the advice of private men or by any unknown or unsworn Counsellors but that such matters as concern the publick and are proper for the High Court of Parliament which is Your Majesties great and supreme Council may be debated resolved and transacted only in Parliament and not elsewhere and such as shall presume to do any thing to the contrary shall be reserved to the censure and judgment of Parliament And such other matters of State as are proper for Your Majesties Privy Council shall be debated and concluded by such of the Nobility and others as shall from time to time be chosen for that place by approbation of both Houses of Parliament And that no publick Act concerning the Affairs of the Kingdom which are proper for Your Privy Council may be esteemed of any validity as proceeding from the Royal Authority unless it be done by the advice and consent of the major part of Your Council attested under their hands And that Your Council my be limited to a certain number not exceeding twenty five nor under fifteen And if any Counsellors place happen to be void in the Intervals of Parliament it shall not be supplied without the assent of the major part of the Council which choice shall be confirmed at the next sitting of the Parliament or else to be void III. That the Lord High Steward of England Lord High Constable Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Lord Treasure Lord Privy Seal Earl Marshal Lord Admiral Warden of the Cinque-Ports chief Governor of Ireland Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Wards Secretaries of State two Chief Justices and Chief Baron may always be chosen with the approbation of both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament by assent of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before exprest in the choice of Counsellors IV. That he or they unto whom the government and education of the King's Children shall be committed shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliaments by the assent of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before exprest in the choice of Counsellours And that all such Servants as are now about Them against whom both Houses shall have any just exception shall be removed V. That no Marriage shall be concluded or treated for any of the King's Children with any foreign Prince or other person whatsoever abroad or at home without the consent of Parliament under the penalty of a Praemunire unto such as shall so conclude or treat any Marriage as aforesaid and that the said Penalty shall not be pardoned or dispensed with but by the consent of both Houses of Parliament VI. That the Laws in force against Jesuites Priests and Popish Recusants be strictly put in execution without any toleration or dispensation to the contrary and some more effectual course may be enacted by authority of Parliament to disable them from making any disturbance in the State or eluding the Law by trusts or otherwise VII That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Peers may be taken away so long as they continue Papists And that His Majesty would consent to such a Bill as shall be drawn for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion VIII That Your Majesty will be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made in the Church-Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise wherein they intend to have consultations with Divines as is expressed in their Declaration to that purpose And that your Majesty will contribute Your best assistance to them for the raising of a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers through the Kingdom And that Your Majesty will be pleased to give Your consent to Laws for the taking away of Innovations and Superstition and of Pluralities and against Scandalous Ministers IX That Your Majesty will be pleased to rest satisfied with that course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for ordering the Militia until the same shall be further setled by a Bill And that Your Majesty will recall Your Declarations and Proclamations against the Ordinance made by the Lords and Commons concerning it X. That such Members of either House of Parliament as have during this present Parliament been put out of any Place and Office may either be restored to that Place and Office or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the Petition of that House whereof he or they are Members XI That all Privy-Counsellours and Judges may take an Oath the form whereof to be agreed on and setled by Act of Parliament for the maintaining of the Petition of Right and of certain Statutes made by this Parliament which shall be mentioned by both Houses of Parliament And that an inquiry of all the breaches and violations of these Laws may be given in charge by the Justices of the King's Bench every Term and by the Judges of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of Peace at the Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law XII That all the Judges and all Officers placed by approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their places Quam diu bene se gesserint XIII That the Justice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it And that all persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the censure of Parliament XIV That the General Pardon offered by Your Majesty may be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament XV. That the Forts and Castles of this Kingdom may be put under the Command and Custody of such persons as Your Majesty shall appoint with the approbation of Your Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament with the approbation of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before expressed in the choice of Counsellours XVI That the extraordinary Guards and Military Forces now attending Your Majesty may be removed and discharged And that for the future You will raise no such Guards or extraordinary Forces but according to Law in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion XVII That Your Majesty will be pleased to enter into a more strict Alliance with the States of the United Provinces and other neighbour-Princes and States of the Protestant Religion for the defence and maintenance thereof against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his adherents to subvert and suppress it whereby Your Majesty will obtain a great access of strength and reputation and Your Subjects be much encouraged and enabled in a Parliamentary way for Your aid and assistance in restoring Your Royal Sister and the Princely Issue to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them and relieving the other distressed Protestant Princes who have suffered in the same Cause XVIII That Your Majesty will be pleased by Act of Parliament to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the
the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Profession many about Us can witness with Us that we have often delivered Our Opinion that such a course with God's blessing upon it would be the most effectual for the rooting out of Popery out of this Kingdom We shall therefore thank you for it and encourage you in it and when it comes unto Us do Our Duty And We heartily wish for the publick good that the time you have spent in making Ordinances without Us had been imployed in preparing this and other good Bills for Us. For the Eighth touching the Reformation to be made of the Church-Government and Liturgy We had hoped that what We had formerly declared concerning the same had been so sufficiently understood by you and all good Subjects that We should not need to have expressed Our Self further in it We told you in Our Answers to your Petition presented to Us at Hampton-Court the first of December That for any illegal Innovations which may have crept in We should willingly concurre in the removal of them that if Our Parliament should advise Vs to call a National Synod which may duely examine such Ceremonies as give just cause of Offence to any We should take it into Consideration and apply Our Self to give due satisfaction therein that We were perswaded in Our Conscience that no Church could be found upon the Earth that professeth the true Religion with more Purity of Doctrine then the Church of England doth nor where the Government and Discipline are jointly more beautified and free from Superstition then as they are here established by Law which by the Grace of God We will with Constancy maintain while We live in their Purity and Glory not only against all Invasions of Popery but also from the Irreverence of those many Schismaticks and Separatists wherewith of late this Kingdom and Our City of London abounds to the great dishonour and hazard both of Church and State for the suppression of whom We required your timely and active assistance We told you in Our first Declaration printed by the Advice of Our Privy Council That for differences amongst our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature concerning Religion We should in tenderness to any number of Our loving Subjects very willingly comply with the Advice of Our Parliament that some Law might be made for the exemption of tender Consciences from punishment or prosecution for such Ceremonies and in such Cases which by the judgment of most men are held to be matters indifferent and of some to be absolutely unlawful Provided that this ease should be attempted and pursued with that modesty temper and submission that in the mean time the Peace and Quiet of the Kingdom be not disturbed the Decency and Comeliness of God's Service discountenanced nor the Pious Sober Devout actions of those Reverend Persons who were the first Labourers in the blessed Reformation or of that time be scandaled and defamed And we heartily wish that others whom it concerned had been as ready as their Duty bound them though they had not received it from Us to have pursued this Caution as We were and still are willing and ready to make good every particular of that Promise Nor did we onely appear willing to joyn in so good a Work when it should be brought Us but prest and urged you to it by Our Message of the fourteenth of February in these words And because His Majesty observes great and different troubles to arise in the hearts of His People concerning the Government and Liturgy of the Church His Majesty is willing to declare That He will refer the whole consideration to the wisdom of His Parliament which he desires them to enter into speedily that the present Distractions about the same may be composed but desires not to be pressed to any single Act on His part till the whole be so digested and settled by both Houses that His Majesty may clearly see what is fit to be left as well as what is fit to be taken away Of which We the more hoped of a good success to the general satisfaction of Our People because you seem in this Proposition to desire but a Reformation and not as is daily preached for as necessary in those many Conventicles which have within these nineteen months begun to swarm and which though their Leaders differ from you in this opinion yet appear to many as countenanced by you by not being punished by you few else by reason of the Order of the House of Commons of the 9th of September daring to do it a destruction of the present Discipline and Liturgy And We shall most chearfully give Our best assistance for raising a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers in such course as shall be most for the encouragement and advancement of Piety and Learning For the Bills you mention and the Consultation you intimate knowing nothing of the particular matters of the one though We like the Titles well nor of the manner of the other but from an Informer to whom We give little credit and We wish no man did more common Fame We can say nothing till We see them For the Eleventh We would not have the Oath of all Privy Counsellors and Judges streightned to particular Statutes of one or two particular Parliaments but extend to all Statutes of all Parliaments and the whole Law of the Land and shall willingly consent that an enquiry of all the breaches and violations of the Law may be given in charge by the Justices of the Kings Bench every Term and by the Judges of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of Peace at the Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law For the Seventeenth We shall ever be most ready and We are sorry it should be thought needful to move Us to it not only to join with any particularly with the States of the United Provinces of which We have given a late proof in the Match of Our Daughter for the defence and maintenance of the Protestant Religion against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his Adherents but singly if need were to oppose with Our Life and Fortune all such Designs in all other Nations were they joyned And that for Considerations of Conscience far more then any temporal end of obtaining access of Strength and Reputation or any natural end of restoring Our Royal Sister and her Princely Issue to their Dignities and Dominions though these be likewise much considered by Us. For the Eighteenth It was not Our fault that an Act was not passed to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the Five Members of the House of Commons but yours who inserted such Clauses into both the Preamble and Act perhaps perswaded to it by some who wish not that you should in any thing receive satisfaction from Us as by passing the Preamble We must have wounded Our Honour against Our Conscience and by another Clause have admitted a Consequence
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
and still must pursue those ends and undergo that Charge for which it was first granted to the Crown it having been so long and constantly continued to Our Predecessors as that in four several Acts of Parliament for the granting thereof to King Edward the Sixth Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and Our blessed Father it is in express terms mentioned to have been had and enjoyed by the several Kings named in those Acts time out of mind by authority of Parliament And therefore upon these reasons We held it agreeable to Our Kingly Honour and necessary for the safety and good of Our Kingdom to continue the receipt thereof as so many of Our Predecessors had done Wherefore when a few Merchants being at first but one or two fomented as it is well known by those evil Spirits that would have hatched that undutiful Remonstance began to oppose the payment of Our accustomed duties in the Custom-house We gave order to the Officers of Our Customs to go on notwithstanding that opposition in the receiving of the usual duties and caused those that refused to be warned to attend at the Council-board that by the wisdom and authority of Our Council they might be reduced to obedience and duty where some of them without reverence or respect to the honour and dignity of that presence behaved themselves with such boldness and insolency of speech as was not to be endured by a far meaner Assembly much less to be countenanced by a House of Parliament against the body of Our Privy Council And as in this We did what in honour and reason was fit for the present so Our thoughts were daily intentive upon the re-assembling of Our Parliament with full intention on Our part to take away all ill understanding between Us and Our people whose loves as We desired to continue and preserve so We used Our best endeavours to prepare and facilitate the way to it And to this end having taken a strict and exact survey of Our Government both in the Church and Commonwealth and what things were most fit and necessary to be reformed We found in the first place that much exception had been taken at a book intituled Appello Caesarem or An Appeal to Caesar and published in the year 1625. by Richard Mountague then Batchelour of Divinity and now Bishop of Chichester and because it did open the way to those Schisms and Divisions which have since ensued in the Church We did for remedy and redress thereof and for satisfaction of the Consciences of Our good people not only by Our publick Proclamation call in that Book which ministred matter of offence but to prevent the like danger for hereafter reprinted the Articles of Religion established in the time of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory and by a Declaration before those Articles We did tie and restrain all Opinions to the sense of those Articles that nothing might be left for private fancies and innovation For We call God to record before whom We stand that it is and always hath been Our hearts desire to be found worthy of that Title which We accompt the most glorious in all Our Crown Defender of the Faith neither shall We ever give way to the authorizing of any thing whereby any Innovation may steal or creep into the Church but preserve that unity of Doctrine and Discipline established in the time of Queen Elizabeth whereby the Church of England hath stood and flourished ever since And as We were careful to make up all breaches and rents in Religion at home so did We by Our Proclamation and Commandment for the execution of Laws against Priests and Popish Recusants fortifie all ways and approaches against that foreign Enemy which if it have not succeeded according to Our intention We must lay the fault where it is in the subordinate Officers and Ministers in the Country by whose remissness Jesuites and Priests escape without apprehension and Recusants from those convictions and penalties which the Laws and Our Commandment would have inflicted on them For We do profess that as it is Our duty so it shall be our care to command and direct well but it is the part of others to perform the Ministerial Office And when We have done Our Office We shall account Our Self and all charitable men will accompt Us innocent both to God and Men and those that are negligent We will esteem as culpable both to God and Us and therefore will expect that hereafter they give Us a better accompt And as We have been careful for the setling of Religion and quieting the Church so were We not unmindful of the preservation of the just and ancient Liberties of Our Subjects which We secured to them by Our gracious Answer to the Petition in Parliament having not since that time done any Act whereby to infringe them but Our care is and hereafter shall be to keep them intire and inviolable as We would do Our own Right and Sovereignty having for that purpose enrolled the Petition and Answer in Our Courts of Justice Next to the care of Religion and of Our Subjects Rights We did Our best for the provident and well ordering of that aid and supply which was granted Us the last Session whereof no part hath been wastfully spent nor put to any other use than those for which it was desired and granted as upon payment of Our Fleet and Army wherein Our care hath been such as We chose rather to discontent Our dearest Friends and Allies and Our nearest Servants than to leave Our Souldiers and Mariners unsatisfied whereby any vexation or disquiet might arise to Our people We have also with part of those Moneys begun to supply Our Magazines and stores of Munition and to put Our Navy into a constant form and order Our Fleet likewise is fitting and almost in a readiness whereby the Narrow Seas may be guarded Commerce maintained and Our Kingdom secured from all forein attempts These Acts of Ours might have made this impression in all good minds that We were careful to direct Our counsels and dispose Our actions so as might most conduce to the maintenance of Religion honour of Our Government and safety of Our People But with mischievous men once ill-affected Seu bene seu malè facta premunt and whatsoever once seemed amiss is ever remembred but good endeavours are never regarded Now all these things that were the chief complaints the last Session being by Our Princely care so seriously reformed the Parliament re assembled the twentieth of January last We expecting according to the candor and sincerity of Our own thoughts that men would have framed themselves for the effecting a right understanding between Us and Our people But some few malevolent persons like Empiricks and lewd Artists did strive to make new work and to have some Disease on foot to keep themselves in request and to be imployed and entertained in the Cure And yet to manifest how much offences have been diminished the Committees
must He must neither be able to discharge His Duty to Himself by His own Defence nor make good His Oath by the protecting of his Subjects against any sudden dangerous Rebellion or Invasion or the Commanders of all His Ships Towns Forts and Magazines and all the Commanders of both Armies that is the most considerable Militia of England must according to this new Oath oppose any opposition He shall make and must be equally obliged by it to fight against His Forces as against those of the Rebels or Invaders Fifthly because if He should give them so a great a Prerogative for so long a time as this share in the choice of men to places of so high Power and Trust the Dependance of Subjects upon the Crown would be much diverted and He could never expect to be faithfully served when no other Crime of theirs appearing to Him He should so farr devest the present Proprietaries of their legal Right as to submit it a new to the Arbitrariness of their Confiding who have given His Majesty no greater Cause to confide in their Choice Sixthly and lastly because if He should allow them that power for that time upon that Reason He cannot doubt but against that time were ended the Sweetness of Power being once tasted they would be so unwilling to quit it that the same powerful violent party would not want the like Fears to beget the like Demands of the same or greater interest in the choice of the same or greater Places and the same Consequences would not likewise fail to follow if these Demands were not consented to and even His good Subjects seeing it the most prosperous might be induced to think Faction and Sedition the wisest Course and when they saw His Majesty give such an Encouragement to Rebellion might think it pity He should ever be without one And His Majesty conceives Fear and Jealousie may be a good reason to make Him cautious how He parts with His Right though a very insufficient justification of their forcing that from Him to which they could pretend none But still His Majesty hoped that they only insisted upon such Limitations of his Proposition till they saw what Limitations he would offer to theirs and therefore to reduce them to Moderation by His Example He proposes to the Houses for the Committee had no Power or Instruction to treat of the principal point of it no other Limitations than were both due by Law and necessary in themselves and offers as soon as he was satisfied in His first Proposition to which if they would have put Him in mind of any such Objection in the Treaty He would never have required that the exact Computation of his Revenue taken from Him should be agreed on before Disbanding which is now objected to Him not as an Injustice but as a purposed Delay as soon as the Houses were restored to that Condition in which they were before the Tumults and these Distractions forced the Members from thence and as soon as He and those Houses were secured from Tumults only adding His own opinion That adjourning twenty miles from London could only effect it and offering them the choice of any place at that distance in His whole Kingdom He would immediately disband and return to His Parliament and expected much more that this Message when it was received at London should have met with Bells and Bone-fires than have received neither Approbation nor Answer But that violent Party which looks upon Peace like a Monster fearing lest if the Treaty should any longer continue so fair an approach to Peace might by degrees steal it on upon them before they were aware prevail to return no other Answer than immediately to send for their Committee from Oxford and to send the Lord of Essex to Reading His Majesty waits awhile and again in a Message He had occasion to send to the Houses concerning Ireland He takes occasion to put them in mind of that former Message and to renew the expressions of His Desire of Peace But this Message had no better luck than the other for no Answer hath been sent to it only in stead of an Answer the same violent Party makes a shift to go a step or two higher and to prevail in the House of Commons to vote Excises upon Commodities and the making of a new Great Seal though the making of it will be Treason by the Statute of the five and twentieth of Edward the Third and an Order of the House of Commons will be but an insufficient Plea against that Statute and though they might have remembred that it is by the old one that both most of them hold their Lands and all of them are called to that House But since His Majesty would not allow them a share in making of Peers as they ask'd him in their Nineteen Propositions nor allow of their choice of Justices of the Peace as they ask'd Him in their Fourteen and did still pretend to making of Sheriffs which they have denied Him by their Votes it seems they thought it necessary to make that which if it could be made legal by Voting would make all those and to end the Dispute about His Majesty's Negative Voice by passing by Commission what new Bills they pleased and so to obtain as absolutely an unlimited Power over their fellow-Subjects as over their Sovereign Himself Yet His Majesty would take no notice of all this but sends once more a third Message to desire an Answer to His first which had then lain in their hands above a Month. This pressing for Peace appears so intolerable to them that the House of Commons as the best way to make a final end of all such Messages and indeed to cut off all Entercourse is prevailed with by these men to commit the Messenger and the next day to impeach His Majesties Royal Consort of High Treason as if they would give Him a fair warning how He trouble them about Peace again lest His turn be next and they impeach him too But though they vouchsafe His Majesty no Answer yet the People is still thought worthy of some satisfaction and that produces this Declaration which pretends fully and sufficiently to shew that in the Treaty their Demands were such and so moderate as was fit and necessary for them to make and just and reasonable for His Majesty to assent unto and His Majesty's were such as had neither Reason nor Justice either in the matter or manner of them and such as left the People no hope or expectation to see an end of their present Calamities and charge the King through His Councellors in many Circumstances before it and during it to have laboured to interrupt the Treaty and to have appeared averse to Peace and in this Question His Majesty is content to accept of the Arbitrator they themselves have chosen and to refer it to the People to judge Their First Argument is That this Treaty is for the disbanding of the Armies
the Lieutenant and Judges there should be nominated by the two Houses of Parliament as is expressed in the twentieth Proposition who will recommend none to be imployed by his Majesty in places of so great trust but such whose known Ability and Integrity shall make them worthy of them which must needs be best known to a Parliament nor are they to have any greater Power conferred upon them by the granting this Proposition then they have had who did formerly execute those places And we know no reason why your Lordships should make difficulty of his Majesties consenting to such Acts as shall be presented unto him for raising Moneys and other necessaries from the Subject which is without any charge to himself for no other end but the settling of the true Protestant Religion in that Kingdom and reducing it to his Majesties Obedience for which we hold nothing too dear that can be imployed by us And we cannot but wonder that your Lordships should make the prosecution of the War of Ireland which is but to execute Justice upon those bloody Rebels who have broken all Laws of God and Man their Faith their Allegiance all bonds of Charity all rules of Humanity and humane Society who have Butchered so many thousands of Innocent Christians Men Women and Children whose Blood cries up to Heaven for Vengeance so many of his Majesties Subjects whose Lives he is bound to require at their hands that spilt them and to do Justice upon them to put away innocent Blood from himself his Posterity the whole Land these execrable Antichristian Rebels who have made a covenant with Hell to destroy the Gospel of Christ and have taken up Arms to destroy the Protestant Religion to set up Popery to rend away one of his Majesties Kingdoms and deliver it up into the hands of Strangers for which they have negotiations with Spain and other States a War which must prevent so much mischief do so much good offer up such an acceptable Sacrifice to the Great and Just God of Heaven who groans under so much Wickedness to lie so long unpunished a War which must reduce that Kingdom unto his Majesties Obedience the most glorious work that this Kingdom can undertake that the prosecution of such a War your Lordships should make to depend upon any other condition that the Distractions of these Kingdoms should be laid as an impediment unto it and that there should be any thought any thing which should give those Rebels hope of impunity if our Miseries continue whereas according to Christian reason and the ordinary course of God's Providence nothing can be more probable to continue our Miseries then the least connivence in this kind What can be said or imagined should be any inducement to it We hope not to make use of their help and assistance to strengthen any party here to bring over such Actors of barbarous Cruelties to exercise the same in these Kingdoms We desire your Lordships to consider these things and that nothing may remain with you which may hinder his Majesty from giving his Consent to all good means for the reducing of Ireland according to what is desired by us in our Propositions The King's Commissioners Reply to the two last Papers The King's Commissioners Paper 20. February WE are very sorry that our Answers formerly given to your Lordships in the business of the Cessation which was so necessary to be made and being made to be kept have not given your Lordships satisfaction and that your Lordships have not rather thought fit to make the reasonableness of your Propositions concerning Ireland appear to us or to make such as might be reasonable in the stead then by charging his Majesty with many particulars which highly reflect upon his Honour to compel us to mention many things in Answer to your Lordships Allegations which otherwise in a time of Treaty when we would rather endeavour to prevent future Inconveniences then to insist on past mistakes we desired to have omitted And we can no ways admit that when the Cessation was made in Ireland his Majesties Protestant Subjects there could have subsisted without that Cessation nor that the War can be maintained and prosecuted to the subduing the Rebels there so long as the War continues in this Kingdom which are the chief grounds laid for the Assertions in your Lordships first Paper delivered this day concerning the business of Ireland Neither can we conceive that your Lordships have alleged any thing that could in the least degree satisfie us that his Majesty had no Power to make that Cessation or had no Reason so to do considering as we have formerly said and do again insist upon it that by that Cessation which was not made till long after this Kingdom was embroiled in a miserable War the poor Protestants there who for want of Supplies from hence were ready to famish and be destroyed were preserved and that Kingdom kept from utter Ruin so far was it from being a design for their Destruction or for the advantage of the Popish bloody Rebels as is insinuated for it appears by the Letters of the Lords Justices of Ireland Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlase and of the Council there of the fourth of April 1643. before that Cessation made directed to the Speaker of the House of Commons a Copy whereof we delivered to your Lordships though we presume you may have the Original That His Majesties Army and good Subjects there were in danger to be devoured for want of needful Supplies forth of England and that His Majesties Forces were of Necessity sent abroad to try what might be done for sustaining them in the Country to keep them alive until Supplies should get to them but that design failing those their hopes were converted into astonishment to behold the Miseries of the Officers and Souldiers for want of all things and all those Wants made unsupportable in the want of Food and divers Commanders and Officers declaring they had little hope to be supplied by the Parliament pressed with so great importunity to be permitted to depart the Kingdom as that it would be extreme difficult to keep them there And in another part of that Letter for we shall not grieve you with mention of all their Complaints they expressed That they were expelling thence all Strangers and must instantly send away for England thousands of poor despoiled English whose very eating was then unsupportable to that place that their Confusions would not admit the writing of many more Letters if any for they had written divers others expressing their great Necessities And to the end His Majesty and the English Nation might not irrecoverably and unavoidably suffer they did desire that then though it were almost at the point to be too late supplies of Victuals and Ammunition in present might be hastned thither to keep life until the rest might follow there being no Victual in the store nor a hundred Barrells of Powder a small proportion to defend
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right