Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A78656
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His Majesties answer to the petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled: presented to His Majestie at York, June 17. 1642.
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England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I); England and Wales. Parliament.
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1642
(1642)
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Wing C2137; Thomason E152_2; ESTC R16799
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8,062
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16
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HIS MAJESTIES ANSWER TO THE PETITION OF The LORDS and COMMONS in Parliament assembled Presented to His Majestie at YORK June 17. 1642. LONDON Printed by ROBERT BARKER Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie And by the Assignes of JOHN BILL 1642. To the Kings most Excellent Majestie The humble Petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled YOur Majesties most humble and faithfull Subjects the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament have lately received a Petition from a great number of the Gentry Freeholders and other inhabitants of the County of York assembled there by Your Majesties Command the third of June wherein they declare unto us That having taken a resolution to addresse themselves unto Your Majestie in the humble way of a Petition for the redresse of those Grievances which they now lie under they were violently interrupted and affronted therein by the Earle of Lyndsey the Lord Savill and others and notwithstanding all the means they could use to present their just desires to Your Majestie yet they could not prevail with Your Majestie to accept of their Petition The Copie whereof they have sent to us with an humble Desire That we would take such course therein as may tend to the Preservation of their Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom And that we would addresse our selves to Your Majestie in their behalf that by our means their desires may finde better acceptation with Your Majestie Whereupon having seriously weighed and considered the particulars of those their Complaints and Desires as they are laid down in their Petition And finding that the Grievances they complain of are the increase of the Miseries formerly sustained by that Countie which hath well-nigh for three veers last past been the Tragicall Stage of Armies and War by reason of Your Majesties distance in Residence and difference in Counsels from your great Councell the Parliament begetting great distempers and distractions thorowout the Kingdom and especially in that Countie The drawing to those Parts great numbers of discontented Persons that may too justly be feared do affect the publike Ruine for their private advantage The drawing together of many Companies of the Trained Bands and others both Horse and Foot of that Countie and retaining multitudes of Commanders and Cavaliers from other parts The daily resort of Recusants to Your Majesties Court at York The great preparations of Arms and other warlike Provisions to the great terrour and amazement of Your Majesties peaceable Subjects and causing a great decay of Trade and Commerce amongst them All and every of which particulars are against the Law which Your Majestie hath made so many and so frequent Professions to uphold and maintain And the Lords and Commons finding on the other side their humble desires to be That Your Majestie would hearken to Your Parliament and declining all other Counsells whatsoever unite your Confidence to Your Parliament and that Your Majestie would not divide Your Subjects joynt dutie to Your Majestie the Parliament and Kingdom nor destroy the Essence of Your great Councell and highest Court by subjecting the Determinations and Counsells thereof to the Counsells and Opinions of any private persons whatsoever That Your Majestie having passed an Act That this Parliament shall not be dissolved but by Act of Parliament Your Majesty would not do any thing tending thereunto by commanding away the Lords and great Officers whose attendance is necessary thereunto That Your Majestie having expressed Your confidence in the affections of that Countie You would please to dismisse Your extraordinary Guards and the Cavaliers and others of that qualitie who seem to have little Interest or Affection to the publike good their language and behaviour speaking nothing but Division and War and their advantage consisting in that which is most destructive to others And lastly that in such Consultations and Propositions as Your Majestie maketh to that Countie such may not be thrust upon them as men of that Countie that neither by their fortune or residence are any part of it All which their humble and most just desires being according to Law which Your Majestie hath so often declared should be the Measure and Rule of Your Government and Actions And we Your Majesties most faithfull Subjects the Lords and Commons fully concurring with the Gentlemen and others of the Countie of York in their Assurance that those desires of theirs will abundantly redound to the glory of God the honour and safety of Your Majestie the good of Your Posterity and the Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom we humbly beseech Your Majestie graciously to hearken unto them and to grant them and that you would joyn with Your Parliament in a speedy and effectuall course for the Preservation of their Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom which dutie as we are now called upon by that Countie to discharge so do we stand engaged to God and man for the performance thereof by the trust reposed in us and by our solemn Vow and Protestation And Your Majestie together with us stands engaged by the like Obligation of trust and of an Oath besides the many and earnest Professions and Protestations which Your Majestie hath made to this Purpose to Your whole Kingdom in generall and to that Countie in particular the Peace and quiet of the Kingdom as is well observed by these Gentlemen and Free-holders of Yorkshire in their Petition being the onely visible means under God wherein consists the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the Redemption of our brethren in Ireland and the happinesse and prosperity of Your Majestie and of all Your Dominions His MAJESTIES Answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled presented to His MAJESTIE at Yorke the 17 of June 1642. HIs Majestie having carefully weighed the matter of this Petition presented to Him at York on Friday the seventeenth of June by the Lord Howard Sir Hugh Cholmely Sir Philip Stapleton Though He might refer the Petitioners to His two last Declarations wherein most of the Particulars in this Petition are fully answered or might refuse to give any Answer at all rill He had received satisfaction in those high Indignities He hath so often complained of and demanded Iustice for Yet that all the World may see how desirous His Majestie is to leave no Act which seemes to carry the Reputation of both his houses of Parliament and in the least degree to reflect upon His Majesties Iustice and Honour unanswered Is graciously pleased to returne this Answer That if the Petition mentioned to be Presented to both Houses of Parliament had been annexed to this now delivered to Him His Majestie might have discerned the number and the quality of the Petitioners which His Majestie hath great reason to beleeve was not in trueth so considerable as is pretended For His Majestie assures you That He hath never refused any Petition so attested as that would be thought to be But His Majestie well remembers that on the third of Iune when
there was upon His Majesties Summons the greatest and the most cheerfull concourse of people that ever was beheld of one County appearing before Him at York a Gentleman one Sir Thomas Fayrfax offered in that great Confluence a Petition to His Majestie which His Majestie seeing to be avowed by no man but himself and the generall and universall Acclamations of the people seeming to disclaim it did not receive conceiving it not to be of so publike a nature as to be fit to be presented or received in that place And His Majestie is most confident and in that must appeal to those were then present that what ever the substance of that Petition was it was not consented to by any considerable number of Gentry or Freeholders of this County but solicited by a few mean inconsiderable persons and disliked and visibly discountenanced by the great Body of the known Gentry Clergie and Inhabitants of this whole Countie And if the matter of that Petition was such as is suggested in this His Majestie hath great reason to beleeve it was framed and contrived as many others of such nature have been in London not in Yorkshire For sure no Gentleman of quality and understanding of this County would talk of His great Preparations of Arms and other warlike Provisions to the great Terrour and Amazement of His peaceable Subjects when they are witnesses of the violent taking His Arms from Him and stopping all waies for bringing more to Him And if there were no greater Terrour and Amazement of His Majesties peaceable Subjects in other places by such Preparations and Provisions there would be no more cause to complaine of a great decay of Trade and Commerce there then is in this place But His M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath so great an assurance of the Fidelity and generall Affections of His good Subjects of this County which He hopes will prove exemplar over His whole Kingdom that He hath great cause to beleeve That they do rather complain of His Majesties Confidence and of His Slownesse That whilest there is such endeavour abroad to raise Horse and to provide Arms against His Majestie and that endeavour put in execution His Majestie trusts so much to the Iustice of His Cause and the Affections of His people and neglects to provide strength to assist that Iustice and to protect those Affections For any Affronts offered by the Earl of Lindsey or the Lord Savill to those who intended to petition His Majestie His Majestie wishes that both His Houses of Parliament would have examined that Information and the credit of the Informers with that gravity and deliberation as in Cases which concern the Innoceuce and Honour of Persons of such quality hath been accustomed before they had Proscribed two Peers of the Realm and exposed them as much as in them lay to the rage and fury of the people under the Character of being Enemies to the Common-wealth A brand newly found out and of no Legall signification to incense the people by and with which the simplicity of former times was not acquainted And then His Majestie hath some reason to beleeve they would have found themselves as much abused in the report concerning those Lords as He is sure they are in those which tell them of the Resort of great numbers and discontented Persons to Him and of the other particulars mentioned to be in that Petition Whereas they who observe what resort is here to His Majestie well know it to be of the prime Gentlemen of all the Counties in England whom nothing but the love of Religion the care of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom besides their Affection to His Person could engage into great Iourneys Trouble and expence Men of as precious Reputation and as exemplary Lives as this Nation hath any whose assistance His Majestie knows He must not expect if He should have the least Designe against Honour and Iustice And such witnesses His Majestie desires to have of all His Actions For the declining all other Counsells and the Vniting His Confidence to His Parliament His Majestie desires both His Houses of Parliament seriously and sadly to consider that it is not the name of a great or little Councell that makes the Results of that Councell just or unjust neither can the imputation upon His Majestie of not being advised by His Parliament especially since all their Actions and all their Orders are exposed to the Publique view long mislead His good Subjects except in truth they see some particular sound advice necessarie to the Peace and happinesse of the Common-wealth disesteemed by His Majestie and such an instance He is most assured neither can nor shall be given and that they will think it merit in His Majestie from the Common-wealth to reject such Counsell as would perswade Him to make Himself none of the three Estates by giving up His negative voice to allow them a Power superior to that which the Law hath given Him whensoever it pleaseth the major part present of both Houses to say that He doth not discharge His trust as He ought and to subject His and His Subjects unquestionable Right and Propriety to their Votes without and against Law upon the meer pretence of necessitie And His Majestie must appeal to all the World who it is that endeavours to divide the joynt dutie of His Subiects His Majestie who requires nothing but what their own dutie guided by the infallible Rule of the Law leads them to do or they who by Orders and Votes opposite and contradictory to Law Cuffome president and reason so confound the affections and understandings of His good Subjects that they know not how to behave themselves with honestie and safetie whilest their Conscience will not suffer them to submit to the one nor their securitie to apply themselves to the other It is not the bare saying that His Maiesties Actions are against the Law with which He is reproached in this Petition as if He departed from His often Protestations to that purpose must conclude Him there being no one such particular in that Petition alledged of which His Majestie is in the least degree guiltie whether the same reverence and esteem be paid by you to the Law except your own Votes be judge needs no other Evidence then those many very many Orders published in Print both concerning the Church and State those long Imprisonments of severall persons without hearing them upon generall information and the great and unlimited Fees to your Officers worse then the Imprisonment and the Arbitrary censure upon them when they are admitted to be heard Let the Law be judge by whom it is violated For that part of the Petition which seems to accuse His Majestie of a purpose to dissolve this Parliament contrary to the Act for the Continuance by Commanding away the Lords and great Officers whose attendance is necessary which His Majestie well knows to be a new Calumny by which the Grand Contrivers of ruine for the State hope to