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
as soon as We were informed that the Earl of Essex his Forces were departed from Kingston before any appearance or notice of further Forces from London Our end of not being inclosed being obtained We gave orders to quit Brainceford and to march away and possess that place We cannot but make one Argument more of the truth of Our Profession that this was all Our end and that We had not the least thought by so advancing to surprise and sack London which the Malignant party would infuse into that Our City and that is That probably God Almighty would not have given such a Blessing to Our Journy as to have assisted Us so both by Land and Water as with less than a third part of Our Foot and with the loss but of ten Men to beat two of their best Regiments out of both Braincefords for all the great advantage of their Works in them to kill him who commanded in chief and kill and drown many others to take five hundred Prisoners more Arms eleven Colours and good store of Ammunition fifteen Pieces of Ordnance whereof We sunk most that We brought not away and then unfought with and unoffer'd at nearer than by Ordnance to march away notwithstanding the great disadvantage of Our Forces by the difficulties of the Passages if He who is the Searcher of all Hearts and Truth it self had not known the truth of Our Professions and the Innocence of Our Heart and how far We were from deserving those horrid Accusations of Falshood and Treachery cast so point-blank upon Our own Person that it would amaze any Man to see them suffered to be printed in Our City of London if any thing of that kind could be a wonder after so many of the same and how really they desire Accommodation who have upon this voted they will have none These Our Reasons for this Action this Our satisfaction sent for it and this Blessing of God's upon it will We doubt not clear Us to all indifferent persons both of the Jesuitical Counsels and the Personal Treachery to which some have presumed so impudently to impute it And God so bless Our future Actions as We have delivered the truth of this The Answer of both Houses of Parliament to His Majesty's Message of the 12 of Nov. With his Majesty's Reply thereunto The Answer of both Houses of Parliament to His Majesty's Message of the 12 of November TO Your Majesty's Message of the 12 of this Month of November we the Lords and Commons in Parliament do make this humble Answer That this Message was not delivered to us till Monday the 14. We thought it a strange Introduction to Peace that Your Majesty should send Your Army to beat us out of our Quarters at Brainceford and then appoint that place to receive our Propositions which yet it plainly appears Your Majesty intended not to receive till You had first tried whether You could break through the Army raised for Defence of this Kingdom and Parliament and take the City being unprovided and secure in expectation of a fair Treaty made to secure the City If herein Your Majesty had prevailed after You had destroyed the Army and mastered the City it is easie to imagine what a miserable Peace we should have had and whether those Courses be suitable to the Expressions Your Majesty is pleased to make in Your Answer to our Petition and of Your Earnestness to avoid any further Effusion of blood let God and the world judge As for our Proceedings they have in all things been answerable to our Professions we gave directions to the Earl of Essex to draw the Army under his Command out of the City and Suburbs before we sent any Message to Your Majesty so that part of it was inquartered at Brainceford before the Committee returned with Your Answer and immediately upon the receit thereof that very morning order was taken that the Soldiers should exercise no Act of Hostility against any of Your Majesty's People We sent a Letter by Sir Peter Killegrew to know Your Majesty's Pleasure whether You intended the like forbearance of Hostility but the fury of your Souldiers thirsting after blood and spoil prevented the delivery of the Letter for coming upon Saturday in his way towards Your Majesty as far as Brainceford he found them in fight there and could pass no further God who sees our Innocency and that we have no Aims but at his Glory and the publick good will we hope free Your Majesty from those destructive Counsels who labour to maintain their own Power by Blood and Rapine and bless our Endeavours who seek nothing but to procure and establish the Honour Peace and Safety of Your Majesty and Kingdoms upon the sure foundation of Religion and Justice MDCXLII Nov. 18. To the Answer of both Houses of Parliament to His Majesty's Message of the 12 of November His MAJESTY makes this Reply THat His Message of the twelfth though not received by them till the fourteenth was sent to them first upon the same day upon which it was dated and meeting with stops by the way was again sent upon the 13 and taken upon that day at ten in the morning by the Earl of Essex and though not to him directed was by him opened so the slowness of the Delivery is not so strange as the stop of the Letter said to be sent by Sir Peter Killegrew which His Majesty hath not yet received but concludes from the matter expressed to have been contain'd in that Letter to wit to know His Pleasure whether He intended the forbearance of Hostility and by the Command of such forbearance said to be sent to the Lord of Essex his Army that no such forbearance was already concluded and consequently neither had His Majesty cause to suppose that He should take any of their Forces unprovided and secure in expectation of a fair Treaty neither could any Hostile Act of His Majesties Forces have been a course unsuitable to His Expressions much less could an endeavour to prepossess for so He hoped He might have done that Place which might have stopt the farther march of those Forces towards Him which for ought appeared to Him might as well have been intended to Colebrook as to Brainceford and by that the further effusion of blood deserve that style His Majesty further conceives that the Printing so out of time of such a Declaration as their Reply to His Answer to theirs of the 26. of May but the day before they Voted the Delivery of their Petition and the March of the Earl of Essex his Forces to Brainceford so near to his Majesty when the Committee at the same time attended Him with a Petition for a Treaty the Earl of Essex being before possest of all the Avenues to his Army by his Forces at Windsor Acton and Kingston was a more strange Introduction to Peace than for His Majesty not to suffer Himself to be coopt up on all sides because a Treaty had been mentioned
might have been suddenly and speedily resolved and that long before this time And if the expressions of both Houses in their Reasons had not necessitated His Majesty in His own defence to give such Answers as could not upon those points deliver Truth without some shew of Sharpness no Expression of that kind in His Majesty's Answer had given any pretence for the rejection of or refusing so much as to treat upon this Cessation which though it were at present for no long time yet was from the day named by themselves the 25 of March whereas His Majesty first moved for a Cessation and Treaty without any limitation at all in the time of either and His Majesty was most ready to have enlarged the time so that in the mean while the point of Quarters might be so settled as that His Armies might subsist and which might have been if they had pleased a very good and promising earnest and fore-runner of that great blessing of Peace for the obtaining of which the wishes and endeavours of all good men being earnestly bent a farther debate in order to so great a Benefit did not deserve to be styled a consumption of time And His Majesty cannot but conceive Himself to be in a strange condition if the doubtfulness of Expressions which must always be whilst the Treaty is at such a distance and power is denied to those upon the place to help to clear and explain or His necessary Replying to charges laid upon Him that He might not seem to acknowledge what was so charged or the limitation of the time of seven days for the Treaty which was not limited by His Majesty who ever desired to have avoided that and other limitations which have given great interruptions to it should be as well believed to be the grounds as they are made the arguments of the rejection of that which next to Peace it self His Majesty above all things most desires to see agreed and settled and which His Majesty hopes if it may be yet agreed on will give His People such a taste of such a Blessing that after a short time of consideration and comparing of their several conditions in War and Peace and what should move them to suffer so much by a Change they will not think those their friends that shall force them to it or be themselves ready to contribute to the renewing of their former Miseries without some greater evidence of Necessity than can appear to them when they shall have seen as they shall see if this Treaty be suffered to proceed that His Majesty neither asks nor denies any thing but what not only according to Law He may but what in Honour and care of His People he is obliged to ask or deny And this alone which a very short Cessation would produce His Majesty esteems a very considerable advantage to the Kingdom and therefore cannot but press again and again that whatever is thought doubtful in the expressions of the Articles may as in an hour it may well be done be expounded and whatsoever is excepted at may be debated and concluded and that Power and Instructions may be given to the Committee to that end that the miserable effects of War the effusion of English blood and desolation of England until they can be totally taken away may by this means be stayed and interrupted His Majesty supposes that when the Committee was last required to desire His Majesty to give a speedy and positive Answer to the first proposition concerning Disbanding His Answers in that point to which no Reply hath been made and which He hopes by this time have given satisfaction were not transmitted and received but wonders the Houses should press His Majesty for a speedy and positive Answer to the first part of their first Proposition concerning Disbanding when to the second part of the very same Proposition concerning His Return to both Houses of Parliament they had not given any Power or Instructions to the Committee so much as to treat with His Majesty and when His Majesty if His desire of Peace and of speeding the Treaty in order to that had not been prevalent with Him might with all manner of Justice have delayed to begin to treat upon one part until they had been enabled to treat upon the other In which point and for want of which power from them the only stop now remains His Majesty's Answers to both parts of their first Proposition being given in transmitted and yet remaining unanswered To which until the Houses shall be at leisure to make Answer that as little delay in this Treaty as is possible may be caused by it His Majesty desires likewise that the Committee may be enabled to treat upon the following Propositions in their several orders A Letter from both Houses April 8. WE have sent unto you by this Gentleman Sir Peter Killegrew some additional Instructions by which your Lordship and the rest of the Committee will perceive the Resolutions which the Houses have taken upon the Papers which they received this day from you This is all we have in command and remain Your Lordship 's humble Servants Manchester Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore Will. Lenthall Speaker of the Commons House in Parliament Westminster this 8 of April 1643. Instructions concerning the Insisting received April 9. 1643. Additional Instructions for Algernon Earl of Northumberland William Lord Viscount Say and Seal William Pierrepont Esquire Sir William Armyne and Sir John Holland Baronets Bulstrode Whitelocke Esquire Committees from both Houses attending His Majesty at Oxford Magazines and enlarging the time THE two Houses of Parliament are unsatisfied with His Majesty's Answer to that Clause of the first Proposition which concerns the Magazines Wherefore you are to desire His Majesty to make a further Answer in such manner as is exprest in the Instructions formerly given you and you shall let His Majesty know That the Lords and Commons do not think fit to enlarge the time of the Treaty beyond the twenty days formerly limited Cinque-Ports Towns Forts and Castles They likewise remain unsatisfied with His Majesty's Answer concerning the Cinque-Ports Towns Forts and Castles being in the most material points an express Denial Wherefore you are to insist upon their desire for another Answer according to your Instructions Ships They observe in His Majesty's Answer concerning the Ships not only a Denial to all the desires of both Houses but likewise a Censure upon their proceedings However you are to insist upon their desires expressed in your Instructions Disbanding They further conceive that His Majesty's Answer to their first Proposition concerning the Disbanding is in effect a Denial unless they desert all those cautions and limitations which they have desired in their Answer to His Majesty's first Proposition Wherefore you are to proceed insisting upon that part of their first Proposition concerning the Disbanding according to your Instructions KING's Return to the Parliament You shall declare to His Majesty
not to be exercised till a Peace concluded upon the Treaty and then We had been secured by the Laws of the Kingdom and by the Duties and Affections of Our Subjects We think it far more matter of wonder since it is confessed that We and such Our Loyal Subjects who have faithfully and constantly adhered to Us were equally to be secured that they would allow Us no security at all but to put Our selves wholly upon them who even afterwards in this Paper deny Our Just Power of the Militia and of making Peace and War and might with much more colour hereafter do so if by Our Consent that Power should be once though for a time only put wholly into their Hands It is true the Laws of the Land and the Hearts of the People are the best security for a Prince that He shall enjoy what belongs to Him But it is as true that the Laws of the Land and the Love of the Prince towards His People are likewise their best security that they shall enjoy what belongeth to them It is a mutual confidence each in other that secures both but this is to be understood in calm and quiet times The present Distempers have bred mutual Jealousies and if they think it not at this time reasonable wholly to trust the Laws and Us concerning their security but require the Power of the Militia in which they have no right much less is it reasonable that We should wholly trust them concerning Our security who avowedly bear Arms against Us but if for the love of Peace We are content for a time to part with this great Power which is Our Known Right it is reasonable that We should have the nominating of some of those who should be trusted with it Yet on Our part We were well content to repose Our selves in that security they mention if the two Houses would likewise have relied upon the same security of the Laws and Affections of the People to which they so much pretend But though it was offered that We should return to Our two Houses whereby all Armies being Disbanded both they and We might have been restored to the Laws and guarded by those Affections of the People yet that was not admitted They say This Power of the Militia was not to be exercised till after a Peace but they do not remember it is to be agreed on before a Peace and proposed in order to a Peace and We might with as much Reason and far more Justice in respect of Our undoubted Right over the Militia of this Kingdom have insisted upon the sole nomination of the Commissioners because their Power was not to be exercised till a Peace concluded as they for that cause to have excluded Us from the nomination of an equal number and assumed that Power wholly to themselves not affording Us so much as the liberty to except against any of them And whereas they say these Commissioners for the Militia have a Rule prescribed and being removable and lyable for any miscarriage to a severe punishment cannot do any thing to Our prejudice contrary to the Trust reposed in them If they had such a Rule which yet by their Propositions and Papers We cannot find having by general and indefinite terms an unlimited Power given to them it proves they should not not that they would not break it He that hath Power as these Commissioners would have the greatest that ever Subjects had and Will to abuse that Power may extend and interpret the Rule prescribed him as he shall please himself And therefore since out of Our ardent desire of Peace We were content to part with this Power We had reason to require that at least some of those who should execute it might be such whom We Our selves should nominate and could trust For that which is said That if the Commissioners had been severally chosen the memory of these unnatural Divisions must needs have been continued and probably being severally named they would have acted dividedly according to several Interests and the War thereby might be more easily revived It is apparent the memory of the War must as much continue where any Commissioners are named at all as where they are named by either Party since by putting that Power into their hands it is put out of the proper Chanel But it is not the memory of a past War that is dangerous but such a remembrance of it as is joyned with a desire or inclination to revive it And if it were probable as is alledged that if the Commissioners were partly chosen by Us and partly by them that being severally named they would have acted dividedly according to several Interests it would be much more probable that being wholly named by them they would have acted only according to their Interest and so on Our part instead of an equal Security We must have been contented with what Laws an Conditions they would have imposed But We shall again remember that the offer on Our part was to name such against whom there could be no just Exception if the Persons were named equally betwixt us It was likewise offered That those Commissioners should take an Oath for the true discharge of their Trust that We Our selves were willing to take an Oath to observe the Articles of the Treaty and that all Persons of any immediate Trust by Offices or attendance upon Vs and all others whom they should nominate should take the like Oath and with such penalties that whosoever should infringe the Agreement should be accounted most pernicious Enemies to Vs and the Kingdoms And if this way of mutual nomination were not approved there was another proposed that the Persons should be nominated between Our Commissioners and theirs by whose mutual consent it might well have been hoped such Persons might have been named in whom We and they might have confided But to this no Answer hath been vouchsafed nor could any thing satisfie concerning the Militia unless without knowing who the Persons were who should be entrusted We should with an implicite Faith in Persons whom We did not know put that Power into their hands They say that though by their Propositions the Commissioners were to continue without any limitation of time yet they have since proposed a time of seven years We know not that they have during the whole Treaty in any one particular receded from insisting on their Demands as they are set down in their Propositions in terminis And in this point though they seem to reduce the time which in their Propositions was indefinite to a certainty to which yet the Scotish Commissioners have not absolutely agreed the alteration is more in shew than in deed and rather to the heightning than abating their Demands For whereas they have limited the time to seven years yet it is with an additional Clause That after those seven years it was to be executed as We and they should agree and not otherwise so that though the
We should wholly give up that Kingdom to be managed solely by their Counsels secluding Our selves from all Interest therein especially when We consider that which Experience hath taught Us if they have the sole Power of that War by which all the Soldiers and Commanders being to be nominated and pay'd removed and advanced by them the necessary application passing by Us must be made to such as are powerful with them how easie a matter it will be for a prevalent Faction if they shall have a mind to demand other things hereafter not fit to be granted again to bring over an Army raised and payed by them into this Kingdom especially so much composed of Our Scotish Subjects And whereas they desire further the nomination of the Lord Lieutenant and other great Officers and Judges in that Kingdom which they also desire in this of England they cannot but know that it must of necessity take away all dependency upon Us and application to Us when the power to reward those who are worthy of publick Trust shall be transferred to others and having neither force left Us to punish nor power to reward We shall be in effect a titular contemptible Prince We shall leave all Our Ministers to the known Laws of the Land to be tried and punished according to those Laws if they shall offend but We cannot consent to put so great a Trust and Power out of Us and VVe have just cause to conceive that notwithstanding all their specious pretences this desire of nomination of those great Officers is but a cloak to cover the Ambition of those who having been the Boutefeus of this Rebellion desire to advance themselves and their own Faction And to that which is said that Our bad choice of Our Lieutenants of Ireland was the loss of many thousand Lives 〈◊〉 and almost of the whole Kingdom from Our Obedience they cannot but witness who know that Kingdom that during the Government there by Lieutenants of Our Choice that Kingdom enjoyed more Plenty and Peace than it ever had since it was under subjection to the Crown of England Traffick by Sea and Trade by Land encreased values of Land improved Shipping multipâ—ied beyond belief never was the Protestant Religion more advanced nor the Protestant protected in greater security against the Papists And VVe must remember them that that Rebellion was begun when there was no Lieutenant there and when the Power and Government which had been formerly used in that Kingdom was questioned and disgraced when those in the Parliament there by whom that Rebellion was hatched were countenanced in their complaints and prosecution But they are not content to demand all the Power over Ireland and the nomination of all Officers but We must also engage Our self to pass such Acts as shall be presented to Vs for raising of Moneys and other necessaries for that War Our former readiness to pass Acts for Ireland because they were advised by the two Houses when they were apparently prejudicial to Our self and contrary to Our own Judgment might sufficiently satisfie them We would make no difficulty to consent to such Acts as should be for the good of that Kingdom but they have been already told it was unreasonable to make a general engagement before We saw the Acts whether reasonable or no and whether those other necessaries may not in truth comprehend what is not only unnecessary but very inconvenient But the People they say who have trusted them with their Purse will never begrudg what they make them lay out upon that occasion The two Houses indeed were entrusted that Our Subjects should not be charged without them but they never were solely trusted by Our Subjects with a Power to charge them the care that no pressure in that or any other kind should be upon Our Subjects is principally in Us without whose Consent notwithstanding the late contrary and unexampled practice no such Charge can or ought to be levied and We ought not to give that Consent but where it is visibly for the good of Our Kingdoms which upon such an unbounded power of raising Moneys may fall out otherwise especially in so unusual a case as this where those who must have the sole manage of the VVar shall have the sole command of the Purse without any check or controll upon them But they say again VVe have heretofore been possessed against the Parliament for not giving away the Money of the Subject when VVe had desired it but never yet did VVe restrain them from it It is true We had no great cause heretofore to restrain the two Houses from giving the Subjects Money to Us having found more difficulty to obtain from them three or four Subsidies than they have met with in raising so many Millions But Our People cannot think themselves well dealt with by Us if We shall consent to put an unlimited power of raising what Moneys they please in those Persons who have drained more wealth from them in four years than We believe all the Supplies given to the Crown in 400. years before have amounted unto In the last place We wish every man to consider how the Rebels in Ireland can be reduced by War whilst these unhappy Distractions continue here whilst contrary Forces and Armies are raised in most parts of this Kingdom and the blood of Our People is spilt like water upon the ground whilst the Kingdom is wasted by Soldiers and the People exhausted by maintaining them and as if this Kingdom were not sufficient to destroy it self whilst an Army of Scots is brought into the bowels of this Kingdom and maintained at the charge of it whilst this Kingdom labours under such a War how is it possible that a considerable supply of men or money can be sent into Ireland To this with much fervour of expression they say It must not depend upon the condition of Our other Kingdoms to revenge God's Quarrel upon such perfidious Enemies to the Gospel of Christ who have embrewed their hands in so much Protestant Blood that the Cessation is for their Advantage Arms and Ammunition and all manner of Commodities may be brought to them that it is not fit there be any Agreement of Peace or respite from Hostility with such creatures as are not fit to live more than with VVolves or Tigers or any ravenous Beasts destroyers of mankind VVe are most sensible of the blood and horror of that Rebellion and would be glad that either a Peace in this Kingdom or any other Expedient might furnish Us with means and power to do Justice upon it If this cannot be We must not desperately expose Our good Subjects to their Butchery without means or possibility of protection God will in His due time revenge His Own Quarrel in the mean time His Gospel gives Us leave in case of War to sit down and cast up the cost and estimate Our Power to go through with it and in such case where Prudence adviseth it is lawful to
Parliament of Scotland to an Act acknowledging and ratifying the Acts of the Convention of Estates of Scotland called by the Council and Conservers of the Peace and the Commissioners of the Common Burthens and assembled the Two and Twentieth day of June 1643. and several times continued since and of the Parliament of the Kingdom since convened XIII That the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England assembled shall during the space of twenty years from the first of July 1646. Arm Train and Discipline or cause to be Armed Trained and Disciplined all the Forces of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed already raised both for Sea and Land-service and shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years raise levy arm train and discipline or cause to be raised levied armed trained and disciplined any other Forces for Land and Sea-service in the Kingdoms Dominions and Places aforesaid as in their judgments they shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years think fit and appoint and that neither the King His Heirs or Successors nor any other but such as shall Act by the Authority or Approbation of the said Lords and Commons shall during the said space of twenty years exercise any of the Powers aforesaid And the like for the Kingdom of Scotland if the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit That Moneys be raised and levied for the maintenance and use of the said Forces for Land-service and of the Navy and Forces for Sea-service in such sort and by such ways and means as the said Lords and Commons shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years think fit and appoint and not otherwise That all the said Forces both for Land and Sea-service so raised or levied or to be raised or levied and also the Admiralty and Navy shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years be imployed managed ordered and disposed by the said Lords and Commons in such sort and by such ways and means as they shall think fit and appoint and not otherwise And the said Lords and Commons during the said space of twenty years shall have power 1. To suppress all Forces raised or to be raised without Authority and Consent of the said Lords and Commons to the disturbance of the publick Peace of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them 2. To suppress any Foreign Forces who shall invade or endeavour to invade the Kingdoms of England and Ireland Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them 3. To conjoyn such Forces of the Kingdom of England with the Forces of the Kingdom of Scotland as the said Lords and Commons shall from time to time during the said space of Twenty years judge fit and necessary to resist all Forreign Invasions and to suppress any Forces raised or to be raised against or within either of the said Kingdoms to the disturbance of the Publick Peace of the said Kingdoms or any of them by any Authority under the Great Seal or other Warrant whatsoever without Consent of the said Lords and Commons of the Parliament of England and the Parliament or the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively and that no Forces of either Kingdom shall go into or continue in the other Kingdom without the Advice and Desire of the said Lords and Commons of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland or such as shall be by them appointed for that purpose And that after the expiration of the said Twenty years neither the King His Heirs or Successors or any person or persons by colour or pretence of any Commission Power Deputation or Authority to be derived from the King His Heirs or Successors or any of them shall raise arm train discipline imploy order manage disband or dispose any of the Forces by Sea or Land of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland the Dominion of VVales Isles of Gernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed nor exercise any of the said Powers or Authorities in the precedent Articles mentioned and expressed to be during the said space of Twenty years in the said Lords and Commons nor do any Act or thing concerning the execution of the said Powers or Authorities or any of them without the Consent of the said Lords and Commons first had and obtained That after the expiration of the said Twenty years in all Cases wherein the Lords and Commons shall declare the Safety of the Kingdom to be concerned and shall thereupon pass any Bill or Bills for the raising arming training disciplining imploying managing ordering or disposing of the Forces by Sea or Land of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland the Dominion of Wales Isles of Gernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any part of the said Forces or concerning the Admiralty and Navy or concerning the levying of Moneys for the raising maintenance or use of the said Forces for Land-service or of the Navy and Forces for Sea-service or of any part of them and if that the Royal Assent to such Bill or Bills shall not be given in the House of Peers within such time after the passing thereof by both Houses of Parliament as the said Houses shall judge fit and convenient that then such Bill or Bills so passed by the said Lords and Commons as aforesaid and to which the Royal Assent shall not be given as is herein before expressed shall nevertheless after declaration of the said Lords and Commons made in that behalf have the force and strength of an Act or Acts of Parliament and shall be as valid to all intents and purposes as if the Royal Assent had been given thereunto Provided that nothing herein before contained shall extend to the taking away of the ordinary Legal power of Sheriffs Justices of Peace Maiors Bailifs Coroners Constables Headboroughs or other Officers of Justice not being military Officers concerning the Administration of Justice so as neither the said Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Maiors Bailiffs Coroners Constables Headboroughs and other Officers nor any of them do levy conduct imploy or command any Forces whatsoever by colour or pretence of any Commission of Array or extraordinary command from His Majesty His Heirs or Successors without the Consent of the said Lords and Commons And if any persons shall be gathered and assembled together in warlike manner or otherwise to the Number of Thirty persons and shall not forthwith disband themselves being required thereto by the said Lords and Commons or command from them or any by them especially authorized for that purpose then such person and persons not so disbanding themselves shall be guilty and incur the pains of High
thereunto Provided always and be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That nothing herein before contained shall extend to the taking away of the ordinary Legal Power of Sheriffs Justices of Peace Maiors Bailiffs Coroners Constables Headboroughs or other Officers of Justice not being Military Officers concerning the Administration of Justice so as neither the said Sheriffs Justices of Peace Maiors Bailiffs Coroners Constables Headboroughs and other Officers or any of them do levy conduct imploy or command any Forces whatsoever by colour or pretence of any Commission of Array or extraordinary Command from His Majesty His Heirs or Successors without the Consent of the said Lords and Commons and that if any persons shall be gathered and assembled together in Warlike manner or otherwise to the number of Thirty persons and shall not forthwith separate and disperse themselves being required thereto by the said Lords and Commons or Command from them or any by them especially authorized for that purpose then such person and persons not so separating and dispersing themselves shall be guilty and incur the pains of High 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 shall be incapable of any Pardon from His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and their Estates shall be disposed as the said Lords and Commons shall think fit and not otherwise Provided also further 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 sitting of this present Parliament Soit baillé aux Seigneurs A ceste Bille les Seigneurs sont assentuz An Act for justifying the Proceedings of Parliament in the late War and for Declaring all Oaths Declarations Proclamations and other Proceedings against it to be void WHereas the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament have been necessitated to make and prosecute a War in their just and lawful Defence and thereupon Oaths Declarations and Proclamations have been made against them and their Ordinances and Proceedings and against others for adhering unto them and for executing Offices Places and Charges by Authority derived from them and Judgments Indictments Outlawries Attainders and Inquisitions for the causes aforesaid have been had and made against some of the Members of the Houses of Parliament and other his Majesties good Subjects and Grants have been made of their Lands and Goods Be it therefore Declared and hereby Enacted by the Kings Majesty and by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament and by Authority of the same That all Oaths Declarations and Proclamations heretofore had or made against both or either of the Houses of Parliament or any the Members of either of them for the causes aforesaid or against their Ordinances or Proceedings or against any for adhering unto them or for doing or executing any Office Place or Charge by any Authority derived from the said Houses or either of them and all Judgments Indictments Outlawries Attainders Inquisitions and Grants thereupon made and all other Proceedings for any the causes aforesaid had made done or executed or to be had made done or executed whether the same be done by the King or any Judges Justices Sheriffs Ministers or any others are void and of no effect and are contrary to and against the Laws of the Realm And be it further Enacted and hereby Declared by the Authority aforesaid That all Judges Justices of the Peace Maior Sheriffs Constables and other Officers and Ministers shall take notice hereof and are hereby prohibited and discharged in all time to come from awarding any Writ Process or Summons and from pronouncing or executing any Judgment Sentence or Decree or any way proceeding against or molesting any of the said Members of the two Houses of Parliament or against any of the Subjects of this Kingdom for any the causes aforesaid Soit baillé aux Seigneurs A ceste Bille les Seigneurs sont assentuz An Act concerning Peers lately made and hereafter to be made BE it Enacted by the Kings Majesty and by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament That all Honour and Title of Peerage conferred on any since the twentieth day of May 1642. being 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 be and is hereby made and declared Null and Void Be it further Enacted and it is hereby Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that no Person that shall hereafter be made a Peer or His Heirs shall sit or vote in the Parliament of England without consent of both Houses of Parliament Soit baillé aux Seigneurs A ceste Bille les Seigneurs sont assentuz An Act concerning the Adjournments of both Houses of Parliament BE it Declared and Enacted by the Kings Majesty and by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament and by the Authority of the same That when and as often as the Lords and Commons assembled in this present Parliament shall judge it necessary to adjourn both Houses of this present Parliament to any other place of the Kingdom of England than where they now sit or from any place adjourn the same again to the place where they now sit or to any other place within the Kingdom of England that then such their Adjournment and Adjournments to such places and for such time as they shall appoint shall at all times and from time to time be valid and good any Act Statute or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding Provided always and be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That no Adjournment or Adjournments to be had or made by reason or colour of this Act shall be deemed adjudged or taken to make end or determine any Session of this present Parliament And they also commanded us to present to Your Majesty these ensuing Propositions Heads of the Propositions 1. That the new Seal be confirmed and the old Great Seal and all things passed under it since May 1642. be made void 2. That Acts be passed for raising Moneys to satisfie Publick Debts 3. That Members of both Houses put from their places by the King be restored 4. That the Cessation in Ireland be made void and the War left to both Houses 5. That an Act of Indemnity be passed 6. That the Court of Wards be taken away and such Tenures turned into common Soccage 7. That the Treaties between the English and Scots be confirmed and Commissioners appointed for Conservation of the Peace between the Kingdoms 8. That the Arrears of the Army be paid out of the Bishops Lands forfeited Estates and Forests 9. That an Act be
height as to interpret all fair Condescendings as Arguments of Feebleness and glory most in an unflexible stifness when they see others most supple and inclinable to them A grand Maxime with them was always to ask something which in reason and Honour must be denied that they might have some colour to refuse all that was in other things granted setting Peace at as high a rate as the worst effects of War endeavouring first to make Me destroy My self by dishonourable Concessions that so they might have the less to do This was all which that Treaty or any other produced to let the world see how little I would deny or they grant in order to the Publick Peace That it gave occasion to some mens further restiveness is imputable to their own depraved tempers not to any Concessions or Negations of Mine I have always the content of what I offered and they the regret and blame for what they refused The highest tide of Success set Me not above a Treaty nor the lowest ebb below a Fight tho I never thought it any sign of true Valor to be prodigal of mens lives rather than to be drawn to produce our own Reasons or subscribe to other mens That which made Me for the most part presage the unsuccessfulness of any Treaty was some mens unwillingness to Treat which implied some things were to be gained by the Sword whose unreasonableness they were loath to have fairly scanned being more proper to be acted by Soldiers than by Counsellors I pray God forgive them that were guilty of that Treaties breaking and give them grace to make their advantages gotten by the Sword a better opportunity to use such Moderation as was then wanting that so tho Peace were for our sins justly deferred yet at last it may be happily obtain'd What we could not get by our Treaties we may gain by our Prayers O Thou that art the God of Reason and of Peace who disdainest not to Treat with Sinners preventing them with offers of Atonement and beseeching them to be reconciled with thy self who wantest not Power or Justice to destroy them yet aboundest in Mercy to save soften our hearts by the Blood of our Redeemer and perswade us to accept of Peace with Thy self and both to procure and preserve Peace among our selves as Men and Christians How oft have I intreated for Peace but when I speak thereof they make them ready to War Condemn us not to our Passions which are destructive both of our selves and of others Clear up our Vnderstandings to see thy Truth both in Reason as Men and in Religion as Christians and encline all our hearts to hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace Take from us that Enmity which is now in our hearts against Thee and give us that Charity which should be among our selves Remove the evils of War we have deserved and bestow upon us that Peace which only Christ our great Peace-maker can merit XIX Vpon the various Events of the War Victories and Defeats THE various Successes of this unhappy War have at least afforded Me variety of good Meditations Sometimes God was pleased to try Me with Victory by worsting my Enemies that I might know how with Moderation and thanks to own and use his Power who is only the true Lord of Hosts able when he pleases to repress the Confidence of those that fought against Me with so great advantages for Power and Number From small beginnings on My part he let me see that I was not wholly forsaken by My Peoples Love or his Protection Other times God was pleased to exercise my Patience and teach Me not to trust in the arm of Flesh but in the living God My Sins sometimes prevailed against the Justice of my Cause and those that were with Me wanted not matter and occasion for his just Chastisement both of them and Me. Nor were my Enemies less punished by that Prosperity which hardened them to continue that Injustice by open Hostility which was begun by most riotous and unparliamentary Tumults There is no doubt but personal and private Sins may oft-times over-balance the Justice of publick engagements nor doth God account every gallant man in the worlds esteem a fit instrument to assert in the way of War a righteous Cause The more men are prone to arrogate to their own Skill Valour and Strength the less doth God ordinarily work by them for his own Glory I am sure the Event or Success can never state the Justice of any Cause nor the peace of mens Consciences nor the eternal fate of their Souls Those with Me had I think clearly and undoubtedly for their Justification the Word of Cod and the Laws of the Land together with their own Oaths all requiring Obedience to My just Commands but to none other under Heaven without Me or against Me in the point of raising Arms. Those on the other side are forced to flie to the shifts of some pretended Fears and wild fundamentals of State as they call them which actually overthrow the present Fabrick both of Church and State being such imaginary Reasons for self-defence as are most impertinent for those men to alledg who being My Subjects were manifestly the first assaulters of Me and the Laws first by unsuppressed Tumults after by listed Forces The same Allegations they use will fit any Faction that hath but power and Confidence enough to second with the Sword all their demands against the Present Laws and Governors which can never be such as some Side or other will not find fault with so as to urge what they call a Reformation of them to a Rebellion against them Some parasitick Preachers have dared to call those Martyrs who died fighting against Me the Laws their Oaths and the Religion established But sober Christians know that glorious Title can with truth be applied only to those who sincerely preferred God's Truth and their Duty in all these particulars before their Lives and all that was dear to them in this world who having no advantagious designs by any Innovation were religiously sensible of those ties to God the Church and My self which lay upon their Souls both for Obedience and just Assistance God could and I doubt not but he did through his Mercy crown many of them with Eternal Life whose lives were lost in so just a Cause the destruction of their Bodies being sanctified as a means to save their Souls Their Wounds and temporal Ruine serving as a gracious opportunity for their eternal Health and Happiness while the evident approach of Death did through Gods Grace effectually dispose their hearts to such Humility Faith and Repentance which together with the Rectitude of their present Engagement would fully prepare them for a better Life than that which their Enemies brutish and disloyal Fierceness could deprive them of or without Repentance hope to enjoy They have often indeed had the better against My side in the Field but never I believe at the Bar of
Patience was not overcome nor his nature changed by the Reproaches of his Accusers answers with so brave a Presence of Spirit such firm Reasons and so clear an Eloquence that he whom the mercenary Tongues of their Lawyers had rendred as a Monster of men could not be found guilty of Treason either in the particulars or the whole So that his Enemies were filled with madness that their Charge of Crimes appeared no other then a Libel of Slanders and the dis-interessed Hearers were besides the pleasure they received to find so great Endowments polluted with no hainous Crimes sensible of the unhappiness of those who are Ministers of State among a Factious people where their prosperous Counsels are not rewarded and unsuccessfull though prudent are severely accused when they erre every one condemns them and their wise Advices few praise for those that are benefitted envy and such as are disappointed hate those that gave them And such seemed the Fate of this Excellent Counsellour whom nothing else but his great Parts his Master's Love and Trust had exposed to this Danger The Faction being obstructed this way by the Earl's Innocency and Abilities from taking away his Life move the House to proceed by a Bill of Attainder to the making a Law after the Fact whereby they Vote him guilty of High Treason yet adde a Caution that it should not be drawn into a Precedent seeking to secure themselves from a return of that Injustice upon themselves which they acted on him intending to prosecute what they falsly charged him with the Alteration of Government Which yet passed not without a long debate and contention for many that had none but honest hopes disdained to administer to the Interest of the Faction in the blood of so much Innocent Gallantry and those that were prudent saw how such an Example opened the avenues to ruine of the best Persons when once exposed to publick hatred Therefore they earnestly disswaded such a proceed And fifty nine of the most eminent openly dissented when it came to the Vote whose Names were afterwards posted and marked for the fury of the Rabble that for the future they might not oppose the designs of the Factious unless they desired to be torn in pieces In two dayes the Lower House past the Bill so swift were the Demagogues to shed blood but the Lords House was a little more deliberative the King having amongst them declared His sense of the Earl's Innocency of whose slow Resolves the Faction being impatient there came a seditious rabble of about 5 or 6000 of the dreggs of the people armed with Staves and Cudgels and other Instruments of Outrage instigated by the more unquiet Members both of the House of Commons and the City to the Parliament doors clamouring Justice Justice and the next day to raise their Fury there was a report spred among them of some endeavours to prepare an Escape for the Lieutenant of Ireland therefore with more fierceness they raised their clamours some objecting Treason to him others their Decay of Trade and each one either as he was instructed for some of the House of Commons would be among them to direct their Fury and to give some order to their Tumult that it might appear more terrible or the sense of his own necessities and lusts led him urged his different motives for Justice and at last heated by their own motion and noise they guard the doors of the House of Peers offer insolencies to the Lords especially the Bishops as they went in and threaten them if their Votes disagree from their clamours And when they had thus made an assault on the Liberty of the Parliament which yet was pretended to be so Sacred they afterward set upon the neighbouring Abbey-Church where forcing open the doors they brake down the Organs spoiled all the Vestments and Ornaments of the Worship from thence they fly to Court and disturb the Peace of it with their undecent and barbarous clamours and at last were raised to that impudency as to upbraid the King who from a Scaffold perswaded them as they passed by to a modest care of their own private affairs with an unfitness to reign When some Justices of the Peace according to the Law endeavoured to suppress those Tumults by imprisoning the most forward and bold Leaders they themselves were imprisoned by the Command of the Commons upon pretext of an injury offered to the Liberties of the Subject of which one was as they then dictated That every one might safely petition the Parliament yet when the Kentish men came to petition for something contrary to the Gust of the Faction they caused the City Gates to be shut upon them and when other Counties were meditating Addresses for Peace by threatnings they deterred them from such honest undertakings And when some prudent Persons minded the Demagogues how dishonourable it was for the Parliament not to suppress such Mutinies they replied that their friends ought rather to be thanked and caressed By these and other Arts having wholly overthrown the freedom of that Council and many withdrawing themselves from such Outrages when scarce the third part of the Peers were present the Faction of that House likewise passed the Bill the Dissenters being out-voted only by seven Voices Yet all this could not prevail upon the King though the Tumults were still high without and within He was daily sollicited by the Lords of his Palace who now looked upon the Earl as the Herd doth on an hurt Deer and they hoped his Blood would be the Lustration of the Court to leave the Earl as a Sacrifice to the Vulgar rage Nor did the King any ways yield till the Judges who were now obsequious to the pleasures of the Parliament declared he might do it by Law and the Earl by his own Letters devoted himself as a Victime for the publick Peace and His Majesty's safety and then overcome with Importunities on all hands and being abused by bad dealing of the Judges as Himself complained to the Bishop of London who answered That if the King in Conscience found him not guilty He ought not to pass the Bill but for matter of Law what was Treason he referred Him to the Judges who according to their Oath ought to carry themselves indifferently betwixt Him and His Subjects but the other four Bishops that were then consulted Durham Lincoln Carlisle and the Archbishop of Armagh were not so free as the Bishop of London was and therefore the King observed a special blessing of God upon him He at last with much reluctancy signed a Commission to some Lords to pass that Bill of Attainder and another for Continuation of the Parliament during the pleasure of the Two Houses The passing of these two Bills as some thought wounded the King's Greatness more than any thing He ever did The first because it cut off a most exquisite Instrument of Empire and a most faithful Servant and none did more make use of this to pollute His
the Corruptions of men is more efficacious to Impiety than to Vertue could not do that His Law should and He would restrain those Vices which He could not extirpate Religion was never used by Him to veil Injustice for this was peculiar to His Adversaries who when they were plotting such acts as Hell would blush at they would fawn and smile on Heaven and they used it as those subtle Surprisers in War who wear their Enemies Colours till they be admitted to butcher them within their own Fortresses But His Majesty consulted the Peace of His Conscience not only in Piety to God but also in Justice to Men. He was as a Magistrate should be a speaking Law It was His usual saying Let me stand or fall by My own Counsels I will ever with Job rather chuse Misery than Sin He first submitted His Counsels to the Censure of the Lawyers before they were brought forth to Execution Those acts of which the Faction made most noise were delivered by the Judges to be within the Sphere of the Prerogative The causes of the Revenue were as freely debated as private Pleas and sometimes decreed to be not good which can never happen under a bad Prince The Justice of His Times shewed that of His Breast wherein the Laws were feared and not Men. None were forced to purchase their Liberty with the diminution of their Estates or the loss of their Credit Every one had both security and safety for His Life Fortune and Dignity and it was not then thought as afterwards to be a part of Wisdom to provide against Dangers by obscurity and Privacies His Favours in bestowing Great Offices never secured the Receivers from the force of the Law but Equity overcame His Indulgences For He knew that Vnjust Princes become Odious to them that made them so He submitted the Lord Keeper Coventrey to an Examination when a querulous person had accused him of Bribery He sharply reproved one whom He had made Lord Treasurer when he was petitioned against by an Hampshire Knight on whose Estate being held by Lease from the Crown that Treasurer had a design and He secured the Petitioner in his right The greatest Officer of His Court did not dare to do any the least of those injuries which the most contemptible Member of the House of Commons would with a daily Insolency act upon his weaker Neighbour In the Civil Discords He bewailed nothing more than that the Sword of Justice could not correct the illegal Furies of that of War Though by His Concessions and Grants He diminished His Power yet He thought it a Compensation to let the World see He was willing to make it impossible for Monarchy to have an unjust Instrument and to secure posterity from evil Kings Although He proved to a Leading Lord of the Faction That a People being too cautious to bind their King by Laws from doing Ill do likewise fetter Him from doing Good and their fears of Mischief do destroy their hopes of Benefit And that such is the weakness of Humanity that he which is intrusted only to Good may pervert that Power to the extremest Ills. And indeed there is no security for a Community to feel nothing in Government besides the Advantages of it but in the Benignity of Providence and the Justice of the Prince both which we enjoyed while we enjoyed Him Though He was thus in Love with Justice yet He suffered not that to leven His Nature to Severity and Rigour but tempered it with Clemency especially when His Goodness could possibly find out such an Interpretation for the Offence that it struck more at His Peculiar than the Publick Interest He seemed almost stupid in the Opinion of Cholerick Spirits as to a sense of His own Injuries when there was no fear lest His Mercy should thereby increase the Miseries of His People And He was so ambitious of the Glory of Moderation that He would acquire it in despight of the Malignity of the times For the Exercise of this Vertue depends not only on the temper of the Prince but the frame of the People must contribute to it because when the Reverence of Majesty and fear of the Laws are proscribed sharper Methods are required to from Obedience Yet He was unwilling to cut off till He had tried by Mercy to amend even guilty Souls Thus He strove to oblige the Lord Balmerino to peaceful practices by continuing that Life which had been employed in Sedition and forfeited to the Law Soon after His coming into the Isle of Wight by which time He had experienced the numerous Frauds and implacable Malice of His Enemies being attended on by Dr Sheldon and Dr Hammond for they were the earliest in their duties at that time a discourse passed betwixt His Majesty and the Governour wherein there was mention made of the fears of the Faction that the King could never forgive them To which the King immediately replies I tell thee Governour I can forgive them with as good an appetite as ever I eat My Dinner after an hunting and that I assure you was not a small one yet I will not make My self a better Christian than I am for I think if they were Kings I could not do it so easily This shewed how prone His Soul was to Mercy and found not any obstruction but what arose from a sense of Royal Magnanimity He sooner offered and gave life to His captive Enemies than their Spirits debauched by Rebellion would require it and He was sparing of that blood of which their fury made them Prodigal No man fell in battel whom He could save He chose rather to enjoy any Victory by Peace and therefore continually sollicited for it when He seemed least to need it than make one triumph a step to another and though He was passionate to put all in Safety yet He affected rather to end the War by Treaty than by Conquest The Prisoners He took He used like deluded men and oftener remembred that God had made them His Subjects than that the Faction had transformed them to Rebels He provided for them while in His Power and not to let them languish in Prison sent them by Passes to their own homes only ingaging them by Oath to no more injuries against that Sovereign whom they had felt to be Gracious for so He used those that were taken at Brainford But yet the Casuists of the Cause would soon dispense with their Faith and send them forth to die in contracting a new guilt Those whom the fury of War had left gasping in the Field and fainting under their wounds He commends in His Warrants as in that to the Mayor of Newbury to the care of the Neighbourhood either tenderly to recover or decently bury and His Commands were as well for those that sought to murther Him as those that were wounded in His Defence This made the Impudence and Falshood of Bradshaw more portentous when in his Speech of the Assassination he belch'd
not been seen read and delivered it open unto them whereupon what hath since passed either by the Governour in discharging most of My Servants redoubling the Guards and restraining Me of My former Liberty and all this as himself confess'd merely out of his own dislike of My Answer notwithstanding his beforesaid Engagement or afterwards by the two Houses as the Governour affirms in confining Me within the Circuit of this Castle I appeal to God and the World whether My said Answer deserved the reply of such proceedings besides the unlawfulness for Subjects to imprison their King That by the permission of Almighty God I am reduced to this sad condition as I no way repine so I am not without hope but that the same God will in due time convert these Afflictions into My advantage In the mean time I am confident to bear these crosses with Patience and a great Equality of Mind But by what means or occasion I am come to this Relapse in My Affairs I am utterly to seek especially when I consider that I have sacrificed to My two Houses of Parliament for the Peace of the Kingdome all but what is much more dear to Me than My life My Conscience and Honour desiring nothing more than to perform it in the most proper and natural way a Personal Treaty But that which makes Me most at a loss is the remembring My signal compliance with the Army and their Interests and of what importance My compliance was to them and their often-repeated Professions and Engagements for My just Rights in general at Newmarket and S. Albans and their particular explanation of those Generals by their voted and re-voted Proposals which I had reason to understand should be the utmost extremity would be expected from Me and that in some things therein I should be eased herein appealing to the Consciences of some of the chiefest Officers in the Army if what I have said be not punctually true and how I have failed of their expectations or My professions to them I challenge them and the whole World to produce the least colour of Reason And now I would know what it is that is desired Is it Peace I have shewed the way being both willing and desirous to perform My part in it which is a just compliance with all chief Interests Is it Plenty and Happiness They are the inseparable effects of Peace Is it Security I who wish that all Men would forgive and forget like Me have offered the Militia for My time Is it Liberty of Conscience He who wants it is most ready to give it Is it the right administration of Justice Officers of trust are committed to the choice of My two Houses of Parliament Is it frequent Parliaments I have legally fully concurr'd therewith Is it the Arrears of the Army Upon a settlement they will certainly be payed with much ease but before there will be found much difficulty if not impossibility in it Thus all the World cannot but see my reall and unwearied endeavours for Peace the which by the grace of God I shall neither repent Me of nor ever be slackned in notwithstanding My past present or future sufferings but if I may not be heard let every one judge who it is that obstructs the good I would or might do What is it that Men are afraid to hear from Me It cannot be Reason at least none will declare themselves so unreasonable as to confess it and it can less be impertinent or unreasonable Discourses for thereby peradventure I might more justifie this My Restraint than the causers themselves can do so that of all wonders yet this is the greatest to Me. But it may be easily gathered how those men intend to govern who have used Me thus And if it be My hard Fate to fall together with the Liberty of this Kingdom I shall not blush for My self but much lament the future Miseries of My People the which I shall still pray to God to avert whatever becomes of Me. CHARLES R. II. An Answer to a Pamphlet entitled A Declaration of the Commons of England in Parliament assembled expressing their Reasons and Grounds of passing the late Resolutions touching no farther Address or Application to be made to the KING Published by His Majestie 's appointment I Believe that it was never heard of until now that heavy Imputations were laid on any man I speak not now of Kings which I confess makes the case yet more strange and unjust and He not permitted to see much less to answer them but so it is now with the King which does though silently yet subject Him to as great an Imputation as there is any in the said Declaration for those who know no better may think that He cannot because He does not answer it Wherefore I hold it my Duty knowing these things better than every ordinary man to do my best that the King should not be injured by the Ignorance of His People and albeit I lying under Persecution for My Conscience and love to Regal Authority have not the means in every thing to make full Probations yet I am confident in all the most material Points so to make the truth of the King's Innocency appear that I shall satisfie any impartial judicious Reader What the Issue of former Addresses to the King hath been is most certainly known to all the World but where the fault rests whereby Peace hath not ensued bare Asseverations without Proofs cannot I am sure satisfie any judicious Reader And indeed it seems to me that the Penner of these seeks more to take the ears of the ignorant Multitude with big words and bold Assertions than to satisfie Rational men with real proofs or true Arguments For at the very first he begs the Question taking it for granted that the King could ease the Sighs and Groans dry the Tears and stanch the Blood of His distressed Subjects Alas Is it He that keeps Armies on foot when there is none to oppose Is it He that will not lay down Excise Taxations and Free-quarterings But it is He indeed who was so far from Power even at that time being far worse since that in most things He wanted the Liberty of any free-born man It is He who never refused to ease His People of their Grievances witness more Acts of Grace passed in His Reign than to speak within my compass in any five Kings or Queens Times that ever were before Him Moreover it is He who to settle the present unhappy Distractions and as the best means to it to obtain a Personal Treaty hath offered so much that to say truth during His own time He hath left Himself little more than the Title of a King as it plainly appears by His Message from the Isle of Wight concerning the Militia and chusing the Officers of State and Privy-Counsellours besides other points of Compliance which it is needless here to mention Good God! are these Offers unfit for them to receive Have they
People leaving such debates to a time that may better bear them If this be not accepted the fault is not Mine that this Bill pass not but theirs that refuse so fair an offer To conclude I conjure you by all that is or can be dear to you or Me that laying away all disputes you go on chearfully and speedily for the reducing of Ireland XXXV To the House of Commons about the Five Members January 4. MDCXLI II. GEntlemen I am sorry for this occasion of coming unto you Yesterday I sent a Serjeant at Arms upon a very important occasion to apprehend some that by My Command were accused of High Treason whereunto I did expect Obedience and not a Message And I must declare unto you here that albeit no King that ever was in England shall be more careful of your Priviledges to maintain them to the uttermost of His Power than I shall be yet you must know that in cases of Treason no person hath a Priviledge And therefore I am come to know if any of those persons that were accused are here For I must tell you Gentlemen that so long as those persons that I have accused for no slight crime but for Treason are here I cannot expect that this House can be in the right way that I do heartily wish it Therefore I am come to tell you that I must have them wheresoever I find them Well sithence I see all the Birds are flown I do expect from you that you shall send them unto Me as soon as they return hither But I assure you in the word of a King I never did intend any force but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way for I never meant any other And now sithence I see I cannot do what I came for I think this no unfit occasion to repeat what I have said formerly That whatsoever I have done in favour and to the good of My Subjects I do mean to maintain it I will trouble you no more but tell you I do expect as soon as they do come to the House you will send them to Me otherwise I must take My Own course to find them XXXVI To the Citizens of LONDON at GUILD-HALL January 5. MDCXLI II. GEntlemen I am come to demand such Prisoners as I have already attained of High Treason and do believe they are shrowded in the City I hope no good man will keep them from Me their offences are Treason and Misdemeanours of an high nature I desire your loving assistance herein that they may be brought to a Legal Trial. And whereas there are divers suspicions raised that I am a favourer of the Popish Religion I do profess in the name of a King that I did and ever will and that to the utmost of My power be a prosecutor of all such as shall any ways oppose the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom either Papist or Separatist and not only so but I will maintain and defend that true Protestant Religion which My Father did profess and I will still continue in during Life XXXVII To the Committe of both Houses at the delivery of the Petition for the Militia at THEORALDS Mar. 1. MDCXLI II. I Am so amazed at this Message that I know not what to answer You speak of Jealousies and Fears lay your hands to your hearts and ask your selves whether I may not likewise be disturbed with Fears and Jealousies and if so I assure you this Message hath nothing lessened them For the Militia I thought so much of it before I sent that Answer and am so much assured that the Answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask or I in Honour grant that I shall not alter it in any point For my residence near you I wish it might be so safe and honourable that I had no cause to absent My self from White-Hall Ask your selves whether I have not For My Son I shall take that care of him which shall justifie Me to God as a Father and to My Dominions as a King To conclude I assure you upon My Honour that I have no thought but of Peace and Justice to My People which I shall by all fair means seek to preserve and maintain relying upon the goodness and providence of God for the preservation of My Self and Rights XXXVIII To the Committee of both Houses at the presenting of their Declaration at NEW-MARKET March 9. MDCXLI II. I Am confident that you expect not I should give you a speedy Answer to this strange and unexpected Declaration And I am sorry in the Distractions of this Kingdom you should think this way of Address to be more convenient than that proposed by My Message of the 20th of Jan. last to both Houses As concerning the grounds of your Fears and Jealousies I will take time to answer particularly and doubt not but I shall do it to the satisfaction of all the world God in his good time will I hope discover the secrets and bottoms of all Plots and Treasons and then I shall stand right in the eyes of all My People In the mean time I must tell you that I rather expected a vindication from the imputation laid on Me in Master Pym's Speech than that any more general Rumours and Discourses should get credit with you For My Fears and Doubts I did not think they should have been thought so groundless or trivial while so many seditious Pamphlets and Sermons are looked upon and so great Tumults remembred unpunished uninquired into I still confess My Fears and call God to witness that they are greater for the true Protestant Profession My People and Laws than for My own Rights or Safety though I must tell you I conceive that none of these are free from danger What would you have Have I violated your Laws Have I denied to pass any one Bill for the ease and security of My Subjects I do not ask you what you have done for Me. Have any of My People been transported with Fears and Apprehensions I have offered as free and general a Pardon as your selves can devise All this considered There is a Judgment from Heaven upon this Nation if these Distractions continue God so deal with Me and Mine as all My thoughts and intentions are upright for the maintenance of the true Protestant Profession and for the Observation and Preservation of the Laws of this Land And I hope God will bless and assist those Laws for My preservation As for the Additional Declaration you are to expect an Answer to it when you shall receive the Answer to the Declaration it self Some Passages that happened Mar. 9. between His Majesty and the Committee of both Houses when the Declaration was delivered When His Majesty heard that part of the Declaration which mentioned Master Jermin's Transportation His Majesty interrupted the Earl of Holland in reading and said That 's false which being afterwards touch'd upon again His Majesty then said 'T is a lie And when He
My Crown And when I fail in either of these I will not look for your assistance Till then you are concerned not to see Me suffer XLIII To the Inhabitants of Leicester at LEICESTER July 20. MDCXLII GEntlemen Since I have found My Presence so very acceptable amongst My Good Subjects in these Northern parts and that the Errors and Mistakes among them have wholly proceeded from misinformation and are removed with more satisfaction and ease to them than they were received I hold it a piece of My Duty to take the utmost pains I can fully to inform and undeceive My People and rather to prevent Crimes than to punish them In this Errand I am come to you amongst whom there hath not been the least misunderstanding to shew you that I do not suspect any malice in the Place or in the People though persons of as ill dispositions have been busie in it and amongst you as in any County in England and such who have taken as great pains to do mischief and to bring confusion as good men should for Peace and happiness Though 't is as true that very many worthier Persons amongst you have appeared of contrary affections which I shall always acknowledge I am come to you in a time too when nothing could invite Me to such a journey but My affection to and good esteem of you having sent such Propositions of Peace and Accommodation to My two Houses of Parliament that I hope to have no other use of your affections but in your Prayers being sure they will submit to them with alacrity if the unexcusable enemies of the Peace of the Kingdom be not strong enough to prevail And then you will find your selves so much concerned for I have required nothing that with more justice can be denied Me if it be duly weighed than My Crown or My Life may be taken from Me that I shall not need to ask your assistance I know you will bring Horse Men Money and Hearts worthy such a Cause Your Religion your Liberties your Laws which I will defend with My Life I mean the good known Laws of the Land not Ordinances without My Consent which till within these twelve months were never heard of from the Foundation of this Kingdom will be the Quarrel and in such a Cause the taking away My Towns Ships Arms and Money from Me shall not dishearten Me. The concurrence and affection of My People with God's blessing will supply and recover all XLIV To the Gentry of Yorkshire Aug. 4. MDCXLII GEntlemen when I directed that Summons should be sent out for your meeting here this day My principal end was That I might give you thanks for the great forwardness and expressions you have made of your affections to Me since I came into this Country and to assure you that as the whole Kingdom hath great reason to value you exceedingly for it so I shal be ever unsatisfied with My self till I have found some way to fix a mark of favour and estimation upon this County and this People which may tell Posterity how good Subjects you have been and how much Gentlemen and I am confident the memory of it will grow up with My Sons too in a just acknowledgment This was the most I intended to say to you But there is an unquiet spirit abroad which every day throws in new accidents to disturb and confound the publick Peace How I was driven from London when I chose this place for My Safety is so notorious that all men know it who know any thing With what strange violence and indignities I have been pursued since I came hither needs no other evidence than Sir Hotham's behaviour at Hull who is now arrived to that insolence that he will not suffer his Treason to be longer confined within those walls but makes Sallies out of the Town upon his fellow-Subjects drowns their land burns and plunders their Houses murthers and with unheard of cruelty torments their persons and this with so much delight that he would not have the patience to wait what Answer should be sent to My just Demands though in that respect I engaged My self to forbear to use any force and kept My word but chose the night before that came as if he knew well what Answer I was to receive to act those outrages Ye see the sad effects of Fears and Jealousies the miseries they have produced no man can tell you the least good they have brought forth or the least evil they have prevented What inconvenience and burthen My Presence hath been here what disturbance it hath brought upon the Publick or grievance upon any private person your selves are best judges And whatever scandal some men have pleased to cast upon the Cavaliers which they intend should reach all My Retinue and by degrees shall involve all Gentlemen I am confident there hath not been any eminent disorder or damage befallen any man by any person of My Train or under My protection I am sure My directions have been very strict in that point and if they had not been observed I think I should have heard of it by nearer complaints than from London I pray God the same care may be taken there I am sure it hath not been And to give you the fullest testimony of My affection to you and to the Peace of this County and to shew you that no provocation shall provoke Me to make this place to be the seat of the War I have for your sakes passed over the considerations of Honor and notwithstanding the reproaches every day laid on Me laid no siege to that place that they may not have the least pretence of doing you mischief but resolve by God's help to recover Hull some other way for that I will ever sit down under so bold and unexcusable a Treason no honest man can imagine But it seems other men are not of My mind but resolve to make a War at your own doors whatsoever you do or I suffer To what purpose else is their new General armed with an Authority to kill and destroy all My good Subjects their levies of Horse and Foot some whereof are upon their march towards you with Canon mounted and the sending so many new Soldiers into Hull when there is no approach made towards it but to sally out and to commit rapine and by degrees to pour out an Army upon you In this I must ask you advice what you would do for your selves and what you would have Me do for you You see how I am stript of my Navy at Sea which is employed against Me of My Forts and Towns at Land which are filled with armed men to destroy Me My Money and Provisions of My House taken from Me and all My Subjects forbid and threatned if they come near Me that I may be Famine or Solitariness be compelled to yield to the most dishonourable Propositions and to put My self and Children into the hands of a few Malignant persons who have
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
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
shall not think it below Our Kingly Dignity to descend to any particular which may compose and settle the affections of Our meanest Subjects since We are so conscious to Our Self of such upright Intentions and Endeavours and only of such for which We give God thanks for the Peace and Happiness of Our Kingdom in which the Prosperity of Our Subjects must be included that We wish from Our heart that even Our most secret Thoughts were published to their view and examination Though We must confess We cannot but be very sorry in this conjuncture of time when the unhappiness of this Kingdom is so generally understood abroad there should be such a necessity of publishing so many Particulars from which We pray no Inconveniences may insue that were not intended We shall in few words pass over that part of the Narrative wherein the Misfortunes of this Kingdom from Our first entring to the Crown to the beginning of this Parliament are remembred in so sensible expressions and that other which acknowledgeth the many good Laws passed by Our Grace and Favour this Parliament for the Security of Our People of which we shall only say thus much That as We have not refused to pass any Bill presented to Us by Our Parliament for redress of those Grievances mentioned in the Remonstrance so We have not had a greater Motive for the passing those Laws then Our own resolution grounded upon Our Observation and understanding the state of Our Kingdom to have freed Our Subjects for the future from those Pressures which were grievous to them if those Laws had not been propounded which therefore We shall as inviolably maintain as We look to have Our own Rights preserved not doubting but all Our loving Subjects will look on those Remedies with that full gratitude and affection that even the memory of what they have formerly undergone by the Accidents and necessities of those times will not be unpleasant to them and possibly in a pious sense of God's blessing upon this Nation how little share soever We shall have of the acknowledgment they will confess they have enjoyed a great measure of happiness even these last sixteen years both in Peace and Plenty not only comparatively in respect of their Neighbours but even of those times which were justly accounted Fortunate The Fears and Jealousies which may make some impression in the minds of Our People We will suppose may be of two sorts either for Religion or Liberty and their Civil Interests The Fears for Religion may haply be not only as Ours here established may be invaded by the Romish party but as it is accompanied with some Ceremonies at which some tender Consciences really are or pretend to be scandalized for of any other which have been used without any legal Warrant or Injunction and already are or speedily may be abolished We shall not speak Concerning Religion as there may be any suspicion of favour or inclination to the Papists We are willing to declare to all the world That as We have been from Our Childhood brought up in and practised the Religion now established in this Kingdom so it is well known We have not contented simply with the Principles of Our Education given a good proportion of Our time and pains to the examination of the grounds of this Religion as it is different from that of Rome and are from Our Soul so fully satisfied and assured that it is the most pure and agreeable to the Sacred Word of God of any Religion now practised in the Christian world that as We believe We can maintain the same by unanswerable reasons so We hope We should readily seal to it by the effusion of Our Blood if it pleased God to call Us to that sacrifice And therefore nothing can be so acceptable unto Us as any proposition which may contribute to the advancement of it here or the propogation of it abroad being the only means to draw down a Blessing from God upon Our selves and this Nation And We have been extremely unfortunate if this profession of Ours be wanting to Our People Our constant practice in Our own Person having always been without ostentation as much to the evidence of Our Care and Duty herein as We could possibly tell how to express For differences amongst our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature concerning Religion We shall in tenderness to any number of Our loving Subjects very willingly comply with the advice of Our Parliament that some Law may 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 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 Gods Service discountenanced nor the pious sober and devout actions of those Reverend Persons who were the first labourers in the blessed Reformation or of that time be scandal'd and defamed For We cannot without grief of heart and without some Tax upon Our Self and Our Ministers for the not execution of Our Laws look upon the bold Licence of some men in printing of Pamphlets in preaching and printing of Sermons so full of bitterness and malice against the present Government against the Laws established so full of Sedition against Our Self and the Peace of the Kingdom that We are many times amazed to consider by what Eyes these things are seen and by what Ears they are heard And therefore We have good cause to command as We have done and hereby do all Our Judges and Ministers of Justice Our Attorney and Sollicitor General and the rest of Our learned Counsel to proceed with all speed against such and their Abettors who either by writing or words have so boldly and maliciously violated the Laws disturbed the peace of the Commonwealth and as much as in them lies shaken the very foundation upon which that Peace and Happiness is founded and constituted And We doubt not but all Our loving Subjects will be very sensible that this busie virulent demeanour is a fit Prologue to nothing but Confusion and if not very seasonably punished and prevented will not only be a blemish to that wholsome Accommodation We intend but an unspeakable scandal and imputation even upon the Profession and Religion of this Our Kingdom of England Concerning the Civil Liberties and Interest of Our Subjects We shall need to say the less having erected so many lasting Monuments of Our Princely and Fatherly care of Our People in those many excellent Laws passed by Us this Parliament which in truth with very much content to Our self We conceive to be so large and ample that very many sober men have very little left to wish for We understood well the Right and pretences of Right We departed from in the consenting to 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
the eighteenth day of June in the eighteenth year of Our Reign 1642. Votes of the Lower House for raising an Army against the KING Die Martis 12 Julii 1642. Resolved upon the Question THAT an Army shall be forthwith raised for the Safety of the King's Person defence of both Houses of Parliament and of those who have obeyed their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdom Resolved upon the Question That the Earl of Essex shall be the General Resolved upon the Question That this House doth declare that in this Cause for the Safety of the King's Person defence of both Houses of Parliament and of those who have obeyed their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdom they will live and die with the Earl of Essex whom they have nominated General in this Cause MDCXLII Aug. 8. A Declaration of the Lords and Commons for raising of Forces against the KING Together with His MAJESTY'S Declaration in Answer to the same A Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the raising of all Power and Force as well Trained Bands as others in several Counties of this Kingdom to lead against all Traitors and their Adherents and them to Arrest and Imprison and to Fight with Kill and Slay all such as shall oppose any of His Majesty's loving Subjects that shall be imployed in this Service by either or both Houses of Parliament WHereas certain Information is given from several parts of the Kingdom That divers Troops of Horse are imployed in sundry Counties of the Kingdom and that others have Commission to raise both Horse and Foot to compel His Majesty's Subjects to submit to the Illegal commission of Array out of a Traiterous intent to subvert the Liberty of the Subject and the Law of the Kingdom and for the better strengthening themselves in this wicked attempt do joyn with the Popish and Jesuitical Faction to put the Kingdom into a Combustion and Civil War by levying Forces against the Parliament and by these Forces to alter the Religion and the Antient Government and lawful Liberty of the Kingdom and to introduce Popery and Idolatry together with an Arbitrary Form of Government and in pursuance thereof have Traitorously and Rebelliously levied War against the King and by force robb'd spoil'd and slain divers of His Majesty's good Subjects travelling about their lawful and necessary occasions in the King's Protection according to Law and namely that for the end and purpose aforesaid the Earl of Northampton the Lord Dunsmore Lord Willoughby of Eresby Son to the Earl of Lindsey Henry Hastings Esquire and divers other unknown persons in the Counties of Lincoln Nottingham Leicester Warwick Oxford and other places the Marquess of Hartford the Lord Paulet Lord Seymour Sir John Stawel Sir Ralph Hopton John Digby Esquire and other their Accomplices have gotten together great Forces in the County of Somerset The Lords and Commons in Parliament duly considering the great Dangers which may ensue upon such their wicked and traitorous Designs and if by this means the Power of the Sword should come into the hands of Papists and their Adherents nothing can be expected but the miserable ruine and desolation of the Kingdom and the bloody massacre of the Protestants they do Declare and Ordain That it is and shall be lawful for all His Majesty's loving Subjects by force of Arms to resist the said several Parties and their Accomplices and all other that shall raise or conduct any other Forces for the ends aforesaid and that the Earl of Essex Lord General with all his Forces raised by the Authority of Parliament as likewise the Lord Say Lieutenant of Oxfordshire Earl of Peterborough Lieutenant of Northamptonshire Lord Wharton Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire Earl of Stamford Lieutenant of Leicestershire Earl of Pembroke Lieutenant of Wiltshire and Hampshire Earl of Bedford Lieutenant of Somersetshire and Devon Lord Brook Lieutenant of Warwickshire the Lord Cranborne Lieutenant of Dorsetshire the Lord Willoughby of Parham Lieutenant of Lincolnshire and all those who are or shall be appointed by Ordinance of both Houses to perform the place of Deputy-Lieutenants and their Deputy-Lieutenants respectively Denzil Hollis Esquire Lieutenant of the City and County of Bristol and the Mayors and Sheriffs of the City and Deputy-Lieutenants there and all other Lieutenants of Counties Sheriffs Mayors Deputy-Lieutenants shall raise all their Power and Forces of their several Counties as well Trained Bands as others and shall have power to conduct and lead the said Forces of the said Counties against the said Traitors and their Adherents and with them to fight kill and slay all such as by force shall oppose them and the Persons of the said Traitors and their Adherents and Accomplices to Arrest and Imprison and them to bring up to the Parliament to answer these their Traiterous and Rebellious Attempts according to Law and the same or any other Forces to transport and conduct from one County to another in aid and assistance one of another and of all others that shall joyn with the Lords and Commons in Parliament for the defence of the Religion of Almighty God and of the Liberties and Peace of the Kingdom and in pursuit of those wicked and Rebellious Traitors the Conspirators Aiders and Abettors and Adherents requiring all Lieutenants of Counties Sheriffs Mayors Justices of Peace and other His Majesty's Officers and loving Subjects to be aiding and assisting to one another in the Execution hereof And for so doing all the parties above-mentioned and all others that shall joyn with them shall be justified defended and secured by the Power and Authority of Parliament Die Lunae Aug. 8. 1642. Ordered that this Declaration be forthwith Printed and Published Hen. Elsinge Cler. Parl. D. Com. His MAJESTY's Declaration in Answer to a Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the raising of all Power and Force as well Trained Bands c. AS much experience as We have had of the inveterate Rancour and high Insolence of the Malignant Party against Us We never yet saw any expression come from them so evidently declaring it as the Declaration entituled A Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the raising of all Power and Force as well Trained Bands as others in several Counties of this Kingdom to lead against all Traitors and their Adherents c. In which that Faction hath as it were distilled and contracted all their Falshood Insolence and Malice there being in it not one period which is not either Slanderous or Treasonable And nothing can more grieve Us than that by their infinite Arts and Subtilty employed by their perpetual and indefatigable Industry and by that Rabble of Brownists and other Schismaticks declaredly ready to appear at their Call they should have been able so to draw away some and drive away others of Our good Subjects from Our
they shall neglect this Our Grace and Favour now extended unto them and persist in any acts of Hostility against Us or not disband upon notice of this Our Proclamation We shall esteem of them as Rebells and Traitors to Us and to Our Crown and as publick Enemies to the happy Peace of this Kingdom and that from thence We shall proceed against them and deal with them as Rebels and Traitours and by the blessing of God in whom We put Our confidence and by the assistance of Our faithful and good Subjects upon whose Fidelity and Affections We rely We doubt not but We shall so prevail against all their Traitorous Conspiracies and Rebellious Machinations as shall vindicate Our Honour and the Honour of Our Crown preserve Our good and loyal Subjects from their Malice and Fury and restore and settle the Peace of this Kingdom and make the Delinquents so exemplary as shall deterr others from ever attempting the like Insolencies And We hereby require and command all Our Commissioners of Array Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace Mayors and all other Our Officers Ministers and loving Subjects that they and every of them in their several places do there best and uttermost endeavours to resist and subdue the said Earl and his Adherents and those who shall assist them or any of them and to apprehend or otherwise to destroy them and every of them that so they may receive condigne punishment for their Disloyalty and that they be ready according to their Duties and Allegiance to assist Us and those Our good Subjects who do adhere unto Us according to Our just Commands in or concerning the Premisses And more particularly We require and command Our Commissioners of Array Lords Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Captains and Officers of Our Trained Bands of or in Our Counties of Southampton Sussex and Surrey that so many of them as to that purpose Colonel Goring shall call to his aid as he shall see cause shall with such Forces as are under their command repair unto Our said Town of Portsmouth to assist the said Colonel George Goring Our Captain and Governour of the said Town for the defence of the said Town and to Oppose Resist and Destroy all those who under the command of the said Earl of Essex or any other shall attempt any Violence against the said Town And We do further require and command Our Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Couzin and Counsellor William Marquess Hartford that with all speed he raise all the Forces he can within all or any the Counties contained within that Commission We have given unto him whereby he is made Our Lieutenant General of all Our Forces within Our Counties of Devon Cornwal Somerset Dorset Wilts Southampton Gloucester Berks Oxford Hereford Monmouth Radnor Brecknock Glamorgan Carmarthen Pembroke Cardigan Our Cities of Excester Bristol Gloucester Oxford Bath and Wells new Salisbury and Hereford and the Counties of the same the Towns of Pool and Southampton and Haverford-West and the Counties of the same and with the Trained Bands of those Counties and others who shall voluntarily offer their Service to march against the said Earl or any others under his command or under the command of any others not authorized by Us and them to Resist Oppose and Subdue and especially for the defence of the said Town of Portsmouth and for the Isle of Wight in Our County of Southampton as there shall be occasion And We do hereby desire and require Our loyal and loving Subjects of and within the said Counties being of the Trained Bands or voluntary Levies within the said Commission to repair with their Horse and Foot well Armed Arrayed and Furnished to such place or places as the said Marquess shall appoint and that they and all other Our good and loving Subjects within this Realm shall according to such Directions as We shall give to that purpose repair to Us at such place where We shall pitch and set up Our Royal Standard and where We purpose in Our own Person to be present and there and in such places whither We shall conduct them or cause them to be conducted to serve Us for the Defence of Us and of Our Kingdom and of the true Protestant Religion and the known Laws of the Land and the just Liberties of Our Subjects and the just Privileges of Parliament and to suppress the notorious and insolent Rebellion of the said Earl and his Adherents and reduce them to their due Obedience and for re-setling of the happy Peace of this Kingdom And in this time of urgent Necessity which so much importeth the Safety and even the very Subsistence of Us and Our Good People We shall take it as an acceptable Service to Us and much conducing to the Peace of Our Kingdom if Our loving and well-affected Subjects within Our said Counties contained within Our Commission granted to the said Marquess do and will chearfully and voluntarily contribute unto Us and give unto Us such assistance in Money or Plate as they shall think fit by loan or otherwise to be delivered to the hands of the said Marquess or of the Commissioners of Array for those several Counties respectively to be disposed of to this publick use and not otherwise and that Our loving and well-affected Subjects of all other the Counties of this Kingdom will to the same use and not otherwise contribute unto and assist Us in like manner such Contribution and assistance to be paid and delivered to Our use into the hands of Our Commissioners of Array for those other Counties respectively or to such of them as they shall nominate and appoint to that purpose And lastly in all these Our just and necessary Commands We require that ready Obedience from all Our Commissioners Sheriffs Justices of Peace Mayors Constables and other Officers and loving Subjects in their several and respective places which appertaineth to their several Duties as they tender Our Honour and Safety and the Honour Safety Peace and Prosperity of the Church and Kingdom of England and as they will answer their neglects at their uttermost perils Given at Our Court at York the ninth day of August in the eighteenth year of Our Reign 1642. By the KING A Proclamation by His MAJESTY requiring the Aid and Assistance of all His Subjects on the North side Trent and within twenty Miles Southward thereof for the suppressing of the Rebels now marching against Him WHereas divers Persons bearing an inward Hatred and Malice against Our Person and Government and ambitious of Rule and places of Preferment and Command have raised an Army and are now Traitorously and Rebelliously though under the specious pretence of Our Royal Name and Authority and of the defence of Our Person and Parliament marching in battel-array against Us their Liege-Lord and Sovereign contrary to their Duty and Allegiance whereby the common Peace is like to be wholly destroyed and this flourishing Kingdom in danger to perish under the miseries of a Civil War
therefore We applied Our self only to the Law hoping that the Insolence and Licentiousness of the People might by Our help be curbed by that Rule The Tumults grew so notorious and so dangerous that they Threatned and Assaulted the Members of both Houses whereupon the House of Peers which it seems the Lords present at the passing of one of their late Declarations wherein they deny there have been any Tumults had forgot at a Conference with the House of Commons twice very earnestly desired that they would for the dignity of Parliaments joyn with them in a Declaration for the suppressing such Tumults But the prevalency of that Faction was so great that though complaint was made by Members in the House of Commons that they had been assaulted and evil-intreated by those people even at the door of their House in stead of joyning with the Lords for the suppressing or punishing them several Speeches were made in justification of them and commending their Affections saying They must not discourage their friends this being a time they must make use of all their friends and Master Pym saying God forbid that the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires in such away which he had good reason to say himself and those other persons whom We afterwards accused of High Treason having by great sollicitation and encouragement caused those multitudes to come down in that manner The Lords having in vain tried this way appoint upon the advice of the Judges that a Writ be directed to the Sheriff and Justices upon divers Statutes which issued accordingly to suppress and hinder all tumultuous resort in obedience to which the Justices and other Ministers appoint the Constables to attend about Westminster to hinder that unlawful Conflux of People This was no sooner done but the Constables and Justices of the Peace were sent for by the House of Commons the setting such a Watch Voted to be a breach of Priviledgâ— and before any Conference with the Lords by whose direction that legal Writ issued out the Watch discharged and one of the Justices for doing his Duty according to that Writ sent to the Tower About the same time there was a Tumultuous Assembly of Brownists Anabaptists and other Sectaries called together by the Sound of a Bell into a place in Southwark where the Arms and Magazine for that Burrough were kept The Constable knowing such Meetings to be unlawful and the Consequences of them especially in such places to be very dangerous came amongst them He was no sooner come but he was reproached with words beaten and dragged in a barbarous manner insomuch as he hardly escaped from them with his life Complaint was made by him to the next Justices and Oath made of the truth of that complaint whereupon a Writ was sent to the Sheriff to impannel a Jury according to the Law for the examination and finding of this Riot This was complained of too and the meeting in how tumultuous and disorderly a manner soever pretended to be only for the drawing of a Petition against Bishops and that the Constable was a friend to Bishops and came to cross them and to hinder Men from subscribing that Petition Hereupon an Order was made in the House of Commons and the under-Sheriff of Surrey by it enjoyned that he should not suffer any proceedings to be made upon any inquisition that might concern any persons who met together to subscribe a Petition to be preferred to that House What Authority the House of Commons had or have to send any such Injunctions We cannot conceive yet by this any disorderly persons let their Intentions and demeanour be never so Seditious are above the reach of the Law and Justice if they please to say they meet to prepare any Petition to the House of Commons And 't is no wonder if after all this care taken to remove all those Obstacles the Law had put in the way to such Tumults all people took upon them to visit Our Parliament in such manner as they thought fit and thereupon great multitudes of mutinous people every day resorted to Westminster threatned to pull down the Lodgings where divers of the Bishops lay assaulted some in their Coaches chased others with Boats by water laid violent hands on the Archbishop of York in his passing to the House and had he not been rescued by force it is probable they had murthered him crying through the Streets Westminster-Hall and between the two Houses No Bishops No Bishops No Popish Lords and misused the several Members of either House who they were informed favoured not their desperate and Seditious ends proclaiming the names of several of the Peers as Evil and Rotten-Hearted Lords attempting the defacing the Abby at Westminster with great Violence and in their return from thence made a Stand before Our Gate at White-Hall said They would have no more Porters-Lodge but would speak with the King when they pleased and used such desperate Rebellious discourse that We had great reason to believe Our own Person Our Royal Consort and Our Children to be in evident Danger of Violence and therefore were compelled at Our great charge to entertain a Guard for securing Us from that Danger And yet all this Danger is so slighted that We are told in the last Declaration after We have so often urged it That it is a Suggestion as false as the Father of Lies can invent These Licentious and unpunished Tumults gave occasion to the Bishops who could not repair to the House without Danger of their Lives to make that their Protestation for the which they were forthwith accused of High Treason by the House of Commons and committed to the Tower by the House of Peers where they continued for the space of four Months at the least That small Guard We had taken for Our necessary Safety and the resort of some Officers who attended both Our Houses of Parliament for Mony due to them by Act of Parliament and upon the publick Faith to Our Court for Our Defence against those Tumults was objected against Us and divers counterfeit Letters were written and sensless Fears infused into the Citizens of London that We had a design of actual Violence upon that City and thereupon they were drawn into Arms and put upon their Guard against Us. So that there was not only no provision made for the suppressing of Tumults but that provision the Law had made against them discountenanced and taken away and We Our Self censured for taking so much strength about Us as might for some time oppose such Force as was like to be offered to Our own Gates What should We do We very well knew the Contrivers of all these Mischiefs who had by their exceeding Industry and Malice wrought this Distraction throughout the Kingdom such a defection of Allegiance in the Common people such a damp of Trade in the City and so horrid a Confusion in the Church and all this to
of Commons and the House of Peers presumed to make Laws without Our Consent as they have done in the business of the Militia of Hull in the behalf of their Champion Serjeant Major General Skippon of the Earl of Warwick of their new General the Earl of Essex with whom they will live and dye and many other Cases Where was that Freedom and Privilege when Alderman Pennington and Captain Venne brought down their Myrmidons to assault and terrifie the Members of both Houses whose faces or whose opinions they liked not by that Army to awe the Parliament when those rude Multitudes published the names of the Members of both Houses as Enemies to the Commonwealth who would not agree to their frantick Propositions when the names of those were given by Members of the House that they might be proscribed and torn in pieces by those multitudes when many were driven away for fear of their Lives from being present at those Consultations and when Master Hollis required the names of those Lords who would not agree with the House of Commons Lastly where was that Freedom and Privilege of Parliament when Members of the one House that had been questioned for words spoken in the House and one freed the other but reprehended by Vote of the major part were again questioned by the other House and a charge brought against them for these words Is Honour Reputation Freedom and Civility to be esteemed What causeless Defamations have been raised and entertained upon Persons of quality and unblemished estimation upon no grounds or appearance of reason but because their opinions ran not with the Torrent What caresses have been and are made to persons loose vicious and debauched of no Vertue no Religion no Reputation but of Malice and Ingratitude to Us Their names will be easily found out by all Mens observation and their own blushes though they shall not have the honour of Our mention How have the Laws of Hospitality and Civility been violated the freedom and liberty of Conversation the pleasure and delight of life been invaded by them the discourses at Tables whispers in Gardens and Walks examined and of persons under no accusation Letter broken up Our own to Our dearest Consort the Queen not spared read publickly and commented upon with such Circumstances as make Christendom laugh at Our follies and abhorr Our correspondence Is Peace and tranquillity dear to Our Subjects To shew that We have left no way to that not destructive to Honour and Justice unattempted We offered to lay down Our Arms upon no other Reparations for all the Indignities multiplied upon Us than these That they should lay down theirs so unjustifiably taken and We have Our own Town Goods and Navy taken and kept by violence from Us to be peaceably restored to Us and the Power of making Laws without Us by the way of Ordinances which implies a power by Ordinance to depose Us and that in particular concerning the Militia to be disavowed and a safe place to be agreed on where We might be present with Our great Council for the composing of all Mis-understandings and making this Kingdom happy Which Offers not only were not accepted but not so much as any Answer directed immediately to Us somewhat only sent down by their under-Clerk which with their first Petition and Our Answer We are much pleased to hear are ordered to be printed and read in all Churches We desire no better evidence than Our and their Writings and Actions and no better Judges and Witnesses than Our People of Our love to Peace And even before this kind of Answer came to Us whilest We with patience and hope expecting such a return as We desired forbore any action or attempt of Force according to Our Promise Sir John Hotham sallied out in the night and murthered the persons of his fellow-Subjects and ever since in this Quarrel they labour to increase their Army the very levying of which is Treason and are ready to march against Us. Lee all the world judge who are lovers of the Peace Lastly Is the Constitution of the Kingdom to be preserved and Monarchy it self upheld Can any thing be more evident than that the End of these Men is or the Conclusion which must attend their Premisses must be to introduce a Paricy and Confusion of all degrees and conditions Are not several Books and Papers such as the Observations upon parts of Our Messages published by their direction at least under their countenance against Monarchy it self Is it possible for Us to be made vile and contemptible and shall Our good Subjects continue as they are Can Our just Power be taken from Us and shall they enjoy their liberty Whosoever is a friend to the constitution of the Kingdom must be an enemy to these Men. How the benefit advantages and hopes of the Kingdom have been and are advanced and promoted by these Men all good Men see and discern Let Us consider now whether all those Grievances and Pressures which Our Subjects have heretofore suffered under and of which Our Justice and Favour hath eased them be not by the Faction and Tyranny of these Men redoubled upon Our People Were the Consciences of Men grieved and scandalized at the too much Formality and circumstances used in the exercise of Religion and are they not equally concerned in the Uncomeliness Irreverence and Prophaneness now avowed to the dishonour of Christianity Were they troubled to see the Pulpit sometimes made a Barr to plead against the Liberty and Property of the Subject and are they not more confounded to see it so generally made a Scaffold to incite the People to Rebellion and Sedition against Us Have Our People suffered under and been oppressed by the exercise of an Arbitrary Power and out of a sense of those Sufferings have We consented to take away the Star-Chamber the High-Commission Courts to regulate the Council-Tables and to apply any remedies have been proposed to Us for that disease and have not these Men doubled those Pressures in the latitude and unlimitedness of their proceedings in their Orders for the Observation of the Law as they pretend and then punishing Men for not obeying those Orders in a way and a degree the Law doth not prescribe in their sending for Our good Subjects upon general informations without proof and for Offences which the Law takes no notice of in declaring Men enemies to the Commonwealth fining and imprisoning them for doing or not doing that which no known Law enjoyns or condemns Were the Pursuivants of the Council-Table the delay and attendance there or at the High-Commission Court the Judgements and Decrees of the Star-Chamber more grievous grievous to more persons more chargeable more intolerable than the Serjeants and Officers Fees the Attendance upon the Houses and upon Committees or than the Votes and Judgments which have lately passed in one or both Houses Let all the Decrees Sentences and Judgments of the high-Commission Court and Star-Chamber be examined
do most concern Our Rights Our Quarrel is not against the Parliament but against particular Men who first made the Wounds and will not now suffer them to be healed but make them deeper and wider by contriving fostering and fomenting Mistakes and Jealousies betwixt Body and Head Us and Our two Houses of Parliament whom We name are ready to prove them guilty of High Treason We desire that the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Hollis Mr. Pym Mr. Hampden Sir Arthur Hesilrigge Mr. Stroud Mr. Martin Sir Henry Ludlow Alderman Pennington and Captain Venn may be delivered into the hands of Justice to be tried by their Peers according to the known Law of the Land if we do not prove them guilty of High Treason they will be acquitted and their Innocence will justly triumph over Us. Against the Earl of Warwick the Earl of Essex Earl of Stamford Lord Brook Sir John Hotham Serjeant Major General Skippon and those who shall henceforth exercise the Militia by virtue of the Ordinance We shall cause Indictments to be drawn of High Treason upon the Statute of the 25. year of King Edward the Third Let them submit to the Trial appointed by Law and plead their Ordinances if they shall be acquitted We have done And that all Our loving Subjects may know that in truth nothing but the preservation of the true Protestant Religion invaded by Brownisme Anabaptisme and Libertinisme the Safety of Our Person threatned and conspired against by Rebellion and Treason the Law of the Land and Liberty of the Subject oppressed and almost destroyed by an Usurped Unlimited Arbitrary Power and the Freedom Priviledge and Dignity of Parliament awed and insulted upon by Force and Tumults could make us put off Our long-loved Robe of Peace and take up defensive Arms We once more offer a free and a gracious Pardon to all Our loving Subjects who shall desire the same except the persons before named and shall be as glad with Safety and Honour to lay down these Arms as of the greatest Blessing We are capable of in this World But if to justify these Actions and these Persons our Subjects shall think fit to engage themselves in a War against Us We must not look upon it as an Act of Our Parliament but as a Rebellion against Us and the Law in the behalf of these Men and shall proceed for the suppressing it with the same Conscience and Courage as We would meet an Army of Rebels who endeavour to destroy both King and People And We will never doubt to find honest Men enough of Our minds MDCXLI April ¶ The true Copy of the Petition prepared by the Officers of the late Army and subscribed by His Majesty with C. R. To the KING' 's most Excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Knights Citizens and Burgesses now assembled in the High Court of Parliament The Humble Petition of the Officers and Souldiers of the Army Humbly sheweth THat although our Wants have been very pressing and the Burthen we are become unto these parts by reason of those Wants very grievous unto us yet so have we demeaned our selves that Your Majesty's great and weighty Affairs in this present Parliament have hitherto received no interruption by any Complaint either from us or against us A temper not usual in Armies especially in one destitute not only of Pay but also of Martial Discipline and many of its principal Officers That we cannot but attribute it to a particular blessing of Almighty God on our most hearty affection and zeal to the Common good in the happy success of this Parliament to which as we should have been ready hourly to contribute our dearest blood so now that it hath pleased God to manifest his blessing so manifestly therein we cannot but acknowledge it with thankfulness We cannot but acknowledge his great Mercy in that he hath inclined Your Majesties Royal heart so to co-operate with the wisdom of the Parliament as to effect so great and happy a Reformation upon the former Distempers of this Church and Commonwealth As first in Your Majesties gracious condescending to the many important Demands of our neighbours of the Scotish Nation secondly in granting so free a course of Justice against all Delinquents of what quality soever thirdly in the removal of all those Grievances wherewith the Subjects did conceive either their Liberty of Persons Propriety of Estate or Freedom of Conscience prejudiced and lastly in the greatest pledge of security that ever the Subjects of England received from their Soveraign the Bill of Triennial Parliaments These things so graciously accorded unto by Your Majesty without bargain or compensation as they are more than expectation or hope could extend unto so now certainly they are such as all Loyal hearts ought to requiesce in with thankfulness which we do with all humility and do at this time with as much earnestness as any pray and wish that the Kingdom may be settled in peace and quietness and that all Men may at their own homes enjoy the blessed fruits of Your Wisdom and Justice But may it please Your Excellent Majesty and this High Court of Parliament to give us leave with grief and anguish of heart to represent unto You that We hear that there are certain persons stirring and practical who in stead of rendring Glory to God Thanks to his Majesty and acknowledgment to the Parliament remain yet as unsatisfied and mutinous as ever who whilest all the rest of the Kingdom are arrived even beyond their wishes are daily forging new and unseasonable demands who whilest all Men of Reason Loyalty and Moderation are thinking how they may provide for your Majesties Honour and Plenty in return of so many Graces to the Subject they are still attempting new Diminutions of Your Majesty's just Regalities which must ever be no less dear to all honest Men than our own Freedoms in fine Men of such turbulent Spirits as are ready to sacrifice the Honour and Welfare of the whole Kingdom to their private fancies whom nothing else than a subversion of the whole frame of Government will satisfie Far be it from our thoughts to believe that the Violence and Vnreasonableness of such kind of persons can have any influence upon the Prudence and Justice of the Parliament But that which begets the trouble and disquiet of Our Loyal hearts at this present is That we hear those ill-affected persons are backed in their Violence by the Multitude and the power of raising Tumults that thousands flock at their call and beset the Parliament and White-Hall it self not only to the prejudice of that freedom which is necessary to great Councils and Judicatories but possibly to some personal danger of Your Sacred Majesty and Peers The vast consequence of these Persons Malignity and of the Licentiousness of those Multitudes that follow them considered in most deep care and zealous affection for the safety of Your Sacred Majesty and the Parliament Our Humble Petition is that in Your
judge as well by former Passages as by Our two last Messages which have been so fruitless that though We have descended to desire and press it not so much as a Treaty can be obtained unless We would denude Our Self of all force to defend Vs from a visible strength marching against Vs and admit those Persons as Traitors to Vs who according to their Duty their Oaths of Allegiance and the Law have appeared in defence of Vs their King and Liege Lord whom We are bound in Conscience and Honour to preserve though We disclaimed all our Proclamations and Declarations and the erecting of Our Standard as against Our Parliament All We have now left in Our Power is to express the deep sense We have of the publick Misery of this Kingdom in which is involved that of Our distressed Protestants of Ireland and to apply Our Self to Our necessary Defence wherein We wholly rely upon the Providence of God the Justice of Our Cause and the Affection of Our good People so far We are from putting them out of Our Protection When you shall desire a Treaty of Vs We shall piously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this Quarrel and chearfully embrace it And as no other Reason induced Vs to leave Our City of London but that with Honour and Safety We could not stay there nor raise any Force but for the necessary defence of Our Person and the Law against Levies in opposition to both so We shall suddenly and most willingly return to the one and disband the other as soon as those causes shall be removed The God of Heaven direct you and in mercy divert those Judgments which hang over this Nation and so deal with Vs and Our Posterity as We desire the Preservation and Advancement of the true Protestant Religion the Laws and the Liberty of the Subject the just Rights of Parliament and the Peace of the Kingdom But as if all these gracious Messages had been the effects only of Our Weakness and instances of Our want of Power to resist that torrent they deal at last more plainly with Us and after many sharp causeless and unjust Reproaches they tell Us in plain English that without putting Our Self absolutely into their hands and deserting all Our own Force and the Protection of all those who have faithfully appeared for Us according to their Duty there would be no means of a Treaty although Our extraordinary desire of Peace had prevailed with Us to offer to recall Our most just Declarations and to take down Our Standard set up for Our necessary defence so their unjustifiable Declarations might be likewise recalled Their Answer follows in these words WE the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled do present this our humble Answer to Your Majesty's Message of the 11th of this instant Month of September When we consider the Oppressions Rapines Firing of Houses Murthers even at this time whilst Your Majesty propounds a Treaty committed upon Your good Subjects by Your Soldiers in the presence and by the Authority of their Commanders being of the number of those whom Your Majesty holds Your self bound in Honour and Conscience to protect as Persons doing their Duties We cannot think Your Majesty hath done all that in You lies to prevent or remove the present Distractions nor so long as Your Majesty will admit no Peace without securing the Authors and Instruments of these Mischiefs from the Justice of the Parliament which yet shall be ever dispens'd with all requisite Moderation and distinction of Offences although some of those Persons be such in whose Preservation Your Kingdom cannot be safe nor the unquestionable Rights and Priviledges of Parliament be maintain'd without which the Power and Dignity thereof will fall into contempt We beseech Your Majesty therefore to consider Your Expressions That God should deal with You and Your Posterity as Your Majesty desires the Preservation of the just Rights of Parliament which being undeniable in the Trying of such as we have declared to be Delinquents we shall believe Your Majesty both towards Your self and Parliament will not in this Priviledge we are most sensible of deny us that which belongs unto the meanest Court of Justice in this Kingdom Neither hath Your Majesty cause to complain that You are denied a Treaty when we offer all that a Treaty can produce or Your Majesty expect Security Honour Service Obedience Support and all other effects of an Humble Loyal and Faithful Subjection and seek nothing but that our Religion Liberty Peace of the Kingdom Safety of the Parliament may be secured from the open Violence and cunning Practices of a wicked party who have long plotted our ruin and destruction And if there were any Cause of Treaty we know no competent Persons to Treat betwixt the King and Parliament and if both Cause and Persons were such as to invite Treaty the Season is altogether unfit whilst Your Majesty's Standard is up and Your Proclamations and Declarations unrecalled whereby Your Parliament is charged with Treason If Your Majesty shall persist to make Your self a shield and defence to those Instruments and shall continue to reject our faithful and necessary Advice for securing and maintaining Religion and Liberty with the Peace of the Kingdom and Safety of the Parliament we doubt not but to indifferent judgments it will easily appear who is most tender of that Innocent Blood which is like to be spilt in this Cause Your Majesty who by such persisting doth endanger Your self and Your Kingdoms or we who are willing to hazard our selves to preserve both We humbly beseech Your Majesty to consider how impossible it is that any Protestation though published in Your Majesty's name of Your tenderness of the Miseries of Your Protestant Subjects in Ireland of Your Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and Laws of this Kingdom can give satisfaction to reasonable and indifferent men when at the same time divers of the Irish Traitors and Rebels the known Favourers of them and Agents for them are admitted to Your Majesty's presence with Grace and Favour and some of them imployed in Your service when the Cloaths Munition Horses and other Necessaries bought by your Parliament and sent for the supply of the Army against the Rebels there are violently taken away some by Your Majesty's Command others by Your Ministers and applied to the maintenance of an unnatural War against Your People here All this notwithstanding as we never gave Your Majesty any just cause of withdrawing Your self from Your great Council so it hath ever been and shall ever be far from us to give any impediment to Your Return or to neglect any proper means of curing the Distempers of the Kingdom and closing the dangerous Breaches betwixt Your Majesty and Your Parliament according to the great Trust which lies upon us and if Your Majesty shall now be pleased to come back to Your Parliament without Your Forces we shall be ready to secure Your Royal Person
which was so really and so much desired by His Majesty that this Proceeding seems to Him purposely by some intended to divert which it could not do that His Inclination That His Majesty had no intention to master the City by so advancing besides His Profession which how meanly soever they seem to value it He conceives a sufficient Argument especially being only opposed by suspicions and surmises may appear by His not pursuing His Victory at Brainceford but giving orders to His Army to march away to Kingston as soon as He heard that place was quitted before any notice or appearance of farther Forces from London Nor could He find a better way to satisfie them before-hand that He had no such intention but that His desire of Peace and of Propositions that might conduce to it still continued than by that Message of the twelfth For which care of His He was requited by such a reception of His Message and Messenger as was contrary at once both to Duty Civility and the very Customs and Law of War and Nations and such as theirs though after this Provocation hath not found from Him His Majesty wonders that His Souldiers should be charged with thirsting after Blood who took above five hundred Prisoners in the very heat of the Fight His Majesty having since dismissed all the common Souldiers and entertain'd such as were willing to serve Him and required only from the rest an Oath not to serve against Him And His Majesty supposes such most apt and likely to maintain their Power by Blood and Rapine who have only got it by Oppression and Injustice That His is vested in Him by the Law and by that only if the destructive Counsels of others would not hinder such a Peace in which that might once again be the Universal Rule and in which Religion and Justice can only flourish He desires to maintain it And if Peace were equally desired by them as it is by His Majesty He conceives it would have been proper to have sent Him such a Paper as should have contained just Propositions of Peace and not an unjust Accusation of His Counsels Proceedings and Person And His Majesty intends to march to such a distance from His City of London as may take away all Pretence of Apprehension from His Army that might hinder them in all security from yet preparing them to present to Him and there will be ready either to receive them or to end the Pressures and Miseries which His Subjects to His great Grief suffer through this War by a present Battel The Humble Petition of Both Houses of Parliament presented to His Majesty on the 24. of November With His Majesties Gracious Answer thereunto To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The humble Petition of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament May it please Your Majesty IT is humbly desired by both Houses of Parliament That Your Majesty will be pleased to return to Your Parliament with Your Royal not Your Martial Attendance to the end that Religion Laws and Liberties may be settled and secured by their advice finding by a late and sad accident that Your Majesty is invironed by some such Counsels as do rather perswade a desperate Division than a joyning and a good Agreement with Your Parliament and People And we shall be ready to give Your Majesty assurances of such Security as may be for Your Honour and the safety of Your Royal Person His MAJESTY's Answer to the aforesaid Petition WE expected such Propositions from you as might speedily remove and prevent the Misery and Desolation of this Kingdom and that for the effecting thereof We now residing at a convenient place not far from Our City of London Committees from both Our Houses of Parliament should attend Us for you pretended by your Message to Us at Colebrook that those were your Desires instead thereof and thereby let all the World judge of the design of that Overture We have only received your humble Petition That We would be pleased to return to Our Parliament with Our Royal not Our Martial Attendance All Our good Subjects that remember what We have so often told you and them upon this Subject and what hath since past must with Indignation look upon this Message as intended by the Contrivers thereof for a Scorn to Us and thereby designed by that Malignant party of whom We have so often complained whose Safety and Ambition is built upon the Divisions and Ruines of this Kingdom and who have too great an Influence upon your Actions for a Wall of Separation betwixt Us and Our People We have told you the Reasons why We parted from London how We were chased thence and by whom We have often complained that the greatest part of Our Peers and of the Members of Our House of Commons could not with safety to their Honours and Persons continue and Vote freely among you but by violence and cunning practices were debarred of those Priviledges which their Birth-rights and the Trust reposed in them by their Countries gave them the truth whereof may sufficiently appear by the small number of those that are with you We have offered you to meet both Our Houses in any place free and convenient for Us and them but We never could receive the least satisfaction in any of these particulars nor for those Scandalous and Seditious Pamphlets and Sermons which swarm amongst you That 's all one you tell Us it is now for Our Honour and the Safety of Our Royal Person to return to Our Parliament wherein your formerly denying Us a Negative Voice gives Us cause to believe that by giving your selves that Name without Us you intend not to acknowledge Us to be part of it The whole Kingdom knows that an Army was raised under pretence of Orders of both Houses an Usurpation never heard of before in any Age which Army hath pursued Us in Our own Kingdom gave Us Battel at Keynton and endeavoured to take away the life of Us and Our Children and yet these Rebels being newly recruited and possessed of Our City of London We are courteously invited to return to Our Parliament there that is into the Power of this Army Doth this signifie any other thing than that since the traitourous endeavours of those desperate Men could not snatch the Crown from Our Head it being defended by the Providence of God and the Affections and Loyalty of Our good Subjects We should now tamely come up and give it them and put Our Selves Our Life and the lives liberties and fortunes of all Our good Subjects into their merciful hands Well We think not fit to give any other Answer to this part of your Petition But as We impute not this Affront to both Our Houses of Parliament nor to the major part of those that are now present there but to that dangerous Party We and the whole Kingdom must cry out upon so We shall for Our good Subjects sake and out of Our most tender sense of their
by Your Letters Patents to make Sir John Brampston Chief Justice of Your Court of Kings Bench William Lenthal Esquire the now Speaker of the Commons House Master of the Rolls and to continue the Lord Chief Justice Banks Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and likewise to make Master Serjeant Wilde Chief Baron of Your Court of Exchequer and that Master Justice Bacon may be continued and Master Serjeant Rolls and Master Serjeant Atkins made Justices of the Kings Bench that Master Justice Reeves and Master Justice Foster may be continued and Master Serjeant Phesant made one of Your Justices of Your Court of Common Pleas that Master Serjeant Creswel Master Samuel Brown and Master John Puleston may be Barons of the Exchequer and that all these and all the Judges of the same Courts for the time to come may hold their places by Letters Patents under the great great Seal quamdiu se bene gesserint and that the several persons not before named that do hold any of these places before mentioned may be removed IX That all such persons as have been put out of the Commissions of Peace or Oyer and Terminer or from being Custodes Rotulorum since the first day of April 1642. other than such as were put out by desire of both or either of the Houses of Parliament may again be put into those Commissions and Offices and such that persons may be put out of those Commissions and Offices as shall be excepted against by both Houses of Parliament X. That Your Majesty will be pleased to pass the Bill now presented to Your Majesty to vindicate and secure the Privileges of Parliament from the ill consequence of the late Precedent in the Charge and Proceeding against the Lord Kimbolton now Earl of Manchester and the five Members of the House of Commons XI That Your Majesty's Royal Assent may be given unto such Acts as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament for the satisfying and paying the Debts and Damages wherein the two Houses of Parliament have ingaged the Publick Faith of the Kingdom XII That Your Majesty will be pleased according to a Gracious Answer heretofore received from You 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 Popish and Jesuitical Faction to subvert and suppress it whereby Your Subjects may hope to be free from the mischiefs which this Kingdom hath endured through the power which some of that Party have had in Your Counsels and will be much encouraged in a Parliamentary way for Your Aid and Assistance in restoring Your Royal Sister and the Prince Elector to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them and relieving the other distressed Protestant Princes who have suffered in the same Cause XIII That in the General Pardon which Your Majesty hath been pleased to offer to Your Subjects all Offences and Misdemeanours committed before the tenth of January 1641. which have been or shall be questioned or proceeded against in Parliament upon complaint in the House of Commons before the tenth of January 1643. shall be excepted which offences and misdemeanours shall never the less be taken and adjudged to be fully discharged against all other inferiour Courts That likewise there shall be an exception of all Offences committed by any person or Persons which hath or have had any hand or practice in the Rebellion of Ireland which hath or have given any counsel assistance or encouragement to the Rebels there for the maintenance of that Rebellion as likewise an exception of William Earl of Newcastle and George Lord Digby XIV That Your Majesty will be pleased to restore such Members of either House of Parliament to their several places of Services and Imployment out of which they have been put since the beginning of this Parliament that they may receive satisfaction and reparation for those places and for the profits which they have lost by such removals upon the Petition of both Houses of Parliament and that all others may be restored to their Offices and Imployments who have been put out of the same upon any displeasure conceived against them for any Assistance given to both Houses of Parliament or obeying their Commands or forbearing to leave their Attendance upon the Parliament without licence or for any other occasion arising from these unhappy Differences betwixt Your Majesty and both Houses of Parliament upon the like Petition of both Houses These things being granted and performed as it hath always been our hearty Prayer so shall we be enabled to make it our hopeful Endeavour That Your Majesty and Your People may enjoy the blessings of Peace Truth and Justice the Royalty and Greatness of Your Throne may be supported by the Loyal and bountiful Affections of Your People their Liberties and Privileges maintained by Your Majesty's Protection and Justice and this publick Honour and Happiness of Your Majesty and all Your Dominions communicated to other Churches and States of Your Alliance and derived to Your Royal Posterity and the future Generations in this Kingdom for ever H. Elsinge Cler. Parl. D. Com. His MAJESTY'S Answer to the Desires and Propositions of both Houses February the third 1642. Received at a Conference with the Lords February the sixth 1642. IF His Majesty had not given up all the faculties of His Soul to an earnest endeavour of a Peace and Reconciliation with His People or if He would suffer Himself by any Provocation to be drawn to a sharpness of Language at a time when there seems somewhat like an Overture of Accommodation He could not but resent the heavy charges upon Him in the Preamble of these Propositions and would not suffer Himself to be reproached with protecting of Delinquents by force from Justice His Majesty's desire having always been that all Men should be tryed by the known Law and having been refused it with raising an Army against His Parliament and to be told that Arms have been taken up against Him for the defence of Religion Laws Liberties Privileges of Parliament and for the sitting of the Parliament in safety with many other Particulars in that Preamble so often and so fully answered by His Majesty without remembring the world of the time and circumstances of raising those Arms against Him when His Majesty was so far from being in a condition to invade other mens Rights that He was not able to maintain and defend His own from violence and without telling His good Subjects that their Religion the true Protestant Religion in which His Majesty was born hath faithfully lived and to which He will die a willing Sacrifice their Laws Liberties Priviledges and safety of Parliament were so amply settled and established or offered to be so by His Majesty before any Army was raised against Him and long before any raised by Him for His defence that if nothing had
Officers to keep them from it seems to imply and the assertion that the two Houses of Parliament had ever disliked and forbidden it declares plainly to be their only meaning but particularly the Violence and Plundering used to His Subjects by forcibly taking away their goods for not submitting to Impositions and Taxes required from them by Orders or Ordinances of one or both Houses of Parliament which are contrary to the known Laws of the Land VI. Besides that there is no consent given to those Alterations and Additions offered by His Majesty whatsoever is pretended so where an absolute Consent may be supposed because the very words of His Majesties Article are wholly preserved yet by reason of the Relation to somewhat going before that is varied by them the sense of those words is wholy varied too as in the Fourth Article that part of the Third Article to which that did refer being wholly left out So that upon the matter all the Propositions made by His Majesty which did not in Terms agree with those presented to Him are utterly rejected For these Reasons and that this Entrance towards a blessed Peace and Accommodation which hath already filled the hearts of the Kingdom with Joy and Hope may be improved to the wished end His Majesty desires that the Committee now sent may speedily have liberty to treat debate and agree upon the Articles of Cessation in which they and all the World shall find that His Majesty is less sollicitous for His own Dignity and Greatness than for His Subjects Ease and Liberty And He doubts not upon such a Debate all differences concerning the Cessation will be easily and speedily agreed upon and the benefit of a Cessation be continued and confirmed to His People by a speedy disbanding of both Armies and a sudden and firm Peace which His Majesty above all things desires If this so reasonable equal and just Desire of His Majesty shall not be yielded unto but the same Articles still insisted upon though His Majesty next to Peace desires a Cessation yet that the not-agreeing upon the one may not destroy the hopes of nor so much as delay the other He is willing however to Treat even without a Cessation if that be not granted upon the Propositions themselves in that order as is agreed upon and desires the Committee here may be enabled to that effect In which Treaty He shall give all His Subjects that satisfaction that if any security to enjoy all the Rights Privileges and Liberties due to them by the Law or that Happiness in Church and State which the best times have seen with such farther acts of Grace as may agree with His Honour Justice and Duty to His Crown and as may not render Him less able to protect His Subjects according to His Oath will satisfie them He is confident in the Mercy of God that no more precious blood of this Nation will be thus miserably spent My Lord and Gentlemen WHereas by your former Instructions you are tied up to a circumstance of Time and are not to proceed unto the Treaty upon the Propositions until the Cessation of Arms be first agreed upon you are now authorized and required as you may perceive by the Votes of both Houses which you shall herewith receive to Treat and debate with His Majesty upon the two first Propositions according to those Instructions for four days after the day of the receit hereof notwithstanding that the Cessation be not agreed upon Your Lordships most humble Servant Manchester Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore March 24. 1642. Received March 25. Die Veneris 24. Martii 1642. Resolved upon the Question by the Lords and Commons in Parliament THat the Committee at Oxon shall have power to Treat and debate with His Majesty upon the two first Propositions according to their Instructions for four days after the day of the receit of this Message notwithstanding that the Cessation is not yet agreed upon Resolved c. That The Committee formerly appointed to prepare the Articles of Cessation and Instructions for the Committee at Oxon shall consider of an Answer to be made to His Majesties Message this day received and likewise prepare Reasons to be sent to the Committee for them to press in the Treaty and debate upon the former Articles of Cessation and to shew His Majesty the grounds why the Houses cannot depart from those former Articles Joh. Brown Cler. Parliamentorum The Votes of both Houses and the Copy of the Answer to His MAJESTY received Martii 25. 1642. May it please Your Majesty WE Your Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having received a Message from Your Majesty in which You are pleased to express Your Self not to be satisfied with the Articles of Cessation presented unto You by our Committee now attending You at Oxford and yet a signification of Your Majesties willingness to Treat upon the Propositions themselves even without a Cessation do with all humbleness give our consent that our Committee shall have power to treat and debate with Your Majesty upon the two first Propositions according to their Instructions for four days after the day of the receit of this Message notwithstanding that the Cessation be not yet agreed upon that as much as in us lies here may be no delay in the proceedings for the obtaining of a blessed Peace and the healing up the miserable Breaches of this distracted Kingdom and do purpose to represent very speedily unto Your Majesty those just Reasons and grounds upon which we have found it necessary to desire of Your Majesty a Cessation so qualified as that is whereby we hope You will receive such satisfaction as that You will be pleased to assent unto it and being obtained we assure our selves it will be most effectual to the Safety of the Kingdom and that Peace which with so much zeal and loyal affection to Your Royal Person and in a deep sense of the bleeding condition of this poor Kingdom we humbly beg of Your Majesty's Justice and Goodness Joh. Brown Cler. Parl. A Letter from the E. of Manchester to the E. of Northumberland Received Mar. 29. MY Lord I am commanded by the Peers in Parliament to send unto your Lordship the Reasons which both Houses think fit to offer unto His Majesty in pursuit of their adhering to their former Resolutions concerning the Articles of the Cessation of Arms. My Lord you shall likewise receive additional Instructions from both Houses and a Vote which I send you here inclosed My Lord this is all I have in command as Your Lordships most humble Servant Manchester Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore Mar. 27. Die Lunae 27 Martii 1643. Resolved upon the Question by the Lords in Parliament THat the Earl of Northumberland their Committee at Oxford is hereby authorized to acquaint His Majesty with all their Instructions upon the two first Propositions Jo. Brown Cler. Parl. Additional Instructions March 29. Additional Instructions
to judge whether their Demands were not such and so moderate as was fit and necessary for them to make and just and reasonable for His Majesty to assent unto wherein they may be pleased to consider that this was a Treaty for the disbanding of two Armies and Forces raised in opposition each to other that the Towns Forts and Ships are a great part of these Forces and of the strength of that side that possesseth them that for any one side to demand the possession and power thereof and the other side to disband their Forces and quit themselves of all their strength is in effect a total disbanding of that side and a continuing the Forces of the other which must be granted to be most unequal and therefore the Lords and Commons did think it just and honourable that the remaining strength should be put into such hands as both sides might trust Secondly That their demand to have the Forts and Castles into the hands of such persons as both Houses should confide in was a Proposition warranted by the frequent Precedents of former times whereby it appeareth that many other Parliaments have made the like and greater demands and His Majesty's Predecessors have assented thereunto Thirdly It was a Proposition which His Majesty Himself in several Declarations of His own affirmed to be reasonable and just for in His Majesty's Answer to a Petition of the House of Commons January 28. 1641. He expresseth thus For the Forts and Castles of the Kingdom His Majesty is resolved they shall be in such hands and only in such as the Parliament way safely confide in c. And in another Answer to two Petitions of the Lords and Commons delivered the second of February 1641. His Majesty useth these words That for the securing you from all Dangers or Jealousies of any His Majesty will be content to put in all the places both of Forts and Militia in the several Counties such persons as both Houses of Parliament shall either approve or recommend unto Him so that you declare before unto His Majesty the names of the persons whom you approve or recommend unless such persons shall be named against whom He shall have just and unquestionable exception Which being declared by His Majesty Himself they had no cause to suspect a Denial being confident that His Majesty did intend what He spoke and if any ill Counsel could prevail to make Him recede from His Word it must be admitted the Kingdom hath more cause to be further secured Fourthly For that to our sad experience it is well known that His Majesty's Power in this and other things is too much steered and guided by the advice of these secret and wicked Counsellors that have been the Instruments of our present Miseries and though His Majesty carrieth the Name yet they will have the disposing of those places And the Lords and Commons thought it the more reasonable and necessary to insist thereupon because that in the time when they were preparing their Propositions to His Majesty it did appear unto them by a Letter written by His Majesty to the Queen which they have caused to be herewith Printed that the great and eminent places of the Kingdom were disposed by Her Advice and Power and what Her Religion is and consequently how prevalent the Counsels of Papists and Jesuites will be with Her may be easily conjectured and it is to be observed who the Persons designed for preferment were even during the sitting of a Parliament the Lord Digby impeached in Parliament for High Treason and most if not all the rest impeached in Parliament and such as bear Arms against them Lastly admitting that these demands touching the Ships and Forts had been made even in a time of Peace and Tranquillity yet considering the attempts of Force and Violence made and practised against the Kingdom and this present Parliament as the Designs many years since to bring to this Kingdom the German Horse to compel the Subject to submit to an arbitrary Government the endeavour to bring up the late Northern Army by force and violence to awe the Parliament His Majesty's coming in person to the House of Commons accompanied with many Armed Men to demand their Members to be delivered up and the Treason of the Earl of Strafford to bring over the Irish Popish Army to conquer the Kingdom they might very well justify nay they were in duty bound in discharge of the trust reposed in them by the Commonwealth to make that demand and expect the performance thereof to the end the People might be secured from any such Violence hereafter Yet to their inexpressible sorrow they must speak it neither the Reasonableness the Moderation or Justness of the Request nor the Peace of the Kingdom which probably would ensue thereupon could be Arguments prevalent enough to induce His Majesty's Consent thereunto And His Majesty's offer of those Commanders that shall offend to leave them to Justice and Trial of the Law is an Answer more to shew His Power to protect Delinquents than satisfaction to a Parliament being the due and right of the meanest Subject and yet intituled here as a Favour done to both Houses of Parliament And though His Majesty is pleased to justifie His Denial with the Allegation That it is His Right by Law they must appeal to the judgment of all indifferent Men whether that be a satisfactory ground of refusal for admitting His Majesty's Power of disposing the Ships Forts and Castles and committing them into what hands He please to be by Law absolutely vested in His Majesty which they by no means can admit He being only trusted with them for the Defence and safety of the Kingdom as He Himself is pleased to assume yet would that be no ground or reason for the King to refuse His Consent to alter that Law when by circumstance of time and affairs that Power becomes destructive to the Commonwealth and safety of the People the preservation whereof is the chief end of the Law And though the two Houses of Parliament being the Representative Body of the Kingdom are the most competent Judges thereof yet in this Cafe they do not proceed only upon an implicite Faith but demonstrate it both by Reason and Experience That their Demand is not only necessary to secure the Kingdom from Fear and Jealousie but to preserve it even from Ruine and Destruction And surely had this Argument of being Their Right by Law been prevailing with His Majesty's Predecessors this Nation should have wanted many an Act of Parliament which now they have that was necessary for thier being and subsistence And they could heartily wish that the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom might be The Rule of what is and what is not to be done acknowledging with His Majesty that the same is the only Rule between Him and His People the assurance of the free enjoyment whereof is their only aim but how little fruit the People hath gathered from this tree
Prince RUPERT to the Earl of Northampton Oxford 3. June 1643. THough His Majesty be assured it cannot but be of great Advantage to Him to have such an occasion as is now given Him by the late Declaration of both Houses to shew to all His good People who it is that is really in fault that the last Treaty so much desired by His Majesty and only begun upon His Desire broke off so abruptly as He doubts not to do if those who govern in the remaining part of both Houses have but so much ingenuity left as to suffer what He says to be equally freely published to His People yet His Majesty cannot without great grief of Soul see that Treaty which He hoped and expected should have begot the settled Peace and Happiness of His Subjects in stead thereof beget nothing but Disputes and Declarations yet it will be some Cordial to Him when He shall be forced to see the Desolation of this Kingdom and the Misery of His People that not only it is not He that hath made that Desolate and them Miserable but that He is able to demonstrate to all the World that He hath used His utmost and most earnest endeavours to prevent it as will appear at large by the following state of the Case After that the Conspiracy of some Persons against the present establisht Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil had made means to infuse into part of the People by publishing unheard-of Declarations obtain'd and past in a new and unheard-of manner sometimes but by eleven Voices after seventeen hours sitting and that but in one House strange Fears and Jealousies of the other House and of His Majesty and by them given the Rise to those insufferable Tumults and Seditious unparliamentary Petitions at once to and against the Lords which they afterwards avowed publickly to protect and encourage and forced the Lords House by fearing them to seem to fear with them and to joyn with them first in requiring and next in forcing no less security for those Fears from His Majesty who was then in condition to have most real Cause of Fear Himself than almost all that Power which the Law had trusted to Him for the security of the Crown and the Protection of His People after that His Majesty and most of the Members were forced away from the Parliament and that His share in making new Laws was denyed to Him in any case in which they would pretend Necessity and every Subject that would not submit to any new extravagant extemporary legislative Declaration or Order of one or both Houses against the antient known Law of the Land was become sent for up and imprisoned as a Delinquent and whosoever would assist them against the known Law was not only-protected by them in that but in any other Case although they were of them who had been most apparently active in those former Pressures upon the People which they now afresh impute to His Majesty so that to be of their side was now become a known Sanctuary after that nothing was left undone or unsaid that might render His Majesty both weak and odious and that all that He could say or do to clear Himself was either supprest or interpreted in a contrary and impossible sense so that His very offer to venture His Royal Person against the Irish Rebels was voted to be an Encouragement to that Rebellion after that from declaring of Law they came to declaring of Thoughts and forgetting that the Hearts of Kings are inscrutable presumed to dive into His and without Apparence and contrary to Truth had declared that He meant to make War upon His Parliament and made that Declaration a ground to levy a real War against Him and then made that War a ground to begin to make War upon His People forcing away the Arms and Money of all such as they pleased to suspect of the Crimes of Allegiance and Loyalty after that they had so far exprest and discovered the true end of all these Actions as to propose the total Change of the present Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil in the Nineteen Propositions as the only way to Peace and that His Majesty might by all this have been sufficiently perswaded that it was impossible for Him to obtain Peace from them but either by Submission or by the Sword yet after all this His Majesty was so averse to the latter Course as to descend to so great a degree of the former as from Nottingham to propose to and desire from them a Treaty for Peace and being there twice openly and absolutely refused it yet did then declare that He would notwithstanding be ready to receive it whensoever they would propose it And to shew that these Offers proceeded not from His Condition but from His Inclination after His Victory at Edge-hill and after that the Earl of Essex had so far forgot his Errand as to return to London alone in stead of bringing up His Majesty and those His good Subjects whom they call'd Delinquents His Answer at Colebrook will shew to all the World that He was still of the same mind as when He sent His Messages from Nottingham and His Message so carefully sent from Colebrook to prevent all mis-construction of that march of His which they had necessitated to Brainceford and His pressing still that a Treaty might go on in that and several other Messages all slighted and neglected shewed sufficiently who really was desirous of and who were averse to Peace But when the Petition of so many Citizens that a Treaty might be accepted finding so little countenance or acceptance from the House of Commons and the Injuries and Imprisonments which the Petitioners suffered for it from Alderman Pennington and others finding so much countenance from them did so far begin to open the eyes of the People that the Aversion to Peace began to be imputed to them who were truly guilty and that they found this Discovery made men generally unwilling to part with their money to make themselves miserable and that again encouraged many of the Members to appear for Peace too and that consequently their too open and avowed desire of War would but render them unable to continue it they thought it necessary to make some Propositions which might deceive the People so far as to make them believe they desired Peace and yet resolved to make them so unreasonable as they might notwithstanding be sure to be out of all danger of effecting Peace by them and sent those down to His Majesty Which though they pretend now to be such as no indifferent man will find any thing contained in them but what was necessary for the maintenance and advancement of the true Protestant Religion the due execution of Justice the Preservation of the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the establishment of the Kingdoms Peace and Safety yet His Majesty is confident that even those who are not very indifferent are yet able to see that no
Propositions could be more unreasonable than those Fourteen except the former Nineteen To pass by the Preamble in which most unnecessarily they lay most heavy and most unjust Charges upon His Majesty and yet draw an Argument of His Aversion to Peace from those known Truths which either His defence or the matter in question Crimes being impossible to be spoken of but as Crimes did after extort from Him would not any man have expected that had observed with what violence this War was begun and prosecuted against His Majesty to have found in the Propositions for Peace the Demand of at least some and those very important Rights which were withheld from them before the War and so had given some colour for it But of these there appears not so much as one and yet till all these are granted and performed they do as much as say in Terms plain enough in their Conclusion that they have not any hope nor will use any endeavours that His Majesty and His People may enjoy the Blessings of Peace and Justice which was certainly by terrour of Arms to demand new Laws and as great a Proof that they did so as they seem to confess it unparliamentary if they had done it Is not the taking away of the Bishops Deans and Chapters and indeed the whole establisht Ecclesiastical frame of Order and Government a new Law yet unless His Majesty will yield to take it away though there were but five Lords present when the Bill past and though no other form be yet offered or shewed to Him but the Presbyterians and Independents are left to fight it out among themselves what shall succeed in the place His Majesty is told He must not hope for Peace And the division likely to ensue between different Parties what shall after be introduced shews sufficiently what hope there should be of Peace if He should pass it Are not the Bill against Scandalous Ministers in which most of their own Faction are appointed Commissioners that they may make way for and introduce a new Clergy of their own the Bill against Pluralities which makes no difference of conditions or merits of Persons or of value of Livings and looks not only forwards but extends to the immediate dispossessing of present Incumbents of what is vested in them for their Lives by the Law of the Land the Bill for the Consultation of Divines Persons of their own choice and most of them of their Faction and of no esteem but with themselves hardly at all bounded as to the matter and absolutely unlimited as to the time of their consultation all news Laws Is not the settling of the Militia both by Sea and Land and the Forts and Ports in such a manner as shall be agreed on by both Houses in which His Majesty is expected with a blind implicite Faith to trust them with the whole Power of the Kingdom and with His only means of defending Himself and protecting His Subjects though into what hands or for what time or in what manner they will order or dispose of it is so far from appearing to Him that it doth not yet appear that both Houses know themselves and how they have already used that Power is known to all the World both a new and a strange Demand Are the Earl of Bristoll's Removal and Exclusion from all possibility of Employment a Person uncondemned unimpeacht and unsummoned no crime or error either proved or but named against him or the choice of the Judges and Master of the Rolls the change of Commissioners of the Peace and Oyer and Terminer or the restoring of Members of the Houses even to such menial places of Service as required a personal attendance and who had yet refused to attend upon command or the assenting to whatsoever Acts He shall be advised for paying of Debts contracted upon the publick Faith that is by the Authority of both Houses by which His Majesty must allow Himself to be no no part of the publick and must directly allow and as it were ratifie that Rebellion which this Money was raised to foment either due to them by Law or reasonable in themselves Doth the directing His Majesty with whom and how far to make Alliances belong to them or was that at all necessary His inclination to the strictest bands with Princes and States of the Protestant Religion being by the Match of His Daughter sufficiently expressed And yet till all this be done and unless He will pardon all that have born Arms against Him and leave those that have assisted Him to their Mercy who have none they will not promise any hopeful endeavours for Peace and Justice But is there any thing else that is due by Law which was before denied and is here demanded that can in any degree justifie or extenuate that ever Peace was broken and Justice destroyed Not so much as one tittle Did His Majesty give any Commission till they had mustered many men Or did He so much as take any Guard to Him till both they had a much greater many months and had of their own Authority ordered a Serjeant-Major-General of their City Forces and till His Magazine and Town were by Arms kept against Him though He were provoked to it before by all the other Indignities and Injuries which Insolence and Injustice could devise Was not Sir John Hotham for all his known Treason refused to be left by them to Justice and the trial of the Law before ever any that was but call'd a Delinquent was protected by His Majesty And was not His Majesty then denied that which themselves confess to be the due and right of the meanest Subject and do so far expect as to look upon it rather as a scorn than a satisfaction now His Majesty offers it to them Was any one Papist armed by His Majesty before many of that Religion and multitudes of persons against whose Recusancy the Law is as severe as against theirs were armed against Him or than either until their mere being of that Religion made them without colour of Law be plunder'd and imprison'd in all parts and some of them fly into His Army for protection Did not His Majesty before of himself often offer to vindicate the Privileges of Parliament from any imaginable breach of them in the business of the Lord Kimbolton and Five Members and did He not offer to wave their Charge willingly submitting it to the publick Peace So that the obtaining that demand or the disbanding of the Army or the disarming of Papists or the trial of Delinquents though they make some such shew as they are set in this place yet not any of them were any grounds of this their War And all that is due in these Demands having been offered before the War or occasioned or necessitated by it and being still to be had without it the whole People cannot but see that nothing but Fears and Jealousies have been the fumes with which they have so intoxicated His seduced Subjects
and Forces in opposition to each other that these Towns Forts and Ships are a great part of their Forces so that for them to restore them absolutely to the King would be for them to disband totally and for His Majesty's Forces to continue To this His Majesty answers That this Treaty was intended by Him to be in order to a firm and settled that is a just Peace and never to be such wherein a pretended Equality should exclude evident Justice Let Equality determine the manner of the disbanding of the Armies raised upon these Distractions but let Justice restore what Violence hath taken and determine of known undoubted Rights since by this Argument if any Prince seize upon any Strength that belongs to His stronger Neighbour and Arms be taken up upon it the stronger must never in a Treaty when the Armies are to be disbanded expect to have His Strength restored to him lest the other return to be what He was and what He ought to be that is the weaker of the two Secondly His Majesty answers That by the same reason of Security other Power and Prerogatives being Strength as well as Forces and neither more vested in Him nor less possible to be used for the Peoples hurt they may as well require a share and interest in those too and that things may be made sufficiently equal between the sides may expect to be as much Kings as He. Thirdly in their own opinion and by their own confession as it appears by their Argument used in the Cessation in the point of Ships if they be but allowed the Approbation of Commanders His Majesty gives up this strength to them and not they to Him and it will be their Forces and not His which are to continue undisbanded and that that they say to be contrary to Equality and as they came by these Forces it is evident to be contrary to Justice Fourthly His Majesty answers that these Forces are not so great or so great a Strength of the side that shall possess them but that the Arts Union Industry and Violence of that Party was so much too strong for His Majesty when He had that Strength as to take that Strength from Him and therefore His Majesty wonders they should make any difficulty to restore what it may appear by so fresh experience that they are so able to resume and therefore His Majesty hopes His People will attribute it to His great Desire of Peace that He did not demand some farther security to enjoy that which is not denied to be His Majesty's And His Majesty observes that both this and the second Answer were given by His Majesty to the same Arguments made upon the same occasion by their Committee in the Treaty and yet this Declaration repeats the same Arguments without replying to those Answers Fifthly His Majesty desires that the Difficulty with which His Majesty raised His Army and the Ease with which they raised theirs may be considered how impossible it would have been for Him to have raised Forces if they had not raised first and how much slowlier this Army being disbanded He could raise a new one and how quick and ready their Body of fierce eager Sectaries and Schismaticks would be to return into an Army upon the least Call and how conveniently they inhabit for so speedy a meeting being to continue most of them in or so near London that their Quarters in War were usually much more distant than their Dwellings in Peace and then His Majesty doubts not but it will appear that in this respect too the real and total Disbanding is of His Majesty's part only and that in effect the Continuance of Forces is still of theirs Their Second Argument why His Majesty should admit of their Limitations is a bundle of Precedents To which His Majesty replies First that the Records which are here quoted for these are now in the same hands as his Majesty's Magazines Towns Forts and Ships and therefore knows not how He can either have their Truth sufficiently considered and examined or without it conside in their Quotations Secondly all the particular Circumstances both of matter and time what induced it and what followed it do not herein appear though very necessary to be known that they may be possible to be answered But this His Majesty can find upon view That some of them concern not any part of what is now demanded but one of them concerns a Chancellor Treasurer and Privy-Seal and another concerns Privy-Councillors and another the Protectorship another the choice of some without whose Advice or of four of them nothing should be done by the King which it seems they have an eye upon demanding too which made them run so much in their heads who collected these as to put them in here That some concern not the Persons now demanding but conclude only for the Merchants to chuse an Admiral and not for the Houses to confide in him which Precedent may be of some use to the Common-Council but of none to the Parliament That some are of no concern at all as only about appointing of Clarks for payment of Wages yet put in to encrease the bulk That hardly any of the Precedents that concern any of the things in Question concern any more than part of those which are altogether demanded in the Limitations desired some concerning only the Command of Ships and those too not granted by Act but by Commission and that for ought appears only during pleasure some extending but to one Town or Place as Berwick or Jersey That most of these Precedents appear to have been when the Kings were in Minority and under Protectors some when they were in extreme Age and Impotency some in the Reign of a King who was shortly after deposed in Parliament too an unlikely Circumstance to invite His Majesty at this time to follow that Example others in His Reign who succeeded Him and having no Right to the Crown but the Criminal Consent of both Houses had Reason to deny them nothing who had given Him All. And of some of the Precedents now quoted the Inconveniences are known to have been so great and so suddenly found that they were so speedily revoked in Parliament with no less a Brand than as being contrary to the Customs of the Realm and to the blemishing of the Crown that if they had ingenuously added those Circumstances these Precedents would more have justified His Majesty for not yielding than them for either asking any thing towards those or but for quoting them at all But doth any of these Precedents tell us that these Parliaments claim'd any Right in any of these or that any King yield any degree of Power in any one of these Points to both Houses when they had first taken them from Him by Force and rais'd an Army by Ordinance against Him and He was in a condition to resist what they had raised And if either any of these Kings were so much in their Power
Letters to the Speaker of the House of Commons a Copy of which was sent to Us were forthwith sent to them That Our Army would be forced through wants to disband or depart the Kingdom and that there would be nothing to be exspected there but the instant Loss of the Kingdom and the destruction of the remnant of Our good Subjects yet left there In stead of any redress or relief according to these Letters such Ships as were by the care and charity of well-affected Persons provided to transport Cloths and Victual to them were in their Voyage thither seized and taken by the Ships under the Command of the Earl of Warwick and in stead of endeavours to send more Forces thither attempts were made to draw the Scotch Forces from thence into this Kingdom So that We thought Our Self bound in Duty and Conscience since it was not in Our power otherwise to preserve that Kingdom from utter Ruine at least to admit any Expedient which with God's blessing might be a means to preserve that People and therefore We directed the Lord Marquess Ormond whom for his Courage Affection and Loyalty We had made Our Lieutenant-General of that Our Army and who having gotten so many notable Victories upon the Rebels was very well approved of by the two Houses of Parliament to agree on Our behalf to such a Cessation of Arms with the Rebels as upon his understanding and knowledge of the condition of Our affairs there should be thought reasonable This Cessation was concluded on the 15. day of September for one whole year and the Articles thereof printed at Dublin were sent to Us by Our Lords Justices and Council and arrived here on Saturday last with a Letter from them to one of Our Secretaries expressing the great sufferings of Our Army there through want of relief out of England We have thought fit with this true and plain relation to publish the said Articles according to the Copy sent Us that all Our good Subjects may see how We have proceeded herein What opinion the principal Persons as well of Our Council as the Officers of Our Army there have of this Cessation may appear by the Testimony which We have caused to be Printed after the Articles with their names who have set their hands to the same And let all Our good Subjects be assured that as We have for these Reasons and with this Caution and deliberation consented to this Preparation to Peace and to that purpose do continue Our Parliament there so We shall proceed in the accomplishing thereof with that care and circumspection that We shall not admit even Peace it self otherwise than as it may be agreeable to Conscience Honour and Justice By the Lords Justices and Council Jo. Borlase Hen. Tichborne UPON consideration had of the annexed Articles of Cessation of Arms whereby it is concluded and accorded that there be a Cessation of Arms and of all Acts of Hostility for one whole year beginning the fifteenth day of September Anno Domini one thousand six hundred forty three at the hour of twelve of the Clock of the said day We the Lords Justices and Council according to His Majesty's Letters of the one and thirtieth of July last do by this Proclamation in His Majesty's Name ratifie confirm and publish the same and do require all His Majesty's Subjects whom it may concern by Sea and Land to take notice thereof and to yield all due Obedience thereunto in all the parts thereof Given at His Majesty's Castle of Dublin the 19th day of September 1643. R. Bolton Canc. Roscomon Cha. Lambart Tho. Rotherham Tho. Lucas La. Dublin Edw. Brabazon Geo. Shurley Ormonde Ant. Midensis Gerard Lowther Fr. Willoughby Ja. Ware God Save the KING ARticles of Cessation of Arms agreed and concluded on at Singingstown in the County of Kildare the 15. day of September in the nineteenth year of His Majesty's Reign by and between James Marquess of Ormond Lieutenant-General of His Majesty's Army in the Kingdom of Ireland for and in the Name of Our Gracious Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. by virtue of His Majesty's Commission bearing date at Dublin the last of August in the said nineteenth year of His Majesty's Reign of the one part and Donnogh Viscount Muskery Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Nicholas Plunket Esquire Sir Robert Talbot Baronet Sir Richard Barnewell Baronet Torlogh O-Neal Geffry Brown Ever Mac-Gennis and John Walsh Esquires authorized by His Majesty's Roman Catholick Subjects of whose party they are and now in Arms in the said Kingdom c. to treat and conclude with the said Marquess for a Cessation of Arms by virtue of an Authority given unto them bearing date at Cashel the 7. day of September in the said nineteenth year of His Majesty's Reign of the other part FIrst It is concluded and accorded that there be a Cessation of Arms and of all Acts of Hostility between His Majesty 's said Roman Catholick Subjects who are now in Arms c. in this Kingdom and their Party and all others His Majesty's good Subjects for one whole year to begin the fifteenth day of Septemb. Anno Dom. 1643. at the hour of 12. of the clock of the said day Item It is concluded and accorded that free passage Entercourse Commerce and Traffick during the said Cessation shall be between His Majesty 's said Roman Catholick Subjects who are now in Arms c. and their Party and all others His Majesty's good Subjects and all others in League with His Majesty by Sea and Land Item It is concluded and accorded and the said Viscount Muskery and the rest of the above-named Persons do promise and undertake for and in the behalf of those for whom they are authorized to treat and conclude as aforesaid that all Ships Barques and Vessels which shall bring Provisions to any Harbour in this Kingdom in the hands or possession of such as shall obey the Articles of this Cessation from Minehead and White-haven and from all the Ports between on that side where Wales is situate so as they be Ships belonging to any of the said Ports and do not use any Acts of Hostility to any of the said Roman Catholicks who are now in Arms c. or to any of their Party or to any who shall be waged or employed unto or by them shall not be interrupted by any of their Party nor by any Ships or other Vessels of what Country or Nation soever under their Power or Command or waged employed or contracted with on their behalf or by any Forts Garrisons or forces within this Kingdom under their power in their coming to this Kingdom or returning from thence Item It is concluded and accorded and the said Lord Viscount Muskery and the rest of the above-named parties do promise and undertake for and in the behalf of those for whom they are authorized as aforesaid that all Ships Barques and Vessels which shall bring
Coronation that all Our Ecclesiasticks in their several degrees and incumbences shall preach and practise the same Wherefore We enjoyn and command all Our Ministers of State beyond the Seas as well Ambassadors as Residents Agents and Messengers and We desire all the rest of Our loving Subjects that sojourn either for curiosity or commerce in any Foreign parts to communicate uphold and assert this Our solemn and sincere Protestation when opportunity of time and place shall be offered Given in Our Vniversity and City of Oxford the 14th day of May 1644. The goodly CEDAR of Apostolick EPISCOPACY compâ—â—â—d with the moderne Shoots Slips of divided NOVELTIES in the Church before the Introduction of the Apostles Lives PAPERS AND PASSAGES CONCERNING THE TREATY OF PEACE AT UXBRIDGE MDCXLIV XLV By the King A Proclamation declaring His Majesty's Resolution for settling a speedy Peace by a good Accommodation and an Invitation to all His Loyal Subjects to joyn together for His Assistance therein AMongst the many Troubles wherewith for more than two years last past We have been involved nothing hath more afflicted Us than the real sense of Our Subjects Sufferings occasioned by this most unnatural War and the chief of Our Care hath been and by God's assistance shall still be to settle them in a happy Peace with that freedom of enjoyning the exercise of their Religion Rights and Liberties according to the Laws of this Kingdom as they or any of their Ancestors enjoyed the same in the best times of the late Queen Elizabeth or Our Royal Father And as we have always profest in the sincerity of Our Heart That no Success should ever make Us averse unto Peace so have We always when God hath blessed Us with any eminent Victory sollicited the Members of both Houses of Parliament remaining at Westminster by frequent Messages for a Treaty conducing thereunto and in particular upon Our late Victory over the Earl of Essex his Army in Cornwal which We wholly attribute to the immediate hand of God We presently dispatch'd a Message to them to desire a Treaty for Peace and Accommodation of which as likewise of that former Message for Peace which We sent them from Evesholm the fourth of July last We have yet received no Answer and therefore have resolved with Our Army to draw presently towards London and Our Southern and Eastern Counties not looking upon those parts as Enemies to Us and so to suffer by the approach of Our Army or the disorders thereof which We will use all possible means to prevent but as Our poor Subjects oppressed by Power of which We rest assured the greater part remain Loyal to Us and so deserving Our Protection And We hope that at a nearer distance of place there may be begot so right an understanding between Us and Our People that at length We may obtain a Treaty for Peace and a full free and peaceable Convention in Parliament and therein make an end of these unhappy Differences by a good Accommodation In which We hereby assure all Our People upon Our Royal Word and the Faith of a Christian which is the greatest Security We can give them that We will insist only upon the setling and continuance of the true Reformed Protestant Religion Our own undoubted known Rights the Privileges of Parliament and Our Subjects Liberty and Property according to the Laws of the Land and to have all these settled in a full and free Parliament whereby the Armies on both sides may be presently disbanded this Kingdom may be secured from the danger of a Conquest by Foreign Forces all Strangers now in Arms may return to their own Countries and Our poor Subjects be freed of those grievous burthens which by reason of the late Distractions have much against Our Will too much pressed them And to the end Our Subjects may no longer be misled be false pretences We do desire all of them as well in Our own Quarters as where the Rebels have usurped a Power to take into serious consideration the Duty and Loyalty which by the Law of God and their Oath of Allegiance they owe unto Us and more particularly that part thereof which concerns the Defence of Our Person and Assistance of Us against Rebels and such as rise in Arms against Us which they may find plainly set down in the Statute of the II. year of King Henry the Seventh Cap. 1. And We do hereby require Our Subjects within Our own Quarters through or near which We shall pass by that Duty they owe to Us and their Country that they forthwith prepare themselves with the best Arms they can get to be ready and joyn and go along with Us in this present Expedition We resolving to take special care to place them under the Command of Gentlemen of Quality of their own Countries to their good content and satisfaction And we likewise require and authorize all Our good Subjects as well the Trained Bands as others of Our City of London and Our Southern and Eastern Counties to chuse their own Commanders and Leaders amongst those Gentlemen and Citizens that are of approved Loyalty to Us and Lovers of the Peace of their Country and upon Our approach towards those parts to put themselves into Arms and march in warlike manner to assist Us in this good Work and free themselves from the Tyranny of their fellow-Subjects under which they groan commanding and authorizing them to seize such places of Strength in those Southern and Eastern Counties as the Rebels have possessed themselves of to oppose with force of Arms such Persons as shall resist them in obeying these Our Commands and to apprehend and secure the Persons of all such as shall endeavour to continue this Rebellion and to hinder the settling of the Peace of this Kingdom in a full and free Convention of Parliament the only visible means lest by blessing of God to redeem this Nation from utter Ruine wherein We will afford Our utmost Protection and Safety unto all Our Subjects that shall give Obedience to these Our Commands And as We doubt not but that all Our good Subjects will come chearfully to Our assistance for so good an end beyond which We do not require it so We trust that God who hath hitherto wonderfully preserved Us will crown this Action with happy Success for his Glory and the welfare of this poor Nation Given at Our Court at Chard the thirtieth day of September 1644. God Save the KING By the King A Proclamation for a Solemn Fast on Wednesday the Fifth of February next upon occasion of the present Treaty for Peace VVHereas Almighty God in his Justice to punish the Common and Crying Sins of the Land hath sent a Civil Sword throughout all Our Dominions which hath miserably wasted and threatens a speedy and utter Desolation to the same and now in the height of these Calamities a Treaty is assented to to begin at Vxbridge on Thursday the Thirtieth day of this instant January touching
the Trust reposed in them they having a Rule prescribed which they were not to transgress and being removable by both Houses of the Parliament of England and the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively and being lyable for any miscarriage to severe punishment And as for their security who have been with His Majesty in this War an Act of Oblivion is desired to be passed whereby all His Majesty's Subjects in both Kingdoms would have been put in one and the same condition and under the same protection with some exceptions mentioned in those Propositions And if the Commissioners had been severally chosen the memory of these unnatural Divisions must needs have been continued and probably being severally named would have acted dividedly according to several Interests and the War thereby might be more easily revived Whereas the scope of the Propositions we have tendred was to take away occasions of future Differences to prevent the raising of Arms and to settle a firm and durable Peace And to your Lordships Objections that the Commissioners were to continue without any limitation of Time although the reasonableness thereof hath been sufficiently manifested to your Lordships yet out of most earnest desires of Peace we have proposed to your Lordships a time of seven years as is expressed in our Paper delivered to your Lordships the 21 st of this instant And for the peculiar Royal Power which your Lordships mention to reside in His Majesty concerning the Militia and to make Peace and War we cannot admit thereof or that it is otherwise exercised than by Authority from His Majesty and both Houses of Parliament of England and the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively neither are the Commissioners to have power to make Peace or War but that is referred to the 23 d. Proposition to be Treated upon in due time And for the Navy and Fleet at Sea the principal means to maintain them is to be raised by the free gift of the Subjects out of Tonnage and Poundage and other payments upon Merchandice and the Navy and Fleet being a principal means of our security the reasons are the same for them as for the Militia by Land And for what your Lordships alledge concerning Sheriffs and Justices of Peace and other legal Ministers not to raise the Posse Comitatus or Forces to suppress Riots without being lyable to the interpretation of the Commissioners we say this is no part of the Militia to be exercised by the Commissioners but in executing of Justice and legal Process nor can be intended to be any disturbance but for the preservation of the Peace nor can their power of hearing and determining Civil Actions and differences be extended further than preservation of the Articles of the Peace to be made and as is clearly and plainly exprest in the 27 th Proposition And whereas we seek the Militia to be setled in the 15 th Proposition and the other parts of our Propositions in order to and for procuring of a Peace and which are necessary to a present Union your Lordships defer them until the Peace shall be established Which delay we hope upon second thoughts your Lordships will not judge to be reasonable And when your Lordships do take into serious consideration the great Calamities and how occasioned to say no more you cannot think but that we ought to be most careful of preventing the like for the future And seeing all we desire for these so important ends is limited to a few years we ought to insist upon such a remedy as may be a fitting cure and in so doing we hope we shall be justified before God and Man Wherefore we again most earnestly desire your Lordships as you tender the deplorable Estates of these bleeding Kingdoms the setling of Religion the Honour of His Majesty and the composing these miserable Distractions that your Lordships will give your full and clear Answer to our Demands concerning the Militia This last Paper was delivered about two of the clock when the Treaty was at that instant breaking up and at the same time the King's Commissioners had upon the like occasion of two Papers of theirs given in a little before concerning Ireland hereafter mentioned delivered in a Paper No. 179. that they might give Answer thereto the next day dated as of that day as had been formerly used which was not granted so that in Answer to this Paper so earnestly requiring an Answer in the Close thereof it was impossible to give in any Paper at the present neither would any be received but at present The Papers touching Ireland After the first six days of the Treaty spent upon Religion and the Militia according to the same order formerly proposed the Propositions concerning Ireland were next Treated upon the three days following beginning the 7th of February and the same was also taken up again the 18th of February for other three days Their Propositions touching Ireland 7. Feb. WE desire that an Act of Parliament be passed to make void the Cessation of Ireland and all Treaties with the Rebels without consent of both Houses of Parliament and to settle the Prosecution of the War of Ireland in both Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by the joynt advice of both Kingdoms and His Majesty to assist and to do no act to discountenance or molest them therein The King's Commissioners Paper 7. February VVE desire to know whether the Paper we have received from your Lordships contain in it all the Demands your Lordships are required by your Instructions to insist upon concerning Ireland which if it doth we are ready to enter upon that Debate but if it do not we then desire to receive all the Propositions your Lordships intend to make concerning Ireland together being confident that upon a whole view of the business we shall give you full satisfaction in that Argument Their Paper 7. February WE are to insist upon other things concerning Ireland which being part of other Propositions we conceive not so proper to give your Lordships till we have received your Answer to our Paper formerly delivered and are ready by present Conference to satisfie any Doubts that remain with your Lordships concerning that Paper Notwithstand they delivered in these further Papers and Propositions following Their Paper 7. Feb. WE desire that an Act be passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms respectively to confirm the Treaty concerning Ireland of the 6 th of August 1642. which Treaty we herewith deliver and that all Persons who have had any hand in plotting designing or assisting the Rebellion of Ireland may expect no Pardon and their Estates to pay publick Debts and Damages and that the Commissioners to be nominated as is appointed in the 17 th Proposition may order the War of Ireland according to the Ordinance of the 11 th of April 1644. which we herewith deliver and to order the Militia and to conserve the Peace of the Kingdom of Ireland And that by
to the Committee of both Kingdoms and in case of Disagreement an Appeal lies to the two Houses of the Parliament of England in whom the power of prosecuting the War is to be settled And we must insist to desire that the Lord Lieutenant and the Judges in that Kingdom may be nominated by the two Houses of Parliament who have by sad experience to the great cost of this Kingdom expence of so much Treasure and Blood the loss of many thousand Lives there and almost of all that whole Kingdom from His Majesties Obedience and an inestimable prejudice to the true Protestant Religion found the ill consequence of a bad choice of Persons for those great places of Trust Therefore for His Majesties Honour the good of His Service the great Advantage it will be to the rest of His Majesties Dominions the great Comfort to all good Christians and even an acceptable Service to God himself for the attaining of so much good and the prevention of so much evil they desire to have the nomination of those great Officers that by a prudent and careful Election they may by providing for the good of that now miserable Kingdom discharge their Duty to God the King and their Countrey And certainly if it be necessary to reduce that Kingdom and that the Parliament of England be a faithful Council to his Majesty and fit to be trusted with the prosecution of that War which his Majesty was once pleased to put into their hands and they faithfully discharged their parts in it notwithstanding many practices to obstruct their proceedings as is set forth in several Declarations of Parliament then we say your Lordships need not think it unreasonable that His Majesty should ingage himself to pass such Acts as shall be presented to him for raising Moneys and other necessaries for that War for if the War be necessary as never War was more that which is necessary for the maintaining of it must be had and the Parliament that doth undertake and manage it must needs know what will be necessary and the People of England who have trusted them with their Purse will never begrudge what they make them lay out upon that occasion Nor need his Majesty fear the Parliament will press more upon the Subject then is fit in proportion to the occasion It is true that heretofore Persons about his Majesty have endeavoured and prevailed too much in possessing him against the Parliament for not giving away the Money of the Subject when his Majesty had desired it but never yet did his Majesty restrain them from it and we hope it will not be thought that this is a fit occasion to begin We are very glad to find that your Lordships are so sensible in your expressions of the Blood and Horrour of that Rebellion and it is without all question in His Majesties Power to do Justice upon it if your Lordships be willing that the Cessation and all Treaties with those bloody and unnatural Rebels be made void and that the prosecution of the War be settled in the two Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by the joynt advice of both Kingdoms and the King to assist and to do no Act to discountenance or molest them therein This we dare affirm to be more than a probable course for the remedying those mischiefs and preserving the remainder of His Majesties good Subjects there We cannot believe your Lordships will think it fit there can be any Agreement of Peace any respite from Hostility with such Creatures as are not fit to live no more than with Wolves or Tigers or any ravenous Beasts destroyers of mankind And we beseech you do not not think it must depend upon the condition of His Majesties other Kingdoms to revenge or not revenge God's Quarrel upon such perfiduous Enemies to the Gospel of Christ who have imbrued their hands in so much Protestant Blood but consider the Cessation that is made with them is for their advantage and rather a Protection then a Cessation of Acts of Hostility as if it had been all of their own contriving Arms Ammunition and all manner of Commodities may be brought unto them and they may furnish themselves during this Cessation and be assisted and protected in so doing that afterwards they may the better destroy the small remainder of his Majesties Protestant Subjects We beseech your Lordships in the bowels of Christian Charity and Compassion to so many poor Souls who must perish if the strength of that raging Adversary be not broken and in the Name of him who is the Prince of Peace who hates to be at Peace with such shedders of Blood give not your consents to the continuation of this Cessation of War in Ireland and less to the making of any Peace there till Justice have been fully executed upon the Actors of that accursed Rebellion Let not the Judgment of War within this Kingdom which God hath laid upon us for our Sins be encreased by so great a Sin as any Peace or Friendship with them whatsoever becomes of us if we must perish yet let us go to our Graves with that comfort that we have not made Peace with the Enemies of Christ yea even Enemies of mankind declared and unreconciled Enemies to our Religion and Nation let not our War be a hindrance to that War for we are sure that Peace will be a hindrance to our Peace We desire War there as much as we do Peace here for both we are willing to lay out our Estates our Lives and all that is dear unto us in this World and we have made Propositions unto your Lordships for both if you were pleased to agree unto them We can but look up to God Almighty beseech him to encline your hearts and casting our selves on him wait his good time for the return of our Prayers in settling a safe and happy Peace here and giving success to our Endeavours in the prosecution of the War of Ireland It had been used by the Commissioners during the Treaty that when Papers were delivered in of such length and so late at night that present particular Answers could not be given by agreement between themselves to accept the Answers the next day dated as of the day before although they were Treating of another Subject and these two last Papers concerning Ireland being of such great length and delivered about twelve of the clock at night when the Treaty in time was expiring so as no Answer could be given without such consent and agreement therefore the King's Commissioners delivered in this Paper 22. February YOur Lordships cannot expect a particular Answer from us this night to the two long Papers concerning Ireland delivered to us by your Lordships about twelve of the clock this night but since there are many particulars in those Papers to which if they had been before mentioned we could have given your Lordships full satisfaction and for that we presume your Lordships are very willing to
Commissioners should have the Power but for seven years yet We should not have it after those seven years nor at any time unless they and We could agree in it so much would they have gained by this seeming compliance in point of limitation of this Power to a time though not to that time of three years which We proposed But they justifie the Reasonableness of it for whereas Our Commissioners in their Paper to which this of theirs is applied as an Answer tell them that if the time for this Power be unlimited We and Our Posterity shall for ever part with Our peculiar Regall Power of being able to resist Our Enemies or protect Our good Subjects and with that undoubted and never-denied Right of the Crown to make War and Peace or ever more to have Jurisdiction over Our own Navy and Fleet at Sea the Command thereof being also a part of this great Power to be given to these Commissioners they answer plainly They cannot admit of this peculiar Regall Power which Our Commissioners mention to reside in Vs concerning the Militia and to make Peace and War or that it is otherwise to be exercised then by Authority from Vs and both Houses of the Parliament of England and the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively We approve of their ingenuity that now at the breaking off of the Treaty they tell Us in plain terms what they mean Though the Common-Law-books and Records of Parliament have mentioned that the sole Power of protecting the Subjects belongs to the King and that He alone hath Power to make Peace and War though it hath been the language of former Parliaments even of the last Parliament and at the beginning of this Parliament That the Power of Peace and War is in the King but if He will have Money from His Subjects to maintain the Wars He must have their Consents and though the universal consent and common Opinion heretofore hath gone accordingly yet they cannot admit thereof as to have been Our Right for the Answer is made to the assertion concerning Our Right And not admitting it it seems their Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy to defend Our Crown and Dignity and to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges and Authorities belonging to Us oblige them not And as they do not admit this Power in Right to have been in Us alone for the time past so neither will they admit it for the time to come in Us or Our Successors to be able to resist Our Enemies or protect Our Subjects or to make Peace or War but it must be by Authority from Vs and the two Houses and the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively They are to be associated in these Regal Powers and the Scepter and the Sword may in Pictures or Statues but are not in deed to be in the Kings hand alone Upon these grounds We wonder not that they would have the Navy and Fleet at Sea to be put into the hands of their Commissioners for seven years as the Militia for the Land and after the seven years to be commanded in such manner as they and We should agree and not otherwise for the say the Reasons are the same for them as for the Militia by Land It is a principal means they say of their security and We cannot find they think themselves to have any security if We and Our Successors have any Power But if We will part with Our Power wholly unto them We and Our Posterity shall be fully secured by the Affections of Our Subjects that is by the Lords and Commons now at VVestminster who in their sense represent all the People who by themselves during the Parliament or when they shall please to make any Recesses by their Commissioners during the Intervals will free Us from the burthen of the Militia and of Our Navy and so of protecting Our Subjects and will save Us the Charge of Our Navy because it is to be principally maintained by the free gift of the Subject out of Tonnage and Poundage and other Impositions upon Merchandise And having taken this care for Our Security suitable to all their Actions these three years last past they say that for security of those who have been with Vs in the War an Act of Oblivion is desired to be passed whereby all Our Subjects would have been put in one and the same condition and under the same protection with some Exceptions mentioned in the Propositions We are not willing to mention those Exceptions by which not only most of Our best Subjects who have been with Us in the War according to their Duties by express or general terms are excepted but all the Estates of some of them and a great part of the Estates of the rest of them for that very cause because they were with Us in the War are to be forfeited As for securing them by an Act of Oblivion they have less cause to desire it than they who propose it as being more secured by the Conscience of doing their Duties and the protection of the known Common Law of the Land if it might take place than any protection under the two Houses or their Commissioners for the Militia yet we were not unwilling for the security of all Our Subjects to have assented to an Act of Oblivion being willing as much as in Us lies to have made up these Breaches and buried the memory of these unhappy Divisions It was urged by Our Commissioners that according to the literal sense of the Propositions in the Powers given to the Commissioners for the Militia That Sheriffs and Justices of Peace and other legal Ministers could not raise the Posse Comitatus or Forces to suppress Riots without being liable to the interpretation of the Commissioners To this they answer That this is no part of the Militia to be exercised by the Commissioners but in executing of Justice and legal Process nor can be intended to be any disturbance but for the preservation of the Peace We shall admit that to be their meaning but it being by the Propositions made Treason in any who shall levy any Forces without Authority or consent of the Commissioners to the disturbance of the publick Peace it is apparent that the Sheriffs or Justices of Peace if they raise any Forces to suppress any tumultuous Assembly which it is possible some of the Commissioners may countenance or for executing of other legal Acts may not only be liable to the interpretation of being disturbers of the Publick Peace but feel the punishment of it And whereas they say That the Power given by the Propositions to the Commissioners for the Militia of both Kingdoms as a joynt Committee for the hearing and determining Civil Actions and Differences cannot be extended further than preservation of the Articles of the Peace to be made We conceive that a Court being thereby allowed to them for the hearing and determining of Civil matters for the preservation of
Debate like to prove wherein the most potent party had nothing of moment left to ask and the other nothing more to give so consequently how hopeless of mutual compliance without which a Settlement is impossible Besides if after my Concessions the two Houses should insist on those things from which I cannot depart how desperate would the Condition of these Kingdoms be when the most proper and approved Remedy should become ineffectual Being therefore fully resolved that I could neither in Conscience Honour or Prudence pass those Four Bills I only endeavoured to make the Reasons and Justice of my Denial appear to all the World as they do to me intending to give as little dissatisfaction to the two Houses of Parliament without betraying my own Cause as the matter would bear I was desirous to give my Answer of the 28. of December last to the Commissioners sealed as I had done others heretofore and sometimes at the desire of the Commissioners chiefly because when my Messages or Answers were publickly known before they were read in the Houses prejudicial interpretations were forced on them much differing and sometimes contrary to my meaning For example my Answer from Hampton-Court was accused of dividing the two Nations because I promised to give satisfaction to the Scots in all things concerning that Kingdom and this last suffers in a contrary sense by making me intend to interest Scotland in the Laws of this Kingdom then which nothing was nor is further from my thoughts because I took notice of the Scots Commissioners protesting against the Bills and Propositions as contrary to the Interests and Engagements of the two Kingdoms Indeed if I had not mentioned their dissent an Objection not without some probability might have been made against me both in respect the Scots are much concerned in the Bill for the Militia and in several other Propositions and my silence might with some justice seem to approve of it But the Commissioners refusing to receive my Answer sealed I upon the engagement of their and the Governour 's Honour that no other use should be made or notice taken of it than as if it had not been seen read and delivered it open unto them whereupon what hath since passed either by the Governour in discharging most of my Servants redoubling the Guards and restraining me of my former Liberty and all this as himself confest meerly out of his own dislike of my Answer notwithstanding his beforesaid Engagement or afterwards by the two Houses as the Governor affirms in confining me within the circuit of this Castle I appeal to God and the World whether my said Answer deserved the Reply of such proceedings besides the unlawfulness for Subjects to imprison their King That by the permission of Almighty God I am reduced to this sad condition as I no way repine so I am not without hope but that the same God will in due time convert the Afflictions into my Advantage In the mean time I am confident to bear these crosses with Patience and a great equality of Mind but by what means or occasion I am come to this Relapse in my Affairs I am utterly to seek especially when I consider that I have sacrificed to my two Houses of Parliament for the Peace of the Kingdom all but what is much more dear to me than my Life my Conscience and Honour desiring nothing more than to perform it in the most proper and natural way A Personal Treaty But that which makes me most at a loss is the remembring my signal Compliance with the Army and their Interests and of what importance my Compliance was to them and their often-repeated Professions and Engagements for my just Rights in general at Newmarket and Saint-Albans and their particular explanations of those generals by their Voted and revoted Proposals which I had reason to understand should be the utmost extremity would be expected from me and that in some things therein I should be eased herein appealing to the Consciences of some of the chiefest Officers in the Army if what I have said be not punctually true and how I have failed of their expectations or my professions to them I challenge them and the whole World to produce the least colour of Reason And now I would know what it is that is desired Is it Peace I have shewed the way being both willing and desirous to perform my part in it which is a just Compliance with all chief Interests Is it Plenty and Happiness they are the inseparable effects of Peace Is it Security I who wish that all men would forgive and forget like me have offered the Militia for my time Is it Liberty of Conscience He who wants it is most ready to give it Is it the right administration of Justice Officers of trust are committed to the choice of my two Houses of Parliament Is it frequent Parliaments I have legally fully concurr'd therewith Is it the Arrears of the Army Upon a Settlement they will certainly be payed with much ease but before there will be found much difficulty if not impossibility in it Thus all the World cannot but see my real and unwearied endeavours for Peace the which by the Grace of God I shall neither repent me of nor ever be slackned in notwithstanding My past present or future Sufferings But if I may not be heard let every one judge who it is that obstructs the good I would or might do What is it that men are afraid to hear from me It cannot be Reason at least none will declare themselves so unreasonable as to confess it and it can less be impertinent or unreasonable Discourses for thereby peradventure I might more justifie this my Restraint than the causers themselves can do so that of all wonders yet this is the greatest to me But it may be easily gathered how those men intend to govern who have used me thus And if it be my hard Fate to fall together with the Liberty of this Kingdom I shall not blush for my self but much lament the future Miseries of my People the which I shall still pray God to avert whatever becomes of me CHARLES R. Votes for a Treaty Die Veneris 28. Jul. 1648. Resolved THat a Treaty be had with the King in Person in the Isle of Wight by a Committee appointed by both Houses upon the Propositions presented to him at Hampton-Court and for the taking away of Wards and Liveries for settling of a safe and well-grounded Peace Die Mercurii 2. Aug. 1648. Resolved THat a Committee of both Houses be sent to his Majesty to acquaint him with their Resolutions to treat personally with his Majesty by a Committee of both Houses in such place as his Majesty shall make choice of in the Isle of Wight upon the Propositions presented at Hampton-Court and the taking away of Wards and Liveries for the settling of a safe and well-grounded Peace Which Treaty is resolved by the two Houses to be transacted with Honor Freedom and Safety
the Church of England as well by their personal Subscriptions as otherwise so attested and declared and which Himself in His Judgment and Conscience hath for so many years been and yet is perswaded to be at least of Apostolical Institution and Practice Truly His Majesty cannot but wonder what should be the reason of your great shiness and unwillingness to discover your minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence and for a final conclusion of this whole Dispute which His Majesty thinketh fit to shut up with this Paper He must plainly tell you That your endeavours to have given Him satisfaction in the Questions proposed would have added much in His opinion to the reputation of your Ingenuity in the whole undertaking it being not probable you should work much upon His Judgment whilst you are fearful to declare your own nor possible to relieve His Conscience but by a free discharge of yours Nevertheless His Majesty liketh well of your Prayer in the close of your Paper and thinketh you should do very well to joyn therewith your utmost possible endeavours towards the settling of Truth and a happy Peace in this unsettled Church and Kingdom THE END ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE POURTRAICTURE OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY IN HIS SOLITUDES and SUFFERINGS I. Vpon His MAJESTIES Calling this last PARLIAMENT THIS last Parliament I called not more by others advice and necessity of my Affairs than by my own choice and inclination who have always thought the right way of Parliaments most safe for my Crown as best pleasing to my People And altho I was not forgetful of those sparks which some mens distempers formerly studied to kindle in Parliaments which by forbearing to convene for some years I hoped to have extinguished yet resolving with My self to give all just satisfaction to modest and sober desires and to redress all publick Grievances in Church and State I hoped by my freedom and their moderation to prevent all misunderstandings and miscarriages in this In which as I feared affairs would meet with some Passion and Prejudice in other men so I resolved they should find least of them in My self not doubting but by the weight of Reason I should counterpoise the over-balancings of any Factions I was inded sorry to hear with what Partiality and Popular heat Elections were carried in many places yet hoping that the Gravity and Discretion of other Gentlemen would allay and fix the Commons to a due temperament guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health of all States and Kingdoms no man was better pleased with the convening of this Parliament than My self who knowing best the Largeness of my own Heart toward my Peoples good and just contentment pleased My self most in that good and firm understanding which would hence grow between Me and my People All Jealousies being laid aside My own and My Childrens Interests gave Me many obligations to seek and preserve the Love and welfare of my Subjects the only temporal Blessing that is left to the ambition of just Monarchs as their greatest Honour and Safety next Gods Protection I cared not to lessen My self in some things of my wonted Prerogative since I knew I could be no loser if I might gain but a recompence in my Subjects Affections I intended not only to oblige my Friends but mine Enemies also exceeding even the desires of those that were factiously discontented if they did but pretend to any modest and sober sense The Odium and offences which some mens Rigor or Remisness in Church and State had contracted upon my Government I resolved to have expiated by such Laws and regulations for the future as might not only rectify what was amiss in Practice but supply what was defective in the Constitution No man having a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in Truth Unity and Order than My self whom it most concerns both in Piety and Policy as knowing that No flames of civil Dissentions are more dangerous than those which make Religious pretensions the grounds of Factions I resolved to reform what I should by free and full advice in Parliament be oonvinced of to be amiss and to grant whatever my Reason and Conscience told Me was fit to be desired I wish I had kept My self within those bounds and not suffered my own Judgment to have been overborn in some things more by others importunities than their Arguments My confidence had less betrayed My self and my Kingdomes to those advantages which some men sought for who wanted nothing but Power and Occasions to do mischief But our Sins being ripe there was no preventing of Gods Justice from reaping that Glory in our Calamities which we robb'd him of in our Prosperity For Thou O Lord hast made us see that Resolutions of future Reforming do not always satisfie thy Justice nor prevent thy Vengeance for former miscarriages Our Sins have overlaid our Hopes Thou hast taught us to depend on thy Mercies to forgive not on our purpose to amend When Thou hast vindicated thy Glory by thy Judgments and hast shewed us how unsafe it is to offend Thee upon presumptions afterwards to please Thee then I trust thy Mercies will restore those Blessings to us which we have so much abused as to force Thee to deprive us of them For want of timely Repentance of our sins Thou givest us cause to repent of those remedies we too late apply Yet I do not repent of my calling this last Parliament because O Lord I did it with an upright intention to thy Glory and my peoples good The Miseries which have ensued upon Me and My Kingdoms are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us and may be yet through thy mercy preparative of us to future Blessings and better hearts to enjoy them O Lord tho Thou hast deprived us of many former comforts yet grant Me and My people the benefit of our afflictions and thy chastisements that thy rod as well as thy staff may comfort us Then shall we dare to account them the strokes not of an Enemy but a Father when thou givest us those humble affections that measure of Patience in Repentance which becomes thy Children I shall have no cause to repent the Miseries this Parliament hath occasioned when by them thou hast brought Me and My people unfeignedly to repent of the Sins we have committed Thy Grace is infinitely better with our Sufferings than our Peace could be with our Sins O thou soveraign Goodness and Wisdom who over-rulest all our Counsels over-rule also all our hearts That the worse things we suffer by thy Justice the better we may be by thy Mercy As our Sins have turned our Antidotes into poyson so let thy Grace turn our poysons into Antidotes As the Sins of our Peace disposed us to this unhappy War so let this War prepare us for thy blessed Peace That although I have but troublesom Kingdoms here yet I may
actions But Thou O Lord who hast in so remarkable a way avenged thy Servant suffer Me not to take any secret pleasure in it for as his death hath satisfied the Injury he did to Me so let Me not by it gratifie any Passion in Me lest I make thy vengeance to be mine and consider the affront against Me more than the sin against Thee Thou indeed without any desire or endeavour of Mine hast made his mischief to return on his own head and his violent dealing to come down on his own pate Thou hast pleaded my Cause even before the sons of men and taken the matter into thine own hands That men may know it was thy work and see that Thou Lord hast done it I do not I dare not say So let mine Enemies perish O Lord yea Lord rather give them Repentance Pardon and impunity if it be thy blessed will Let not thy Justice prevent the objects and opportunities of My Mercy yea let them live and amend who have most offended Me in so high a nature that I may have those to forgive who bear most proportion in their offences to those trespasses against thy Majesty which I hope thy Mercy hath forgiven Me. Lord lay not their sins who yet live to their charge for condemnation but to their Consciences for amendment Let the lightning of this thunderbolt which hath been so severe a punishment to one be a terror to all Discover to them their sin who know not they have done amiss and scare them from their sin that sin of malicious wickedness That preventing thy Judgments by their true Repentance they may escape the strokes of thine eternal Vengeance And do Thou O Lord establish the Throne of thy Servant in mercy and truth meeting together let My Crown ever flourish in righteousness and peace kissing each other Hear my Prayer O Lord who hast taught us to pray for to do good to and to love our Enemies for thy sake who hast prevented us with offertures of thy love even when we were thine enemies and hast sent thy Son Jesus Christ to die for us when we were disposed to crucisie him IX Vpon the listing and raising Armies against the KING I Find that I am at the same point and posture I was when they forced Me to leave White-hall what Tumults could not do an Army must which is but Tumults listed and enrolled to a better order but as bad an End My recess hath given them confidence that I may be conquered And so I easily may as to any outward strength which God knows is little or none at all But I have a Soul invincible through Gods grace enabling Me here I am sure to be Conqueror if God will give Me such a measure of Constancy as to fear him more than man and to love the inward peace of my Conscience before any outward tranquillity And must I be opposed with Force because they have not Reason wherewith to convince Me O my Soul be of good courage they confess their known weakness as to Truth and Justice who chuse rather to contend by Armies than by Arguments Is this the reward and thanks that I am to receive for those many Acts of Grace I have lately passed and for those many Indignities I have endured Is there no way left to make Me a Glorious KING but by my Sufferings It is hard and disputable choice for a King that loves his People and desires their love either to kill his own Subjects or to be killed by them Are the hazards and miseries of Civil War in the bowels of my most flourishing Kingdom the fruits I must now reap after Seventeen years living and Reigning among them with such a measure of Justice Peace Plenty and Religion as all Nations about either admired or envied Notwithstanding some Miscarriages in Government which might escape rather through ill counsel of some men driving on their private ends or the peevishness of others envying the Publick should be managed without them or the hidden and insuperable necessities of State than any propensity I hope of My self either to Injuriousness or Oppression Whose innocent blood during my Reign have I shed to satisfy my Lust Anger or Covetousness What Widows or Orphans tears can witness against Me the just cry of which must now be avenged with My own Blood For the hazards of War are equal nor doth the Cannon know any respect of Persons In vain is my Person excepted by a Parenthesis of Words when so many hands are Armed against Me with Swords God knows how much I have studied to see what Ground of Justice is alledged for this War against Me that so I might by giving just satisfaction either prevent or soon end so unnatural a motion which to many men seems rather the production of a surfeit of Peace and wantonness of minds or of private discontents Ambition and Faction which easily find or make causes of quarrel than any real obstruction of publick Justice or Parliamentary Priviledg But this is pretended and this I must be able to avoid and answer before God in my own Conscience however some men are not willing to believe Me lest they should condemn themselves When I first withdrew from White-hall to see if I could allay the Insolency of the Tumults of the not suppressing of which no account in Reason can be given where an orderly Guard was granted but only to oppress both Mine and the Two Houses freedom of declaring and voting according to every mans Conscience what obstructions of Justice were there further than this that what seemed just to one man might not seem so to another Whom did I by power protect against the Justice of Parliament That some men withdrew who feared the partiality of their tryal warned by my Lord of Strafford's death while the Vulgar threatned to be their Oppressors and Judgers of their Judges was from that instinct which is in all creatures to preserve themselves If any others refused to appear where they evidently saw the current of Justice and Freedom so stopped and troubled by the Rabble that their lawful Judges either durst not come to the Houses or not declare their sense with liberty and safety it cannot seem strange to any reasonable man when the sole exposing them to the publick Odium was enough to ruine them before their Cause could be heard or tried Had not factious Tumults overborn the Freedom and Honor of the Two Houses had they asserted their Justice against them and made the way open for all the Members quietly to come and declare their Consciences I know no man so dear to Me whom I had the least inclination to advise either to withdraw himself or deny appearing upon their Summons to whose Sentence according to Law I think every Subject bound to stand Distempers indeed were risen to so great a height for want of timely repressing the vulgar Insolencies that the greatest guilt of those which were Voted and demanded as Delinquents was
than a mocking and tempting of God to desire him to hinder those mischiefs whose occasions and remedies are in our own power it being every mans sin not to avoid the one and not to use the other There are ways enough to repair the Breaches of the State without the Ruines of the Church as I would be a Restorer of the one so I would not be an Oppressor of the other under the pretence of Publick Debts The occasions contracting them were bad enough but such a discharging of them would be much worse I pray God neither I nor Mine may be accessary to either To Thee O Lord do I address my Prayer beseeching Thee to pardon the rashness of my Subjects Swearings and to quicken their sense and observation of those just moral and indispensable bonds which thy Word and the Laws of this Kingdom have laid upon their Consciences From which no pretensions of Piety and Reformation are sufficient to absolve them or to engage them to any contrary practices Make them at length seriously to consider that nothing Violent and Injurious can be Religious Thou allowest no mans committing Sacriledg under the zeal of abhorring Idols Suffer not Sacrilegious designs to have the countenance of Religious ties Thou hast taught us by the wisest of Kings that it is a snare to take things that are holy and after Vows to make enquiry Ever keep thy Servant from consenting to Perjurious and Sacrilegious Rapines that I may not have the brand and curse to all posterity of robbing Thee and Thy Church of what thy Bounty hath given us and thy Clemency hath accepted from us wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion Tho my Treasures are exhausted my Revenues diminished and my Debts encreased yet never suffer Me to be tempted to use such profane Reparations lest a Coal from thine Altar set such a fire on my Throne and Conscience as will be hardly quenched Let not the Debts and Engagements of the Publick which some mens Folly and Prodigality hath contracted be an occasion to impoverish thy Church The State may soon recover by thy blessing of Peace upon us the Church is never likely in Times where the Charity of most men is grown so cold and their Religion so illiberal Continue to those that serve Thee and thy Church all those Incouragements which by the will of the pious Donors and the Justice of the Laws are due unto them and give them grace to deserve and use them aright to thy Glory and the relief of the Poor That thy Priests may be cloathed with Righteousness and the Poor may be satisfied with bread Let not Holy things be given to Swine nor the Churches bread to Dogs rather let them go about the City grin like a Dog and grudge that they are not satisfied Let those Sacred morsels which some men already by violence devoured never digest with them nor theirs Let them be as Naboth's Vineyard to Ahab gall in their mouths rottenness to their Names a moth to their Families and a sting to their Consciences Break in sunder O Lord all violent and Sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandied together against the Church and State that the Folly of such may be manifest to all men and proceed no further But so favour My righteous dealing O Lord that in the Mercies of Thee the Most High I may never miscarry XV. Vpon the many Jealousies raised and Scandals cast upon the KING to stir up the People against Him IF I had not My own Innocency and Gods Protection it were hard for Me to stand out against those stratagems and conflicts of Malice which by Falsities seek to oppress the Truth and by Jealousies to supply the defect of real causes which might seem to justifie so unjust Engagements against Me. And indeed the worst effects of open hostility come short of these Designs For I can more willingly lose my Crowns than my Credit nor are my Kingdoms so dear to Me as my Reputation and Honour Those must have a period with my Life but these may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality when I am dead and gone A good name being the embalming of Princes and a sweet consecration of them to an Eternity of Love and Gratitude among Posterity Those foul and false Aspersions were secret engines at first employed against my Peoples love of Me that undermining their opinion and value of Me My Enemies and theirs too might at once blow up their Affections and batter down their Loyalty Wherein yet I thank God the detriment of my Honour is not so afflictive to Me as the sin and danger of my Peoples Souls whose eyes once blinded with such mists of Suspicions they are soon misled into the most desperate precipices of actions wherein they do not only not consider their Sin and Danger but glory in their zealous adventures while I am rendred to them so fit to be destroyed that many are ambitious to merit the name of my Destroyers imagining they then fear God most when they least honour their King I thank God I never found but my Pity was above my Anger nor have my Passions ever so prevailed against Me as to exclude my most compassionate Prayers for them whom devout Errors more than their own Malice have betrayed to a most Religious Rebellion I had the Charity to interpret that most part of my Subjects fought against my supposed Errors not my Person and intended to mend Me not to end Me. And I hope that God pardoning their Errors hath so far accepted and answered their good Intentions that as he hath yet preserved Me so he hath by these Afflictions prepared Me both to do Him better service and My people more good than hitherto I have done I do not more willingly forgive their seductions which occasioned their loyal Injuries than I am ambitious by all Princely merits to redeem them from their unjust Suspicions and reward them for their good Intentions I am too conscious to My own Affections towards the generality of my People to suspect theirs to Me nor shall the Malice of my Enemies ever be able to deprive Me of the comfort which that confidence gives Me. I shall never gratifie the spightfulness of a few with any sinister thoughts of all their Allegiance whom Pious frauds have seduced The worst some mens Ambition can do shall never perswade Me to make so bad interpretations of most of my Subjects actions who possibly may be Erroneous but not Heretical in point of Loyalty The sense of the Injuries done to my Subjects is as sharp as those done to My self our welfares being inseperable in this only they suffer more than My self that they are animated by some Seducers to injure at once both themselves and Me. For this is not enough to the Malice of my Enemies that I be afflicted but it must be done by such instruments that my Afflictions grieve Me not more than this doth that
Gods Tribunal or their own Consciences where they are more afraid to encounter those many pregnant Reasons both from Law Allegiance and all true Christian grounds which conflict with and accuse them in their own thoughts than they oft were in a desperate bravery to fight against those Forces which sometimes God gave Me. Whose condition conquered and dying I make no question but is infinitely more to be chosen by a sober man that duly values his Duty his Soul and Eternity beyond the enjoyments of this present Life than the most triumphant glory wherein their and Mine Enemies supervive who can hardly avoid to be daily tormented by that horrid guilt wherewith their suspitious or now-convincted Consciences do pursue them especially since they and all the World have seen how false and un-intended those pretensions were which they first set forth as the only plausible tho not justifiable grounds of raising a War and continuing it thus long against Me and the Laws established in whose safety and preservation all honest men think the welfare of their Country doth consist For and with all which it is far more honourable and comfortable to suffer than to prosper in their ruine and subversion I have often prayed that all on My side might joyn true Piety with the sense of their Loyalty and be as faithful to God and their own Souls as they were to Me That the defects of the one might not blast the endeavours of the other Yet I cannot think that any shews or truth of Piety on the other side were sufficient to dispence with or expiate the defects of their Duty and Loyalty to Me which have so pregnant convictions on mens Consciences that even profaner men are moved by the sense of them to venture their lives for Me. I never had any Victory which was without My Sorrow because it was on mine own Subjects who like Absolom died many of them in their sin And yet I never suffered any Defeat which made Me despair of Gods Mercy and Defence I never desired such Victories as might serve to conquer but only restore the Laws and Liberties of My People which I saw were extremely oppressed together with My Rights by those men who were impatient of any just restraint When Providence gave Me or denied Me Victory My desire was neither to boast of My Power nor to charge God foolishly who I believe at last would make all things to work together for My good I wished no greater advantages by the War than to bring My Enemies to Moderation and My Friends to Peace I was afraid of the temptation of an absolute Conquest and never prayed more for Victory over others than over My self When the first was denied the second was granted Me which God saw best for Me. The different events were but the methods of Divne Justice by contrary winds to winnow us That by punishing our Sins he might purge them from us and by dedeferring Peace he might prepare us more to prize and better to use so great a Blessing My often Messages for Peace shewed that I delighted not in War as my former Concessions sufficiently testified how willingly I would have prevented it and my total unpreparedness for it how little I intended it The conscience of my Innocency forbade Me to fear a War but the love of My Kingdoms commanded Me if possible to avoid it I am guilty in this War of nothing but this That I gave such advantages to some men by confirming their Power which they knew not to use with that modesty and gratitude which became their Loyalty and My Confidence Had I yielded less I had been opposed less had I denied more I had been more obeyed 'T is now too late to review the Occasions of the War I wish only a happy Conclusion of so unhappy Beginnings The inevitable fate of our Sins was no doubt such as would no longer suffer the Divine Justice to be quiet we having conquered his Patience are condemned by mutual conquerings to destroy one another for the most prosperous Successes on either side impair the welfare of the whole Those Victories are still miserable that leave our Sins un-subdued flushing our Pride and animating to continue Injuries Peace it self is not desirable till Repentance have prepared us for it When we fight more against our selves and less against God we shall cease fighting one against another I pray God these may all meet in our hearts and so dispose us to an happy conclusion of these Civil Wars that I may know better to obey God and govern my People and they may learn better to obey both God and Me. Nor do I desire any man should be further subject to Me than all of us may be subject to God O my God make Me content to be overcome when Thou wilt have it so Teach Me the noblest Victory over My self and my Enemies by Patience which was Christs Conquest and may well become a Christian King Between both thy hands the right sometimes supporting and the left afflicting fashion us to that frame of Piety Thou likest best Forgive the Pride that attends our prosperous and the Repinings which follow our disastrous events when going forth in our own strength Thou withdrawest thine and goest not forth with our Armies Be Thou all when we are something and when we are nothing that Thou mayest have the Glory when we are in a victorious or inglorious condition Thou O Lord knowest how hard it is for Me to suffer so much evil from my Subjects to whom I intend nothing but good and I cannot but suffer in those Evils which they compel Me to inflict upon them punishing My self in their Punishments Since therefore both in conquering and being conquered I am still a Sufferer I beseech Thee to give Me a double portion of thy Spirit and that measure of Grace which only can be sufficient for Me. As I am most afflicted so make Me most reformed that I may be not only happy to see an end of these Civil Distractions but a chief instrument to restore and establish a firm and blessed Peace to My Kingdoms Stir up in all parties pious ambitions to overcome each other with Reason Moderation and such Self-denial as becomes those who consider that our mutual Divisions are our common Distractions and the Vnion of all is every good mans chiefest Interest If O Lord as for the sins of our Peace Thou hast brought upon us the miseries of War so for the sins of War Thou shouldst see fit still to deny us the blessing of Peace and so keep us in a circulation of Miseries yet give Me thy Servant and all Loyal tho afflicted Subjects to enjoy that Peace which the world can neither give to us nor take from us Impute not to Me the Blood of My Subjects which with infinite unwillingness and grief hath been shed by Me in My just and necessary Defence but wash Me with that precious Blood which hath been shed for Me
and encrease the holy fire of thy Graces on the Altar of my Heart whence the sacrifice of Prayers and incense of Praises might be duly offered up to Thee Yet O Thou that breakest not the bruised Reed nor quenchest the smoaking Flax do not despise the weakness of my Prayers nor the smotherings of my Soul in this uncomfortable loneness to which I am constrained by some mens uncharitable denials of those helps which I much want and no less desire O let the hardness of Their Hearts occasion the softnings of mine to Thee and for them Let their Hatred kindle my Love let their unreasonable denials of my Religious desires the more excite my Prayers to Thee Let their inexorable deafness encline thine ear to Me who art a God easy to be entreated Thine Ear is not heavy that it cannot nor thy Heart hard that it will not hear nor thy Hand shortned that it cannot help Me thy desolate Suppliant Thou permittest men to deprive Me of those outward means which Thou hast appointed in thy Church but they cannot debar Me from the communion of that inward Grace which Thou alone breathest into humble hearts O make Me such and Thou wilt teach Me Thou wilt hear Me Thou wilt help Me the broken and contrite heart I know Thou wilt not despise Thou O Lord canst at once make Me thy Temple thy Priest thy Sacrifice and thine Altar while from an humble Heart I alone daily offer up in holy Meditations fervent Prayers and unfeigned Tears my self to Thee who preparest Me for Thee dwellest in Me and acceptest of Me. Thou O Lord didst cause by secret supplies and miraculous infusions that the handful of meal in the vessel should not spend nor the little Oyl in the cruise fail the Widow during the time of drought and dearth O look on my Soul which as a Widow is now desolate and forsaken let not those saving truths I have formerly learned now fail my memory nor the sweet effusions of thy Spirit which I have sometime felt now be wanting to my Heart in this Famine of ordinary and wholsome food for the refreshing of my Soul Which yet I had rather chuse than to feed from those hands who mingle my bread with ashes and my wine with gall rather tormenting than teaching Me whose mouths are proner to bitter Reproaches of Me than to hearty Prayers for Me. Thou knowest O Lord of Truth how oft they wrest thy Holy Scriptures to my destruction which are clear for their Subjection and my Preservation O let it not be to their damnation Thou knowest how some men under colour of long Prayers have sought to devour the houses of their Brethren their King and their God O let not those mens Balms break my head nor their Cordials oppress my heart I will evermore pray against their Wickedness From the poison under their tongues from the snares of their lips from the fire and the swords of their words ever deliver Me O Lord and all those Loyal and Religious hearts who desire and delight in the prosperity of my Soul and who seek by their Prayers to relieve this Sadness and Solitude of thy Servant O my King and my God XXV Penitential Meditations and Vows in the KING's Solitude at Holdenby GIve ear to my words O Lord consider my Meditation and hearken to the voice of my cry my King and my God for unto Thee will I pray I said in mine hast I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes nevertheless Thou hearest the voice of my supplication when I cry unto Thee If Thou Lord shouldst be extream to mark what is done amiss who can abide it But there is mercy with Thee that Thou mayest be feared therefore shall sinners fly unto Thee I acknowledg my Sins before Thee which have the aggravation of my Condition the eminency of my Place adding weight to my Offences Forgive I beseech Thee my personal and my peoples Sins which are so far Mine as I have not improved The power thou gavest Me to thy Glory and my Subjects good Thou hast now brought Me from the glory and freedom of a King to be a Prisoner to my own Subjects justly O Lord as to thy over-ruling hand because in many things I have rebelled against Thee Tho Thou hast restrained my Person yet enlarge my Heart to Thee and thy Grace towards Me. I come far shart of David's Piety yet since I may equal David's Afflictions give Me also the Comforts and the sure Mercies of David Let the penitent sense I have of my Sins be an evidence to Me that Thou hast pardoned them Let not the Evils which I and my Kingdoms have suffered seem little unto Thee the Thou hast not punished us according to our Sins Turn Thee O Lord unto Me have mercy upon Me for I am desolate and afflicted The sorrows of my Heart are enlarged O bring Thou Me out of my Troubles Hast Thou forgotten to be gracious and shut up thy loving kindness in displeasure O remember thy Compassions of old and thy loving kindnesses which have been for many generations I had utterly fainted if I had not believed to see thy Goodness in the land of the living Let not the sins of our Prosperity deprive us of the benefit of thy Afflictions Let this fiery trial consume the dross which in long Peace and Plenty we had contracted Tho Thou continuest Miseries yet withdraw not thy Grace what is wanting of Prosperity make up in Patience and Repentance And if thy Anger be not yet to be turned away but thy hand of Justice must be stretched out still let it I beseech Thee be against Me and my Fathers house as for these Sheep what have they done Let my Sufferings satiate the malice of mine and thy Churches Enemies But let their Cruelty never exceed the measure of my Charity Banish from Me all thoughts of Revenge that I may not lose the reward nor Thou the glory of my Patience As Thou givest Me a heart to forgive them so I beseech Thee do Thou forgive what they have done against Thee and Me. And now O Lord as Thou hast given Me an heart to pray unto Thee so hear and accept this Vow which I make before Thee If Thou wilt in mercy remember Me and my Kingdoms in continuing the light of thy Gospel and setling thy true Religion among us In restoring to us the benefit of the Laws and the due execution of Justice In suppressing the many Schisms in Church and Factions in State If Thou wilt restore Me and mine to the ancient Rights and Glory of my Predecessors If Thou wilt turn the hearts of my People to Thy self in Piety to Me in Loyalty and to one another in Charity If Thou wilt quench the flames and withdraw the fewel of these Civil Wars If Thou wilt bless us with the freedom of publick Counsels and deliver the Honour of Parliaments from the insolency of the Vulgar If Thou wilt keep Me from the
great offence of enacting any thing against my Conscience and especially from consenting to Sacrilegious Rapines and spoilings of thy Church If Thou wilt restore Me to a capacity to glorifie Thee in doing good both to the Church and State Then shall my Soul praise Thee and magnifie thy Name before my People Then shall thy Glory be dearer to Me than my Crowns and the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power be my chiefest care Then will I rule My People with Justice and My Kingdoms with Equity To thy more immediate hand shall I ever owe as the rightful Succession so the merciful Restauration of My Kingdoms and the glory of them If Thou wilt bring Me again with Peace Safety and Honour to my chiefest City and My Parliament If Thou wilt again put the Sword of Justice into My hand to punish and protect Then will I make all the world to see and my very Enemies to enjoy the benefit of this Vow and Resolution of Christian Charity which I now make unto Thee O Lord. As I do freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended Me in any kind so my hand shall never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to Me. We have been mutually punished in our unnatural Divisions for thy sake O Lord and for the love of my Redeemer have I purposed this in my heart That I will use all means in the ways of Amnestie and Indemnity which may most fully remove all Fears and bury all Jealousies in forgetfulness Let thy Mercies be toward Me and Mine as my resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward my People Hear my Prayer O Lord which goeth not out of feigned lips Blessed be God who hath not turned away my Prayer nor taken his Mercy from Me. O my Soul commit thy way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass But if Thou wilt not restore Me and Mine what am I that I should charge Thee foolishly Thou O Lord hast given and thou hast taken Blessed be thy Name May my People and thy Church be happy if not by Me yet without Me. XXVI Vpon the Armies Surprizal of the KING at Holdenby and the ensuing Distractions in the Two Houses the Army and the City WHat part God will have Me now to act or suffer in this new and strange scene of affairs I am not much solicitous some little practice will serve that man who only seeks to represent a part of Honesty and Honour This surprize of Me tells the world that a KING cannot be so low but he is considerable adding weight to that Party where he appears This motion like others of the Times seems eccentrick and irregular yet not well to be resisted or quieted Better swim down such a stream than in vain to strive against it These are but the struglings of those Twins which lately one Womb enclosed the younger striving to prevail against the elder what the Presbyterians have hunted after the Independents now seek to catch for themselves So impossible is to for lines to be drawn from the Center and not to divide from each other so much the wider by how much they go farther from the point of union That the Builders of Babel should from Division fall fall to Confusion is no wonder but for those that pretend to build Jerusalem to divide their tongues and hands is but an ill omen and sounds too like the fury of those Zealots whose intestine bitterness and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatal destruction of that City Well may I change My Keepers and Prison but not my captive Condition only with this hope of bettering that those who are so much professed Patrons for the Peoples Liberties cannot be utterly against the Liberty of their KING What they demand for their own Consciences they cannot in reason deny to Mine In this they seem more ingenuous than the Presbyterian Rigor who sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to Laws are become the greatest Exactors of other mens submission to their novel injunctions before they are stamped with the Authority of Laws which they cannot well have without My Consent 'T is a great argument that the Independents think themselves manumitted from their Rivals service in that they carry on a business of such consequence as the assuming My Person into the Armies custody without any Commission but that of their own Will and Power Such as will thus adventure on a KING must not be thought over-modest or timorous to carry on any design they have a mind to Their next motion menaces and scares both the Two Houses and the City which soon after acting over again that former part of tumultuary motions never questioned punished or repented must now suffer for both and see their former Sin in the glass of the present Terrors and Distractions No man is so blind as not to see herein the hand of Divine Justice they that by Tumults first occasioned the raising of Armies must now be chastened by their own Army for new Tumults So hardly can men be content with one sin but add sin to sin till the latter punish the former Such as were content to see Me and many Members of both Houses driven away by the first unsuppressed Tumults are now forced to fly to an Army or defend themselves against them But who can unfold the riddle of some mens Justice The Members of both Houses who at first withdrew as My self was forced to do from the rudeness of the Tumults were counted Desertors and outed of their Places in Parliament such as stayed then and enjoyed the benefit of the Tumults were asserted for the only Parliament-men Now the Fliers from and Forsakers of their Places carry the Parliamentary power along with them complain highly against the Tumults and vindicate themselves by an Army such as remained and kept their stations are looked upon as Abettors of tumultuary insolencies and betrayers of the freedom and honour of Parliament Thus is Power above all Rule Order and Law where men look more to present Advantages than their Consciences and the unchangeable rules of Justice while they are Judges of others they are forced to condemn themselves Now the Plea against Tumults holds good the Authors and Abettors of them are guilty of prodigious Insolencies whenas before they were counted as Friends and necessary Assistants I see Vengeance pursues and overtakes as the Mice and Rats are said to have done a Bishop in Germany them that thought to have escaped and fortified themselves most impregnably against it both by their Multitude and Compliance Whom the Laws cannot God will punish by their own Crimes and hands I cannot but observe this Divine Justice yet with sorrow and pity for I always wished so well to Parliament and City that I was sorry to see them do or suffer any thing unworthy such great and considerable Bodies in this Kingdom I was glad to
see them only scared and humbled not broken by that shaking I never had so ill a thought of those Cities as to despair of their Loyalty to Me which Mistakes might eclipse but I never believed Malice had quite put out I pray God the Storm be yet wholly passed over them upon whom I look as Christ did sometime over Jerusalem as objects of My Prayers and Tears with compassionate Grief foreseeing those severer scatterings which will certainly befall such as wantonly refuse to be gathered to their Duty fatal blindness frequently attending and punishing wilfulness so that men shall not be able at last to prevent their Sorrows who would not timely repent of their Sins nor shall they be suffered to enjoy the Comforts who securely neglect the Counsels belonging to their Peace They will find that Brethren in iniquity are not far from becoming insolent Enemies there being nothing harder than to keep ill men long in one mind Nor is it possible to gain a fair period for those motions which go rather in a round and circle of Fancy than in a right line of Reason tending to the Law the only Center of publick consistency whither I pray God at last bring all sides Which will easily be done when we shall fully see how much more happy we are to be subject to the known Laws than to the various Wills of any men seem they never so plausible at first Vulgar compliance with any illegal and extravagant ways like violent motions in Nature soon grows weary of it self and ends in a refractory sullenness Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes For the Army which is so far excusable as they act according to Soldiers Principles and Interests demanding Pay and Indemnity I think it necessary in order to the Publick Peace that they should be satisfied as far as is just no man being more prone to consider them than My self tho they have fought against Me yet I cannot but so far esteem that Valour and Gallantry they have some time shewed as to wish I may never want such men to maintain My self My Laws and My Kingdoms in such a Peace as wherein they may enjoy their share and proportion as much as any men But Thou O Lord who art perfect Vnity in a Sacred Trinity in Mercy behold those whom thy Justice hath divided Deliver Me from the strivings of my People and make Me to see how much they need my Prayers and Pity who agreed to fight against Me and yet are now ready to fight against one another to the continuance of my Kingdoms Distractions Discover to all sides the ways of Peace from which they have swerved which consists not in the divided Wills of Parties but in the joynt and due observation of the Laws Make Me willing to go whither Thou wilt lead Me by thy Providence and be Thou ever with Me that I may see thy Constancy in the worlds variety and Changes Make Me even such as Thou wouldst have Me that I may at last enjoy that Safety and Tranquillity which Thou alone canst give Me. Divert I pray Thee O Lord thy heavy Wrath justly hanging over those populous Cities whose Plenty is prone to add fewel to their Luxury their Wealth to make them wanton their Multitudes tempting them to Security and their Security exposing them to unexpected Miseries Give them eyes to see hearts to consider wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to thy Glory and the publick Peace lest their Calamity come upon them as an armed man Teach them that they cannot want Enemies who abound in Sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and un-destroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against Thee and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against Me. Their Sins exposing them to thy Justice their Riches to others Injuries their Number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion Tho they have with much forwardness helped to destroy Me yet let not my Fall be their Ruine Let Me not so much consider either what they have done or I have suffered chiefly at first by them as to forget to imitate my crucified Redeemer to plead their Ignorance for their Pardon and in my dying extremities to pray to Thee O Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did The tears they have denied Me in my saddest condition give them grace to bestow upon themselves who the less they weep for Me the more cause they have to weep for themselves O let not my Blood be upon them and their Children whom the Fraud and Faction of some not the Malice of all have excited to crucifie Me. But Thou O Lord canst and wilt as Thou didst my Redeemer both exalt and perfect Me by my Sufferings which have more in them of thy Mercy than of mans Cruelty or thy own Justice XXVII To the PRINCE of Wales SON if these Papers with some others wherein I have set down the private reflections of My Conscience and My most impartial thoughts touching the chief passages which have been most remarkable or disputed in My late Troubles come to Your hands to whom they are chiefly design'd they may be so far useful to You as to state Your Judgment aright in what hath passed whereof a Pious is the best use can be made and they may also give You some directions how to remedy the present Distempers and prevent if God will the like for time to come It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of My long Restraint when I find My leisure and Solitude have produced something worthy of My self and useful to You that neither You nor any other may hereafter measure My Cause by the Success nor My Judgment of things by My Misfortunes which I count the greater by far because they have so far lighted upon You and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as My self and of whose unmerited Sufferings I have a greater sense than of Mine own But this advantage of Wisdom You have above most Princes that You have begun and now spent some years of Discretion in the experience of Troubles and exercise of Patience wherein Piety and all Virtues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in Winter than in the warmth and serenity of times or amidst those Delights which usually attend Princes Courts in times of Peace and Plenty which are prone either to root up all Plants of true Virtue and Honour or to be contented only with some Leaves and withering Formalities of them without any real Fruits such as tend to the Publick good for which Princes should always remember they are born and by Providence designed The evidence of which different Education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam the one prepared by many Afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other softned
by the unparallel'd prosperity of Solomon's Court and so corrupted to the great diminution both for Peace Honour and Kingdom by those Flatteries which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies are from Fruit in Summer whom Adversity like cold weather drives away I had rather You should be Charles le Bon than le Grand Good than Great I hope God hath designed You to be both having so early put You into that exercise of his Graces and Gifts bestowed upon You which may best weed out all vicious inclinations and dispose You to those Princely Endowments and Employments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place You. With God I would have You begin and end who is King of Kings the Soveraign Disposer of the Kingdoms of the world who pulleth down one and setteth up another The best Government and highest Soveraignty You can attain to is to be subject to Him that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in your Heart The true Glory of Princes consists in advancing God's Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good also in the dispensation of Civil Power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace Piety will make You prosperous at least it will keep You from being miserable nor is he much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own Soul at last To which center of true Happiness God I trust hath and will graciously direct all these black lines of Affliction which he hath been pleased to draw on Me and by which he hath I hope drawn Me nearer to Himself You have already tasted of that Cup whereof I have liberally drank which I look upon as God's Physick having that in Healthfulness which it wants in Pleasure Above all I would have You as I hope You are already well grounded and setled in your Religion the best Profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which You have been educated Yet I would have your own Judgment and Reason now seal to that sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens Custom or Tradition which You profess In this I charge You to persevere as coming nearest to God's Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little Amendment which I have other-where expressed and often offered tho in vain Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdoms Peace when God shall bring You to them For I have observed that the Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights When some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for Peace and Patience they cry out Zeal So that unless in this point You be well setled You shall never want temptations to destroy You and Yours under pretensions of Reforming matters of Religion for that seems even to worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst Designs Where besides the Novelty which is taking enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward to an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought Zealous hoping to cover those Irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your Judgment and the Church well setled Your partial adhering as Head to any one side gains You not so great advantages in some men hearts who are prone to be of their King's Religion as it loseth You in others who think themselves and their profession first despised then persecuted by You. Take such a course as may either with Calmness and Charity quite remove the seeming differences and offences by impartiality or so order affairs in point of Power that You shall not need to fear or flatter any Faction For if ever You stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie You are undone The Serpent will devour the Dove You may never expect less of Loyalty Justice or Humanity than from those who engage into Religious Rebellion Their Interest is always made God's under the colours of Piety ambitious Policies march not only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy You may hear from them Jacob's voice but You shall feel they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable than the Presbyterian Faction in England for many years so compliant they were to publick Order nor indeed was their Party great either in Church or State as to mens Judgments But as soon as Discontents drave men into Sidings as ill Humors fall to the disaffected part which causes Inflammations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that Side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till Time and Military success discovering to each their peculiar Advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of Uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of Profits and Preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to You in matters which concern Religion and the Churches Peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms which seem at first but as a hand-breadth yet by Seditious Spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heaven When You have done Justice to God Your own Soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of Truth and Unity in Religion the next main hinge on which Your Prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Justice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which You are rightly Heir are the most excellent Rules You can Govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects Industry Liberty and Happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves whose Subjection as it preserves their Property Peace and Safety so it will never diminish Your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of their Industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge Your head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole Body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the Head but a necessary debilitation and Ruin Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting
same effect by the blessing of God which was often found in His Sacred Touch when living The Malice of His Enemies ended not with His Life For when His Body was carried to Saint James's to be opened they directed their Empericks to search for such Symptomes as might disgrace His Person or His Posterity But herein they were prevented by an honest Intruder who gave a true account of His sound and excellent Temperament Being imbalmed and laid in a Coffin of Lead to be seen for some days by the People at length upon Wednesday the seventh of February it was delivered to four of His Servants Herbert Mildmay Preston and Joyner who with some others in mourning equipage attended the Herse that night to Windsore and placed it in the Room which was formerly the Kings Bed-chamber Next day it was removed into the Deans Hall which was hung with black and made dark and Lights were set burning round the Herse About three afternoon the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Harford the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey and the Bishop of London others that were sent to refusing that last Service to the best of Princes came thither with two Votes passed that Morning whereby the ordering of the King's Burial was committed to the Duke provided that the Expences thereof exceeded not five hundred pounds This Order they sheved to Colonel Whichcot the Governor of the Castle desiring that the Interrment might be in Saint George's Chappel and according to the form of the Common-Prayer The latter Request the Governour denied saying That it was improbable the Parliament would permit the use of what they had so solemnly abolished and therein destroy their own Act. The Lords replied That there was a difference betwixt destroying their own Act and dispensing with it and that no Power so binds its own hands as to disable it self in some cases But all prevailed not The Governour had caused an ordinary Grave to be digged in the body of the Church of Windsore for the Interment of the Corps which the Lords disdaining found means by the direction of an honest man one of the old Knights to use an artifice to discover a Vault in the middle of the Quire by the hollow sound they might perceive in knocking with a Staff upon that place that so it might seem to be their own accidental finding out and no person receive blame for the discovery This place they caused to be opened and entring saw one large Coffin of Lead in the middle of the Vanlt covered with a Velvet Pall and a lesser on one side supposed to be Henry the Eighth and His beloved Queen Jane Saint-Maure on the other side was room left for another probably intended for Queen Katherine Parre who survived Him where they thought fit to lay the King Hither the Herse was born by the Officers of the Garrison the four Lords bearing up the Corners of the Velvet Pall and the Bishop of London following And in this manner was this Great King upon Friday the ninth of February about three afternoon silently and without other Solemnity than of Sighs and Tears committed to the Earth the Velvet Pall being thrown into the Vault over the Coffin to which was fastened an Inscription in Lead of these words KING CHARLES 1648. CAROLI Primi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitaphium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SIstas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Nè forsan temeres sacros sepulchri Augusti Cineres Repôc est In Terrae Gremio Decor Stupórque Humani Generis Senex Infans Prudens scilicet Innocésque Princeps Regni Praesidium Ruina Regni Vitâ Praesidium Ruina Morte Quem Regem potiùs Patrémve dicam O Patrem priùs deinde Regem Regem quippe Suî Patrémque Regni Hic Donúmque Dei DeÃque Cura Quem Vitáque refert refértque Morte Ringente Satanâ Canente Coelo Diro in Pegmate Gloriae Theatro Et Christi Cruce Victor Securi Baptistae emicuit Ruina Felix Quâ Divum Carolus secutus Agnum Et postliminiò domum vocatus Primaevae Patriae fit Inquilinus Sic Lucis priùs Hesperus Cadentis Resplendet modò Phosphorus Reversae Hic Vindex Fidei sacer Vetustae Cui par est nihil nihil secundum Naturae Typus absolutioris Fortunae Domitor ferendo suae Qui quantum Calicis bibit tremendi Tatundem sibi Gloriae reportat Regum Maximus unicúsque Regum In quo Res minima est fuisse Regem Solus qui superâ locatus Arce Vel Vitâ poterit frui priore Quum sint Relliquiae Cadaver Umbra Tam sacri Capitis vel ipsa sacra Ipsis Eulogiis coinquinata Quiaeque ipsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prophanat Sistas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Tho. Pierce D. D. Coll. Magd. apud Oxon. Praeses An Elegy upon the Death of Our Dread Sovereign Lord King CHARLES the MARTYR COme come let 's Mourn all eyes that see this Day Melt into Showts and weep your selves away O that each private head could yield a Floud Of Tears whil'st Britain's Head streams out His Bloud Could we pay what His Sacred Drops might claim The World must needs be drowned once again Hands cannot write for Trembling let our Eye Supply the Quill and shed an Elegy Tongues cannot speak this Grief knows no such vent Nothing but Silence can be Eloquent Worlds are not here significant in This Our Sighs our Groans bear all the Emphasis Dread SIR What shall we say Hyperbole Is not a Figure when it speaks of Thee Thy Book is our best Language what to this Shall e're be added is Thy Meiosis Thy Name 's Text too hard for us no men Can write of it without Thy Parts and Pen. Thy Prisons Scorns Reproach and Poverty How could'st Thou bear Thou Meeker Moses how Was ever Lion bit with Whelps till now And did not roar Thou England's David how Did Shimei's Tongue not move Thee Where 's the Where is the King CHARLES is all Christian Man Rebell'd Thou mad'st Thy Passions to obey Hadst Thou regain'd Thy Throne of State by Power Thou hadst not then been more a Conqueror But Thou thine own Soul's Monarch art above Revenge and Anger Canst Thou tame Thy Love How could'st Thou bear Thy Queen's Divorce must She At once Thy Wife and yet Thy Widow be Where are Thy tender Babes once Princely bred Thy choicest Jewels are they Sequestred Where are Thy Nobles Lo in stead of these Base savage Villains and Thy Enemies Egyptian Plague 't was only Pharaoh's doom To see such Vermin in His Lodging-room What Guards are set what Watches do they keep They do not think Thee safe though lock'd in Sleep Would they confine Thy Dreams within to dwell Nor let Thy Fancy pass their Centinel Are Thy Devotions dangerous Or do Thy Prayers want a Guard These faulty too Varlets 't was only when they spake for You. But lo a Charge is Drawn a Day is set The silent LAMB is brought the Wolves are met Law is arraign'd of Treason Peace
of War And Justice stands a Prisoner at the Bar. This Scene was like the Passion-Tragedy His Saviour's Person none could Act but He. Behold what Scribes were here what Pharisees What Bands of Souldiers what false Witnesses Here was a Priest and that a Chief one who Durst strike at God and His Vicegerent too Here Bradshaw Pilate there This makes them twain Pilate for Fear Bradshaw condemn'd for Gain Wretch couldst not thou be rich till Charles was dead Thou might'st have took the Crown yet spar'd the Head Th' hast justifi'd that Roman Judge He stood And washt in Water thou hast dipt in Blood And where 's the Slaughter-House White-hall must be Lately His Palace now His Calvary Great CHARLES is this Thy dying-place And where Thou wer 't our KING art Thou our MARTYR there Thence thence Thy Soul took flight and there will we Not cease to Mourn where Thou didst cease to Be. And thus blest Soul He 's gone a Star whose fall As no Eclipse proves Oecumenical That Wretch had skill to sin whose Hand did know How to behead three Kingdoms at one blow England hath lost the Influence of her KING No wonder that so backward was her Spring O dismal Day but yet how quickly gone It must be short Our SUN went down at Noon And now ye Senators is this the Thing So oft declar'd is this your Glorious King Did you by Oaths your God and Country mock Pretend a Crown and yet prepare a Block Did you that swore you 'd Mount CHARLES higher yet Intend the Scaffold for His Olivet Was this Hail Master Did you bow the knee That you might murther Him with Loyalty Alas two Deaths what Cruelty was this The Axe design'd you might have spar'd the Kiss London didst thou Thy Prince's Life betray What could Thy Sables vent no other way Or else didst thou bemoan His Cross then ah Why would'st thou be the cursed Golgotha Thou once hadst Men Plate Arms a Treasury To bind thy KING and hast thou none to free Dull beast thou should'st before thy Head did fall Have had at least thy Spirits Animal Did You Ye Nobles envy CHARLES His Crown Jove being fal'n the Puny-gods must down Your Raies of Honour are eclip'st in Night The Sun is set from whence You drew your Light Religion Veils her self and Mourns that she Is forc'd to own such horrid Villany The Church and State do shake that Building must Expect to fall whose Prop is turn'd to Dust But cease from Tears-CHARLES is most blest of men A God on Earth more than a Saint in Heav'n THE END A COLLECTION OF DECLARATIONS TREATIES AND OTHER Principal Passages concerning the DIFFERENCES BETWIXT King Charles I. AND HIS TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT Clearly Manifesting The Justice of His Cause His Sincerity in Religion His Constant Endeavours for Peace Bona agere mala pati Regium est LONDON Printed MDCLXXXVII THE PREFACE TO THE NOBILITY and GENTRY OF ENGLAND I Might call this Collection A Complete Body of English Politicks as comprehending both the Duty and the Interest of all true English-men and those largely set forth in some of the most excellent Discourses that were ever written in this kind Which for their own sakes might claim some better respect from the present Age than to be cast aside as out-dated Pamphlets or at the best confusedly scattered like the Leaves of Sibylla without any care of conserving and transmitting them to Posterity The sad Experience of so many years hath taught this Nation to their cost how miserable even the greatest Subjects make themselves by incroaching upon that Soveraignty which alone can protect them from the Injuries and the Scorn of their Inferiours Here you will discover the Arts the Means and the Degrees by which those Mischiefs were attempted and atchieved Which whensoever you see repeated you will know the Plot is as well against your Privilege and the Liberty of your Countrey as the Prerogative of your Prince Indeed If it were as easie to root out the remembrance of the ill Examples as it is to remit the punishment of the Crimes by Acts of Grace and Pardon and Oblivion it were perhaps no Imprudence to let those Mischiefs sleep with their Authors and leave their Memories buried in the Ruines they have made But since many that are content to take the utmost advantage of a Pardon are yet too good to acknowledge they ever stood in need of any since most will remember only What hath been done and few trouble themselves to inquire How or Why it cannot be thought impertinent together with the Actions to represent also the true Causes that have produced such Effects and the Circumstances that attended them which may remain as Marks to warn Posterity of those Errors which have cost the present Age so dear This is here done not from the private phancies or observations of any one Person or Party but from the Publick and Authentick Writings of Both digested in such order that the Reader may compare what both sides had to say for themselves and thereby discern whose Designs and what Counsels tended most to the Peace and Welfare of the Nation A study most proper for those Ranks of men whom the Favour of Princes hath raised above the Common Multitude to this one End that they may assist Them in the administration of Their Government and in keeping Peace and good order in their Countries To have Collected all that passed in these great Contests would have been the Work of many Volumes But the most material and most necessary to carry on the Series of Times and Things which in a manner comprehend the Sum or at least shew the Result of all the rest are here disposed according to their most natural order of time under these few heads I. His Majesties Declarations concerning His Proceedings in His Four first Parliaments p. 217. II. Declarations and Papers concerning the Differences betwixt His Majesty and His Fifth Parliament p. 241. III. Declarations and Paper concerning the Treaty of Peace at Oxford MDCXLII III. p. 325. IV. A Declaration concerning the Cessation in Ireland Also Declarations and Passages of the Parliament at Oxford p. 401. V. Papers and Passages concerning the Treaty of Peace at Vxbridge p. 437. VI. Messages Propositions and Treaties for Peace With divers Resolutions and Declarations thereupon MDCXLV VI. VII VIII p. 547. HIS MAJESTIES DECLARATIONS CONCERNING HIS PROCEEDINGS IN HIS FOUR FIRST PARLIAMENTS A Declaration of the true Causes which moved His MAJESTY to Assemble and after inforced Him to Dissolve the First and Second Meetings in Parliament THE King 's most Excellent Majesty since His happy access to the Imperial Crown of this Realm having by His Royal Authority summoned and assembled two several Parliaments the first whereof was in August last by adjournment held at Oxford and there dissolved and the other begun in February last and continued until the fifteenth day of this present month of June and then to the unspeakable grief