can result but confusion to King and people will find any credit with our good Subjects and that so excellent a Law made both for security of King and people shall be so eluded By an Interpretation no learned Lawyer in England will at this houre We believe set under his hand notwithstanding the Authority of that Declaration which wee hope shall bring nothing but infamy upon the Contrivers of it Now to their priviledges Though it be true they say That their priviledges doe not extend to Treason Felony or breach of the Peace so as to attempt Members from all manner of Proces and Triall yet it doth priviledge them in the way or method of their Triall the Cause must be first brought before them and their Consent asked before you can proceed Why then their priviledges extend as farre in these cases as in any that are most unquestioned for no priviledge whatsoever exempts them from all manner of Proces and Triall if you first acquaint the House with it and they give you leave to proceed by those Proces or to that Triall But by this Rule if a Member of either House commit a Murther you must by no meanes meddle with him till you have acquainted that House of which he is a Member and received their direction for your proceeding assuring your selfe He will not stirre from that place where you left him till you returne with their consent Should it be otherwise it would be in the power of every man under pretence of Murther to take one after another and as many as he pleaseth and so consequently bring a Parliament to what he pleaseth when he pleaseth If a Member of either House shall take a Purse at Yorke he may as probably take a Purse from a Subject as Armes against his King you must ride to London to know what to doe and he may ride with you and take a new Purse every Stage and must not be apprehended or declared a Felon till you have asked that House of which he is a Member Should it be otherwise it might be in every mans power to accuse as many Members as he would of taking Purses and so bring a Parliament and so all Parliament to nothing Would these men be beleeved And yet they make no doubt But every one who hath taken the Protestation will defend this Doctrine with his Life and Fortune Will not Our Subjects beleeve That they have imposed a pretty Protestation upon them and that they had a very good end in the doing it if it obligeth them to such hazards to such undertakings Must they forget or neglect Our Person Honour and Estate which by that Protestation they are bound to defend and in some degree do understand and must they onely venture their Lives and Fortunes to justifie Priviledges they know not or ever heard of before Or are they bound by that Protestation to beleeve That the Framers of that Declaration have power to extend their owne Priviledges as farre as they think fit and to contract Our Rights as much as they please and that they are bound to beleeve them in either and to venture their Lives and Fortunes in that quarrell From Declaring how meane a person we are and how much the Kingdom hath been mistaken in the underdanding of the Statute of 25. E. 3. concerning Treason and that all men need not fear leavying War against us so they have their order to warrant them they proceed in the spirit of declaring to certifie our Subjects in the mistakings which neer one hundred and fiftie years have been received concerning the Statue of the eleventh year of H. 7. cap. 1. a Stature our good Subjects will read with comfort and tell them that the serving of the King for the time being cannot be meant of Perkin Warbeck or of any that should call himself King but Such a one as is allowed and received by the Parliament in the behalf of the Kingdom And are we not so allowed However through a dark mist of words and urging their old Priviledges which we hope we have sufficiently answered and will be every day more confuted by the actions of our good Subjects they conclude That those that shall guide themselves by the judgement of Parliament which they say is their own ought whatsoever happen to be secure and free from all all account and penalties upon the ground and equity of that very Statute How far their own Chancellors may help them in that equitie We know not but by the help of God and that good Law we shall allow no such equitie So then here is the Doctrine of that Declaration and these are the Positions of the Contrivers of it 1. That they have an absolute power of declaring the Law and that what soever they declare to be so ought not to be questioned by our self or any Subject so that all Right and safety of us and our people must depend upon their pleasure 2. That no Presidents can be limits to bound their proceedings so they may do what they please 3. That a Parliament may dispose of any thing wherein the King or Subject hath a right for the publike good That they without the King are this Parliament and Iudge of this publike good and that our consent is not necessary so the life and libertie of the Subject and all the good Laws made for the security of them may be disposed of and repealed by the major part of both Houses at any time present and by any wayes and means procured so to be and we have no power to protect them 4. That no Member of either House ought to be troubled or medled with for Treason Felony or any other crime without the cause first brought before them that they may judge of the fact and their leave obtained to proceed 5. That the soeveraigne power resides in both Houses of Parliament and that we have no negative voyce so then we our self must be subject to their commands 6. That the leavying of forces against te personall commands of the King though accompanied with his presence is not leavying war against the King but the leavying war against his Laws and authority which they have power to declare and signifie though not against his person is leavying war against the King and that Treason cannot be committed against his person otherwise then as he is intrusted with the Kingdom and discharging that trust and that they have a power to judge whether he discharge this trust or no. 7. That If they should makethe highest Presidents of other Parliaments their Patitions there would he no cause to complain of want of modesty or Duty in them That is They may Depose us when they will and are not to be blamed for so doing And now as if the meer publishing of their Resolutions would not onely prevail with the people but in the instant destroy all spirit and courage in us to preserve our own right and honour they have since taken the boldnesse to assault us with certain Propositions which they call The most necessary effectuall means for the removing those Iealousies and Differences between us and our People That is that we will be content to direst our self of all our Regall Rights and Dignities be content with the Title of a King and suffer them according to their Discretion to govern us and the Kingdom and to dispose of our Children how suteable and agreeable this Doctrine and these Demands are to the affection of our loving Subjects under whose Trust these men pretend to say and do these monstrous things and to designe not onely the ruine of our Person but of Monarchy it self which we may justly say is more then ever was offered in any of our predecessors times for though the Person of the King hath been sometimes unjustly deposed yet the Regall power was never before this time strucken at we beleeve our good Subjects will finde some way to let them and the World know and from this time such who have been mis-led by their ill Counsels to have any hand in the execution of the Militia will see to what ends their Service is designed and therefore if they shall presume hereafter to meddle in it they must expect that we will immediately proceed against them as actuall raisers of sedition and as enemies to our soveraign power We hane done and shall now expect the worst actions these men have power to commit against us worse words they cannot give us and we doubt not but the major part of both Houses of Parliament when they may come together with their honour and safety as well those who were surprised at the passing of it and unstood not the Malice in it and the confusion that must grow by it if beleeved as those who were absent or involved will so far resent the Indignitie offered to us the dishonour to themselves and the mischief to the whole Kingdom by that Declaration that they will speedily make the foul Contrivers of it instances of their exemplarie Iustice and brand them and their Doctrine with the Marks of their perpetuall Scorn and Indignation FINIS
the more justifiable Nay let the Framers of this Declaration ask themselves If the Evil Counsellors the Malignant Party the Persons Il-affected the Popish Lords and their Adherents should prove now or hereafter to be a Major part of both Houses for it hath been declared a great part of both Houses have been such and so might have been the greater nay that the greater part of the House of Peers was such and We have not heard of any of their conversions and thereupon it hath been earnestly pressed That the Minor part of the Lords might joyn with the Major part of the House of Commons were Wee bound to consent to all such Alterations as these men should propose to Vs and resolve to bee for the publike good and must the Liberty Property and Security of all Our Subjects depend on what such Votes should declare to bee Law Was the Order of the Militia unfit and unlawfull whiles the Major part of the Lords refused to joyn in it as they did two if not three severall times and it was never heard before this Parliament that they should bee so and so often pressed after a dissent declared and did it grow immediatly necessary for the publike safety and lawfull by the Law of the Land as soon as so many of the dissenting Peeres were driven away after their names had been required at the Bar contrary to the Freedom and Foundation of Parliaments that the other Opinion prevailed Doth the Life and Liberty of the Subject depend upon such Accidents of dayes and houres that it is impossible for him to know his right in either God forbid But now to justifie their Invasion of Our ancient unquestioned undoubted Right setled and established on Us and Our Posterity by God himself confirmed and strengthned by all possible Titles of Compact Laws Oaths perpetuall and uncontradicted Custom by Our people What have they alleaged to Declare to the Kingdom as they say the Obligation that lyeth upon the Kings of this Realm to passe all such Bills as are offered unto them by both Houses of Parliament a thing never heard of till this day An Oath Authority enough for them to break all theirs that is or ought to be taken by the Kings of this Realm which is as well to remedy by Law such inconveniences the Kingdom may suffer as to keep and protect the Laws already in being And the form of this Oath they say appears upon a Record there cited and by a Clause in the Preamble of a Statute made in the five and twentieth yeare of Edward the third We are not enough acquainted with records we to know whether that be fully and and ingeniously cited and when and how and why the severall clauses have been inserted or taken out of the oathes formerly administred to the Kings of this Realme yet we cannot possibly imagine the assertion that Declaration makes can be deduced from the words or the matter of that oath for unlesse they have a power of declaring Lattin as We as Law sure Eligerit signifieth hath chosen as well as Chuse and that it signifieth so here besides the authority of perpetuall practice of all succeeding ages a better interpreter then their Votes is evident by the reference it hath to customes Consuetudines quas vulgus elegerit and could that be a Custome which the people should chuse after this Oath taken and should a King be sworne to defend such Customes Besides can it be imagined that he should bee bound by oath to passe such Laws and such a Law is the Bill they brought to Vs of the Militia as should put the power wherewith he is trussed out of himselfe in the hands of other men and so devest and disable him of all possible power to performe the great businesse of the oath which is To protect them If we give away all Our power or if it be taken from Vs we cannot protect any man And what discharge would it be for us either before God or Man when our good Subjects whom God and the Law hath committed to our charge shall be worried and spoyled to say That we trusted others to protect them that is to doe that duty for Vs which is essentially and inseparably our owne But that all Our good Subjects may see how faithfully these men who assume this trust from them desire to discharge their trust We shall be contented to publish for their satisfaction a matter notorious enough but which we our Selfe never thought to have been but to publish and of which the Framers of that Declaration might as well have made use as of a Latine record they knew many of our good Subjects could not and many of themselves doe not understand the Oath it selfe we tooke at our Coronation warranted and injoyned to it by Custome and directions of our Predecessors and the Ceremony or their and our taking it they may finde it in the Records of the Exchequer This it is The Sermon being done the Archbishop goeth to the King and askes his willingnesse to take the Oath usually taken by his Predecessors The King sheweth himselfe willing ariseth and goeth to the Altar The Archbishop administreth these Questions and the King answers them severally Episcopus Sir Will you grant and keep and by your Oath confirme to the people of England the Laws and Customes to them granted by the Kings of England your Lawfull and Religious Predecessors and namely the Laws Customes and Franchises granted to the Clergie by the glorious King Saint Edward your Predecessor according to the Lawes of God the true Profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdome and agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the ancient Customes of this Realme REX I grant and promise to keep them Episcopus Sir Will you keep Peace and godly Agreement entirely according to your power both to God the holy Church the Clergy and the People REX I will keep it Episcopus Sir Will you to your power cause Law Justice and Discretion in Mercy and Truth to be executed in all your Judgements REX I will Episcopus Will you grant to hold and keep the Lawes and rightfull customes which the Commonalty of this your Kingdome have and will you defend and uphold them to the honour of God so much as in you lieth REX I grant and promise so to doe Then one of the Bishops reads this Admonition to the King before the people with a loud voice Our Lord and King We beseech you to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and to the Churches committed to our charge all Canonicall Priviledges and due Law and Justice and that you would Protect and defend us as every good King in his Kingdome ought to bee Protector and Defender of the Bishops and the Churches under their Government The King answereth With a willing and devout Heart I promise and grant my pardon and that I will preserve and maintaine to you and the Churches committed to
your charge all Canonicall Privilenges and due Law and Justice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdome in Right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under their Government Then the King ariseth and is led to the Communion Table where he makes a solemne Oath in sight of all the people to observe the Premises And laying his hand upon the Booke saith The Oath The things which I have before promised I shall performe and keep So helpe me God and the Contents of this Booke Let all the world judge whether such Doctrine or such Conclusions as these Men teach can follow or have the least pretence from this Oath For the Preamble of the Statute they cite that tels us That the King is bound to remedy by Law the Mischiefes and Dammages which happen to His people He is so But is the King bound by the Preamble of that Statute to renounce his owne judgement His owne understanding in these Mischiefes and of those remedies How farre forth He is obliged to follow the judgement of His Parliament that Declararation still confesseth to be a question without question none can take upon them to remedy even mischiefes but by Law for feare of greater mischiefes then those they goe about to remedy But Wee are bound in Justice to consent to their proposalls because there is a Trust reposed in Vs to preserve the Kingdome by making new Lawes VVe are glad there is so Then we are sure no new Lawes can be made without Our consent and that the gentlenesse of our Answer Le Roys ' avisera if it be no denyall is no consent and then the matter is not great They will allow Vs yet A greater latitude of granting or denying as We shall thinke fit in publike Acts of Grace as Pardons or the like Grants of Favour why doe they so If those Pardons and publike Acts of Grace be for the publike good which they may Vote they are they will then be absolutely in their owne disposall But have they left Vs this power They have sure at least shared it with Vs How else have they got the power to pardon Sergeant-major-Generall Skippon a new Officer of State and a Subject we have no authority to sent to speak with and all other persons imployed by them and such as have imployed themselves for them not onely for what they have done but for what they shall doe If they have power to declare such Actions to be no Treason which we would not pardon and such Actions to be Treason which needs no pardon the Latitude they allow Vs of granting or denying of Pardons is a Jewell they may still be contented to suffer Vs to weare in our Crowne and never thinke themselves the more in danger All this considered The Contriver of that Message since they will afford him no better Title whom they are angry with doth not conceive the people of this Land to be so void of common sense as to beleeve Vs who have denyed no one thing for the ease and benefit of them which in Justice or Prudence could be asked or in honour and conscience could be granted to have cast off all care of our Subjects good and the Framers and Devisers of that Declaration who have endeavoured to render us odious to our Subjects and them disloyall to us by pretending such a trust from them to have onely taken it up Neither we are confident will they be satisfied when they feele the misery and the Burthens which the fury and the malice of those people will bring upon them with being told that Calamity proceeds from evill Councellors whom no body can name from Plots and Conspiracies which no man can discover and from Feares and Jealousies which no man understands And therefore that the consideration of it be left to the Conscience Reason Affection and Loyalty of Our good Subjects who doe understand the Government of this Kingdome we are well content Where will the folly and madnesse of these people end who would have our people beleeve that our absenting our self from London where with our safety we could not stay and the continuing Our Magazine at Hull proceeds from the secret plots of the Papists here and to advance the designes of the Papists in Ireland But it is no wonder that they who can beleeve Sir Iohn Hothams shutting us out of Hull to be an act of affection and loyalty will beleeve that the Papists or the Turks perswaded us to go thither An can any sober man think that Declaration to be the consent of either or both Houses of Parliament unaltered either by Fraud or Force which after so many Thanks and humble Acknowledgement of our gratious favour in our Message of the 20. of January so often and unanimously presented unto us from both Houses of Parliament tells us that the Message at first was and as often as it hath been since mentioned by us hath been a breach of Priviledge of which they have not used to be so negligent as in four moneths not to complain if such a breach had been and that the way and method of proceeding should not be proposed to them as if we had onely authority to call them together none to tell them what they were to do not so much as with reference to our own affairs what their own Method hath been and whither it hath led them and brought the Kingdom all men see what ours would have been if seasonably and timely applied unto let all men judge We will speak no more of it But see now what excellent Instances they have found out to prove an Inclination if not in Vs in some about Vs to civill warre Their gving with Vs to the House of Commons so often urged and so fully answered Their attending on Vs to Hampton Court and appearing in a warlike manner at Kingston upon Thames Our going to Hull Their drawing their Swords at York demanding Who world be for the King the declaring Sir Iohn Hotham Traitor before the Message sent to the Parliament the Propositions to the Gentry in Yorkshire to assist Vs against him before We had received an answer from the Parliament All desperate Instances of an Inclination to a civill warre Examine them againe The manner and intent of Our going to the House of Commons Wee set forth at large in Our Answer to their Declaration of the nineteenth of May let all men judge Next Doe these men themselves beleive to what purpose soever that Rumour hath served their turns that there was an Apparence in warlike manner at Kingston upon Thames Doe they not know that whensoever Wee have been at Hampton Court since Our first comming to the Crowne there was never a lesse Apparence or in a lesse warlike manner then at the time they meane Wee shall say no more But that Our Apparence in a warlike manner at Kingston upon Thames and
Councell into Vs And now apply the Argument the Contrivers of that Declaration makes for themselves Is it probable or possible that such men whom We haue mentioned who must have so great a share in the misery should take such pains in the procuring thereof and spend so much time and run so many hazards to make themselves Slaves and to ruine the Freedome of this Nation We say with a clear and upright Conscience to God Almighty Whosoever harbours the least thought in his breast of ruining or violating the publike Liberty or Religion of this Kingdome or the just Freedome and Priviledge of Parliament let him be accursed and hee shall be no Councellour of Ours that will not say Amen For the contrivers of that declaration We have not said any thing which might imply any inclination in them to be Slaves that which Wee have charged them is with invading the publike Liberty and Our Presumption may be very strong and vehement that though they have no mind to bee Slaves they are not unwilling to bee Tyrants What is Tyrannie but to admit no Rule to governe by but their owne wils And We know the misery of Athens was at the highest when it suffered under the thirty Tyrants If that Declaration had told Vs as indeed it might and as in Iustice it ought to have done that the Presidents of any of our Ancestors did fall short and much below what hath beene done by Vs this Parliament in point of Grace and Favour to Our People Wee should no otherwise have wondred at it then at such a truth in such a place But when to justifie their having done more then ever their Predecessors did it tels Our good Subjects as most injuriously most insolently it doth That the highest and most unwarrantable Presidents of any of Our Predecessors doe fall short and much below what hath beene done to them this Parliament by Vs Wee must confesse Our selfe amazed and not able to understand them And We must tel those ungratefull Men who dare tell their King That they may without want of Modesty and Duty depose him That the condition of Our Subjects when by whatsoever Accidents and Conjunctures of time it was at worst under Our power unto which by no default of Ours they shall be ever againe reduced was by many degrees more pleasant and happy then that to which their furious pretence of Reformation hath brought them Neither are we afraid of the highest Presidents of other Parliaments which these men boldly Our good subjects will call it worse tell Vs They might without want of Modesty and Duty make their Patterns If We had no other security against those Presidents but their Modesty and Duty Wee were in a miserable condition as all persons will bee who depend upon them That Declaration will not allow Our Inference That by avowing the Act of Sir Iohn Hotham they doe destroy the Title and Interest of all Our Subjects to their Lands and Goods but confesseth if they were found guilty of that charge it were indeed a very great crime And doe they not in this Declaration admit themselves guilty of this very Crime Doe they not say Who doubts but that a Parliament may dispose of any thing wherein VVee or Our Subjects have a Right in such a way as that the Kingdome may not be in danger thereby Doe they not then call themselves This Parliament and challenge this Power without Our consent Doe they not extend this Power to all Cases where the necessity or the common good of the Kingdome is concerned and doe they not arrogate unto themselves alone the judgement of this Danger this Necessity this Common Good of the Kingdome What is if this be not to unsettle the Security of all mens Estates and to expose them to an arbitrary Power of their owne If a Faction shall at any time by Cunning or Force or absence or accident prevaile over a major part of both Houses and pretend that they are Evill Councellors a Malignant Party about the King by whom the Liberty and Religion of the Kingdome are both in danger This they may doe they have done it Then they may take away be it from the King or People whatsoever they in their judgements shall thinke fit This is lawfull they have declared it so Let the world judge whether We charge them unjustly and whether they are not guilty of the Crime which themselves confesse being proved is a great one and how safely We might commit the Power these people desire into their hands who in all probability would be no sooner possessed of it then they would revive that Tragedie which Master Hooker relates of the Anabaptists in Germany who talking of nothing but Faith and of the true Feare of God and that Riches and Honour were vanity at first upon the great Opinion of their Humility Zeal and Devotion procured much Reverence and Estimation with the people After finding how many persons they had ensnared with their Hypocrisie they began to propose to themselves to reforme both the Ecclesiasticall and Civill Government of the State Then because possibly they might meet with some Opposition they secretly entred into a League of Association and shortly after finding the power they had gotten with the credulous People enriched themselves with all kind of spoyle and pillage and justified it upon our Saviours promise The meeke shall inherite the earth and declared their Title was the same which the righteous Israelites had unto the goods of the wicked Egyptians This Story is worth the reading at large and needs no application But Wee must by no meanes say That We have the same Title to Our Towne of Hull and the Ammunition there as any of Our Subjects have to their Lands or Money That 's A Principle that puls up the Foundation of the Liberty and Property of every Subject Why pray Because the Kings Property in his Townes and in his Goods bought with the publike Money as they conceive Our Magazine at Hull was is inconsistent with the Subjects Property in their Lands Goods and Liberty Doe these men think That as they assume a power of Declaring Law and whatsoever contradicts that Declaration breaks their Priviledges so that they have a power of declaring Sense and Reason and imposing Logick and Syllogismes on the Schooles as well as Law upon the People Doth not all mankind know That severall man may have severall Rights and Interests in the selfe same House and Land and yet neither destroy the other Is not the Interest of the Lord Paramont consistent with that of the Mesme Lord and his with that of he Tenant and yet their Properties and Interests not at all confounded And why may not Wee then have a full Lawfull Interest and Property in Our Town of Hull and yet Our Subjects have a Property in their Houses too But We cannot sell or give away at Our pleasure Our Towns and Forts as a private man may do his Lands or Goods
What then Many men have no authority to Let or Set their Leases or sell their Land have they therefore no Title to them or Interest in them May they be taken from them because they cannot sell them The purpose of Our Iourney to Hull was neither to sell it oâ— give it away But for the Magazine the Mâ—â—ition there that We bought with our own Money We might surely have sold that lent or given it away No We bought it with the publike Money and the proof is They conceive it so and upon this conceit have Voted That it shall be taken from Vs Excellent Iustice Suppose We had kept this Money by Vs and not bought Arms with it would they have taken it from Vs upon that conceit Nay may they not wheresoever this Money is for through how many hands soever it hath passed it is the publike Money still if it ever were seize it and take it from the Owners But the Towns Forts Magazine and Kingdom is intrusted to Vs and We are a Person trusted We are so God and the Law hath trusted Vs and We have taken an Oath to discharge that trust for the good and safety of Our people What Oaths they have taken We know not unlesse those which in this violence they have manifestly maliciously violated May any thing bee taken from a man because he is trusted with it Nay may the person himself take away the thing he trusts when he will and in what manner he will The Law hath been otherwise and We beleeve will be so held notwithstanding their Declarations But This trust ought to be managed by their advice and the Kingdom hath trusted them for that purpose Impossible That the same trust should be irrevocably committed to Vs and our Heirs for ever and the same trust and a power above that trust for such is the power they pretend be committed to others Did not the people that sent them look upon them as a Body but Temporary and dissoluble at Our Pleasure And can it be beleeved that they intended them for Our Guardians and Comptrollers in the managing of that Trust which God and the Law hath granted to Vs and Our Posterity for ever What the extent of their Commission and Trust is nothing can better teach them then the Writ whereby they are met We called them and without that call they could not have come together to be Our Counsellors not Commanders for however they frequently confound them the Offices are severall and Councellors not in all things but in some things De quibusdam arduis c. And they will easily find amongst their Presidents that Queen Elizabeth upon whose Time all Good Men look with Reverence committed one Wentworth a Member of the House of Commons to the Tower sitting the House but for proposing That they might advise the Queen in a matter she thought they had nothing to do to meddle in But We are trusted and are We the onely Person trusted And may they do what their own inclination and fury leads them to Were not they trusted by Vs when We first sent for them and were they not trusted by Vs when We passed them Our promise That We would not dissolve them Can it be presumed and presumptions go far with them that We trusted them with a Power to destroy Vs and to dissolve Our Government and Authority If the people might be allowed to make an equitable construction of the Laws and Statutes a Doctrine avowed by them would not all Our good Subjects swear We never intended by that Act of continuance that they should do what they have since done Were they not trusted by those that have sent them And were they trusted to alter the Government of Church and State and to make themselves perpetuall Dictators over the King and People Did they intend that the Law it self should be subject to their Votes and that whatsoever they say or do should be lawfull because they declare it so The Oaths which they have taken who sent them and without taking which themselves are not capable of their place in Parliament makes the one uncapable of giving and the other of receiving such a trust unlesse they can perswade our good Subjects That We are the onely supreme Head and Governour in all causes and over all persons within Our Dominions and yet that they have a power over Vs to constrain Vs to manage Our Trust and govern Our Power according to their discretion The Contrivers of that Declaration tell Vs that they will never allow Vs an humble and dutifull Expression to be Iudge of the Law that belongs onely to them they may and must judge and declare We all know what Power the Pope under the Pretence of Interpreting Scriptures and declaring Articles of Faith though he decline the making the one or the other hath usurped over mens consciences and that under colour of having Power of Ordering all things for the good of mens Souls he Entiles himself to all the Kingdoms in the World We Will not accuse the Framers of this Declaration how bold soever they are with Vs that they incline to Popery of which another Maxime is That We must submit Our Reason and Vnderstanding and the Scripture it Self to that Declaring Power of his Neither will We tell them though they have told Vs so that they use the very language of the Rebels of Ireland and yet they say those Rebels Declare That whatsoeuer they do is for the Good of the King and Kingdoin But Our good Subjects will easily put the Case to themselves Whether if the Papists in Ireland in truth were or by Art or Accident had made themselves the Major Part of both Houses of Parliament there and had pretended the Trust in that Declaration from the Kingdom of Ireland thereupon had Voted their Religion and Liberty to be in danger of extirpation from a Malignant Party of Protestants and Puritanes and therefore that they should put themselves into a Posture of defence That the Forts and Militia of that Kingdom were to be put into the hands of such persons as they could confide in That We were indeed trusted with the Towns Forts Magazines Treasures Offices and People of the Kingdom for the Good and Safety and best Advantage thereof But as this trust is for the use of the Kingdom so it ought to be managed by the Advise of both Houses of Parliament whom the Kingdom had trusted for that purpose it being their duty to see it discharged according to the Condition and true Intent thereof and by all possible means to prevent the contrary We say Let all Our good Subjects consider If that Rebellion had been plotted with this Formality and those Circumstances declared to be legall at least according to the equitable sense of the Law and to be for the publike good and justifiable by necessity of which they were the onely Judges Whether though they might have thought their Designe the more cunning they would beleeve it
theirs at Kingston upon Hull is very different What is meant by the drawing of swords at York and demanding who would be for the King must bee inquired at London for We believe very few in York understand the meaning of it For Our going to Hull which they will by no meanes endure shall be called a Visit whether it were not the way to prevent rather then to make a Civill Warre is very obvious And the declaring him a Traitor in the very Act of his Treason will never be thought unseasonable but by those who believe him to be a loving and loyall Subject no more then the endeavouring to make the Gentlemen of this County sensible of that Treason which they are in an honourable and dutifull degree before We received Our Answer from both Houses of Parliament For if they had been as We expected they should have been sensible of that intollerable injury offered to Vs might not We have had occasion to have used the affection of these Gentleman Were we sure that Sir John Hotham who had kept Vs out without their Order Wee speake of a publike Order would have let Vs in when they had bidden him And if they had not such a sense of Vs as the Case falls out to be had We not more reason to make Proposition to those Gentlemen whose readinesse and affection We or Our Posterity shall never forget But this businesse of Hull sticks still with them and finding Our Questions hard they are pleased to Answer Vs by asking Vs other Questions No matter for the Exceptions against the Earle of Newcastle which have beene so often urged as one of their principall Grounds of their Feares and Iealousies and which drew that Question from us they aske Vs Why since We held it necessary that a Governour should bee placed in Hull Sir Iohn Hotham should be refused by Vs and the Earle of Newcastle sent downe We answer Because we had a better Opinion of the Earle of Newcastle then of Sir Iohn Hotham and desired to have such a Governour over Our Townes if Wee must have any as should keep them for and not against Vs And if his going downe were in a more private way then Sir John Hothams it was because We had that Authority to make a noyse by Leavying and Billetting of Souldiers in a peaceable Time upon Our good Subjects as it seems Sir John Hotham carried downe with him And the Imputation which is cast by the way upon that Earle to make his Reputation 〈…〉 thought was not Ground enough for a Judiciall Proceeding it is wonder it was not was yet Ground enough of Suspition must be the Case of every Subject in England and we wish it went no higher If every vile Aspertion contrived by unknowne hands upon unknown or unimaginable Grounds which is the way practised to bring any vertuous and deserving men into obloquy shall receive the least credit or countenance in the world They tell us their Exception to those Gentlemen who delivered their Petition to to us at York was That they presumed to take the stile upon them of all the Gentry and Inhabitants of that County whereas they say so many more of as good Quality as themselves of that County were of another opinion and have since by their Petition to Vs disavowed that Act Their Information in that point is no better then it useth to be and and they will find that neither the number or the quality of those who have or will disavow that Petition are as they imagine though too many weak persons are missed which they doe and will every day more understand by the Faction Skill and Industry of that true Malignant Party of which wee doe and have reason to complaine They say they Have received no Petition of so strange a nature what nature Contrary to the Votes of both Houses that is they have received no Petition they had no mind to receive But we told them and we tell them againe and all our good Subjects will tell them that they have received Petitions with joy and approbation against the votes of both Houses of their Predecessors confirmed and established into Lawes by the consent of Vs and our Ancestors and allowed those Petitions to carry the Stile and to seem to carry the desires oâ— Cities Townes and Counties when of either Citty Towne or County very few knowne or considerable persons have been privy to such Petitions whereas in truth the Petitions delivered to Vs against which they except carried not the Stile of All but Some of the Gentry and Inhabitants and implyed no other consent then such as went visibly along with it But we are all this while in a mistake The Magazine at Hull is not taken from us Who told you so They who assure you and whom without breaking their priviledges you must believe that Sir Lo Hothams shutting the gates against us and resisting our entrance with armed men though we thought it in defiance of us was indeed in obedience to us and our Authority and for our Service and the Service of the Kingdome He was to let none in but such as came with our Authority signified by both Houses of Parliament himselfe and they had ordered it so and therefore he kept us out onely till We or he might send for their directions We know not whether the Contrivers of that Declaration meant that our good Subjects should so soone understand though it was plain enough to be understood the meaning of the Kings authority signified by both hoâ—ses of Parliament But sure the world will now easily discerne in what miserable case we had by this time been 't is bad enough as it is if we had consented to their Bill or to their Ordinance of the Mili ia and given those men power to have raised all the Armes of the Kingdome against us for the common good by our owne Authority would they not as they have kept us from Hull by this time have beaten us from York and pursued us out of the Kingdome in our owne behalfe Nay may not this Munition which is not taken from us be imployed against us Nor against our Authority signified by both Houses of Parliament but onely to kill those ill Councellors the Malignant Party which is about us and yet for our good for the publike good they will declare it so and so no Treason within the Statute of 25. of Ed. the 〈…〉 hath left us the King of England absolutely 〈…〉 lesse provided for in point of safety then the meanest Subjest of the Kingdome and every Subject of this Land for whose security that Law was made that they may know their duty and their danger in breaking it may bee made a Traytor when these men please to say He is so But doe they think that upon such an Interpretation upon pretence of Authority of Book-Cases and Presidents which without doubt they would have cited if they had been to their purpose out of which nothing