King hath now often profest Himselfe ready to joyne in which Profession would sure have been more readily entertained if they had not fear'd that this would have been so full a satisfaction to so many that their side would have been much weakned by it could we then ever thinke to have liv'd to see the Common-Prayer Book totally neglected and publiquely affronted and those neglects and affronts not onely conniv'd at but as publiquely countenanced and encouraged by that honourable Assembly and to see a Bill pass't both Houses for the totall extirpation of Bishops Root and Branch and this Bill offered to His Majesty among Propositions for Peace 6. In those Parliaments though some of us often express't our dislike of some illegall Clauses in the Commissions given to and executed by Lords and Deputy Lievtenants yet did we ever heare or looke to heare of the least pretence that the Militia of this Kingdom was either not under the Kings Command or under any Command but His And did both Houses so much as suspect themselves upon any pretence or in any time to have any Right to order and dispose of it 7. In those Parliaments though we have often humbly represented to His Majesty some things wherein we suppos'd there was some failour in His Ministers in those particulars which we then all confest the Law had solely trusted to Him as of Ships not set out or Forts ill guarded or the like yet did we ever thinke it possible both Houses should ever pretend to such a supervisorship over that Trust that whensoever they would say He did not discharge it as He ought they might legally lay hold on it themselves and having seiz'd His Ships Forts Magazines c. take up Armes to maintaine what they had done and to keep this their Trust Paramount in perpetuall execution 8. In those Parliaments did we ever see the same things severall times prest to the Lords House by the House of Commons after they had been upon mature advice rejected by them as if they had meant to say Deny it if you dare and at last past there with the Peoples helpe either a thinne House being watcht for or some of the Lords out of anger and some out of feare absenting themselves 9. In all those Parliaments did we ever see any Declarations of both Houses against the King or of one House against the other Printed and publisht to the people calling them to their assistance and laying before them their destruction if they assisted not 10. In all those Parliaments did we ever see when any thing had been propos'd to and rejected by the House of Lords the House of Commons notwithstanding proceed in it and expresse their mindes of it to the people as in the point of the Bill for the Protestation or when the House of Lords had publisht an Order for the establisht Law as they did now upon the ninth of September did we ever see the House of Commons oppose them and the Law together and disgrace the one and endeavour to suppresse the other as they did now by a Printed Order to the contrary of the same Date 11. Did we ever see the House of Commons in all those Parliaments so invade the Priviledge of the House of Lords as first to question particular Members for words spoken in that House as my Lord Duke and my Lord Digby and next to question the whole House by bringing up and countenancing a mutinous and seditious Petition which demanded the names of those Lords who consented not with the House of Commons in those things which that House that is the Major part of it had twice denied and joyning with them in that Demand 12. Did We ever see Petitions brought by armed Mechanicks countenanced by the House of Commons the Assaults made by them upon their owne Members though complained of not enquired into and these multitudes termed their Friends by the principall Governours the House of Lords refused to be joyn'd with in their modest desire onely of a Declaration against the like for the future the guard against the like placed by vertue of a Writ issued by command of the Lords House discharged the Iustice of Peace that placed them committed the ordinary legall Inquisition upon Riots stopt and hindred by an order of the House of Commons alone Sir some of these things having been done in former Parliaments so contrary to what is now done so many things now done which were never attempted in and if they had been thought of would have been condemned by those former Parliaments you must pardon me if I thinke that charge of Apostacy which under other mens names you your selfe lay upon me to be very injurious and I appeal to any man that shall consider and examine my Action and these particulars whether I left the Houses till they left the Law and whether to quit the place and retaine the principles or to quit the principles and be only constant to the place be the greater and the truer Apostacy The next Objection you make is this That whereas Wee here pretend to stand for Law yet it is only for such a Law of which we Our selves will only be Iudges refusing to stand to the Iudgement of the supream Iudicatory of the Kingdome both Houses of Parliament And truly Sir if this objection were made by a stranger only made acquainted with the generall Scheme of the Constitution of the Kingdom neither with the particular Lawes nor the particular Occurrences I should not wōder but from one who hath been a constant Member of the Parliament I wonder to receive it First Sir I appeal to you whether you doe not beleeve that suppose which were hardly possible to be supposed that both Houses in the fullest and freest condition of Parliament that is imaginable should declare that by the Law of the Land The Kings Crowne and the Subjects Property and Liberty were to be dispos'd of by them and should take up Armes to make this good for Law and declare that by Law all the Subjects of the Land were obliged to assist their Armes thus taken up Suppose this I say Doe you not beleeve that their being the Supream Iudicatory could not satisfie Our consciences who have taken the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy in a Iudgement as contrary to those Oathes and the knowne Law as it is knowne that by the Law both Houses have Power to judge in any other Cases or that there are at all two Houses of Parliament And sure this is now as to what is done though not as to their condition who doe it either the Case or very neere it Indeed Sir till the Parliament was made perpetuall such a Case was absolutely unimaginable for being a dissoluble Body kept them from invading the known Rights either of King or Subjects of neither of which they need now to have the same apprehension having strengthned themselves by a Bill against the one and by an Army against
the other But Sir I cannot allow you so much The Houses now are neither full nor free Really the Major part of the Commons and evidently the Major part of the Lords doe not cannot dare not come to you How much you were wont to mislike Tumults appeares to me by your former bitternesse against them when they came downe to presse even those things for the passing of which you had been very earnest in the House and you may remember you apprehended them so much that I had much adoe during the time they lasted to perswade you to venture your selfe any neerer to Westminster then your Chamber in Fleet-street and that you answered me when I told you that you needed not feare for those People tooke you for their Friend that a Brickbat was an ill distinguisher of friends and that you saw enough of those Gentlemen out of your Window as they past along the streets to make you not desire to keep them company without a Wall between you Sir if a few within shall have power to draw a multitude from without to awe the rest and make them either retire or judge as they please and then judge so as in the point of the Militia Hull and taking up of Armes as with safety of Conscience no man can rest in their Iudgements nor with safety of Purse and Liberty oppose them and shall keep themselves still by this meanes the Major part to judge on as they have begun and yet may still retaine the Authority of the Supream Iudicatory then really Sir it must of necessity follow That the Subjects will still be in the power of the seditious factious and it is not the men but the Walls that make the two Houses of Parliament No Sir it is you who refuse to secure the Parliament from Tumults where it is or to remove it thither where it may be secure that refuse to have it tryed what is Law by the Supream Iudicatory of the Kingdome all you say now is but the same as if the Lord Chief Iustice of the Kings Bench out of Parliament time should by force drive away his Brethren of the same Bench and then Iudge there that none of those other Iudges were more then His meer Assistants in that Court then find fault with them for not submitting to that Iudgement as made and delivered by the highest Court of Iustice But Sir foreseeing this Objection of the Tumults would come strongly upon you you prepare the Ward for that Blow and tell me that though some disorders indeed there were yet this was but the pretence of Our absence for the Tumults did precede Our absenting Our selves by many weekes in which time We came often to the House and securely oppos'd the sense thereof The disorders Sir you speake of were such and did so awe the Members that you know some discourse in order to doing of that which this put really in execution was voted Treason by Our House but the same awing of the Parliament when it is done by the well-affected and countenanced by the worthy Members and the good Lords is it seemes but disorder and no Treason These Tumults first caused Our infrequent meeting at the House who differed from their Opinions that had such Satellites abroad and this Infrequency gave leave to the rest to command such things as our Consciences would not allow us to obey If We took not up Armes in obedience to your Ordinance of the Militia If We would not live and dye with my Lord of Essex c. you would punish and imprison us If We did the known Law agreeing with His Majesties Proclamation told us We were Traytors and the Protestation We had taken to defend the Kings just Rights told us We were forsworne If We ioyned together to over-vote you in it for as long as We came and opposed you not or oppos'd you and carryed it not against you or carryed only that which was not much materiall I confesse we were safe enough the precedent Tumults had sufficiently told us That they would beat out our Braines So what was left for us to doe but to be gone And yet We could not goe till We could goe somewhether and therefore were to beare our Condition as well as We could till His Majestie were in Posture to give us that Protection which He ought us by the Law And this was the true Cause both why We went and why no sooner But your next Objection is of all other the most unreasonable That you have discovered by this Treaty That the King is averse to Peace And in the name of God whereupon is this discovery founded It is well knowne that in all severall Conditions the King hath equally prest for Peace and the Rulers of the House of Commons have equally oppos'd it And probably they would have gone further and us'd their old Arts to have stopt the consent to this Treaty by violence too if they had not lookt upon their appearing so to breake it when so many desir'd it as too great a burthen of Envy and knowne their Interest to be enough to be able to breake it before it could be concluded with lesse disgust then at that time as being easier to perswade the people that any individuall Peace was not good for them then that no Peace at all was which a Totall rejection of all Treaty did cleerly imply And did they not when the sense of their misery had given their followers Courage to over-vote them in this clogge the Treaty as much as possibly they could First with a Resolution that their Committee should Treat only with His Majesty which He might well and so they hoped He would refuse then with such Limitation of Articles to two and of dayes to foure and of Instructions to hardly any That they might have sent downe their Papers by Edgerley the Carrier to His Majesty and he might as easily have concluded a Peace with Him as with so bounded and untrusted a Committee But in the Treaty what did the King aske or deny that shewed so little desire of Peace If He had askt together with His Ships Forts and Castles the Lives of those who tooke them from Him which if He had He had askt no more then belongs to Him by Law as the proper Security that the like violence should be offered Him no more and if He had required an end of the whole Treaty before He disbanded which is yet the usuall course of Treaties you might have had some Colour for what you object But now the whole Objection is this His Majesties owne Ships Forts Magazines c. were by violence and that of Subjects taken from Him and this unreasonable unpeaceable blood-thirsty Prince desires to have them againe An excellent Argument of Aversion to Peace When the Cessation was in Debate the King demanding the Approbation of the Commanders of the Ships It was replyed That this Demand was to desire the strength of one party to the
other before the difference were ended and upon this Reason the King receded from that Condition never expecting that they would so soon have forgotten their owne Logicke and have demanded That when Differences were ended this Approbation that is this strength should for three yeares continue in them And sure the King is in a miserable Condition if neither a Cessation nor a Treaty be a fit time or meanes for Him to recover his Owne But say you the Feares and Iealousies of the People must be satisfied Say I the People must be satisfied That there was Cause of Feares and Iealousies And one Cause of their Demand is That these things would appeare to have been taken without Reason if they were restored without Conditions But this may be an Argument to them to aske it I am sure it can be none to the King to grant for then by the contrary Argument the King is necessitated to insist that they be restored without Limitations or Conditions because He can never confesse that they were taken from Him with any Reason or Colour Sir though you have great Abundance of Feares and Iealousies yet you have not hoorded them so up but you have given some to the King certainly if when these things were in his Hands they were wrested by you from Him you may doe it with much greater case if you have more then halfe the Hold as you confesse in the Poynt of the Shipps that the allowing of Approbation of the Commanders gives up the strength And nothing can be more ridiculous then for you to pretend to feare Him when He shall have those whom you did not feare when He had them Certainly if you had apprehended this Power as you pretend you would never when he was vested in it have offered Him such injuries and denied Him such Rights as you never offered or denied to His Predecessors at least you would have thought that Power if not able to punish you yet able to defend it selfe and you would never have attempted so hard a work as to take it from Him This Sir is the truth and that most visibly These Powers are so farre from enabling Him to oppresse you That the least Colour of such an intention after a Peace would be the same as delivering them up to you againe They were your Leavies that made His It was you that raysed Him an Army when you gave Him the Law of His side and He will not be able to rayse another if He have once disbanded this till you give Him againe the same Advantage and you will be able to oppresse Him if He shall give it you For to feare that He shall conquer England with three or foure small Garrisons when those who now assist Him that is almost all the Gentry of England must look upon Him as the most perjurd man alive and upon themselves as dispenc't with by Him from any Obedience or Loyalty to Him is so hypocondriacall a fancy that it is either to be mad or to resolve that He is so Nothing else can so puffe Him up with some Shipps and a few Forts which without mony to Man and pay them are but so many Hulkes and but bare walles as not rather to be enclin'd to comply in any reasonable thing with the only Legall Root and spring of Mony the House of Commons that He may live in Glory and Peace then without Mony to hope to begin and conquer in an unjust Warre Who hath found it so difficult to defend Himselfe in so visibly a just one There is yet another reasonable Feare Iealousy for the King to apprehend The Nineteen Propositions in which there was presented to Him a perfect Platforme of a totall change of Government by which the Counsellors were to have been Kings and the King to have become scarce a Counsellor and nothing of the present State to have remained but Eadem Magistratuum vocabula cannot easily get out of the Kings Head or appeare to Him not to be still in theirs who were the framers and Contrivers And He hath great cause to be very wary after such an instance of some mens ends and designes this Parliament being by Law perpetuall and a Trienniall one being however to be not to give any Ground to any such Power in both Houses as may make this submitting of His known Rights in the choyce of these particulars to their Approbation a ground to continue these and draw on more of the same kind and to divide at least that Dependence with them which the Law for excellent and necessary Reasons meant only to the Crowne If Feares and Iealousies be so rewarded I doubt I shall see new ones at the Three years end that this share in conferring of Places of Power and trust may be rather encreased then lost And there could not be a greater justification and fortification of this Iealousy then to see a new Book printed by order of a Committee of the House of Commons with a Members Iohn White 's hand to it whole Title is The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms asserting the Parliament and Kingdoms Right and Interest in and power over not only the Militia Ports Forts Ammunition of the Realme but likewise to make choice of the Keeper Treasurer Privy-Seale Privy-Councellors Iudges and Sheriffes of the Kingdom and denying the Kings negative Voyce to such publique Bills as both Houses deem necessary and just And if all this belong to both Houses I wonder what is left to belong to the King but to give Warrants for Bucks without consent of Parliament But say you If the King would have named persons to them He should have seen how moderate you would have been in your Exceptions Truly Sir what you would have been perhaps neither of us know but by your refusing to make the Law your Rule it seems you intended to give a very arbitrary Approbation And though you now say as we alwaies heare much of the moderation intended by you whensoever a Treaty is either broken or diverted that you would have excepted against none but impeach't persons yet I am sure in the Bill for the Militia the King offering you the same Persons whom within a few Weekes before you had offered Him for the same employments you yet excepted against fowre my Lord Marques of Hertford my Lord of Cumberland my Lord of Derby and my Lord of Lincolne because in the Interim they did not accept of a Command over the Militia without the Kings consent who could only Legally give it them and yet since the last having so much submitted his Conscience to Power that from being unsatisfied with raising Armes without the King He is come to make no scruple of bearing Armes against Him is now again so fully confided in by you that Respect to the King and Reverence to the Law appear to be the Qualities you cannot confide in and the King after such an instance hath great Reason to be wary how He either approve
of your confiding or confide in your Approbation And if they really meant onely to except against impeacht Persons why did they not say so much in the Treaty to have made the breach of the Treaty on their side somewhat more popular And since to direct their Exceptions they knew who were Legally vested in those Places for the King only named those whom the Law had named first Why did they not except at such of them as were impeach't and give that as a Reason or make some other at least colourable exception against them which upon debate and mutuall reasoning might have produced either their satisfaction or the Kings unlesse an agreement were not that effect of their Treaty which they aymed at most Truly I am very confident the King knew not and I am the more confident of it because I am certain I knew nothing of it my selfe that any Persons now in those Commands had ever been impeacht and then sure the King had no Reason to take it so farre for granted that any deserv'd to be excepted at against whom He knew no exceptions Himselfe as without a present Charge to dispossesse them of those Commands to which they had a present Right And God forbid Sir That a meer Charge not prov'd nor yet answer'd to should dispossesse men of their Rights especially in a time in which a Charge comes so easily that men are voted Traytors for assisting the King against a Rebellion against Him You instance only 〈…〉 men Will Lâ—gg and Mr Gâ—ring And for the first I pray what is he charg'd with only for being employed by the King as a meer messenger in the delivery of a Petition which having been Printed ever since the twelfth of August I could never yet heare either publiquely or privately any objection made against it and which I am sure must appear very just humble and modest even to the most passionate if they compare it to the Petition of Hertfordshire or to that of the Thousands of poore People about London or to diverâ—… others which received the Countenance of one House and Thankes from both And sure if the Crime had been so great as you would now intimate you would never for so long a time have suffered him to have gone whether he pleas'd upon Baile For the second Person I am not enough of his Acquaintance to be able to answer for him but certainly you can lay nothing but Loyalty to his Change since to the very Minute of his declaring for the King when Armes were raised against His Majesty you confided so much in him that I am credibly informed you meant to have made him Lievtenant Generall of your whole Army and I am sure when I left London he was esteemed by you an excellent Patriot one who had sav'd the Kingdome from a greater then the Gunpowder Treason and was the very Darling and Favorite of the Common-wealth This is Sir the true state of the case after that the House of Lords whereof the major part by above twenty there being then hardly any Bishop in Town uncommitted and not one Popish Lord left in Town had twice refused to joyn in asking the Militia Forts Ports c. of the King were forc'd by the threatning Petitioners and the Countenance given to them by the House of Commons to ioyne with them perforce in their feares and jealousies and in that Demaund which was grounded upon them and after that in an humble pursuance of these desires these things with the Magazines and Shipps to boot are forced from His Majestie whom His Ancestors the Law had as irrevocably vested in them as it hath any man in England in his House Goods or Land it is thought an Aversion to Peace in the King that He will not by now assenting condemne Himselfe as guilty of this Warre for not having rather at first then now assented to these Desires which were their ground of it That He will not by this Assent condemne the Lords House for not having sooner discovered the Causes of feares and Iealousies which occasioned and as they say did necessitate the continuance of those Desires till their Eyes were opened by the Threats and Tumults of the People That He will not justifie these forcible proceedings against Himselfe in taking these things from Him by submitting to any Conditions or Limitations whatsoever to recover them againe but doth pertinaciously insist to have His own restored to Him and thinks to put them off with Iustice and with the Law of the Land For though the Militia were not named either in the Proposition of both Houses or in the Kings yet even that too is hooked in in their Limitations in such a manner as the People may not see it and not only they deliver not what is the Kings to Him but as it were demand satisfaction from Him for having taken it and not only without any regard to the Right of the Persons legally vested or offering any legall or colourable Exception against them require still that such be named in those Places as they may confide in though We may take a measure by what Rule they will confide by the Precedents I quoted before and not only they require this for once at first but if any dye within three yeares they must confide againe and indeed that is a faire time taken to be sure by that time to have more feares and Iealousies ready made to keep up the perpetuity and to extend the Power of confiding But yet farther these Officers and the Admirall and others must take an Oath to suppresse all Forces that shall be raised during that time without the consent of both Houses so that by this His Majesty even in Case this Parliament should end sooner if perhaps they have not resolv'd it shall not and have prepar'd this as a Reason why it should not and in case never so great a Rebellion should rise or never so terrible an invasion should come in upon us must neither increase his Garrisons nor raise other Forces to resist them unlesse a Parliament both be and be willing to afford Him their Consent and His Majesty having sworne to protect His Subjects must quit the old legall way of doing it Himselfe and at best be obliged to call upon others to help Him not to be foresworne Truly Sir unlesse like one that hath been so long in the darke that he takes a Rush Candle for the Sunne you have now so long kept unreasonable Company that you thinke any thing on this side the Ninteen Propositions to be reasonable you would never approve a demand which doth thus slyly and by the by devest the King of that sole Power over the Militia that for a yeare longer then your owne Bill askt it which was the first and chiefest Dispute between the King and the Commons for the Lords had had no Iealousies if they had had no Feares and which is so principall a Prerogative of the Crowne as without it He