dear to Christians honest men or good Patriots that ye will make all the Expedition possible to begin this happy Work by hastning down your Commissioners fully authorized and well instructed and by enabling me as I have shewed you to Treat praying the God of Peace so to bless our endeavours that all my Dominions may speedily enjoy a safe and well-grounded Peace CHARLES R. Carisbrook Aug. 10. 1648. A Letter from the Speaker of both Houses to His Majesty Aug. 25. 1648. With Votes in order to a Treaty May it please Your Majesty WE are commanded by Your Majesties loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled to present unto Your Majesty these Resolutions inclosed which are the results of the said Lords and Commons upon
which none but souls prone to any wickedness could believe of so Great a Man were formed of the King and such suspicions raised of Him and His Friends as might force them to some Injuries which hitherto they forbore and by securing themselves increase the Publick fears For Slanders do rather provoke most men than amend them and the provoked think more of their safety than to adjust their actions against their malicious Slanderers And when the minds of Men were made thus sollicitous concerning Dangers from the King to make them more pliable and ductile there was represented to them an inevitable anger of Heaven against the present state of things both in Church and State testified by many Prodigies that were related and portentuous Presages of Ruine Certain Prophecies for a credulity to which the English Vulgar are infamous from unknown Oracles are divulged which aenigmatically describe the King as a Monster and from such a Prince must proceed a change of Government Some vain persons also that gave themselves up to the Imposture of Astrologie were hired to terrifie the People with the unsignificant Conjunctions of Stars and from them to foretel Ruines to the better part of the World and an imminent destruction of Men of the long Robe and Alterations of States These were done to temper the minds of Men by a superstition for a guidance of their Ministers who being conceived to be the Ambassadours of Heaven were supposed to have it in their Commission to declare the Conditions of War and Peace and these either through the same weakness capable of the like terrours with the Vulgar or which is more to be abhorred corrupted as some were by the Caresses and gainful hopes that the Faction baited them with did justifie their Fears and increase them by applying some obscure Prophecies in Scripture to the present times and People compared the pretended Corruptions of our Church with the Idolatries of Israel and whatsoever was condemned in the Holy Records was parallel'd with the things they disliked here and all the Curses that God poured upon His irreconcileable and obdurate Enemies were denounced against such as differ'd from them or would not joyn with the Faction To make these Harangues more efficacious the Authors of them received the Reverence of the Demagogues who despising questioning and exposing to Affronts such sober Divines as would have cured the madness of the People appropriated to such Teachers the Titles of Saints Faithful Ministers Pretious Men and they on the other side made a return of Epithets to their Masters of the Servants of the Most High such as were to do the Work of the Lord That by their Counsels men were to expect new Heavens and a new Earth that they were Men that should prepare the Kingdom for Jesus Christ and lay the Foundations of the Empire of the Saints which was to last a Thousand years To make the Cry yet louder they permitted all Sects and Heresies a Licence of publick profession which hitherto Discipline the Care of the Common Peace and Religion had confined to secret Corners and permitted the Office of Teaching to every bold and ignorant Undertaker so that at last the dreggs of the People Usurped that Dignity and Women who had parted with the Natural Modesty of their Sex would not only speak but also rule in the Church All these in gratitude for their Licentiousness still perswaded to their Hearers the admiration of the Authors of it and bitterly inveighed against those whom the Care both of the Souls and Fortunes of Men would excite to repress them in many of their Raptures denouncing Wo and Judgment to the lawful Governours in Church and State While all these Methods of Ruine were preparing here the same anger of God the same madness of men raised up another Tempest in Ireland For the Popish Lords and Priests of Ireland who were the prime Composers of the Tragedies there were incouraged by the Success of the Scots who by a prosperous Rebellion as the Historian of those Troubles writes had procured for themselves such large Priviledges to an imitation which the present Jealousies in England where mutual Contrasts would employ all their force upon one another promised to be secure And they had an happy opportunity by the Vacancy in Government through the slaughter of the Earl of Strafford with whom the Irish Lords while they prosecuted him in England had removed all those other inferiour Magistrates that were most skilful in the Affairs of that Kingdom by accusing to the Faction some of them of Treason and others of an inclination to the Earl and had got preferred to their charges such as were either altogether unacquainted with the Genius of that People or favourers of the Conspiracy A strength they had also ready for those Eight Thousand which had been listed for the Scotish Expedition were unseasonably disbanded and the King in foresight they might cause some mischief in their own Countrey had therefore promised Four Thousand of them to the King of Spain yet would not the Parliament consent to their departure because as the Irish Lords suggested it would displease the King of France and when the King promised to send as many to the French Camp that likewise was not relished The Common Souldiers of that Army being thus made useless and therefore like Men of their employment most fierce when they were to be dismissed from the dangers of War were easily drawn into the Rebellion although very few of their Officers were polluted with the Crime The Irish Lords and Priests being allured by these our Vices and these several opportunities began their Rebellion Octob. 23. The Irish throughout that whole Kingdom on a sudden invading the unprovided English that were scattered among them despoiling them of their Estates Goods and many thousands of their Lives without any respect of Sex Age Kindred or Friendship and made them as so many Sacrifices to their bloody Superstition They missed but a little to have surprised Dublin But their Conspiracy being detected there and in some few other places the English name and interest was preserved in that Kingdom till they could receive Succours from hence The King had the first Intelligence of it in its very beginnings in Scotland and thereupon sent Sr James Stuart to the Lords of the Privie Council in Ireland to acquaint them with His Knowledge and Instructions and to carry all that Money that His present Stores could supply Besides He moves the Parliament of Scotland as being nearest to a speedy help who decline their Aids because Ireland was dependent upon the Crown of England At the same time also He sends post to the Parliament of England who less regard it the Faction applauding their Fortune that new Troubles were arisen to molest the King and that the Royal Power being thus assaulted in all three Nations there must shortly arise so many new Commonwealths Besides that it yielded fresh matter of reproach to His Majesty to whose Councils
as you shall think fit to Treat with the like number of Persons to be appointed by His Majesty upon the said Propositions and such other things as shall be proposed by His Majesty for the preservation and defence of the Protestant Religion with due regard to the ease of tender Consciences as His Majesty hath often offered the Rights of the Crown the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Priviledges of Parliament and upon the whole matter to conclude a happy and blessed Peace XIII From OXFORD Dec. 5. MDC XLV For a safe Conduct for certain Persons of Honour to be sent with Propositions of Peace For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore CHARLES R. HIS Majesty being still deeply sensible of the continuation of this bloody and unnatural War cannot think Himself discharg'd of the duty He ows to God or the affection and regard He hath to the preservation of His People without the constant application of His earnest endeavours to find some Expedient for the speedy ending of these unhappy Distractions if that may be doth therefore desire That a safe Conduct may be forthwith sent for the Duke of Richmond the Earl of Southampton John Ashburnham and Jeffry Palmer Esquires and their attendants with Coaches Horses and other accommodations for their journey to Westminster during their stay there and return when they shall think fit whom His Majesty intends to send to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland furnished with such Propositions as His Majesty is confident will be the foundation of a happy and well-grounded Peace Given at our Court at Oxford 5. December 1645. XIV From OXFORD Dec. 15. MDCXLV In pursuance of the former For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore CHARLES R. HIS Majesty cannot but extremely wonder that after so many expressions on your part of a deep and seeming sense of the Miseries of this afflicted Kingdom and of the dangers incident to His Person during the continuance of this unnatural War your many great and so often repeated Protestations that the raising of these Arms hath been only for the necessary defence of God's true Religion His Majesty's Honour Safety and Prosperity the Peace Comfort and Security of His People you should delay a safe Conduct to the persons mentioned in His Majesty's Message of the fifth of this instant December which are to be sent unto you with Propositions for a well-grounded Peace A thing so far from having been denied at any time by His Majesty whensoever you have desired the same that He believes it hath been seldom if ever practised among the most avowed and professed Enemies much less from Subjects to their King But His Majesty is resolved that no discouragements whatsoever shall make Him fail on His part in doing His uttermost endeavours to put an end to these Calamities which if not in time prevented must prove the ruine of this unhappy Nation and therefore doth once again desire that a safe Conduct may be forthwith sent for those Persons expressed in His former Message and doth therefore conjure you as you will answer to Almighty God in that day when He shall make inquisition for all the blood that hath and may yet be spilt in this unnatural War as you tender the preservation and establishment of the true Religion by all the bonds of Duty and Allegiance to your King or compassion to your bleeding and unhappy Countrey and of charity to your selves that you dispose your hearts to a true sense and imploy all your faculties in a more serious endeavour together with His Majesty to set a speedy end to these wasting Divisions and then He shall not doubt but that God will yet again give the blessing of Peace to this distracted Kingdom Given at our Court at Oxford the 15. of Decemb. 1645. XV. From OXFORD Dec. 26. MDCXLV For a Personal Treaty For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. NOtwithstanding the strange and unexpected delays which can be precedented by no former times to His Majesties two former Messages His Majesty will lay aside all expostulations as rather serving to lose time than to contribute any remedy to the evils which for the present do afflict this distracted Kingdom Therefore without further preamble His Majesty thinks it most necessary to send these Propositions this way which He intended to do by the Persons mentioned in His former Messages though He well knows the great disadvantage which overtures of this kind have by the want of being accompanied by well-instructed Messengers His Majesty conceiving that the former Treaties have hitherto proved ineffectual chiefly for want of Power in those Persons that Treated as likewise because those from whom their Power was derived not possibly having the particular informations of every several debate could not give so clear a Judgment as was requisite in so important a business If therefore His Majesty may have the engagement of the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland the Mayor Aldermen Common-Council and Militia of London of the chief Commanders in Sir Thomas Fairfax his Army as also those in the Scots Army for His Majesties free and safe coming to and abode in London or Westminster with such of His Servants now attending Him and their followers not exceeding in all the number of three hundred for the space of forty days and after the said time for His free and safe repair to any of His Garrisons of Oxford Worcester or Newark which His Majesty shall nominate at any time before His going from London or Westminster His Majesty propounds to have a Personal Treaty with the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland upon all matters which may conduce to the restoring of Peace and happiness to these miserable distracted Kingdoms and to begin with the three Heads which were Treated on at Vxbridge And for the better clearing of His Majesties earnest and sincere intentions of putting an end to these unnatural Distractions knowing that point of security may prove the greatest obstacle to this most blessed work His Majesty therefore declares That He is willing to commit the great trust of the Militia of this Kingdom for such time and with such powers as are exprest in the Paper delivered by His Majesties Commissioners at Vxbridge the sixth of February last to these persons following viz. the Lord Privy Seal the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hertford the Marquess of Dorchester the Earl of Dorset Lord Chamberlain the Earl of Northumberland the Earl of Essex Earl of Southampton Earl of Pembroke Earl of Salisbury Earl of Manchester Earl of Warwick Earl of Denbigh Earl of Chichester Lord Say Lord Seymour Lord Lucas Lord
it but if I cannot get this Liberty I do protest That these fair shews of Liberty and Peace are pure shews and that you will not hear your King Bradshaw Sir you have now spoken KING Yes Sir Bradshaw And this that you have said is a further declining of the Jurisdiction of this Court which was the thing wherein you were limited before KING Pray excuse Me Sir for My interruption because you mistake Me. It is not a declining of it you do judge Me before you hear Me speak I say it will not I do not decline it though I cannot acknowledge the Jurisdiction of the Court yet Sir in this give Me leave to say I would do it though I did not acknowledge it in this I do protest it is not the declining of it since I say if that I do say any thing but that that is for the Peace of the Kingdom and the Liberty of the Subject then the shame is Mine Now I desire that you will take this into your Consideration if you will I will withdraw Bradshaw Sir this is not altogether new that you have moved unto us not altogether new to us though the first time in person you have offered it to the Court. Sir you say you do not decline the Jurisdiction of the Court. KING Not in this that I have said Bradshaw I understand you well Sir but nevertheless that which you have offered seems to be contrary to that saying of yours for the Court are ready to give a Sentence It is not as you say That they will not hear their King for they have been ready to hear you they have patiently waited your pleasure for three Courts together to hear what you would say to the Peoples Charge against you to which you have not vouchsafed to give any Answer at all Sir this tends to a further Delay Truly Sir such Delays as these neither may the Kingdom nor Justice well bear You have had three several days to have offered in this kind what you would have pleased This Court is founded upon that Authority of the Commons of England in whom rests the Supreme Jurisdiction That which you now tender is to have another Jurisdiction and a co-ordinate Jurisdiction I know very well you express your self Sir That notwithstanding that you would offer to the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber yet nevertheless you would proceed on here I did hear you say so But Sir that you would offer there whatever it is must needs be in delay of the Justice here so as if this Court be resolved and prepared for the Sentence this that you offer they are not bound to grant But Sir according to that you seem to desire and because you shall know the further pleasure of the Court upon that which you have moved the Court will withdraw for a time This he did to prevent the disturbance of their Scene by one of their own Members Colonel John Downes who could not stifle the reluctance of his Conscience when he saw his Majesty press so earnestly for a short hearing but declaring himself unsatisfied forced them to yield to the King's Request KING Shall I withdraw Bradshaw Sir You shall know the pleasure of the Court presently The Court withdraws for half an hour into the Court of Wards Serjeant at Arms. The Court gives command that the Prisoner be withdrawn and they give order for his return again Then withdrawing into the Chamber of the Court of Wards their business was not to consider of his Majesties desire but to Chide Downes and with reproaches and threats to harden him to go through the remainder of their Villany with them Which done they return and being sate Bradshaw commanded Serjeant at Armes send for your Prisoner Who being come Bradshaw proceeded Sir you were pleased to make a motion here to the Court to offer a desire of yours touching the propounding of somewhat to the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber for the Peace of the Kingdom Sir you did in effect receive an Answer before the Court adjourned truly Sir their withdrawing and adjournment was pro forma tantùm for it did not seem to them that there was any difficulty in the thing They have considered of what you have moved and have considered of their own Authority which is founded as hath been often said upon the supreme Authority of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament the Court acts accordingly to their Commission Sir the return I have to you from the Court is this That they have been too much delayed by you already and this that you now offer hath occasioned some little further Delay and they are Judges appointed by the highest Authority and Judges are no more to delay than they are to deny Justice they are good words in the Great old Charter of England Nulli negabimus nulli vendemus nulli deferemus Justitiam there must be no delay But the truth is Sir and so every man here observes it that you have much delayed them in your Contempt and Default for which they might long since have proceeded to Judgment against you and notwithstanding what you have offered they are resolved to proceed to Sentence and to Judgment and that is their unanimous Resolution KING Sir I know it is in vain for Me to dispute I am no Sceptick for to deny the Power that you have I know that you have Power enough Sir I must confess I think it would have been for the Kingdoms Peace if you would have taken the pains for to have shewn the Lawfulness of your Power For this Delay that I have desired I confess it is a Delay but it is a Delay very important for the Peace of the Kingdom for it is not My Person that I look at alone it is the Kingdoms Welfare and the Kingdoms Peace It is an old Sentence That we should think on long before we resolve of great matters suddenly Therefore Sir I do say again that I do put at your doors all the inconveniency of a hasty Sentence I confess I have been here now I think this Week this day eight dayes was the day I came here first but a little Delay of a day or two further may give Peace whereas a hasty Judgment may bring on that Trouble and perpetual Inconveniency to the Kingdom that the Child that is unborn may repent it And therefore again out of the Duty I owe to God and to My Country I do desire that I may be heard by the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber or any other Chamber that you will appoint Me. Bradshaw You have been already answered to what you even now moved being the same you moved before since the Resolution and the Judgment of the Court in it And the Court now requires to know whether you have any more to say for your self than you have said before they proceed to Sentence KING I say this Sir That if you hear Me if you will give
by His Majesty or us in order to Peace here being so great a Condescending from a King to Subjects all indifferent Advantages left to them both for time and place of Treaty and choice of Persons to Treat But what their Intentions to Peace are will appear by their Letter enclosed in one from their General to the Earl of Forth both which are as followeth My Lord I Am commanded by both Houses of Parliament to send a Trumpeter with the inclosed Letter to His Majesty which I desire your Lordship may be most humbly presented to His Majesty I rest Essex-House March 9. 1643. Your Lordships humble Servant Essex May it please Your MAJESTY WE the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England taking into our Consideration a Letter sent from Your Majesty dated the third of March instant and directed to the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Westminster which by the Contents of a Letter from the Earl of Forth unto the Lord General the Earl of Essex we conceive was intended to our selves have resolved with the concurrent advice and consent of the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland to represent to Your Majesty in all humility and plainness as followeth That as we have used all means for a just and safe Peace so will we never be wanting to do our utmost for the procuring thereof But when we consider the Expressions in that Letter of Your Majesty's we have more sad and dispairing thoughts of attaining the same than ever because thereby those Persons now assembled at Oxford who contrary to their Duty have deserted Your Parliament are put into an equal Condition with it and this present Parliament convened according to the known and Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom the continuance whereof is established by a Law consented unto by Your Majesty is in effect denied to be a Parliament The Scope and Intention of that Letter being to make provision how all the Members as is pretended of both Houses may securely meet in a full and free Convention of Parliament Whereof no other conclusion can be made but that this present Parliament is not a full nor free Convention and that to make it a full and free Convention of Parliament the presence of those is necessary who notwithstanding that they have deserted that great Trust and do levy War against the Parliament are pretended to be Members of the two Houses of Parliament And hereupon we think our selves bound to let Your Majesty know That seeing the Continuance of this Parliament is settled by a Law which as all other Laws of Your Kingdoms Your Majesty hath sworn to maintain as we are sworn to our Allegiance to Your Majesty these obligations being reciprocal we must in duty and accordingly are resolved with our Lives and Fortunes to defend and preserve the Just Rights and full Power of this Parliament And do beseech Your Majesty to be assured that Your Majesty's Royal and hearty Concurrence with us herein will be the most effectual and ready means of procuring a firm and lasting Peace in all Your Majesty's Dominions and of begetting a perfect understanding between Your Majesty and Your People without which Your Majesty's most earnest Professions and our most real Intentions concerning the same must necessarily be frustrated And in case Your Majesty's three Kingdoms should by reason thereof remain in this sad and bleeding Condition tending by the continuance of this unnatural War to their Ruine Your Majesty cannot be the least nor the last Sufferer God in his goodness incline Your Royal Breast out of pity and compassion to those deep Sufferings of Your Innocent People to put a speedy and happy issue to these desperate Evils by the joynt Advice of both Your Kingdoms now happily united in this Cause by their late solemn League and Covenant Which as it will prove the surest Remedy so is it the earnest prayer of Your Majesty's Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England Westminster the 9 of March 1643. Gray of Wark Speaker of the House of Peers in Parliament pro tempore William Lenthall Speaker of the Commons House in Parliament Whosoever considers that this should be a Letter from Subjects might well think it very unbeseeming Language in them to call His Majesty's earnest endeavours for Peace but Professions and their own feigned pretence most real Intentions but much more menacing Language that is Majesty cannot be the least or last Sufferer which expressions from Subjects in Arms to their Soveraign what dangerous Construction they may admit we are unwilling to mention But we need not wonder at the manner of their expressions when we see in this Letter the Parliament it self as far as in them lies destroyed and those who here style themselves the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England not to resolve upon their Answer to their King without the concurrent advice and consent of the Commissioners as they call them of the Kingdom of Scotland If they had only taken the Advice of the Scotish Commissioners they had broken the Fundamental Constitution of Parliament the very Writs of Summons the Foundation of all Power in Parliament being in express terms for the Lords to treat and advise with the King and the Peers of the Kingdom of England and for the Commons to do and consent to those things which by that Common-Council of England should be ordained thereby excluding all others But their League it seems is gone further the Scots must consent as well as advise so that they have gotten a negative voice and they who in the former Letter would be the Kings only Council are now become no Council without the Scotish Commissioners The truth is they have besides the solemn League and Covenant with the Scots which their Letter mentions a strange and traitourous presumption for Subjects to make a Covenant and League with Subjects of another Kingdom without their Prince made private bargains with the Scots touching our Estates and a private agreement not to treat without their consent as some of themselves being afraid of a Treaty openly declared to the Common-Council of London And therefore 't is no wonder that being touched to the quick with the apprehension that they are not nor can be in this condition a full and free Convention of Parliament they charge us with deserting our Trust and would have us to be no Members of the Parliament They may remember it was our want of freedom within and the seditious Tumults without their many multiplied Treasons there and imposing traitourous Oaths which inforced our absence But concerning that and the want of freedom in Parliament we shall say no more here that being the Subject of another Declaration only we wish them to consider by what Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom which they have lately wrested to serve all turns they can exclude us from our Votes in Parliament who were duely summoned chosen and returned Members of Parliament and
the present Rebellion raised in this Kingdom against His Majesty and that all His Majesty's Subjects are bound by their natural Allegiance and the Oaths lawfully taken by them to the utmost of their power to resist and repress the same and particularly the Army now under the Command of the Earl of Essex and all other Armies raised or to be raised without His Majesty's Consent under pretence of the two Houses of Parliament And we do disclaim all Votes Orders and Declarations in countenance or maintenance of the said Armies and Declare That no Oath or Covenant voluntarily taken or inforced doth or can bind or dispense with the breach of those other Oaths formerly and lawfully taken to His Majesty and that all those who aid assist or abett this horrid and odious Rebellion are and ought to be accounted and pursued as Traitors by the known Laws of the Land That we utterly detest and disclaim the Invitation which hath been made to His Majesty's Subjects of Scotland to enter this Kingdom with an Army the same being as much against the Desires as against the Duty of the Lords and Commons of England and all true-hearted English-Men And we do Declare and publish to the World That as any such Invasion or Hostile entry into the Kingdom by the Rebellious Subjects of Scotland is a direct and peremptory breach of the late Act of Pacification between the two Kingdoms so that we and all the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by our Allegiance and by that very Act to resist and repress such Invasion And whosoever is or shall be abetting aiding or assisting to those of Scotland in their Hostile Invasion of this Kingdom ought to be looked upon as betrayers of their Country and are guilty of High Treason by the known Laws of the Kingdom And that our weak misled and seduced Country-men may no longer pay an implicite regard and reverence to the abused name of Parliament which these guilty Persons usurp to themselves and so submit to those Actions and Commands which two Houses of Parliament never so legally and regularly constituted have not Authority to require or enjoyn and since these Men will not suffer their poor Country to be restored by a Treaty to the benefit of a Parliament which would with Gods blessing easily remove these Miseries and prevent the like for the time to come we must and do declare to the Whole Kingdom That as at no time either or both Houses of Parliament can by any Orders or Ordinances impose upon the People without the Kings Consent so by reason of the want of Freedom and Security for all the Members of Parliament to meet at Westminster and there to Sit Speak and Vote with Freedom and Safety all the Actions Votes Orders Declarations and pretended Ordinances made by those Members who remain still at Westminster are void and of none effect and that as many of the Lords and Commons assembled at Westminster as have at any time consented to the raising of Forces under the Command of the Earl of Essex or to the making and using of the new Great Seal or to the present coming of the Scots into England in a warlike manner have therein broken the Trust reposed in them by their Country and are to be proceeded against as Traitors And yet we are far from dissolving or attempting the dissolution of this Parliament or the violation of any Act made and confirmed by His Majesty's Royal Assent this Parliament which we shall always maintain and defend Acts of Parliament are only in danger to be destroyed by those who undervalue and despise the Authority and Power of Acts of Parliament who therefore deny the Kings Negative Voice and neglect His Concurrence that their own Resolutions may be reputed as Acts of Parliament to the Ruine and Confusion of all Laws and Interest It is our grief in the behalf of the whole Kingdom that since the Parliament is not dissolved the Power thereof should by the Treason and Violence of these Men be so far suspended that the Kingdom should be without the fruit and benefit of a Parliament which cannot be reduced to any Action or Authority till the Freedom and Liberty due to the Members be restored and admitted and they who oppose this must be only looked upon as the Enemies to Parliament In the mean time we neither have nor shall attempt any thing for the Adjourning Dissolving or Proroguing thereof otherwise than as it may stand with the Act in that case provided Lastly we Declare That our endeavours actions and resolutions tend and are directed and shall always be directed to the maintenance of God's true Religion established by Law within this Kingdom to the defence of His Majesty's Sacred Person His Honour and just Rights to the preservation of the Liberty and Property of the Subject settled and evident by the Laws Statutes and Customs of the Realm and the just Freedom Liberty and Privilege of Parliament and that what we shall do for the defence and maintenance of all these proceeds from the Conscience of our Duty to God our King and Country without any private and sinister ends of our own and out of our sincere love to Truth and Peace the which as we have so we shall always labour to procure as the only blessed End of all our Labours And we do therefore conjure all our Country-Men and fellow-Subjects by all those precious obligations of Religion to God Almighty of Loyalty towards their Soveraign of Affection towards one another and of Charity and Compassion towards their bleeding Country to assist and joyn with us in the suppressing those Enemies to Peace who are so much delighted with the Ruine and Confusion they have made that they will not so much as vouchsafe to Treat with us that all specious Pretences might be taken away and the grounds of this bloody Contention clearly stated to the World If these Men with a true sence and remorse of the ill they have done shall yet return to their Duty and Loyalty they shall God willing find us of another temper towards them than they have been towards us And if the Conscience of their Duty shall not draw all our fellow-Subjects and Country-Men to joyn with us in assisting His Majesty we hope that the prudent consideration That 't is impossible to Reason for our miserable Country ever to be restored to Peace and Happiness but by restoring all just and legally-due Power and Authority into His Majesty's hands again will direct them what is fit to be done by them And if any yet shall be so unskilful and to say no worse vulgar-spirited to hope by a Neutrality and odious Indifferency to rest secure in this Storm though we shall not follow the examples of other Men in telling them that their Estates shall be forfeited and taken from them as pernicious and publick Enemies God be thanked the Law is not so supprest but that it proceeds in Attainders and Forfeitures and all Men
by Acts of Parliament for that War have been formerly diverted to other uses of which Money 100000 l. at one time was issued out for the payment of the Forces under the Earl of Essex And as to diverting the Forces provided for the reducing of Ireland though we conceived it ought not to be objected to His Majesty considering the Forces under the Command of the Lord Wharton raised for Ireland had been formerly diverted and imployd against Him in the War here in England yet it is evident they were not brought over till after the Cessation when they could no longer subsist there and that there was no present use for them and before those Forces brought over there was an attempt to bring the Scotish Forces in Ireland as likewise divers of the English Officers there into this Kingdom and since the Earl of Leven their General and divers Scotch Forces were actually brought over To the Allegations that many Persons of all sorts have forsaken the Kingdom rather than they would submit to that Cessation we know of none but it is manifest that divers who had left that Kingdom because they would have been famished if they had continued there since that Cessation have returned Touching the Committee sent into Ireland we have already answered they were not discountenanced by His Majesty in what they lawfully might do although they went without His Privity but conceive your Lordships will not insist that they should sit with the Privy-Council there and assume to themselves to advise and interpose as Privy-Councellors And we again deny the Subscriptions of the Officers of the Army was diverted by His Majesty and it is well known that some Officers apprehending upon some speeches that the drift in requiring Subscriptions was to engage the Army against His Majesty in detestation thereof upon those speeches rent the Book of Subscription in pieces For the diversion of the Moneys raised for that War if they had been since repaid the contrary whereof is credibly informed to His Majesty yet that present Diversion might be and we believe was a great means of the future Wants of that Kingdom which induced the Cessation As to the Lord Wharton's Commission we conceive we have already fully satisfied your Lordships the just Reasons thereof For the Letters whereof your Lordships had Copies we conceive that you being thereby satisfied of the Contents and that they came from the Lords Justices and Council there your Lordships need not doubt of the truth of the matter and for the Names of the single Persons subscribing we cannot conceive it is desired for any other purpose than to be made use of against such of them as should come into your Quarters you having not granted though desired that it shall not turn to their Prejudice if we should give in their Names Upon what hath been said it appears that His Majesties English Protestant Subjects in Ireland could not subsist without a Cessation and that the War there cannot be maintained or prosecuted to the subduing of the Rebels there during the continuance of this unnatural War here is evident to any man that shall consider that this Kingdom labouring in a War which imploys all the Force and Wealth at home cannot nor will spare considerable Supplies to send abroad or if it could yet whiles there are mutual Jealousies that there cannot be that concurrence in joynt Advices betwixt the King and the two Houses as will be necessary if that War be prosecuted and that His Majesty cannot condescend or your Lordships in reason expect His Majesty should by His Consent to Acts of Parliament for the managing of that War and raising moneys to that purpose put so great a Power into their hands who during these Troubles may if they will turn that Power against Him and it is apparent that the continuance of the War here must inevitably cause the continuance of the Miseries there and endanger the rending of that Kingdom from this Crown The Kings Commissioners other Paper 20. Feb. VVE do very much wonder that it doth not clearly appear to your Lordships that upon any difference between the Committees of both Kingdoms in the managing the War of Ireland in the manner proposed by your Lordships the War there must stand still or be dissolved for if the Ordinance of the 11th of April be by His Majesties Royal Assent made an Act of Parliament as your Lordships desire all the Forces of that Kingdom both British and Scotish are put under the absolute Command of the Earl of Leven the Scotish General and the managing the War committed wholly to the Committee of both Kingdoms without any reference to the two Houses of the Parliament of England by themselves so that whatsoever your Lordships say of your intentions that the the two Houses of Parliament here shall upon such difference manage the War which yet you say must be observing the Treaty of the 6th of August and the said Ordinance of the 11th of April it is very evident if that Ordinance should be made a Law the War must stand still or be dissolved upon difference of opinion between the Committee of both Kingdoms or else the Earl of Leven must carry on the War according to his discretion for he is in no degree bound to observe the Orders or Directions of the Houses of Parliament in England by themselves Neither doth the asking His Majesties Consent at all alter the Case from what we stated it to your Lordships in our Paper of the 20. of this Instant for we said then and we say still that if His Majesty should consent to what you propose He would devest himself of all his Royal Power in that Kingdom and reserve no Power or Authority in Himself over that War which is most necessary for His Kingly Office to do For your Lordships Expression when there shall be a Lieutenant of Ireland we presume your Lordships cannot but be informed that His Majesty hath made and we doubt not but you acknowledge he hath power to make the Lord Marquess of Ormond His Lieutenant of that Kingdom and who is very well able to manage and carry on that War in such manner as shall be thought necessary for the good of that Kingdom and there is no question but that the naming the Earl of Leven to be General to receive Orders only from the joynt Committee of both Kingdoms doth more take away the Power of the two Houses here than if he were a Native of this Kingdom and to obey the Orders of the two Houses And we conceive it evident that the giving the absolute Command of all Forces both British and Scotish to the Earl of Leven General of the Scotish Forces who is to manage the War according to the Directions of the joynt Committee of both Kingdoms doth not amount to less than to deliver the whole Kingdom of Ireland over into the hands of His Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland and therefore we must ask
Quarterings nor Marchings and when it shall be found fit to send Troops out of either Army that the Persons to be sent out of the Scotish Army shall be commanded out by their own General the Lieutenant of Ireland prescribing the number which shall not exceed the fourth part of the whole Foot of the Scotish Army nor of the Horse appointed to joyn therewith whereunto they shall return when the Service is done And that no Officer of the Scotish Army shall be commanded by one of his own Quality and if the Commanders of the Troops so sent out of either Army be one of Quality that they command the Party by turns And it is nevertheless provided that the whole Scotish Army may be called out of the Province of Vlster and the Horses appointed to joyn with them by His Majesties Lieutenant of Ireland or other chief Governour or Governours of that Kingdom for the time being if he or they shall think fit before the Rebellion be totally suppressed therein Eleventhly it is agreed That the Scotish Army shall be entertained by the English for three Months from the twentieth of June last and so along after until they be discharged and that they shall have a Months Pay advanced when they are first mustered in Ireland and thereafter shall be duely paid from Month to Month and that there shall be one Muster-master appointed by the English Muster-master General to make strict and frequent Musters of the Scotish Army and that what Companies of Men shall be sent out of Scotland within the compass of the Ten thousand Men shall be paid upon their Musters in Ireland although they make not up compleat Regiments Twelfthly it is agreed That the Scotish Army shall receive their discharge from the King and Parliament of England or from such Persons as shall be appointed and authorized by His Majesty and both Houses of Parliament for that purpose and that there shall be a Months warning before-hand of their disbanding which said discharge and Months warning shall be made known by His Majesty and them to the Council of Scotland or the Lord Chancellor a Month before the discharging thereof and that the Common Souldiers of the Scotish at their dismission shall be allowed fourteen days Pay for carrying of them home Thirteenthly it is provided and agreed That at any time after the Three Months now agreed upon for the entertainment of the Scotish Army shall be expired and that the Two Houses of Parliament or such persons as shall be authorized by them shall give notice to the Council of Scotland or to the Lord Chancellor there that after one Month from such notice given the said Two Houses of Parliament will not pay the said Scotish Army now in Ireland any longer then the said Two Houses of Parliament shall not be obliged to pay the said Army any longer then during the said Month any thing in this Treaty contained to the contrary notwithstanding The Ordinances of the 9. of March and 11. of April Die Sabbati 9. Martii 1643-44 Resolved upon the Question by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled THat he who doth or shall command in chief over the said Army by joynt Advice of both Kingdoms shall also command the rest of the British Forces in Ireland and for the further managing of that War and prosecuting the Ends expressed in the Covenant that the same be done by joynt Advice with the Committees of both Kingdoms Die Jovis 11. April 1644. Resolved upon the Question by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled THat the Earl of Leven Lord General of the Scots Forces in Ireland being now by the Votes of both Houses agreed to be Commander in chief over all the Forces as well British as Scots according to the Fourth Article of the result of the Committees of both Kingdoms passed both Houses be desired with all convenient speed by the Advice of the said Committees to appoint and nominate a Commander in chief under his Excellency over the said Forces to reside with them upon the place Resolved c. THat Committees be nominated and appointed by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms of such Numbers and Qualities as shall be by them agreed on to be sent with all convenient speed to reside with the said Forces and enabled with all ample Instructions by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms for the Regulating of the said Forces and the better carrying on of that War The Letter of the Lords Justices and Council of Ireland to the Speaker of the House of Commons in England 4. April 1643. a Duplicate whereof the Original being sent to VVestminster was by them sent to Master Secretary Nicholas for His Majesty SIR OUR very good Lord the Lord Marquess of Ormond having in his March in his last Expedition consulted several times with the Commanders and Officers of the Army in a Council of War and so finding that subsistence could not be had abroad for the Men and Horses he had with him or for any considerable part of them it was resolved by them that his Lordship with those Forces should return hither which he did on the six and twentieth of March. In his return from Rosse which in the case our Forces stand he found so difficult to be taken in as although our Ordinance made a breach in their Walls it was found necessary to desert the Siege he was encountred by an Army of the Rebels consisting of about six thousand Foot and six hundred and fifty Horse well armed and horsed yet it pleased God so to disappoint their counsels and strength as with those small Forces which the Lord Marquess had with him being of fighting men about two thousand five hundred Foot and five hundred Horse not well armed and for the most part weakly horsed and those as well Men as Horses much weakned by lying in the Fields several Nights in much Cold and Rain and by want of Mans-meat and Horse-meat the Lord Marquess obtained a happy and glorious deliverance and Victory against those Rebels wherein were slain about three hundred of them and many of their Commanders and others of Quality and divers taken Prisoners and amongst those Prisoners Colonel Cullen a Native of this City who being a Colonel in France departed from thence and came hither to assist the Rebels and was Lieutenant-General of their Army in the Province of Leimster and the Rebels Army were totally routed and defeated and their Baggage and Munition seized on by His Majesties Forces who lodged that Night where they had gained the Victory and on our side about twenty slain in the fight and divers wounded We have great cause to praise God for magnifying his Goodness and Mercy to His Majesty and this His Kingdom so manifestly and indeed wonderfully in that Victory However the Joy due from us upon so happy an occasion is we confess mingled with very great Distraction here in the apprehension of our Unhappiness to be such as although the
the Nobility wherein He acquitted Himself with a Bravery equal to his Dignity And on the Sunday following attending His Father to the Sermon at St Paul's Cross and to the Service inthe Quire He shewed as much humble Devotion there as He had manifested Princely Gallantry in his Justs admired and applauded by the People for His Accomplishments in the Arts both of War and Peace That he could behave Himself humbly towards His God and bravely towards his Enemy pleased with the hardiness of His Body and ravished with his more generous Mind that the Pleasures of the Court had not softned one to Sloth nor the supremest Fortune debauched the other to Impiety Confident in these An. 1622 and other evidences of a wise Conduct the King without acquainting his Counsel sends the Prince into Spain there to Contract a Marriage with the Infanta and as a part of the Portion to recover the Palatinate which His Sisters Husband had lost and was by the Emperour cantel'd to the Duke of Bavaria and the King of Spain And herein He was to Combate all the Artists of State in that Court the practices of that Church and put an Issue to that Treaty wherein the Lord Digby though much conversant in the Intriegues of that Council had been long cajoled To that Place he was to pass Incognito accompanied only with the Marquess of Buckingham Mr Endymion Porter and Mr Francis Cottington through France where to satisfy His Curiosity and shew Himself to Love He attempted and enjoyed a view of the Court at Paris and there received the first Impression of that Excellent Princess who was by Heaven destined to His Chast Embraces Satisfied with that sight no lesser enjoyments of any Pleasure in that great Kingdom nor Vanity of Youth which is hardly curbed when it is allyed to Power could tempt His stay or a discovery of His Greatness but with a speed answerable to an active Body and Mind He out-stripped the French Posts which were sent to stop Him although that King had intelligence of His being within his Dominions immediately after their departure from the Louvre The certain news of His safe arrival at Madrid drew after Him from hence a Princely Train and raised the Censures of the World upon the King As being too forgetful of the Inhospitality of Princes to each other who when either Design Tempests or Necessity have driven their Rivals in Majesty upon their Coasts without a Caution they let them not part without some Tribute to their Interest and a fresh Example of this was in the King 's own Mother who seeking Refuge in England with her Sister Queen Elizabeth from a Storm at Home did lose both her Liberty and Life This none daring to mind the King of his Jester Archee made him sensible by telling him He came to change Caps with him Why said the King Because replyed Archée Thou hast sent the Prince into Spain from whence He is never like to return But said the King what wilt thou say when thou seest Him come back again Mary says the Jester I will take off the Fools Cap which I now put upon thy Head for sending Him thither and put it on the King of Spain's for letting him return This so awakened the King's apprehension of the Prince's danger that it drove him into an exceeding Melancholy from which he was never free till he was assured of the Prince's return to his own Dominions which was his Fleet in the Sea and that was not long after For notwithstanding the contrasts of his two prime Ministers there Buckingham and Bristol which were sufficient to amaze an ordinary Prudence and disturb the Counsels of so young a Beginner in the Mysteries of Empire and the Arts of Experienced Conclaves the impetuous attempts of the Spanish Clergy either for a change of His Religion or a Toleration of theirs the Spleen of Olivares whom Buckingham had exasperated He so dexterously managed the Treaty of Marriage that all the Articles and Circumstances were solemnly sworn to by both Kings By a civil Letter to the Pope which His Enemies Malice afterwards took as an occasion of Slander He procured a civil return with the grant of a Dispensation baffled the hopes of their Clergy by his Constancy in his own Profession and vindicated it from the odious aspersions of their Priests by causing our Liturgy to be translated into the Spanish Tongue and by His generous mien enthralled the Infanta for whom He had exposed His Liberty Yet having an insight into the practices of that Court that they would not put the Restitution of the Palatinate into the consideration of the Portion but reserve it as a Super-foetation of the Spanish Love and as an opportunity for the Infanta to reconcile the English Spirits who were heated by the late Wars into an hatred of the Spaniards and that this was but to lengthen out the Treaty till they had wholly brought the Palatinate under their Power He conformed His mind to the resolves of His Father who said He would never marry his Son with a Portion of His only Sister's Tears and therefore inclined to a Rupture But concealing His Purpose and dissembling His Knowledge of their Designs He consulted His own Safety and Return which His Father's Letters commanded which He so prudently acquired that the King of Spain parted from Him with all those endearments with which departing Friends ceremoniate their Farewells having satisfied him by a Proxie left with the Earl of Bristol to be delivered when the Dispensation was come Which as soon as He was safe on Shipboard by a private Express He commanded him to keep in his hands till further Order His return to England An. 1623 which was in October 1623. was entertained with so much joy and thanksgiving as if He had been the happy Genius of the whole Nation and his entrance into London was as a triumph for His Wisdom their Bonfires lengthned out the day and their Bells by uncessant ringing forbad sleep to those Eyes which were refreshed with His sight Nor could the People by age or sickness be confined at home but despising the prescriptions of their Physicians went to meet Him as restored Health When He had given the King an account of His Voyage and the Spanish Counsels not to restore the Palatinate a Parliament was summoned which was so zealous of the Honour of the Prince that both Houses voted an Address to his Majesty that he would no longer treat but begin a War with Spain and desiring the Prince's mediation who was always ready to gratifie the Nation therein to his Father they assured Him they would stand by Him with their Lives and Fortunes but yet when the War with the Crown descended unto Him they shamefully deserted Him in the beginning of His Reign When neither a Wife nor Peace was any longer to be expected from Spain both were sought for from France by a Marriage with Henrietta Maria the youngest Daughter of Henry the IV.
Days then the Duke had done in so many Months before But in the mean while Rochel was barricadoed to an impossibility of Relief Therefore the Earl of Lindsey who commanded the Forces after some gallant yet fruitless attempts returned to England and the Rochellers to the Obedience of the French King As Providence had removed the great Object of the Popular hate and as was pretended the chief Obstruction of the Subjects Love to their King the Duke of Buckingham so the King Himself labours to remove all other occasions of quarrel before the next Session He restores Archbishop Abbot who for his remissness in the Discipline of the Church had been suspended from his Office and was therefore the Darling of the Commons because in disgrace with the King so contrary are the affections of a corrupted State to those of their Governours to the administration of it again Dr Potter the great Calvinist was made Bishop of Carlisle Mr Mountague's Book of Appello Caesarem was called in Proclamations were issued out against Papists Sir Thomas Wentworth an active Leader of the Commons was toward the beginning of this Session as Sir John Savil had been at the end of the last called up into the Lord's House being made Viscount Wentworth and Lord President of the North. But the Honours of these Persons whose Parts the King who well understood Men thought worthy of His Favour and Employment seeming the rewards of Sedition and the spoils of destructive Counsels the Demagogues were more eager in the pursuit of that which these had attained unto by the like arts And therefore despising all the King 's obliging Practices in the next Session they assumed a Power of reforming Church and State called the Customers into question for Levying Tonnage and Poundage made now their Invectives as they formerly did against the Duke against the Lord Treasurer Weston so that it appeared that not the Persons of Men but the King's trust of them was the object of their Envy and His Favour though never so Vertuous marked them out for Ruine And upon these Points they raised the Heat to such a degree that fearing they should be dissolved e're they had time to vent their Passions they began a Violence upon their own Body an Example which lasted longer then their Cause and at last produced the overthrow of all their Priviledges They lock'd the Doors of the House kept the Key thereof in one of their own Pockets held the Speaker by strong Hand in the Chair till they had thundred out their Votes like dreadful Anathemaes against those that should levy and which was more ranting against such as should willingly pay the Tonnage and Poundage This Force the King went with His Guard of Pensioners to remove which they hearing adjourned the House and the King in the House of Lords declaring the Injustice of those Vipers who destroyed their own Liberties dissolved the Parliament While the Winds of Sedition raged thus furiously at home more gentle gales came from abroad The French King's Designs upon other Places required Peace from us and therefore the Signiory of Venice by her Ambassadors was moved to procure an Accord betwixt Charles and Lewis An. 1629 which the King accepted And not long after the Spaniard pressed with equal necessities desired Amity which was also granted The King being thus freed from His Domestick Embroilments and Foreign Enmities soon made the World see His Skill in the Arts of Empire and rendred Himself abroad more considerable then any of His Predecessors And He was more glorious in the Eyes of the good and more satisfied in His own Breast by confirming Peace with Prudence then if He had finished Wars with destroying Arms. So that His Scepter was the Caduceus to arbitrate the differences of the Potentates of Europe His Subjects likewise tasted the sweetness of a Reign which Heaven did indulge with all its favours but only that of valuing their Happiness While other Nations weltred in Blood His People enjoyed a Profound Peace and that Plenty which the freedom of Commerce brings along with it The Dutch and Easterlings used London as the surest Bank to preserve and increase their Trading The Spanish Bullion was here Coined which advantaged the King's Mint and encreased the Wealth of the Merchants who returned most of that Money in our Native Commodities While He dispensed these Blessings to the People An. 1630 Heaven was liberal to Him in giving Him a Son to inherit His Dominions May 29. An. 1630. which was so great matter of rejoycing to the People of uncorrupted minds that Heaven seemed also concerned in the Exultation kindling another Fire more than Ordinary making a Star to be seen the same day at noon From which most men presaged that that Prince should be of high Undertakings and of no common glory among Kings which hath since been confirmed by the miraculous preservation of Him and Heaven seemed to conduct Him to the Throne For this great Blessing the King gave publick Thanks to the Author of it Almighty God at St Paul's Church and God was pleased in a return to those thanks with a numerous Issue afterwards to increase this Happiness For neither Armies nor Navies are such sure props of Empire as Children are Time Fortune private Lusts or Errors may take off or change Friends but those that Nature hath united must have the same Interest especially in Royal Families in whose Prosperities strangers may have a part but their Adversities will be sure to crush their nearest Allies Prospering thus in Peace at home a small time assisted His frugality to get such a Treasure and gave Him leasure to form such Counsels as might curb the Insolence of His Enemies abroad He confederated with other Princes to give a check to the Austrian Greatness assisting by his Treasure Arms and Counsel the King of Sweden to deliver the oppressed German States from the Imperial Oppressions And when Gustavus's Fortune made him Insolent and he would impose unequal Conditions upon the Paltsgrave the King's Brother-in-law He necessitated him notwithstanding his Victories to more easie Articles The next year was notorious for two Tryals An. 1631 one of the Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven who being accused by all the abused parts of his Family of a prodigious wickedness and unnatural uncleanness was by the King submitted to a Tryal by his Peers and by them being found guilty was condemned and his Nobility could be no patronage for his Crimes but in the King's eyes they appeared more horrid because they polluted that Order and was afterwards executed The other was of a Tryal of Combate at a Marshal's Court betwixt Donnold Lord Rey a Scottish High-lander and David Ramsey a Scottish Courtier The first accused the last to have sollicited him to a Confederacy with the Marquess Hamilton who was then Commander of some Forces in assistance of the King of Sweden in which Ramsey said all Scotland was ingaged but three and that their friends had gotten
took no notice of it although it was so weighty an Occurrence to have His prime Minister cut off in the busie Preparations for a great Design till He had finished His Addresses to Heaven and His Spirit was dismissed from the Throne of Grace to attend the Cares of that on Earth This was so clear an Evidence of a most fixed Devotion that those who built their Hopes upon His Reproaches slanderously imputed it to a secret Pleasure in the fall of him whose Greatness was now terrible to the Family that raised it which both His Majesties care of the Duke's Children afterwards as also the Consideration of His Condition did evince to be false and that the King neither hated him nor needed to fear him whom He could have ruined with a Frown and have obliged the People by permitting their Fury to pass upon him Besides His Majestie 's constant Diligence in those Duties did demonstrate that nothing but a principle of Holiness which is alwaies uniform both moved and assisted Him in those sacred Performances to which He was observed to go with an exceeding Alacrity as to a ravishing pleasure from which no lesser Pleasures nor Business were strong enough for a Diversion In the morning before He went to Hunting His beloved Sport the Chaplains were before Day call'd to their Ministry and when He was at Brainford among the Noise of Arms and near the Assaults of His Enemies He caused the Divine that then waited to perform his accustomed Service before He provided for Safety or attempted at Victory and would first gain upon the Love of Heaven and then afterwards repel the Malice of Men. Those that were appointed by the Parliament to attend Him in His Restraints wondred at His constant Devotions in His Closet and no Artifice of the Army was so likely to abuse Him to a Credulity of their good Intentions as the Permission of the Ministery of His Chaplains in the Worship of God a Mercy He valued to some of His Servants above that of enjoying Wife and Children At Sermons He carried Himself with such a Reverence and Attention that His Enemies which hated yet did even admire Him in it as if He were expecting new Instructions for Government from that God whose Deputy He was or a new Charter for a larger Empire and He was so careful not to neglect any of those Exercises that if on Tuesday Mornings on which Dayes there used to be Sermons at Court He were at any distance from thence He would ride hard to be present at the beginnings of them When the State of His Soul required He was as ready to perform those more severe parts of Religion which seem most distastful to Flesh and Blood And He never refused to take to Himself the shame of those Acts wherein He had transgressed that He might give Glory to His God For after the Army had forced Him from Holmeby and in their several removes had brought Him to Latmas an house of the Earl of Devonshire on Aug. 1. being Sunday in the Morning before Sermon He led forth with Him into the Garden the Reverend Dr Sheldon who then attended on Him and whom He was pleased to use as His Confessour and drawing out of His Pocket a Paper commanded him to read it transcribe it and so to deliver it to Him again This Paper contained several Vows which He had obliged His Soul unto for the Glory of His Maker the advance of true Piety and the emolument of the Church And among them this was one that He would do Publick Penance for the Injustice He had suffered to be done to the Earl of Strafford His consent to those Injuries that were done to the Church of England though at that time He had yielded to no more than the taking away of the High Commission and the Bishops power to Vote in Parliament and to the Church of Scotland and adjured the Dr that if ever he saw Him in a Condition to observe that or any of those Vows he should solicitously mind Him of the Obligations as he dreaded the guilt of the breach should ly upon His own Soul This voluntary submission to the Laws of Christianity exceeded that so memorable humiliation of the good Emperour Theodosius for he never bewailed the Blood of those seven thousand Men which in three hours space he caused to be spilt at Thessalonica till the resolution of St Ambrose made him sensible of the Crime But the Piety of King Charles anticipated the severity of a Confessor for those Offences to which He had been precipitated by the Violence of others This Zeal and Piety proceeded from the Dedication of His whole Soul to the Honour of His God for Religion was as Imperial in the Intellectual as in the Affectionate Faculties of it This Profession of the Church of England was His not so much by Education as Choice and He so well understood the Grounds of it that He valued them above all other Pretensions to Truth and was able to maintain it against all its Adversaries His Discourse with Henderson shews how just a Reverence He had for the Authority of the Catholick Church against the Pride and Ignorance of Schismaticks yet not to prostitute His Faith to the Adulterations of the Roman Infallibility and Traditions Nevertheless the most violent Slanders the Faction laboured to pollute Him with were those that rendred Him inclinable to Popery From which He was so averse that He could not forbear in His indearments to the Queen when He committed a secret to Her Breast which He would not trust to any other and when He admired and applauded Her affectionate Cares for His Honour and Safety in a Letter which He thought no Eye but Hers should have perused to let Her know that He still differ'd from Her in Religion for He says It is the only thing of Difference in Opinion betwixt Vs. Malice made the Slanderers blind and they published this Letter to the World than which there could not be a greater Evidence imaginable of the King 's most secret thoughts and Inward Sincerity nor a more shameful Conviction of their Impudence and damnable Falshood Nor did He only tell the Queen so but He made Her see it in His Actions For as soon as His Children were born it was His first Care to prevent the satisfaction of their Mother in baptizing them after the Rites of Her own Church When He was to Die a time most seasonable to speak Truth especially by Him who all His Life knew not how to Dissemble He declares His Profession in Religion to be the same with that which He found left by His Father King James How little the Papists credited what the Faction would have the World believe was too evident by the Conspiracies of their Fathers against His Life and Honour which the Discovery of Habernefield to whose relations the following practices against Him and the Church of England gained a belief brought to light They were mingled likewise
Authority which is alledged as knowing neither Law nor Practice for it And if the two Armies be He believes it is more than can be parallel'd by any former times in this Kingdom Nor can His Majesty understand how His Majesty's seeking of a Personal security can be any breach of Priviledge it being likely to be infringed by hindring His Majesty from coming freely to His two Houses As for the objection that His Majesty omitted to mention the setling Religion and securing the Peace of His Native Kingdom His Majesty declares that He conceives that it was included in His former and hath been particularly mentioned in His latter Message of the 15. present But for their better satisfaction He again expresseth that it was and ever shall be both His meaning and endeavour in this Treaty desired and it seems to Him very clear that there is no way for a final ending of such Distractions as afflict this Kingdom but either by Treaty or Conquest the latter of which His Majesty hopes none will have the Impudency or Impiety to wish for And for the former if his Personal assistance in it be not the most likely way let any reasonable man judge when by that means not only all unnecessary Delaies will be removed but even the greatest Difficulties made easie And therefore He doth now again earnestly insist upon that Proposition expecting to have a better Answer upon mature consideration And can it be imagined that any Propositions will be so effectual being formed before a Personal Treaty as such as are framed and propounded upon a full debate on both sides Wherefore His Majesty who is most concerned in the good of His People and is most desirous to restore Peace and Happiness to His three Kingdoms doth again instantly desire an Answer to His said former Messages to which He hath hitherto received none Given at our Court at Oxon the twenty fourth day of January 1645. XX. From OXFORD January 29. MDCXLV VI. Concerning the Negotiations in Ireland with His Majesty's further Concessions in order to a Personal Treaty To the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. HIS Majesty having received information from the Lord Lieutenant and Council in Ireland that the Earl of Glamorgan hath without his or their directions or privity entred into a Treaty with some Commissioners on the Roman Catholick party there and also drawn up and agreed unto certain Articles with the said Commissioners highly derogatory to His Majesty's Honour and Royal Dignity and most prejudicial unto the Protestant Religion and Church there in Ireland whereupon the said Earl of Glamorgan is arrested upon suspicion of high Treason and imprisoned by the said Lord Lieutenant and Council at the instance and by the impeachment of the Lord Digby who by reason of his place and former imployment in these affairs doth best know how contrary that proceeding of the said Earl hath been to His Majesty's intentions and directions and what great prejudice it might bring to His Affairs if those proceedings of the Earl of Glamorgan should be any waies understood to have been done by the directions liking or approbation of His Majesty His Majesty having in His former Messages for a Personal Treaty offered to give contentment to his two Houses in the business of Ireland hath now thought fitting the better to shew His clear intentions and to give satisfaction to His said Houses of Parliament and the rest of His Subjects in all His Kingdoms to send this Declaration to His said Houses containing the whole truth of the business Which is That the Earl of Glamorgan having made offer unto Him to raise Forces in the Kingdom of Ireland and to conduct them into England for His Majesty's Service had a Commission to that purpose and to that purpose only That he had no Commission at all to treat of any thing else without the privity and directions of the Lord Lieutenant much less to capitulate any thing concerning Religion or any propriety belonging either to Church or Laity That it clearly appears by the Lord Lieutenants Proceedings with the said Earl that he had no notice at all of what the said Earlhad treated and pretended to have capitulated with the Irish until by accident it came to his knowledge And his Majesty doth protest that until such time as He had advertisement that the person of the said Earl of Glamorgan was arrested and restrained as is abovesaid He never heard nor had any kind of notice that the said Earl had entred into any kind of Treaty or Capitulation with those Irish Commissioners much less that he had concluded or signed those Articles so destructive both to Church and State and so repugnant to His Majesty's publick professions and known resolutions And for the further vindication of His Majesties Honour and Integrity herein He doth declare That He is so far from considering any thing contained in those Papers or Writings framed by the said Earl and those Commissioners with whom he treated as He doth absolutely disavow him therein and hath given commandment to the Lord Lieutenant and the Council there to proceed against the said Earl as one who either out of Falseness Presumption or Folly hath so hazarded the blemishing of His Majesty's Reputation with His good Subjects and so impertinently framed those Articles of his own head without the consent privity or directions of His Majesty or the Lord Lieutenant or any of His Majesties Council there But true it is that for the necessary preservation of His Majesty's Protestant Subjects in Ireland whose case was daily represented unto Him to be so desperate His Majesty had given Commission to the Lord Lieutenant to treat and conclude such a Peace there as might be for the safety of that Crown the preservation of the Protestant Religion and no way derogatory to His Own Honour and publick professions But to the end that His Majesty's real intentions in this business of Ireland may be the more clearly understood and to give more ample satisfaction to both Houses of Parliament and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland especially concerning His Majesties not being engaged in any Peace or Agreement there He doth desire if the two Houses shall admit of His Majesty's repair to London for a Personal Treaty as was formerly proposed that speedy notice be given thereof to His Majesty and a Pass or Safe-Conduct with a blank sent for a Messenger to be immediately dispatcht into Ireland to prevent any accident that may happen to hinder His Majesty's resolution of leaving the managing of the business of Ireland wholly to the Houses and to make no Peace there but with their consent which in case it shall please God to bless His endeavours in the Treaty with success His Majesty doth hereby engage Himself to do And for a further explanation of His Majesty's
upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the year last mentioned at Newbury aforesaid and upon or about the eighth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and five at the Town of Leicester and also upon the fourteenth day of the same month in the same year at Naseby-field in the County of Northampton At which several times and places or most of them and at many other places in this Land at several other times within the years aforementioned and in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and six he the said Charles Stuart hath caused and procured many thousands of the Free People of the Nation to be slain and by Divisions Parties and Infurrections within this Land by Invasions from Forein Parts endeavoured and procured by him and by many other evil ways and means he the said Charles Stuart hath not only maintained and carried on the said War both by Land and Sea during the years before mentioned but also hath renewed or caused to be renewed the said War against the Parliament and good People of this Nation in this present year one thousand six hundred forty and eight in the Counties of Kent Essex Surry Sussex Middlesex and many other places in England and Wales and also by Sea and particularly he the said Charles Stuart hath for that purpose given Commission to his Son the Prince and others whereby besides multitudes of other persons many such as were by the Parliament intrusted and imployed for the safety of the Nation being by him or his Agents corrupted to the betraying of their Trust and revolting from the Parliament have had entertainment and Commission for the continuing and renewing of War and Hostility against the said Parliament and People as aforesaid By which cruel and unnatural Wars by him the said Charles Stuart levied continued and renewed as aforesaid much innocent blood of the Free People of this Nation hath been spilt many Families have been undone the publick Treasury wasted and exhausted Trade obstructed and miserably decayed vast expence and damage to the Nation incurred and many parts of the Land spoiled some of them even to Desolation And for further prosecution of his said evil Designs he the said Charles Stuart doth still continue his Commissions to the said Prince and other Rebels and Revolters both English and Foreiners and to the Earl of Ormond and to the Irish Rebels and Revolters associated with him from whom further Invasions upon this Land are threatned upon the procurement and on the behalf of the said Charles Stuart All which wicked Designs Wars and evil Practices of him the said Charles Stuart have been and are carried on for the advancing and upholding of the Personal Interest of Will and Power and pretended Prerogative to himself and his Family against the Publick Interest Common Right Liberty Justice and Peace of the People of this Nation by and for whom he was intrusted as aforesaid By all which it appeareth that he the said Charles Stuart hath been and is the Occasioner Author and Contriver of the said unnatural cruel and bloody Wars and therein guilty of all the Treasons Murders Rapines Burnings Spoils Desolations Damage and Mischief to this Nation acted or committed in the said Wars or occasioned thereby And the said John Cook by Protestation saving on the behalf of the People of England the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Charge against the said Charles Stuart and also of replying to the Answers which the said Charles Stuart shall make to the Premisses or any of them or any other Charge that shall be so exhibited doth for the said Treasons and Crimes on the behalf of the said People of England impeach the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traitor Murtherer and a publick and implacable Enemy to the Commonwealth of England and pray that the said Charles Stuart King of England may be put to answer all and every the Premisses that such Proceedings Examinations Tryals Sentence and Judgment may be thereupon had as shall be agreeable to Justice His Majesty with His wonted Patience heard all these Slanders and Reproaches sitting in the Chair and looking sometimes on the pretended Court sometimes up to the Galleries and rising again turned about to behold the Guards and Spectators then he sate down with a Majestick and unmoved countenance and sometimes smiling especially at those words Tyrant Traitor and the like Also the silver head of His Staff happened to fall off at which He wondred and seeing none to take it up He stooped for it Himself The Charge being read Bradshaw began Sir you have now heard your Charge read containing such matters as appear in it you find that in the close of it it is prayed to the Court in the behalf of the Commons of England that you answer to your Charge The Court expects your Answer KING I would know by what Power I am called hither I was not long ago in the Isle of Wight how I came there is a longer story than I think is fit at this time for Me to speak of but there I entred into a Treaty with both Houses of Parliament with as much publick Faith as it 's possible to be had of any People in the World I treated there with a number of Honourable Lords and Gentlemen and treated honestly and uprightly I cannot say but they did very nobly with Me we were upon a conclusion of the Treaty Now I would know by what Authority I mean lawful there are many unlawful Authorities in the world Thieves and Robbers by the high-ways but I would know by what Authority I was brought from thence and carried from place to place and I know not what And when I know by what lawful Authority I shall answer Remember I am your King your lawful King and what sins you bring upon your heads and the Judgment of God upon this Land Think well upon it I say think well upon it before you go further from one sin to a greater Therefore let Me know by what lawful Authority I am seated here and I shall not be unwilling to answer In the mean time I shall not betray My Trust I have a Trust committed to Me by God by old and lawful Descent I will not betray it to answer to a new unlawful Authority Therefore resolve Me that and you shall hear more of Me. Bradshaw If you had been pleased to have observed what was hinted to you by the Court at your first coming hither you would have known by what Authority which Authority requires you in the name of the People of England of which you are elected King to answer KING No Sir I deny that Bradshaw If you acknowledge not the Authority of the Court they must proceed KING I do tell them so England was never an Elective Kingdom but an Hereditary Kingdom for near these thousand years therefore let Me know by what Authority I am called
hither I do stand more for the Liberty of My People than any here that come to be My pretended Judges and therefore let Me know by what lawful Authority I am seated here and I will answer it otherwise I will not answer it Bradshaw Sir how really you have managed your Trust is known your way of Answer is to interrogate the Court which beseems not you in this Condition You have been told of it twice or thrice KING Here is a Gentleman Lieutenant Colonel Cobbet ask him if he did not bring Me from the Isle of Wight by force I do not come here as submitting to the Court. I will stand as much for the Privilege of the House of Commons rightly understood as any man here whatsoever I see no House of Lords here that may constitute a Parliament and the King too should have been Is this the bringing of the King to His Parliament Is this the bringing an end to the Treaty in the Publick Faith of the World Let Me see a Legal Authority warranted by the Word of God the Scriptures or warranted by the Constitutions of the Kingdom and I will answer Bradshaw Sir you have propounded a Question and have been answered Seeing you will not answer the Court will consider how to proceed In the mean time those that brought you hither are to take charge of you back again The Court desires to know whether this be all the Answer you will give or no. KING Sir I desire that you would give Me and all the World satisfaction in this Let Me tell you It is not a slight thing you are about I am sworn to keep the Peace by that Duty I owe to God and My Countrey and I will do it to the last breath of My body And therefore you shall do well to satisfie first God and then the Country by what Authority you do it If you do it by an usurped Authority you cannot answer it There is a God in Heaven that will call you and all that give you Power to account Satisfie Me in that and I will answer otherwise I betray My Trust and the Liberties of the People and therefore think of that and then I shall be willing For I do avow That it is as great a Sin to withstand Lawful Authority as it is to submit to a Tyrannical or any otherways unlawful Authority And therefore satisfie God and Me and all the World in that and you shall receive My Answer I am not afraid of the Bill Bradshaw The Court expects you should give them a final Answer Their purpose is to adjourn till Monday next If you do not satisfie your self though we do tell you our Authority we are satisfied with our Authority and it is upon God's Authority and the Kingdoms and that Peace you speak of will be kept in the doing of Justice and that 's our present Work KING For Answer let Me tell you you have shewn no Lawful Authority to satisfie any reasonable man Bradshaw That 's in your apprehension we are satisfied that are your Judges KING 'T is not My apprehension nor yours neither that ought to decide it Bradshaw The Court hath heard you and you are to be disposed of as they have commanded So commanding the Guard to take Him away His Majesty only replied Well Sir And at His going down pointing with His Staff toward the Ax He said I do not fear that As He went down the stairs the People in the Hall cried out God save the King notwithstanding some were there set by the Faction to lead the clamour for Justice O yes being called they adjourn Westminster-Hall Monday Jan. 22. Afternoon SVnday being spent in Fasting and Preaching according to their manner of making Religion a pretence and prologue to their Villanies on Monday afternoon they came again into the Hall and after Silence commanded called over their Court where Seventy persons being present answered to their Names His Majesty being brought in the People gave a shout Command given to the Captain of their Guard to fetch and take into his custody those who make any Disturbance Then their Solicitor Cook began May it please your Lordship my Lord President I did at the last Court in the behalf of the Commons of England exhibite and give into this Court a Charge of High Treason and other high Crimes against the Prisoner at the Bar whereof I do accuse him in the name of the People of England and the Charge was read unto him and his Answer required My Lord he was not then pleased to give an Answer but in stead of answering did there dispute the Authority of this High Court My humble motion to this High Court in behalf of the Kingdom of England is That the Prisoner may be directed to make a Positive Answer either by way of Confession or Negation which if he shall refuse to do that the matter of Charge may be taken pro confesso and the Court may proceed according to Justice Bradshaw Sir you may remember at the last Court you were told the occasion of your being brought hither and you heard a Charge read against you containing a Charge of High Treason and other high Crimes against this Realm of England you heard likewise that it was prayed in the behalf of the People that you should give an Answer to that Charge that thereupon such proceedings might be had as should be agreeable to Justice you were then pleased to make some scruples concerning the Authority of this Court and knew not by what Authority you were brought hither you did divers time propound your Questions and were as often answer'd That it was by the Authority of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament that did think fit to call you to account for those high and capital Misdemeanours wherewith you were then charged Since that the Court hath taken into consideration what you then said they are fully satisfied with their own Authority and they hold it fit you should stand satisfied with it too and they do require it that you do give a positive and particular Answer to this Charge that is exhibited against you They do expect you should either confess or deny it If you deny it is offered in the behalf of the Kingdom to be made good against you Their Authority they do avow to the whole World that the whole Kingdom are to rest satisfied in and you are to rest satisfied with it and therefore you are to lose no more time but to give a positive Answer thereunto KING When I was here last 't is very true I made that Question and if it were only My own particular Case I would have satisfied My self with the Protestation I made the last time I was here against the Legality of this Court and that a King cannot be tried by any superior Jurisdiction on Earth But it is not My Case alone it is the Freedom and the Liberty of the People of England and do you pretend what
you will I stand more for their Liberties For if Power without Law may make Laws may alter the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom I do not know what Subject he is in England that can be sure of his Life or any thing that he calls his own Therefore when that I came here I did expect particular Reasons to know by what Law what Authority you did proceed against Me here and therefore I am a little to seek what to say to you in this particular because the Affirmative is to be proved the Negative often is very hard to do But since I cannot perswade you to do it I shall tell you My Reasons as short as I can My Reasons why in Conscience and the Duty I owe to God first and My People next for the preservation of their Lives Liberties and Estates I conceive I cannot answer this till I be satisfied of the Legality of it All proceedings against any man whatsoever Bradshaw Sir I must interrupt you which I would not do but that what you do is not agreeable to the proceedings of any Court of Justice You are about to enter into Argument and Dispute concerning the Authority of this Court before whom you appear as a Prisoner and are charged as an high Delinquent If you take upon you to dispute the Authority of the Court we may not do it nor will any Court give way unto it you are to submit unto it you are to give a punctual and direct Answer whether you will answer your Charge or no and what you Answer is KING Sir by your favour I do not know the Forms of Law I do know Law and Reason though I am no Lawyer profess'd but I know as much Law as any Gentleman in England and therefore under favour I do plead for the Liberties of the People of England more than you do and therefore if I should impose a belief upon any man without Reasons given for it it were unreasonable but I must tell you that that Reason that I have as thus informed I cannot yield unto it Bradshaw Sir I must interrupt you you may not be permitted You speak of Law and Reason it is fit there should be Law and Reason and there is both against you Sir the Vote of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament it is the Reason of the Kingdom and they are these too that have given that Law according to which you should have ruled and reigned Sir you are not to dispute our Authority you are told it again by the Court Sir it will be taken notice of that you stand in contempt of the Court and your Contempt will be recorded accordingly KING I do not know how a King can be a Delinquent but by any Law that ever I heard of all men Delinquents or what you will let Me tell you they may put in Demurrers against any proceeding as Legal and I do demand that and demand to be heard with My Reasons If you deny that you deny Reason Bradshaw Sir you have offered something to the Court I shall speak something unto you the sense of the Court. Sir neither you nor any man are permitted to dispute that point you are concluded you may not demurr to the Jurisdiction of the Court if you do I must let you know that they over-rule your Demurrer They sit here by the Authority of the Commons of England and all your Predecessors and you are responsible to them KING I deny that shew Me one Precedent Bradshaw Sir you ought not to interrupt while the Court is speaking to you This point is not to be debated by you neither will the Court permit you to do it If you offer it by way of Demurrer to the Jurisdiction of the Court they have considered of their Jurisdiction they do affirm their own Jurisdiction KING I say Sir by your favour that the Commons of England was never a Court of Judicature I would know how they came to be so Bradshaw Sir you are not to be permitted to go on in that speech and these discourses Then the Clerk of the Court read Charles Stuart King of England you have been accused on the behalf of the People of England of High Treason and other High Crimes the Court have determined that you ought to answer the same KING I will answer the same so soon as I know by what Authority you do this Bradshaw If this be all that you will say then Gentlemen you that brought the Prisoner hither take charge of him back again KING I do require that I may give in My Reasons why I do not answer and give Me time for that Bradshaw Sir 't is not for Prisoners to require KING Prisoners Sir I am not an ordinary Prisoner Bradshaw The Court hath considered of their Jurisdiction and they have already affirmed their Jurisdiction If you will not answer we shall give order to record your Default KING You never heard My Reasons yet Bradshaw Sir your Reasons are not to be heard against the Highest Jurisdiction KING Shew Me that Jurisdiction where Reason is not to be heard Bradshaw Sir we shew it you here the Commons of England and the next time you are brought you will know more of the pleasure of the Court and it may be their final Determination KING Shew Me where ever the House of Commons was a Court of Judicature of that kind Bradshaw Serjeant take away the Prisoner KING Well Sir remember that the King is not suffered to give in His Reasons for the Liberty and Freedom of all His Subjects Bradshaw Sir you are not to have liberty to use this language How great a Friend you have been to the Laws and Liberties of the People let all England and the World judge KING Sir under favour it was the Liberty Freedom and Laws of the Subject that ever I took defended My self with Arms I never took up Armes against the People but for the Laws Bradshaw The Command of the Court must be obeyed No Answer will be given to the Charge KING Well Sir Then Bradshaw ordered the Default to be recorded and the Contempt of the Court and that no Answer would be given to the Charge The King was guarded forth to Sir Robert Cotton's house The Court adjourned to the Painted Chamber on Tuesday at twelve of Clock and from thence they intend to adjourn to Westminster-Hall at which time all persons concerned are to give their attendance His Majesty not being suffered to deliver His Reasons against the Jurisdiction of their pretended Court by word of mouth thought fit to leave them in writing to the more impartial judgment of Posterity as followeth HAving already made My Protestations not only against the Illegality of this pretended Court but also That no Earthly Power can justly call Me who am your King in question as a Delinquent I would not any more open My mouth upon this occasion more than to referr My self to what I have spoken were I in this Case alone
Court Your Lordship was pleased to give him a further day to consider and to put in his Answer which day being yesterday I did humbly move that he might be required to give a direct and positive Answer either by denying or confession of it But my Lord he was then pleased for to demur to the Jurisdiction of the Court which the Court did then over-rule and command him to give a direct and positive Answer My Lord besides this great delay of Justice I shall now humbly move your Lordship for speedy Judgment against him My Lord I might press your Lordship upon the whole that according to the known rules of the Law of the Land That if a Prisoner shall stand as contumacious in contempt and shall not put in an issuable Plea guilty or not guilty of the Charge given against him whereby he may come to a fair Tryal that as by an implicite confession it may be taken pro confesso as it hath been done to those who have deserved more favour than the Prisoner at the Bar has done But besides my Lord I shall humbly press your Lordship upon the whole fact The House of Commons the Supreme Authority and Jurisdiction of the Kingdom they have declared That it is notorious that the matter of the Charge is true as it is in truth my Lord as clear as Crystal and as the Sun that shines at noon day which if your Lordship and the Court be not satisfied in I have notwithstanding on the People of England's behalf several Witnesses to produce And therefore I do humbly pray and yet I must confess it is not so much I as the innocent blood that hath been shed the Cry whereof is very great for Justice and Judgment and therefore I do humbly pray that speedy Judgment be pronounced against the Prisoner at the Bar. Bradshaw went on in the same strain Sir you have heard what is moved by the Counsel on the behalf of the Kingdom against you Sir you may well remember and if you do not the Court cannot forget what dilatory dealings the Court hath found at your hands You were pleased to propound some Questions you have had your Resolution upon them You were told over and over again that the Court did affirm their own Jurisdiction That it was not for you nor any other man to dispute the Jurisdiction of the supreme and highest Authority of England from which there is no Appeal and touching which there must be no dispute yet you did persist in such carriage as you gave no manner of Obedience nor did you acknowledge any authority in them nor the High Court that constituted this Court of Justice Sir I must let you know from the Court that they are very sensible of these delays of yours and that they ought not being thus authorized by the supreme Court of England to be thus trifled withal and that they might in Justice if they pleased and according to the rules of Justice take advantage of these delays and proceed to pronounce Judgment against you yet nevertheless they are pleased to give direction and on their behalfs I do require you that you make a positive Answer unto this Charge that is against you Sir in plain terms for Justice knows no respect of Persons you are to give your positive and final Answer in plain English whether you be guilty or not guilty of these Treasons laid to your Charge The King after a little pause said When I was here yesterday I did desire to speak for the Liberties of the People of England I was interrupted I desire to know yet whether I may speak freely or not Bradshaw Sir you have had the Resolution of the Court upon the like Question the last day and you were told That having such a Charge of so high a nature against you your work was that you ought to acknowledge the Jurisdiction of the Court and to answer to your Charge Sir if you answer to your Charge which the Court gives you leave now to do though they might have taken the advantage of your Contempt yet if you be able to answer to your Charge when you have once answered you shall be heard at large make the best Defence you can But Sir I must let you know from the Court as their Commands that you are not to be permitted to issue out into any other discourses till such time as you have given a positive Answer concerning the matter that is charged upon you KING For the Charge I value it not a rush It is the Liberty of the People of England that I stand for For Me to acknowledge a new Court that I never heard of before I that am your King that should be an Example to all the People of England for to uphold Justice to maintain the old Laws indeed I do not know how to do it You spoke very well the first day that I came here on Saturday of the Obligations that I had laid upon Me by God to the maintenance of the Liberties of My People the same Obligation you spake of I do acknowledge to God that I owe to Him and to My People to defend as much as in Me lies the ancient Laws of the Kingdom therefore until that I may know that this is not against the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom by your favour I can put in no particular Charge If you will give Me time I will shew you My Reasons why I cannot do it and this Here being interrupted He said By your favour you ought not to interrupt Me. How I came here I know not there 's no Law for it to make your King your Prisoner I was in a Treaty upon the Publick Faith of the Kingdom that was the known two Houses of Parliament that was the Representative of the Kingdom and when that I had almost made an end of the Treaty then I was hurried away and brought hither and therefore Bradshaw Sir you must know the pleasure of the Court. KING By your favour Sir Bradshaw Nay Sir by your favour you may not be permitted to fall into those discourses you appear as a Delinquent you have not acknowledged the Authority of the Court The Court craves it not of you but once more they command you to give your positive Answer Clerk Do your Duty KING Duty Sir The Clerk reads Charles Stuart King of England you are accused in the behalf of the Commons of England of divers high Crimes and Treasons which Charge hath been read unto you the Court now requires you to give your positive and final Answer by way of Confession or Denial of the Charge KING Sir I say again to you so that I might give satisfaction to the People of England of the clearness of My Proceeding not by way of Answer not in this way but to satisfie them that I have done nothing against that Trust that hath been committed to Me I would do it but to acknowledge a new Court against their
Privileges to alter the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom Sir you must excuse Me. Bradshaw Sir this is the third time that you have publickly disown'd this Court and put an Affront upon it How far you have preserv'd the Privileges of the People your Actions have spoke it but truly Sir mens Intentions ought to be known by their Actions you have written your meaning in bloody Characters throughout the whole Kingdom But Sir you understand the pleasure of the Court. Clerk record the Default And Gentlemen you that took charge of the Prisoner take him back again KING I will only say this one word more to you If it were only My own particular I would not say any more nor interrupt you Bradshaw Sir you have heard the pleasure of the Court and you are notwithstanding you will not understand it to find that you are before a Court of Justice Then the King went forth with the Guard And Proclamation was made That all persons which had then appeared and had further to do at the Court might depart into the Painted Chamber to which place the Court did forthwith adjourn and intended to meet in Westminster-Hall by ten of the Clock next morning Cryer God bless the Kingdom of England Westminster-Hall Saturday Jan. 27. Afternoon TWo or three dayes being spent in a formal Examination of Witnesses and preparing themselves for the last scene of this Mock-shew at length on Saturday the twenty seventh of January Bradshaw in his Scarlet Robes appeared in the Hall and Sixty seven others answered to their Names As the King came in in His wonted posture with his Hat on and passed toward them some few Souldiers began a clamour for Justice Justice and Execution O yes made and Silence commanded the Captain of their Guard ordered to take into Custody such as made any disturbance His Majesty began I desire a word to be heard a little and I hope I shall give no occasion of interruption Bradshaw saucily answered You may answer in your time hear the Court first His Majesty patiently replied If it please you Sir I desire to be heard and I shall not give any occasion of interruption and it is only in a word A sudden Judgment Bradshaw Sir you shall be heard in due time but you are to hear the Court first KING Sir I desire it it will be in order to what I believe the Court will say and therefore Sir A hasty Judgment is not so soon recalled Bradshaw Sir you shall be heard before the Judgment be given and in the mean time you may forbear KING Well Sir shall I be heard before the Judgment be given Bradshaw Gentlemen it is well known to all or most of you here present that the Prisoner at the Bar hath been several times convented and brought before this Court to make Answer to a Charge of Treason and other high Crimes exhibited against him in the name of the People of England To which Charge being required to answer he hath been so far from obeying the Commands of the Court by submitting to their Justice as he began to take upon him to offer Reasoning and Debate unto the Authority of the Court and to the highest Court that appointed them to try and judge him But being over-ruled in that and required to make his Answer he was still pleased to continue Contumacious and to refuse to submit to Answer Hereupon the Court that they might not be wanting to themselves nor the Trust reposed in them nor that any man's wilfulness prevent Justice they have thought fit to take the matter into their consideration they have considered of the Charge they have considered of the Contumacy and of that Confession which in Law doth arise upon that Contumacy they have likewise considered of the Notoriety of the Fact charged upon this Prisoner and upon the whole matter they are resolved and are agreed upon a Sentence to be pronounced against this Prisoner But in respect he doth desire to be heard before the Sentence be read and pronounced the Court hath resolved that they will hear him Yet Sir thus much I must tell you beforehand which you have been minded of at other Courts That if that which you have to say be to offer any debate concerning the Jurisdiction you are not to be heard in it You have offered it formerly and you have struck at the Root that is the Power and Supreme Authority of the Commons of England which this Court will not admit a debate of and which indeed it is an irrational thing in them to do being a Court that acts upon Authority derived from them But Sir if you have any thing to say in defence of your self concerning the matter charged the Court hath given me in command to let you know they will hear you KING Since I see that you will not hear any thing of Debate concerning that which I confess I though most material for the Peace of the Kingdom and for the Liberty of the Subject I shall wave it I shall speak nothing to it But only I must tell you that this many-a day all things have been taken away from Me but that that I call dearer to Me than My Life which is My Conscience and My Honor And if I had a respect to My Life more than the Peace of the Kingdom and the Liberty of the Subject certainly I should have made a particular Defence for My Self for by that at leastwise I might have delayed an ugly Sentence which I believe will pass upon Me. Therefore certainly Sir as a man that hath some understanding some knowledge of the World if that My true Zeal to My Countrey had not overborn the care that I have for My own Preservation I should have gone another way to work than that I have done Now Sir I conceive that an hasty Sentence once past may sooner be repented of than recalled and truly the self-same desire that I have for the Peace of the Kingdom and the Liberty of the Subject more than my own particular Ends makes Me now at last desire That I having something to say that concerns both I desire before Sentence be given that I may be heard in the Painted Chamber before the Lords and Commons This Delay cannot be prejudicial unto you whatsoever I say If that I say no Reason those that hear Me must be Judges I cannot be Judge of that that I * have If it be Reason and really for the welfare of the Kingdom and the Liberty of the Subject I am sure on it it is very well worth the hearing Therefore I do conjure you as you love that that you pretend I hope it is real the Liberty of the Subject the Peace of the Kingdom that you will grant me this hearing before any Sentence be past I only desire this That you will take this into your Consideration it may be you have not heard of it before-hand If you will I will retire and you may think of
Me but this Delay I doubt not but I shall give some satisfaction to you all here and to My People after that and therefore I do require you as you will answer it at the dreadful Day of Judgment that you will consider it once again Bradshaw Sir I have received direction from the Court. KING Well Sir Bradshaw If this must be re-inforced or any thing of this nature your Answer must be the same and they will proceed to Sentence if you have nothing more to say KING I have nothing more to say but I shall desire that this may be entred what I have said Bradshaw The Court then Sir hath something to say unto you which although I know it will be very unacceptable yet notwithstanding they are willing and are resolved to discharge their Duty Then Bradshaw went on in a long Harangue endeavouring to justifie their proceedings misapplying Law and History and raking up and wresting whatsoever he thought fit for his purpose alleging the Examples of former Treasons and Rebellions both at home and abroad as authentick proofs and concluding that the King was a Tyrant Traitor Murtherer and publick Enemy to the Commonwealth of England His Majesty having with His wonted Patience heard all these Reproaches answered I would desire only one word before you give Sentence and that is That you would hear Me concerning those great Imputations that you have laid to My charge Bradshaw Sir you must give me now leave to go on for I am not far from your Sentence and your time is now past KING But I shall desire you will hear Me a few words to you for truly whatever Sentence you will put upon Me in respect of those heavy Imputations that I see by your speech you have put upon Me. Sir it is very true that Bradshaw Sir I must put you in mind truly Sir I would not willingly at this time especially interrupt you in any thing you have to say that is proper for us to admit of but Sir you have not owned us as a Court and you look upon as a sort of people met together and we know what Language we receive from your Party KING I know nothing of that Bradshaw You disavow us as a Court and therefore for you to address your self to us not to acknowledge us as a Court to judge of what you say it is not to be permitted And the truth is all along from the first time you were pleased to disavow and disown us the Court needed not to have heard you one word for unless they be acknowledged a Court and engaged it is not proper for you to speak Sir we have given you too much Liberty already and admitted of too much Delay and we may not admit of any further Were it proper for us to do we should hear you freely and we should not have declined to have heard you at large what you could have said or proved on your behalf whether for totally excusing or for in part excusing those great and hainous Charges that in whole or in part are laid upon you But Sir I shall trouble you no longer your Sins are of so large a dimension that if you do but seriously think of them they will drive you to a sad consideration and they may improve in you a sad and serious repentance And that the Court doth heartily wish that you may be so penitent for what you have done amiss that God may have mercy at least-wise upon your better part Truly Sir for the other it is our parts and duties to do that that the Law prescribes We are not here Jus dare but Jus dicere we cannot be unmindful of what the Scripture tells us For to acquit the guilty is of equal abomination as to condemn the innocent we may not acquit the guilty What sentence the Law affirms to a Traitor Tyrant a Murtherer and a publick enemy to the Countrey that Sentence you are now to hear read unto you and that is the Sentence of the Court. Make an O yes and command Silence while the Sentence is read Which done their Clerk Broughton read the Sentence drawn up in Parchment WHereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an High Court of Justice for the Trial of Charles Stuart King of England before whom he had been three times convented and at the first time a Charge of High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanours was read in the behalf of the Kingdom of England Here the Charge was repeated Which Charge being read unto him as aforesaid he the said Charles Stuart was required to give his Answer but he refused so to do Expressing the several passages of His refusing in the former Proceedings For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge That he the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traitor Murtherer and a publick Enemy shall be put to death by the severing of his Head from his Body Which being read Bradshaw added This Sentence now read and published it is the Act Sentence Judgment and Resolution of the whole Court To which they all expressed their Assent by standing up as was before agreed and ordered His Majesty then said Will you hear Me a word Sir Bradshaw Sir you are not to be heard after the Sentence KING No Sir Bradshaw No Sir by your favour Sir Guard withdraw your Prisoner KING I may speak after Sentence by your favour Sir I may speak after Sentence ever By your favour hold The Sentence Sir I say Sir I do I am not suffered to speak expect what Justice other People will have The Persons that sate when Judgment was given upon the Life of their KING were these Serjeant John Bradshaw Lieutenant General Cromwell Commissary General Ireton John Lisle Esquire William Say Esquire Sir Hardresse Waller Colonel Valentine Walton Colonel Thomas Harrison Colonel Edward Whaley Colonel Thomas Pride Colonel Isaac Ewer Thomas Lord Gray of Groby Sir John Danvers Knight Sir Thomas Maleverer Baronet Sir John Bourchier Knight William Heveningham Esquire Isaac Ponnington Alderman Colonel Henry Marten Colonel William Poresoy Colonel John Berksted John Blakeston Esquire Gilbert Millington Sir William Constable Baronet Colonel Edmund Ludlow Colonel John Hutchinson Sir Michael Livesey Baronet Colonel Robert Tichburne Colonel Owen Rowe Colonel Robert Lilburne Colonel Adrian Scroope Colonel Richard Deane Colonel John Okey Colonel John Hewson Colonel William Goffe Cornelius Holland Esquire John Carew Esquire Colonel John Jones Miles Corbet Esquire Francis Allen Esquire Peregrine Pelham Esquire Colonel John More Colonel John Alured Colonel Henry Smith Humphrey Edwards Esquire Gregory Clement Esquire Thomas Wogan Esquire Sir Gregory Norton Baronet Colonel Edmund Harvey Colonel John Venne Thomas Scot. Esquire Thomas Andrewes Alderman William Cawley Esquire Antony Stapely Esquire Colonel John Downes Colonel Thomas Horton Colonel Thomas Hammond Nicholas Love Esquire Vincent Potter Augustine Garland Esquire John Dixwell Esquire Colonel George Fleetwood Simon Mayne Esquire Colonel James Temple Peter Temple Daniel Blagrave Esquire
wish that they may repent for indeed they have committed a great Sin in that particular I pray God with Saint Stephen that this be not laid to their charge Nay not only so but that they may take the right way to the Peace of the Kingdom For My Charity commands me not only to forgive particular men but My Charity commands Me to endeavour to the last gasp the Peace of the Kingdom So Sirs I do wish with all My Soul and I do hope there is some here will carry it further that they may endeavour the Peace of the Kingdom Now Sirs I must shew you both how you are out of the way and will put you in a way First you are out of the way For certainly all the way you ever have had yet as I could find by any thing is in the way of Conquest Certainly this is an ill way For Conquest Sir in My opinion is never just except there be a good just Cause either for matter of Wrong or just Title and then if you go beyond it the first quarrel that you have to it that makes it unjust at the end that was just at the first But if it be only matter of Conquest then it is a great Robbery as a Pirate said to Alexander that He was the great Robber he was but a petty Robber And so Sir I do think the way that you are in is much out of the way Now Sir for to put you in the way believe it you will never do right nor God will never prosper you until you give God his Due the King his Due that is My Successors and the People their Due I am as much for them as any of you You must give God his due by regulating rightly his Church according to his Scripture which is now out of order For to set you in a way particularly now I cannot but only this A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle this when that every Opinion is freely and clearly heard For the King indeed I will not Then turning to a Gentleman that touched the Axe He said Hurt not the Axe that may hurt Me. For the King the Laws of the Land will clearly instruct you for that therefore because it concerns My Own particular I only give you a touch of it For the People And truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any body whomsoever but I must tell you that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government those Laws by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own It is not for having share in Government Sir that is nothing pertaining to them a Subject and a Soveraign are clear different things And therefore until they do that I mean that you do put the People in that Liberty as I say certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sirs It was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword I needed not to have come here and therefore I tell you and I pray God it be not laid to your charge that I am the Martyr of the People In troth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer for I will only say this to you That in truth I could have desired some little time longer because that I would have put this that I have said in a little more order and a little better digested than I have done and therefore I hope you will excuse Me. I have delivered My Conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are best for the good of the Kingdom and your own Salvation Then the Bishop said Though it be very well known what Your Majesty's affections are to the Protestant Religion yet it may be expected that You should say somewhat for the Worlds satisfaction in that particular Whereupon the King replied I thank you very heartily My Lord for that I had almost forgotten it In troth Sirs My Conscience in Religion I think is very well known to all the World and therefore I declare before you all That I die a Christian according to the Profession of the Church of England as I found it left Me by My Father and this honest man I think will witness it Then turning to the Officers he said Sirs Excuse Me for this same I have a good Cause and I have a gracious God I will say no more Then to Colonel Hacker He said Take care that they do not put Me to pain And Sir this and it please you But a Gentleman coming near the Axe the King said Take heed of the Axe pray take heed of the Axe And to the Executioner He said I shall say but very short Prayers and when I thrust out My hands Then He called to the Bishop for His Cap and having put it on asked the Executioner Does My Hair trouble you Who desired Him to put it all under His Cap which as he was doing by the help of the Bishop and the Executioner He turned to the Bishop and said I have a good Cause and a gracious God on My side The Bishop said There is but one Stage more which though turbulent and troublesome yet is a very short one You may consider it will soon carry You a very great way it will carry You from Earth to Heaven and there You shall find to Your great joy the prize You hasten to a Crown of Glory The King adjoyns I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where no disturbance can be no disturbance in the world Bishop You are exchanged from a Temporal to an Eternal Crown A good Exchange Then the King asked the Executioner Is My Hair well And taking off His Cloak and George He delivered His George to the Bishop saying Remember Then putting off His Doublet and being in His Wast-coat He put on His Cloak again and looking upon the Block said to the Executioner You must set it fast Execut. It is fast Sir KING It might have been a little higher Execut. It can be no higher Sir KING When I put out My hands this way then Then having said a few words to Himself as He stood with hands and eyes lift up immediately stooping down He laid His Neck upon the Block and the Executioner again putting His Hair under His Cap His Majesty thinking he had been going to strike bad him Stay for the Sign Execut. Yes I will and it please Your Majesty After a very short pause His Majesty stretching forth his hands the Executioner at one blow severed His Head from His Body Which being held up and shewed to the People was with His Body put into a Coffin covered with black Velvet and carried into His Lodging His Blood was taken up by divers persons for different ends by some as Trophies of their Villany by others as Reliques of a Martyr and in some hath had the
they please to call it of the tenth of June will surely believe the Peace of this Kingdom to be extreamly shaken and at least the King himself to be consulted with and privy to these Propositions But We hope that when Our good Subjects shall find that this goodly pretence of the Defence of the King is but a specious bait to seduce weak and inconsiderate men into the highest Acts of Disobedience and Disloyalty against Us and of Violence and Destruction upon the Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom they will no longer be captivated by an implicite Reverence to the name of both Houses of Parliament but will carefully examine and consider what number of persons are present and what persons are prevalent in those Consultations and how the Debates are probably managed from whence such horrid and monstrous Conclusions do result and will at least weigh the Reputation Wisdom and Affection of those who are notoriously known out of the very horrour of their Proceedings to have withdrawn themselves or by their skill and violence to be driven from them and their Counsels Whilst their Fears and Jealousies did arise or were infused into the people from Discourses of the Rebels in Ireland of Skippers at Roterdam of Forces from Denmark France or Spain how improbable and ridiculous soever that bundle of Informations appeared to all wise and knowing men it is no wonder if the easiness to deceive and the willingness to be deceived did prevail over many of Our weak Subjects to believe that the Dangers which they did not see might proceed from Causes which they did not understand But for them to declare to all the world That We intend to make War against Our Parliament whilest We sit still complaining to God Almighty of the Injury offered to Us and to the very Being of Parliaments and that We have already begun actually to levy Forces both of Horse and Foot whilest We have only in a Legal way provided a smaller Guard for the security of Our own Person so near a Rebellion at Hull than they have had without lawful Authority above these eight Months upon imaginary and impossible Dangers to impose upon Our peoples Sense as well as Understanding by telling them We are doing that which they see We are not doing and intending that they all know as much as Intentions can be known We are not intending is a boldness agreeable to no power but the Omnipotence of those Votes whose absolute Supremacy hath almost brought Confusion upon King and People and against which no Knowledge in matter of Fact or Consent and Authority in matter of Law they will endure shall be opposed We have upon all occasions with all possible Expressions professed Our fast and unshaken Resolutions for Peace And We do again in the presence of Almighty God Our Maker and Redeemer assure the World that We have no more thought of making a War against Our Parliament than against Our own Children that We will maintain and observe the Acts assented to by Us this Parliament without Violation of which that for the frequent assembling of Parliaments is one and that We have not or shall not have any thought of using any force unless We shall be driven to it for the security of Our Person and for the defence of the Religion Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom and the just Rights and Privileges of Parliament And therefore We hope the Malignant Party who have so much despised Our Person and usurped Our Office shall not by their specious fraudulent insinuations prevail with Our good Subjects to give credit to their wicked Assertions and so to contribute their Power and Assistance for the ruine and destruction of Us and themselves For Our Guard about Our Person which not so much their Example as their Provocation inforced Us to take 't is known it consists of the prime Gentry in Fortune and Reputation of this County and of one Regiment of Our Trained Bands who have been so far from offering any Affronts Injuries or Disturbance to any of Our good Subjects that their principal end is to prevent such and so may be Security can be no Grievance to our People That some ill affected persons or any persons have been employed in other parts to raise Troops under colour of Our Service or have made large or any offers of Reward and Preferment to such as will come in is for ought We know and as We believe an Untruth devised by the Contrivers of this false Rumour We disavow it and are confident there will be no need of such Art or Industry to induce Our loving Subjects when they shall see Us oppressed and their Liberties and Laws confounded and till then We shall not call on them to come in to Us and to assist Us. For the Delinquents whom We are said with a high and forcible hand to protect let them be named and their Delinquency and if We give not satisfaction to Justice when We shall have received satisfaction concerning Sir John Hotham by his legal Trial then let Us be blamed But if the Design be as it is well known to be after We have been driven by force from Our City of London and kept by force from Our Town of Hull to protect all those who are Delinquents against Us and to make all those Delinquents who attend on Us or execute Our lawful Commands We have great reason to be satisfied in the Truth and Justice of such Accusation lest to be Our Servant and to be a Delinquent grow to be terms so convertible that in a short time We be left as naked in Attendance as they would have Us in Power and so compel Us to be waited on only by such whom they shall appoint and allow and in whose presence We should be more miserably alone than in Desolation it self And if the seditious Contrivers and Fomenters of this Scandal upon Us shall have as they have had the power to mis-lead the major part present of either or both Houses to make such Orders and send such Messages and Messengers as they have lately done for the apprehension of the great Earls and Barons of England as if they were Rogues or Felons and whereby Persons of Honour and Quality are made Delinquents merely for attending upon Us and upon Our Summons whilst other men are forbid to come near Us though obliged by the Duty of their Places and Oaths upon Our lawful Commands 't is no wonder if such Messengers are not very well intreated and such Orders not obeyed Neither can there be a surer and a cunninger way found out to render the Authority of both Houses scorned and vilified than to assume to themselves merely upon the Authority of the Name of Parliament a power monstrous to all Understandings and to do Actions and to make Orders evidently and demonstrably contrary to all known Law and Reason as to take up Arms against Us under colour of defending Us to cause Money to be brought in to
Oath upon Our Subjects to execute all the Commands of both Houses They waste and consume the Mony given by Act of Parliament for the discharge of the great Debt of the Kingdom and for the relief of the bleeding Condition of Ireland imploy the Mony brought in by the Adventurers and those Men who are levied by Our Authority and Commission for the preservation of Our miserable Subjects there to serve them in a War against Us whereby all Men may see what reason We had not to consent to a Warrant dormant under pretence of Levies for Ireland which might have furnished them with Men to fight against Us as the same Pretence hath done with all the Arms We had in Our Magazines They commit such of Our Subjects to Prison whom they are pleased to suspect as the Earl of Portland and for no other reason but that they believe them loyal to Us censure and degrade nine Lords at a clap for obeying Our Summons and coming to Us when scarce that number concurred in the Judgment and declared two others Enemies to the Commonwealth taking their Votes from them without so much as summoning them to answer any Charge brought against them They presume to take Tonnage and Poundage by a pretended Ordinance without Our Consent though they have so often pressed it against Us that We took it without theirs and so now dispence with a Praemunire made this Parliament as they have formerly done with Treason Lastly to shew into what hands they intend the Government of this Kingdom shall be put they have reduced the business of the whole Kingdom from both Houses of Parliament into the hands of a few desperate persons who have the power committed to them to act this Tragedy without acquainting the Houses and so have gotten the Authority of King and both Houses of Parliament to destroy all Three make Orders to break up Houses take away Plate and Money because 't is possible the Owners wish it with Us at York send Troops of Horse to make War upon Us in what Counties they please and commit such unheard-of Acts of Oppression and Injustice as no Story can parallel where the least form of Government hath been left that all Our good Subjects may see by what Rules they shall live and what Right they are like to enjoy when these Men have gotten the Sway who in the infancy of their Power and when there is yet left some memory of and reverence to the Laws under which their Fathers lived so happily dare leap over all those known and confessed Principles of Government and Obedience and exercise a Tyranny both over Prince and People more insupportable than Confusion it self And for all this impudent Injustice odious to God and Man what is objected against Us That We will not be advised by Our Parliament In what what one Proposition that is evidently for the ease of Our Subjects have We denied That We have granted many is confessed We will not consent that the Ordinance of the Militia shall be executed and obeyed that is We will not allow that both Houses of Parliament shall make Laws and impose upon the Property and Liberty of Our Subjects Without Our Consent which if We should yield to upon the same pretences of Necessity a word fatal to this Kingdom and the publick good the House of Commons might as well and would quickly come to make Laws without the House of Peers and the common People without either nor are willing that those Men who have discovered all Malice to Our Person and dis-esteem and irreverence of Our Office shall be legally qualified to take up Arms against Us when they shall be thereunto provoked by their Malice or Ambition There can be no new thing said in this Argument We must refer Our good Subjects to Our several Answers Declarations and Proclamations in that point only it will be worth their considering that this extraordinary unheard-of extravagant Power was assumed in a case of peremptory Necessity for the prevention of imminent Danger in the beginning of March how long it was in design before is understood by Sir Arthur Hesilrigge his Bill long preceeding whether any such Danger hath been since discovered and whether unspeakable Calamities have not already and are not like to ensue from that Fountain We wish it were not too apparent And if those Fears and Jealousies which seem to make that Ordinance necessary were indeed real and honest that in truth nothing were desired but putting the Kingdom into a posture that is that all Our Loving Subjects might be provided with Arms and dexterous in the using them if any Invasion or Rebellion should be is not all this Care taken and all this Security provided for by the Commission of Array What honest end can that Ordinance have which is not obtained by the execution of and obedience to that Commission But 't is true the power is not in those hands nor like to be imployed to those uses 't is now intended Who hath not heard these Men say That the alteration they intend and is necessary both in Church and State must be made by blood Are not the Principles by which they live destructive to all Laws and Compacts Is not every thing Necessary they think so and every thing lawful that is in order to that Necessity Sure if Our good Subjects were throughly awake in this business they would think they had much more cause to thank Us for denying this Ordinance than for granting all that We have granted What is there else We do not think Sir John Hotham hath dealt well with Us in keeping Our Town from Us nor do take it kindly that We are robbed of Our Magazine and Munition but think of recovering both by Force because We cannot have them otherwise which will be an actual levying War against Our Parliament This Argument is sufficiently vexed too Our good Subjects will read the Messages Answers Votes and Declarations in this Case and We are sure upon the grounds laid to justifie this Treason no Subject in England hath a House of his own which may not to morrow be given to Sir John Hotham for as long a term as they think fit and he may be sent to morrow to murther Us and be no Traitor and they who shall shut the door against him shall be Delinquents Is there no more Yes We will not submit to those Nineteen dutiful and modest Propositions which have been lately thrown at Us as the necessary means of removing Jealousies and Differences and as the last Complement of all their Scorns and Injuries that Posterity may see to what a tameness We were brought when such things were asked of Us We will not be content that all Our Officers and Ministers of State be they never so faithful to Us so affectionate to their Country never so wise never so honest shall be immediately removed from Us and their places be disgraced and undone and in their rooms these Gentlemen who have
Majesty having by His Proclamation of the 22. of December upon the occasion of the Invasion threatned and in part begun by some of His Subjects of Scotland summoned all the Members of both Houses of Parliament to attend him here at Oxford we whose Names are under-written are here met and Assembled in obedience to those His Majesty's Commands His Majesty was pleased to invite us in the said Proclamation by these gracious expressions That His Subjects should see how willing He was to receive Advice for the preservation of the Religion Laws and Safety of the Kingdom and as far as in Him lay to restore it to its former Peace and Security His chief and only end from those whom they had trusted though He could not receive it in the Place where He appointed This most gracious Invitation hath not only been made good unto us but seconded and heightned by such unquestionable Demonstrations of the deep and Princely sense which possesses His Royal Heart of the Miseries and Calamities of His poor Subjects in this unnatural War and of His most entire and passionate Affections to redeem them from that sad and deplorable condition by all ways possible consistent either with His Honour or with the future Safety of the Kingdom that as it were Impiety to question the Sincerity of them so were it great want of Duty and Faithfulness in us His Majesty having vouchsafed to declare that He did call us to be Witnesses of His Actions and privy to His Intentions should we not testifie and witness to all the World the assurance we have of the Piety and sincerity of both We being most entirely satisfied of this truth we cannot but confess that amidst our highest afflictions in the deep and piercing sense of the present Miseries and Desolations of our Country and those farther Dangers threatned from Scotland we are at length erected to some chearful and comfortable thoughts that possibly we may yet by God's Mercy if his Justice have not determined this Nation for its Sins to total Ruine and Desolation hope to be happy Instruments of our Countries Redemption from the Miseries of War and restitution to the Blessings of Peace And we being desirous to believe your Lordship howsoever ingaged a person likely to be sensibly touched with these considerations have thought fit to invite you to that part in this blessed Work which is only capable to repair all our misfortunes and to buoy up the Kingdom from Ruine that is by conjuring you by all the Obligations that have Power upon Honour Conscience or publick Piety that laying to heart as we do the inwardly-bleeding condition of your Country and the outward more menacing Destruction by a Foreign Nation upon the very point of invading it you will co-operate with us to its Preservation by truly representing to and faithfully and industriously promoving with those by whom you are trusted this following most sincere and most earnest desire of ours That they joyning with us in a right sense of the past present and more threatning Calamities of this deplorable Kingdom some persons be appointed on either part and a place agreed on to treat of such a Peace as may yet redeem it from the brink of Desolation This Address we should not have made but that His Majesty's Summons by which we are met most graciously proclaiming Pardon to all without exception is evidence enough that His Mercy and Clemency can transcend all former Provocations and that He hath not only made us witnesses of His Princely Intentions but honoured us also with the name of being Security for them God Almighty direct your Lordship and those to whom you shall present these our most real desires in such a course as may produce that happy Peace and Settlement of the present Distractions which is so heartily desired and prayed for by us and which may make us Your c. From Oxford the 27. of Jan. 1643. We are not ashamed of that earnest meek and Christian request we made in that Letter though it was cryed through London Streets in scorn as the Petition of the Prince and Duke of York for Peace and we thought it would have prevailed to have procured a Treaty for so blessed a thing as Peace and for such an end as redeeming the Kingdom from Desolation the only desire of that our Letter But instead of a compliance with us in this Christian work of Treaty and Accommodation we received a mere frivolous Answer or rather a paper of Scorn in form of a Letter directed to the Earl of Forth wherein was inclosed a Printed paper called A National Covenant of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and two other Papers in writing one called A Declaration of both those Kingdoms and the other A Declaration of the Kingdom of Scotland Pamphlets full of Treason Sedition and Disloyalty which being publick and needless here to be inserted the Copy of the Letter hereafter followeth My Lord I Received this day a Letter of the nine and twentieth of this instant from your Lordship and a Parchment subscribed by the Prince Duke of York and divers other Lords and Gentlemen but it neither having Address to the two Houses of Parliament nor therein there being any acknowledgment of them I could not communicate it to them My Lord the maintenance of the Parliament of England and of the Privileges thereof is that for which we are all resolved to spend our blood as being the foundation whereupon all our Laws and Liberties are built I send your Lordship herewith a National Covenant solemnly entred into by both the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and a Declaration passed by them both together with another Declaration of the Kingdom of Scotland I rest Your Lordships humble Servant Essex Essex-House Jan. 30. 1643. Whosoever considers this Letter will easily find it was fully understood to whom ours was desired to be communicated under the expression of those by whom their General was trusted And although it be pretended because there was no Address to the two Houses of Parliament nor ackuowledgment of them it could not be communicated to them it is notoriously known he did so far impart it that a Committee of theirs advised the Answer and it appears by the penning they all concurred in the resolution therein mentioned whereby it is evident that this was but an excuse framed to avoid a Treaty And what could that printed Covenant and two Declarations enclosed signifie but to let us know that before we come to any Treaty we must also joyn in that Covenant with them for the absolute extirpation of Church-Government here without nay though against the Kings Consent submit the Lives Liberties and Estates of us and all those who according to their Allegiance have assisted His Majesty to their Mercy and admit and justifie the Invasion from Scotland according to the plain sense of their Declaration which all indifferent Men will think strange Preparatives to a Treaty for Peace and after such
great proportions of all necessary Supplies unto the Protestants there whereby they have subsisted and have very lately sent thither and have already provided to be speedily sent after in Money Victuals Cloaths Ammunition and other Necessaries to the value of sevenscore thousand Pounds and they have not desired any other Provision from His Majesty but what He was well able to afford herein only His assistance and Consent in joyning with His two Houses of Parliament for the better enabling them in the prosecution of that War And we are so far from apprehending any impossibility of reducing that Kingdom during the unhappy distractions here that although many of the Forces provided by the two Houses for that end were diverted and imployed against the Parliament to the increasing of our Distractions yet the Protestants in Ireland have subsisted and do still subsist and we have just cause to believe that if this Cessation had not been obtained by the Rebels and that in the time of their greatest Wants and that these Forces had not been withdrawn they might in probability have subdued those bloody Rebels and finished the War in that Kingdom For the pretended Necessities offered as grounds of this Cessation we have already given your Lordships we hope clear information For the Persons whose Advice His Majesty followed therein your Lordships have not thought fit to make them known unto us and we cannot conceive their Interest in that Kingdom to be of such consideration as is by your Lordships supposed But we know very well that many Persons of all sorts have forsaken that Kingdom rather then they would submit unto this Cessation and great numbers of considerable Persons and other Protestants yet remaining there have opposed and still do oppose that Cessation as the visible means of their Destruction The two Houses sent their Committees into Ireland for the better supplying and encouraging of the Armies there and to take an account of the state of the War to be represented hither that what should be found defective might be supplied What Warrants they issued we are ignorant of but are well assured that what they did was in pursuance of their Duty and for advancement of the publick Service and suppressing of that horrid Rebellion and we cannot but still affirm they were discountenanced and commanded from the Council there where the prosecution of that War was to be managed and that it was declared from His Majesty that he disapproved of the Subscriptions of the Officers of the Army by means whereof that course was diverted Concerning the Moneys raised for Ireland we have in our former Papers given your Lordships a full and just Answer and we are sorry the same cannot receive credit Those Moneys raised upon charitable Collections we do positively affirm were only imployed to those ends for which they were given and we cannot but wonder the contrary should be suggested We are confident the Commission desired by the two Houses for the Lord Wharton and which your Lordships acknowledged was denied was only such as they conceived most necessary for advancement of that Service and the denial thereof proved very prejudicial thereunto And we must again inform your Lordships that it was well known at the time when the Goods were seized by His Majesties Forces as your Lordships allege near Coventry that the same were then carrying for the supply of the Protestants in Ireland and some other Provisions made and sent for the same purpose were likewise seized and taken away by some of His Majesties Forces as we have been credibly informed not without His Majesties own knowledge and direction Your Lordships may believe that those who signed the Letters mentioned in your Papers have done nothing but what they may well justifie and if the same be well done they need not fear to give an Account thereof nor your Lordships to suppose that if they come within our Quarters they shall be otherwise dealt withal then shall be agreeable to Justice Upon the whole matter notwithstanding the Allegations Pretences and Excuses offered by your Lordships for the Cessation made with the Rebels in Ireland we are clearly satisfied that the same was altogether unjust unlawful and destructive to His Majesties good Subjects and of advantage to none but the Popish bloody Rebels in that Kingdom And therefore we still earnestly insist as we conceive our selves in Conscience and Duty obliged upon our former Demands concerning Ireland which we conceive most Just and Honourable for his Majesty to consent unto We know no other ways to propound more probable for the reducing of the Rebels there but these being granted we shall chearfully proceed in the managing of that War and doubt not by God's blessing we shall speedily settle that Kingdom in their due Obedience to His Majesty Their other Paper 20. Feb. VVE cannot understand how out of any of the Papers Articles and Ordinances delivered by us unto your Lordships there should be a ground for your Opinion that upon any Differences between the Committees or Commanders imployed about the War of Ireland the War should stand still or be dissolved nor do we find that the Ordinance of the 11. of April can produce any such inconvenience as your Lordships do imagine nor doth the making of the Earl of Leven Commander in chief of the Scotish and British Forces and the settling of the prosecution of the War of Ireland in the two Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms take away the relation to His Majesties Authority or of the two Houses of Parliament or of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland For in the first place His Majesties Consent is humbly desired and the whole Power is derived from him only the Execution of it is put into such a way and the General is to carry on the War according to the Orders he shall receive from the Committee of both Kingdoms and in case of Disagreement in the Committee the two Houses of Parliament are to prosecute that War as is expressed in our Answer to your Lordships second Paper of the 19. of February And when there shall be a Lieutenant of Ireland and that he shall joyn with the Commander in chief of the Scotish Army the said Commander is to receive Instructions from him according to the Orders of the Commissioners of both Kingdoms as we have said in our Answer to your Lordships second Paper of this day Nor doth the naming of the Earl of Leven to be General any more take away the Power of the two Houses then if he were a Native of this Kingdom or is there any part of the Kingdom of Ireland delivered over into the hands of his Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Scotland who do only joyn with their Councils and Forces for carrying on the War and reducing that Kingdom to his Majesties Obedience And we conceive it most conducing for the good of his Majesties Service and of that Kingdom that
of Our Subjects there or be carried as the Earl of Leven pleased whose Power was not bounded by any reference to Us or Our Lieutenant of Ireland no nor to the Houses of England And though it had been answered that in cases of disagreement betwixt the Committee the two Houses might prosecute the War observing the Treaty of the sixth of August and the Ordinance of the 11 th of April yet by referring to that Ordinance which is desired to be Enacted and by that Ordinance the Power being thereby put into the Earl of Leven and that Committee without mention of the two Houses it was apparent the Earl of Leven would not be bound to observe the Directions of the Houses of England by themselves But they Reply in this last Paper of theirs That as the Ordinance of the 11th of April 1644. so the Treaty of the 6th of August 1642. is desired to be confirmed by which the Commander of the Scotish Forces in Ireland was to be answerable to Vs and the two Houses of the Parliament of England for his whole deportment But this is apparently no Answer at all for this Treaty of the 6 th of August binds not the Committee who are to manage that War and relates to the Scotish General as General of the Scots only the other of April 1644. being later in time giving him Power also as Commander in chief over the English Forces in Ireland and according to this latter he is to receive his Orders from the Committee without reference to Us or the two Houses neither can the two Houses be hereby brought in to have Command over this Scotish General or Committee more than Our selves whom they intend wholly to exclude Yet We cannot but observe even upon these Articles of the Treaty of the sixth of August how little cause there is to expect this Scotish General will manage that War for the good of this Kingdom who being by those Articles to be answerable to Vs as well as to the two Houses for then though the same Design was on foot yet their outward pretences were somewhat more modest than now they are did without directions from Us leave his Charge in Ireland to bring an Army into England against Us. Well they say at last they had by the 13 th Proposition desired the prosecution of the War to be settled in the two Houses and so taking all together that the Earl of Leven cannot manage that War according to his own discretion But VVe must remember them the Proposition is not barely to settle the prosecution of the VVar in the two Houses but to settle it in the two Houses to be managed by the joynt Advice of both Kingdoms and that joynt Advice is by a joynt Committee according to the Ordinance of the 11 th of April in which Committee they confess those of Scotland have a Negative Voice and by the last part of the 17 th Proposition the War of Ireland is to be ordered according to that Ordinance But they say The Scotish Commander is to receive Orders from the Lieutenant of Ireland if a Lord Lieutenant shall be chosen by the two Houses for a Lieutenant nominated by Us is not allowed by them to give Orders to the Scotish General This indeed though not warranted by their Propositions upon which nevertheless they insist yet being admitted in this latitude might seem to give some Power to the two Houses over the Scotch General in the manage of the VVar as giving the Lieutenant such a Power and by consequence the two Houses who have power over this Lieutenant But they say not generally that he shall receive Instructions from the Lieutenant but that he shall receive Instructions from the Lieutenant in such manner as they have set down in their Paper of the 20th of February that is when it shall be necessary for the good of that Service that he and the Commander in chief of the Scotish Army joyn but how shall it be for the Service that he joyn with him when he shall command no Forces with which he may joyn the Scotch General being by the Ordinance of the 11 th of April to command all the Forces whatsoever in Ireland But admit them to have joyned then the Scotch General is to receive Instructions from the Lieutenant according to the Orders which shall be given by the Commissioners of both Kingdoms so and no otherwise Still the case is the same The Scotish General is not bound to obey any Orders but such as shall come mediately or immediately from the Committee of both Kingdoms And whatsoever Evasions and Disguises are made to cover it from Our People's Eyes the Scotish Committee being an equal number and having an equal share in the Counsels and their General having the Command of all the Forces it is apparent the whole Power over that Kingdom is in effect to be transferred to them But should We admit that these Propositions did not give so great Power in Ireland to Our Subjects of Scotland yet how should it be imagined that We should put the prosecution of this War in the two Houses in such manner as is insisted on by them so long as they maintain a Rebellion against Us in this Kingdom It is not denied but by their Authority divers Forces raised and the Moneys levied for Ireland were imployed against Us in England and upon the same Pretences that they made use of those aids because as they alledge in their Declaration upon that Subject that the subsistence of Ireland depended upon their welfare here they may still make use of such Power as shall be given them for the manage of that VVar and raising Moneys for that purpose against Us in England Neither if a Peace should be concluded here could VVe assent that the prosecution of the VVar should be settled in the two Houses excluding Our selves as they intend it by those words the King not to molest them therein Queen Elizabeth managed the VVar in Ireland solely when the two Houses were sitting and excluded them Though VVe insist not upon that Example VVe should be wanting to the Trust VVe have received from God and that care of Our Subjects which lies upon Us and of which VVe are to give Him an account to exclude Our self They themselves know great Bodies are not so fit to carry on the VVar as a few and therefore they have in a manner given up their Power in this unhappy VVar at home to their State-Committee whose Resolutions are rather brought to them for Countenance and Execution than for Debate and Deliberation They tell us The Parliament of England is a faithful Council to Vs and that We have trusted them with the prosecution of that War and they faithfully discharged their parts in it VVe wish though VVe are willing to be silent in it that yet the Ruins and Desolations of this Kingdom would not speak to Posterity what Counsellors those are who have devested Us of Our Revenue Arms
always urging that there should be no Physick because the party is sick And in this particular it hath been often observed unto them that those whom they call Irish who have so expressed their Loyalty to their Soveraign were indeed for the most part such English Protestants as had been formerly sent into Ireland by the two Houses impossibilitated to stay there any longer by the neglect of those that sent them thither who should there have better provided for them And for any Forein Forces it is too apparent that their Armies have swarmed with them when his Majesty hath had few or none And whereas for a third impediment it is alledged that the Prince is in the head of an Army in the West and that there are divers Garrisons still kept in his Majesties Obedience and that there are Forces in Scotland it must be as much confessed as that as yet there is no Peace and therefore it is desired that by such a Personal Treaty all these impediments may be removed And it is not here amiss to put them in mind how long since his Majesty did press a disbanding of all Forces on both sides the refusing whereof hath been the cause of this Objection And whereas exception is taken that there is a time limited in the Proposition for his Majesties Personal Treaty thereupon inferring that he should again return to Hostility his Majesty protesteth that he seeks this Treaty to avoid future Hostility and to procure a lasting Peace and if he can meet with like inclinations to Peace in those he desires to Treat with he will bring such affections and resolutions in himself as shall end all these unhappy bloody Differences As for those Ingagements which his Majesty hath desired for his Security whosoever shall call to mind the particular occasions that enforced his Majesty to leave his City of London and VVestminster will judge his Demand very reasonable and necessary for his Safety But he no way conceiveth how the Lord Maior Aldermen Common-Council and Militia of London were either subject or subordinate to that Authority which is alledged as knowing neither Law nor practice for it and if the two Armies be he believes it is more than can be parallel'd by any former times in this Kingdom Nor can his Majesty understand how his Majesties seeking of a Personal Security can be any breach of Priviledge it being likely to be infringed by hindring his Majesty from coming freely to his two Houses As for the Objection that his Majesty omitted to mention the settling Religion and securing the Peace of his Native Kingdom his Majesty declares that he conceives that it was included in his former and hath been particularly mentioned in his latter Message of the 15. present But for their better satisfaction he again expresseth that it was and ever shall be both his meaning and endeavour in this Treaty desired And it seems to him very clear that there is no way for a final ending of such Distractions as afflict this Kingdom but either by Treaty or Conquest the latter of which his Majesty hopes none will have the impudence or impiety to wish for and for the former if his Personal assistance in it be not the most likely way let any reasonable man judge when by that means not only all unnecessary Delays will be removed but even the greatest Difficulties made easy And therefore he doth now again earnestly insist upon that Proposition expecting to have a better Answer upon mature consideration And can it be imagined that any Propositions will be so effectual being formed before a Personal Treaty as such as are framed and propounded upon a full debate on both sides Wherefore his Majesty who is most concerned in the good of his People and is most desirous to restore Peace and Happiness to his three Kingdoms doth again instantly desire an Answer to his said former Messages to which he hath hitherto received none Given at Our Court at Oxon the 24. of Jan. 1645. His MAJESTIES Message to both Houses from Oxford Jan. 29. 1645-46 For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. HIS Majesty having received Information from the Lord Lieutenant and Council in Ireland that the Earl of Glamorgan hath without his or their Directions or privity entred into a Treaty with some Commissioners on the Roman-Catholick Party there and also drawn up and agreed unto certain Articles with the said Commissioners highly derogatory to his Majesties Honour and Royal Dignity and most prejudicial unto the Protestant Religion and Church there in Ireland whereupon the said Earl of Glamorgan is arrested upon suspicion of High Treason and imprisoned by the said Lord Lieutenant and Council at the instance and by the Impeachment of the Lord Digby who by reason of his Place and former Imployment in these Affairs doth best know how contrary that Proceeding of the said Earl hath been to His Majesties Intentions and Directions and what great prejudice it might bring to His Affairs if those Proceedings of the Earl of Glamorgan should be any ways understood to have been done by the directions liking or approbation of his Majesty His Majesty having in his former Messages for a Personal Treaty offered to give contentment to his two Houses in the Business of Ireland hath now thought fitting the better to shew his clear Intentions and to give satisfaction to his said Houses of Parliament and the rest of his Subjects in all his Kingdoms to send this Declaration to his said Houses containing the whole truth of the business Which is That the Earl of Glamorgan having made offer unto him to raise Forces in the Kingdom of Ireland and to conduct them into England for his Majesties Service had a Commission to that purpose and to that purpose only That he had no Commission at all to Treat of any thing else without the privity and directions of the Lord Lieutenant much less to capitulate any thing concerning Religion or any Propriety belonging either to Church or Laity That it clearly appears by the Lord Lieutenant's Proceedings with the said Earl that he had no notice at all of what the said Earl had Treated and pretended to have capitulated with the Irish until by accident it came to his knowledge And his Majesty doth protest that until such time as he had advertisement that the Person of the said Earl of Glamorgan was arrested and restrained as is above-said He never heard nor had any kind of notice that the said Earl had entred into any kind of Treaty or Capitulation with those Irish Commissioners much less that he had concluded or signed those Articles so destructive both to Church and State and so repugnant to his Majesties publick Professions and known Resolutions And for the further vindication of his Majesties Honour and Integrity herein He doth declare That He is so far from
will bear IV. That according to the seventh Head in the said Declaration an effectual course may be taken that the Kingdom may be righted and satisfied in point of Accounts for the vast sums that have been levied V. That provision may be made for payment of Arrears to the Army and the rest of the Soldiers of the Kingdom who have concurred with the Army in the late Desires and Proceedings thereof and in the next place for payment of the Publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom and that to be performed first to such persons whose Debts or Damages upon the Publick Account are great and their Estates small so as they are thereby reduced to a difficulty of subsistence In order to all which and to the fourth particular last preceding we shall speedily offer some farther particulars in the nature of Rules which we hope will be of good use towards publick satisfaction August 1. 1647. Signed by the appointment of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax and the Council of War Jo. Rushworth Secret Propositions presented to His MAJESTY at Hampton-Court upon Tuesday the seventh of September 1647. by the Earls of Pembroke and Lauderdale Sir Charles Erskin Sir John Holland Sir John Cooke Sir James Harrington Mr. Richard Browne Mr. Hugh Kenedy and Mr. Robert Berkley in the names of the Parliament of England and in behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland May it please your Majesty WE the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England in the name and on the behalf of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland in the name and on the behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland do humbly present unto Your Majesty the humble Desires and Propositions for a safe and well grounded Peace agreed upon by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively unto which We do pray Your Majesties Assent and that they and all such Bills as shall be tendred to Your Majesty in pursuance of them or any of them may be established and Enacted for Statutes and Acts of Parliament by Your Majesties Royal Assent in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively Heads of the Propositions presented to the King's Majesty for a safe and well-grounded Peace 1. His Majesty to call in his Declarations and Proclamations against the Parliaments of both Kingdoms 2. His Majesty to sign the Covenant 3. To pass a Bill for abolishing Bishops 4. To pass a Bill for Sale of Bishops Lands 5. To confirm the sitting of the Assembly 6. Religion to be reformed as the Houses agree 7. Such Vniformity of Religion to be passed in an Act. 8. An Act passed against Popish Recusants 9. For Education of the Children of Papists 10. For laying Penalties upon Papists 11. An Act for prevention of Popish practices And the like for the Kingdom of Scotland 12. For the Royal Assent to Acts for the Lords day for preaching against Innovations regulating Colledges and for publick Debts and Damages The like for Scotland 13. to pass the settling of the Militia and Navy 14. To null the old Great Seal 15. For settling of Conservators for the Peace of the Kingdoms 16. The joynt Declarations and the Qualifications against Malignants 17. An Act to be passed to declare and make void the Cessation of Ireland and all Treaties and Conclusions of Peace with the Irish Rebels 18. The settling of the Militia of the City of London 19. The Great Seal with the Commissioners of Parliament and all Acts by it to be made good His MAJESTIES Answer to the Propositions of both Houses Hampton-Court Sept. 9. 1647. For the Speaker of the Lords House pro tempore to be communicated to both Houses of the Parliament of England and the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland CHARLES R. HIS Majesty cannot chuse but be passionately sensible as he believes all his good Subjects are of the late great Distractions and still languishing and unsetled State of this Kingdom and he calls God to Witness and is willing to give testimony to all the World of his readiness to contribute his utmost Endeavours for restoring it to a happy and flourishing Condition His Majesty having perused the Propositions now brought to him finds them the same in effect which were offered to him at Newcastle To some of which as he could not then consent without violation of his Conscience and Honour so neither can he agree to others now conceiving them in many respects more disagreeable to the present condition of Affairs then when they were formerly presented unto him as being destructive to the main principal Interests of the Army and of all those whose Affections concur with them And his Majesty having seen the Proposals of the Army to the Commissioners from his two Houses residing with them and with them to be Treated on in order to the clearing and securing the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom and the setling of a just and lasting Peace to which Proposals as he conceives his two Houses not to be strangers so he believes they will think with him that they much more conduce to the satisfaction of all Interests and may be a fitter foundation for a lasting Peace than the Propositions which at this time are tendered unto him He therefore propounds as the best way in his Judgment in order to a Peace that his two Houses would instantly take into consideration those Proposals upon which there may be a Personal Treaty with his Majesty and upon such other Propositions as his Majesty shall make hoping that the said Proposals may be so moderated in the said Treaty as to render them the more capable of his Majesties full Concession wherein he resolves to give full satisfaction unto his People for whatsoever shall concern the setling of the Protestant Profession with Liberty to tender Consciences and the securing of the Laws Liberties and Properties of all his Subjects and the just Priviledges of Parliament for the future And likewise by his present deportment in this Treaty he will make the World clearly judge of his Intentions in matter of future Government In which Treaty his Majesty will be well pleased if it be thought fit that Commissioners from the Army whose the Proposals are may likewise be admitted His Majesty therefore conjures his two Houses of Parliament by the Duty they owe to God and his Majesty their King and by the bowels of Compassion they have to their fellow-Subjects both for the relief of their present Sufferings and to prevent future Miseries that they will forthwith accept of this his Majesties Offer whereby the joyful news of Peace may be restored to this distressed Kingdom And for what concerns the Kingdom of Scotland mentioned in the Propositions His Majesty will very willingly Treat upon those particulars with the Scotch Commissioners and doubts not but to give reasonable satisfaction to that his Kingdom Given at Hampton-Court the ninth of September 1647. His MAJESTIES Message to both Houses left by Him on His
passed for abolishing Bishops and all Appendants to them 10. That the Ordinances for disposing of Bishops Lands be confirmed by Act. 11. That an Act be passed for the sale of Church-Lands 12. That Delinquents be proceeded against and their Estates disposed of according to the several Qualifications 13. Than an Act be passed for discharge of Publick Debts 14. That Acts be passed for settling the Presbyterian Government and Directory Fourteen of the Thirty nine Articles revised by the Assembly of Divines Rules and Directions concerning Suspension from the Lords Supper 15. That the chief Governour and Officers in Ireland and the great Officers in England be nominated by both Houses 16. That an Act be passed for conviction of Popish Recusants 17. That an Act be passed for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants 18. That an Act be passed for levying the Penalties against Popish Recusants 19. That an Act be passed for preventing the Practices of Papists against the State and hearing Mass 20. That an Act be passed for Observation of the Lords day 21. And a Bill for suppressing Innovations 22. And for advancement of Preaching 23. And against Pluralities and Non-residency They have also commanded us to desire That Your Majesty give Your Royal Assent to these Bills by Your Letters-Patents under the Great Seal of England and signed by Your Hand and Declared and Notified to the Lords and Commons assembled together in the House of Peers according to the Law declared in that behalf it appearing unto them upon mature deliberation that it stands not with the Safety and Security of the Kingdom and Parliament to have Your Majesties Assent at this time given otherwise They desire therefore that Your Majesty be pleased to grant Your Warrant for the draught of a Bill for such Your Letters Patents to be presented to Your Majesty and then a Warrant to Edward Earl of Manchester and William Lenthal Esquire Speaker of the House of Commons who have now the Custody of the Great Seal of England to put the same of Your Majesties Letters-Patents signed as aforesaid thereby authorizing Algernon Earl of Northumberland Henry Earl of Kent John Earl of Rutland Philip Earl of Pembroke William Earl of Salisbury Robert Earl of Warwick and Edmond Earl of Moulgrave or any three of them to give Your Majesties Royal Assent unto the said Bills according to the Law in that behalf declared And for the other particulars contained in the aforementioned Propositions the two Houses of Parliament will after such Your Majesties Assent given to the said Bills send a Committee of both Houses to Treat with Your Majesty in the Isle of Wight thereupon The Paper of the Scots Commissioners delivered to His MAJESTY when the Four Bills and Propositions were presented THere is nothing which we have more constantly endeavoured and do more earnestly desire than a good Agreement and happy Peace between Your Majesty and Your Parliaments of both Kingdoms neither have we left any means unassayed that by united Counsels with the Houses of the Parliament of England and by making joynt Applications to Your Majesty there might be a composure of all Differences But the new Propositions communicated to us by the Houses and the Bills therewith presented to Your Majesty are so prejudicial to Religion the Crown and the Union and Interest of the Kingdoms and so far different from the former proceedings and engagements betwixt the Kingdoms as we cannot concur therein Therefore we do in the Name of the Kingdom of Scotland dissent from these Propositions and Bills now tendred to Your Majesty London Lauderdale Char. Erskin Hu. Kennedy Ro. Berclay His MAJESTIES Answer to the Four Bills and Propositions Dec. 28. 1647. For the Speaker of the Lords House pro tempore to be communicated to the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. THE necessity of complying with all engaged Interests in these great Distempers for a perfect settlement of Peace His Majesty finds to be none of the least Difficulties He hath met with since the time of His Afflictions Which is too visible when at the same time that the two Houses of the English Parliament do present to his Majesty several Bills and Propositions for his Consent the Commissioners for Scotland do openly protest against them So that were there nothing in the case but the consideration of that difference his Majesty cannot imagine how to give such an Answer to what is now proposed as thereby to promise himself his great End A Perfect Peace And when his Majesty farther considers how impossible it is in the condition he now stands to fulfil the desires of his two Houses since the only ancient and known ways of passing Laws are either by his Majesties Personal Assent in the House of Peers or by Commission under his Great Seal of England he cannot but wonder at such failings in the manner of Address which is now made unto him unless his two Houses intend that his Majesty shall allow of a Great Seal made without his Authority before there be any consideration had thereupon in a Treaty which as it may hereafter hazard the Security it self so for the present it seems very unreasonable to his Majesty And though his Majesty is willing to believe that the intention of very many in both Houses in sending these Bills before a Treaty was only to obtain a Trust from him and not to take any advantage by passing them to force other things from him which are either against his Conscience or Honour yet his Majesty believes it clear to all understandings that these Bills contain as they are now penned not only the devesting himself of all Sovereignty and that without possibility of recovering it either to him or his Successors except by repeal of those Bills but also the making his Concessions guilty of the greatest pressures that can be made upon the Subject as in other particulars so by giving an Arbitrary and unlimited Power to the two Houses for ever to raise and levy Forces for Land or Sea-service of what persons without distinction or quality and to what numbers they please and likewise for the payment of them to levy what moneys in such sort and by such ways and means and consequently upon the Estates of whatsoever persons as they shall think fit and appoint which is utterly inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject and his Majesties Trust in protecting them So that if the major part of both Houses shall think it necessary to put the rest of the Propositions into Bills his Majesty leaves all the world to judge how unsafe it would be for him to consent thereunto and if not what a strange condition after the passing of these Four Bills his Majesty and all his Subjects would be cast into And here his Majesty thinks it not unfit to wish his two Houses to consider well the manner of their proceeding