Commons and by the same Logicke that the King is denyed His Rights the Lords may loose theirs and this might breed an under-civill Warre betweene Your two Houses The trust committed to you by the people who are the third estate cannot give any power to entrench upon the other two or either of them The performance of this trust is to be regulated according to the Lawes so that if You doe any thing against Law you are accomptable for such actions and the people is no way concerned in it as having no legall authority in such a case It is not possible the People should give unto you what they had not in themselves a Priviledge to breake the Lawes You are but a part of London and London but a part of the Kingdome It is very true so the Porters were but a part the women were but a part and the beggers were but a part all which had the happinesse to thinke as you did and so deserved thankes for it We challenge no greater Priviledge then was allowed to them to present our desires to approve or disallow belongs unto you according as the greatest reason shall direct Yet thus much we shall take the boldnesse to say though you chance to affect warre you must give us leave to love and pray for peace and not to engage our Estates or Persons for such right in this case the Law gives us if we conceive it an unreasonable warre for we shall be unwilling to contribute a part only that we may bring the whole in danger And it may be necessary to tell you we are much the best part of London and London much the most considerable part of the Kingdome and we have great reason to presume that the most to be valued in other parts also will second our desire though you perhaps may have different apprehensions of their affections For indeed the causes of liking and disliking warre are not the same in you and the rest of the Kingdome You sit in the midst of us encompassed with safety whereas others are exposed to the hazard Their Hay their Corne their Household-stuffe their flocks of Sheep and heards of Cattell and Horses are subject to the plunder which makes them disrellish those distractions It is no marveile if the active men amongst you find in warre a more pleasing tast since they have put themselves into good preferment by severall commands and the Kingdomes misery is become their patrimony So while their trade flourishes they have no deep sense of the universall decay of ours in severall callings We doe not much wonder if men that stand upon the shore delight in tempests as often as the wrack is to be shared amongst them But it may be that you see more then the whole Kingdome This is a pretty kind of Rhetoricke to endeavour to baffle our reason by pressing on our modesty We compare not with others though we might tell you in some things we that are standers by might perhaps see more clearly then you who are playing your game whether in this cause our understanding be weaker or not it concernes not us to determine since this we know we are bound to practise according as that informes us in our duty and that God however some undervalue the spilling of Christian blood will call us to a severe accompt and most miserable is he who shall be found guilty of shedding the blood of his brethren unjustly You shall soone find how deare and precious the face the very name or sound of Peace is to us Many dayes are not passed over since the name would not be entertained with patience You know who said I like not dawbing and that other expression I hate the name of Accommodation Certainly it was lesse cunningly carryed But it seemes it was beleeved the people was irrecoverably mad and that they would never be weary of misery or at least that they were so much in your power that he which should dare to mention Peace should suffer the injuries of warre This part would have beene better acted then It would have given much more satisfaction if you had embraced the name of Peace with all cheerfulnesse and broken of the thing by perplexed disputes and sending unreasonable propositions Now it will be a worke of greater difficulty to over-rule our understandings since we have evident grounds to suspect your affections We heartily wish we may prove false Prophets but we cannot command our feares which worke naturally and make judgement of the future by what is past from presaging you will keep up the warre still but in a more plausible way and under a seeming desire of Peace having perceived the disadvantage of your open error use unfit meanes to effect it by proposing unreasonable conditions so hoping to avoyd the envy and yet preserve to your selves the benefits of these divisions The sense of the following discourse is this No Accommodation can be because something must be left to the King upon trust and something to you It will be very easie to assigne the bounds of these severall trusts It is done to our hand for His Majesty requires no new trust to himselfe nor will He deny an old trust to you the Lawes and Customes of this Land determine both But He must not be trusted because he is not utterly disingaged from all parties Here is a plaine Declaration what the issue is likely to be As long as the King hath any power left so long you will suspect his Faith and the people must be miserable so long as you please to be fearefull Certainly the meanest understanding can quickly apprehend this to be a most seditious principle and all true lovers of their Country will looke upon it as the seed-plot of Rebellion to all ages For all men cannot be prefer'd and pretences will never be wanting of a King's engagement to a party as often as ambitious persons who thinke they have equall deserts find they have not equall preferment Such men commonly when they cannot attaine to great offices in the discharge whereof they promise to the people some extraordinary good they out of indignation manifest their abilities in hurting the State You object to the King He hath a party Alas this is His unhappinesse and your fault He desires and ought to have the whole But if you will obstinately persist in this lay-Schisme and admit of no condition of Reconciliation except He will remove those servants which in His afflictions He hath found honest and faithfull to Him and preferre you in their places He hath small encouragement to bestow such favours not yet deserved by you and cannot satisfie His conscience in such an ill requitall of their tryed Loyaltie The next is a stale calumny against Papists and Delinquents Though reason be not lesse concluding because old and often repeated yet slanders loose their credit by time because most men can confute them by experience His Majesty hath fully satisfied the world in this point and the
most considering part even of the people having long time in vaine expected proofes are now growne more stayd in their beleef then to be led away by a bare confidence and boldnesse of defaming Wee and the Kings party are so diametrically opposite in Religion and State that He cannot protect both The same justice may governe both if you will returne from whence you are swerved and submit to the common rule of Law which ought to be the measure of our actions We most earnestly beseech you that we may not perish while we are detained in generalls you would be pleased to tell us what Religion you would have If the publike forme of worship established already and sealed with the bloud of many Martyrs herein can be no ground of difference they professe and practise it and will become suitors to you that you will severely punish all persons whatsoever that transgresse against it If you meane some other Religion as you doe if there be any reall disagreement amongst us let us know what it is perhaps the Kingdome will renounce their old faith and like your Creed better However let not the people be blindly ingaged to fight against their King in defence of their owne and His Religion and to maintaine that which He and they approve off and only you dissent from If they are His friends we are His enemies if we are His friends they are questionlesse His enemies It becomes not us to decide who are His friends who His enemies nor to publish our thoughts which may perhaps be guided by that common notion to fight for or against to endeavour to preserve or destroy Friendship and enmity here are not to be taken for affections but for a civill vertue orvice and to be understood in a law notion They only are to be esteemed His friends who are obedient to Lawes transgressors His enemies So that a King is enemy to none as not punishing out of hatred but justice That some men have found more favour then others we may guesse at the cause of your discontents by this frequent complaint can be no just ground to disturbe a State The Kingdome will never be free from Rebellion if Subjects may be allowed to give law to the Princes courtesies Either they must judge us or we them no middle way can be safe The tryall of this Land is well known which is per judicium parium by verdict of Pears it being a way of proceeding equally indifferent to all where none have cause to feare wrested explications or obscure consequences verdicts being brought in in capitall causes according to evident and knowne law We make no question all uninterested persons will quickly be satisfied in the present difference in case of Treason which can be the only subâ—ect of this debate and yet this seemes to be the maine ground of distance For certainly our Lawes have provided for the tryall of it and the House of Commons never heretofore challenging a power of judicature and the Lords not using to censure any in this nature under the degree of Baron therefore it undeniably appeares they are to be referred to the ordinary tryall of the Kings Bench They will not lay downe Armes before us nor ought wee before them Cleare satisfaction hath beene offered you by His Majesty in this point that the Armes should be returned to those hands in which they are by law intrusted The King is invested with the sole power of trayning arraying and mustering it being most consonant to reason as well as grounded on law that he which is bound to Protect should be enabled to compasse that end Little safety will be to us for our Religion and our profession will bind us truly to performe but theirs will bind them to betray us Of all men living we should least have expected you should make advantage of this argument the breach of Faith in your Souldiers being most infamously notorious Witnesse Farneham Castle where after hands shaken with two of your Captaines and time given upon the reputation of Gentlemen and Souldiers to draw up Propositions of surrender the Commanders being retired and the Souldiers forbid to shoot you brooke in upon them against the lawes of Truce tooke them all Prisoners and plundred them not affording any benefit of the former agreement witnesse Winchester where after composition set downe in writing you against it rob'd them stript them and kill'd many in coole bloud insomuch that some of your Commanders more sensible of honour openly exclaimed against your barbarous cruelty scarce to be paralell'd amongst the storyes of Germany witnesse Yorkeshire where after the Gentry had very prudently setled a peace and security in that County by mutuall covenant not to injure each other the Lord Fairefax is bitterly reproved for breaking your Priviledges by presuming to agree to the happinesse of His Country when the House or rather the Committee had resolved to ingage the whole Kingdome in misery and he is accordingly commanded not to regard his promise The truth is and you have declared it to the world in print that you might perswade him not to be honest you tell him plainly he was not wise and therefore injoyne him not to stand to that Covenant which was made with so much disadvantage witnesse Mr Marshall and Dr Downing The King in extraordinary mercy pardoned and dismissed 300 prisoners though guilty of high Treason and taken in actuall hostility against him onely taking security at least as he then thought it was having not yet learnt that the Religion of that party is not capable of laying any obligation against Interest for their future innocency by oath they swearing never after to beare Armes against His Majesty These being returned are satisfied in conscience they swore unlawfully as binding themselves not to advance the good cause and for this consideration as also it being taken in their owne defence their lives being endangered upon refusall so that being now safe they were againe free they are formally absolv'd from their Oath by these two City Popes and preached into new and perjurd Rebells Good God that these men in so short time should be guilty of so many publique violations of Faith one of which even amongst the ancient Heathen would have stained an age and yet that all the people are not yet undeceived It cannot be but all such as have any sense of true piety will upon full information detest these foule proceedings and abhorre that Religion which is made but an Art to dispense with honesty Certainly you cannot believe that you Religion binds you truly to performe men of such perswasions could not so grossely equivocate themselves into disloyalty and raise an Army to desttroy their King in His own defence If you preferre their cause and being before ours speake it out more plainâ—y We most humbly thank you and shall if necessity require it make use of this freedom The rule by which our liking will be guided is this we shall
acquit that party which doth not intrench upon Our Liberty by imprisoning any of us without cause and maintaining the Legality of it and professing to measure it according to pleasure so that if they think it convenient to doe so it shall be a crime to question it Our property by taking our Estates from us without our consents our Religion by committing our most painfull and conscientious Professors and publique thwarting our long beleeved Preachers by new Sectaries with great care and cunning planted in our severall Congregations We love not to be sollicited by the People in what case soever except when we doe manifestly faile in our duty Your minds are much changed of late you did love it dearely And such care hath been taken to entertain you with this your delight that least good affections should not be able to shew themselves for want of understanding as commonly your well meaning friends were defective in that part your sense hath been put into their papers and you have lent them a head that they might expresse their good hearts It cannot be so sudainly forgotten that when reason formerly hath gainsaid proposalls the affections of the people have been judged the fittest measure of votes Here is yet a possibility of failing by this confession and so you have overthrown the strongest and most popular argument of your innocence the authority of the doer If we or any part of the Kingdome shall conceave you faile of duty to your Soveraigne you have by this granted us full liberty to sollicite you when we think fitting We desire you to addresse your selves to His Majesty in the same manner as you have done to us unlesse you condemne us as more indisposed to peace then his Majesty is We have had frequent evidences of His Majesties peaceable inclinations in His many Messages continually by you rejected and we have observed how long and how much he hath suffered formerly that He might have prevented if malice could have been wearied this unnaturall Warre We thought a Petition to Him for Peace not so seasonable because He out of His detestation of the effusion of His Subjects blood had Himselfe in His Message from Nottingham even sued to you for it We extremely wonder We should now be put upon this course for which formerly you have punished others It was then a crime to think of making any addresses to His Majesty and the authors have suffered for it before it was known what they meant to have desired Concerning the matter of the Petition you would frame for us that art hath formerly done good service and must not now be forgotten that He would depart from his former rigor of termes we must freely acknowledge we have not yet met with any harsh proposalls from His Majesty and we believe if any such were they would have been named you not using to dissemble any advantages nor to be over nice in respect to His Regall dignity What ever conditions have come to our hands seem as reasonable in sense as mild in language Notwithstanding he hath been frequently tempted to use harsher expressions by that freedom you have taken of accusing him in such words as we should count it incivility to use towards our equalls Too oft they were so below the respect due to a King that they were unfit to be given to a Gentleman Inbriefe that you may not flatter your selves with an opinion we shall easily be put off with generalities which signity nothing we shall take some paines in this businesse which so highly concernes us and with our utmost care and all due respects descend to particular Propositions such as we according to our apprehensions shall conceave reasonable And that we may as much as in us lies remove all those rubbs out of the way to an happy accommodation which some with designe and study purposely cast in we shall for the present make one Proposition which carries in it much equality and if we mistake not will take off all exceptions which seem to stand betwixt us and happinesse in this agreement That is that as His Majesty doth readily consent to all the rights which belong to both Houses so you would with as much forwardnesse grant what ever rights belong unto him and that time may not be wasted in doubtfull disputes while the Kingdome lies at stake that you would make the Reigne of Queen ELIZABETH acknowledged by all to be happy and glorious the measure by which to determine them This we conceive a more equall way then for two of the Estates especially when the major part by fear of tumults and Armies is absent to judge by no rule but their own votes of the Rights of the third to whom if it may be allowed to be sole arbitrary Iudges both of Iustice and Policy both of what is due to you and fit for you both from King and Subjects the accommodation that is left can only be this that so you may have all that your selves desire you are contented to endure peace and such an one indeed you had hard hearts if you would not accept If this appeare more reasonable we shall not need to trouble our selves with those involved conditions by you prescribed the meaning whereof we doubt in some the truth in others That you are the Kings Legall Parliament That the two Houses are distinct parts of the Parliament we acknowledge and the King never denied it That you have not the power of the whole in right though it hath been executed upon us in fact you your selves must confesse unlesse you will say that you can make an Act of Parliament without the King Wherein we desire you to declare your sense plainly If you shall not pretend to this we request the Subject may not suffer under illegall names that is that an Ordinance of either or both houses may not have the vertue or power since you will not justify the name of Law in it That you are the Kings highest court of Iudicature We conceive the House of Commons and much more the Committee hath power of accusing only not of judging This belongs to the House of Lords an appeale being made from an inferior Court and writs of error being legally exhibited who are presumed to passe sentence according to the known Law and not according to reason of State Because this would place an arbitrary power in them and enable them to overthrow the birth-right and inheritance of every English man our Lawes by Policy Since there cannot be imagined a more absolute power and government according to bare will then to determine the same action right or wrong as they shall please to call it necessary or convenient That you are fittest to determine all publique disputes If it be understood in relation to Lawes the only allowed rules of decision it is granted without any inconveniences If you will maintain it in the largest sense which the words may seem to beare we are confident the people will abhorre the Doctrine for by this rule you must maintâ—ine it is in your power to depose not a King only but Monarchy it selfe if this chance to be the subject of your disputes That you are best disposed to mercy as well as justice We desire you to expresse these words in plain English and to tell us clearely whether you doe challenge to your selves a right of pardoning whom you please which yet hath been acknowledged this very Parliament a prerogative only belonging to the King But if this be the meaning we shall lesse wonder that persons highly corrupt and most known offendors in publique offices have been protected from your Iustice by the Prerogative of your mercy and that Policy should so farre over-rule Law that it should be delivered for sound State Doctrine that former faults ought not to be lookt upon if the party accused hath done good service for the present If this free opening our apprehensions find a gratious acceptance and as is by us infinitely desired prosperous successe we shall render you our most humble and hearty thankes if our further endeavours shall be necessary we will not be wanting to our own and the Kingdoms preservation FINIS
THE PETITION OF THE MOST SUBSTANTIALL INHABITANTS OF the Citty of London and the Liberties thereof TO THE LORDS and COMMONS FOR PEACE Together with the Answer to the same AND The REPLYE of the Petitioners LONDON Printed for EDWARD HUSBAND Anno Dom. 1642. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THE LORDS and COMMONS now assembled in the High Court of PARLIAMENT The humble Petition of divers Inhabitants of the City of London and the Liberties thereof SHEWETH THat the present sense of our miseries and apprehension of inevitable ruine both of the Church and Common-wealth make us to become humble suitors to this Honourable Assembly the likeliest means under God for our reliefe to consider our distressed estates and to provide a speedy remedy for our present and future evills earnestly desiring you to weigh the care and Iudgement of our Predecessors who by a known Law setled and preserved our Protestant Religion our Liberties and Properties with a right understanding between King and Subjects which produced peace and plenty in our Streets And to reflect with serious thoughts upon our present distempers violating Religion by Papists and Sectaries engaging our Nation into a Civill Bloody and Distructive Warre invading our Lawes and Liberties endangering all our Lives and utterly disinabling us to relieve our distressed brethren in Ireland We beseech you likewise to consider the effects of contâ—nued Waâ—re as the destruction of Christians the unnaturall effusion of blood Fathers against Sonnes Brothers by Brothers Friends by Friends slaine then famine and sicknesse the followers of civill Warre making way for a generall confusion and invasion by a forraigne Nation while our Treasure is exhausted our Trade lost and the Kingdome dispeopled These things weighed and enlarged by your wisdomes we doubt not will be strong motives in us to desire a speedy Peace and a happy Accommodation Wherefore we humbly crave that not lending an eare to any fomenters of these present Warres under what pretence soever nor remembring ought that may increase Iealousies or continue divisions between his Majesty and his Houses of Parliament you will speedily tender His Majesty according to His Royall intimations such Propositions for Accommodation as He may with Honour and Safety to the whole Kingdome accept For effecting whereof we shall be ready to assist you with the best and utmost of our abilities and whilest you endeavour Peace we shall send up our Prayers to Heaven for the blessing of peace upon you and all those that desire it An Answer to the London PETITION You Gentlemen and Citizens BOth you and your request are welcome to Vs and cannot faile of a kind reception here where your former merits and your present good intentions are so well knowne It is naturall in the Patient to seeke cure of his disease and to move the Phisitian to use his best skill and it is commendable in you under your sufferings to apply your selves to Vs for ease and we hope it is not meere impatience urges you to seeke things impossible or unjust your prayers for Peace are Honourable so was Iacobs wife for children yet when she cryed give me children or I dye she was to blame for she sought that of Iacob which Iacob had no power to give and she sought the same with such violence as Iacob ought not to have heard But we will only conceive that without all impatience you seeke of us Peace so farre as we can procure it and not absolutely for it depends not so much upon us as the King and it is not in us to draw the King to a Peace except His Majesty be as inclinable to it as we are And we will conceive also that you seeke not Peace nakedly except it come along with Truth Righteousnesse and Honour and of such a Peace we are as zealous as you can wish us to be and for other Peace if we should wholly submit to the Kings party without all conditions for future security such a submission to that Party would be no redresse but an increase of your present sufferings We are intrusted in this by the whole Kingdome and that trust we must not breake upon the solicitation of any part of the Kingdome you are a considerable part of London but you are not whole London and London is a considerable part of this Kingdome but it is not the whole Kingdome and we according to our trust must looke upon the whole Kingdome but it may be that you see more than the whole Kingdome and may out of that sight offer some thing to us for the ease and reliefe of the whole Kingdome in this we will not gaine-say you it is possible that some cleere way forme of a just safe and honourable Accommodation may be opened and discovered to you which hath not yet been found out by us if this be so we desire you cordially and in a friendly manner to communicate your apprehensions and understandings of this affaire to us and by our sudden and full embracement thereof you shall soon find how deere and precious the face the very name or sound of Peace is to us in the meane time we desire you to rest assured that if there be any defect in us it must needs be in point of understanding it cannot be in point of affection No men living can be in affection more devoted to safe Peace then we are And further we desire you not to censure us of any defect at all no not so much as in understanding except you can reveal to us some better way then we have hitherto assayed No Accommodation can be but we must leave something to the King upon trust and if the Accommodation be even the King will not deny some trust to us but in this helpe to advise us how farre we shall trust the King and how farr we shall trust the Kings party were the King utterly disingaged from all parties perhaps we would wholly trust the King and desire no trust at all to be left in us from His Majesty but we see in the Kings party some that have a strange power in His affection yea a greater power farre than we have and yet they are knowne to be deeply inraged Papists violently ingaged Delinquents and if you would wholly put your selves and the Kingdome into the trust of such a party we are bound to withstand it as much as we can The King protests to hate Popery and disavowes all thoughts of Arbitrary Rule yet we know all how farre He is addicted to Papists and malignant haters of Parliaments and since we cannot submit to the King but we must submit to His Party who He preferres before us what advantage is it to us whether He be in heart the selfe same as His party is or not The truth is we and the Kings party are so diametrically opposite in Religion and State both that he cannot protect both if they are His friends we are his enemies if we are his friends they are questionlesse his enemies if