or Congregation of men can have to traduce Him with them Before any discourse be applied to the monstrous Conclusions which are made and for the support and maintenance whereof that Declaration is framed and contrived or to the unreasonable glosses upon His Majesties Propositions and prosecution of his desires of peace and Treaty it will be the best method to weigh and consider those particulars upon which they would be thought to found their desperate Conclusions and in which they say there is a continued tract of breach of trust in the three Kingdomes since His Majesty wore the Crowne 1. The first Charge is that His Majesty in publique Speeches and Declarations hath laid a fit foundation for all Tyranny by this most destructive Maxime or Principle which he saith he must avow That He oweth an account of His Actions to none but God alone and that the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law That which all learned Christians in all ages have taught and all learned Lawyers of this Kingdome have alwaies held and acknowledged is not like to be a destructive principle and a fit foundation for Tyranny and surely this assertion of His Majesties hath no lesse authority For the first the incomparable Grotius upon whom all learned men look with singular reverence saies that even Samuel jus Regum describens satis ostendit adversùs Regis injurias nullam in populo relictam potestatem which saies he rectè colligunt veteres ex illo Psalmi Tibi soli peccavi Because being all ejusà em ordinis the people owe the same obedience to these as they did to those though the absolute power and jurisdiction the Kings of Israel had be no rule for other Princes to claime by And Grotius there cites Saint Ambrose his note upon the same Text Neque ullis ad poenam vocantur legibus tuti imperii potestate homini ergo non peccavit cui non tenebatur obnoxius The wise and learned Lord Chancellor Egerton in his Argument of the Postnati mentions some Texts in the Civill Law of the great and absolute power of Princes as Rex est lex loquens and Rex solus judicat de causa à jure non definita and saies he must not wrong the Judges of the Common Law of the Kingdome so much as to suffer an imputation to be cast upon them that they or the Common Law doe not attribute as great power and authority to their Soveraigns the Kings of England as the Canon Laws did to their Emperours and then cites out of Bracton the Chief Justice in the time of King Hen. 3. and an authentique Authour in the Law these words De Chartis Regiis factis Regum non debent nec possunt Justitiarii nec privatae personae disputare nec etiam si in illa dubitio oriatur possunt eam interpretari in dubiis obscuris vel si aliqua dictio duos contineat intellectus Domini Regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas and the same Bracton in another place saies of the King Omnis sub eo est ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo The ground of that excellent law of Premunire in the 16 year of King Rich 2. c. 5. and the very words of that Statute are That the Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly Subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regality of the same Crowne and to none other and upon that Maxime of the Law that good Statute against the Pope was founded If the King were bound to give an Account of his Actions to any person or power whatsoever God excepted he could not be the onely supream Governour of this Realme which he is declared and acknowledged to be by the Oath of Supremacy which every Member of the House of Commons hath taken or if he hath not he ought not to sit there or to be reputed a Member of Parliament by the Statute of 5 Eliz. c. 1. For the other part of this most destructive maxime or principle That the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any thing to be Law which hath not been formerly made to be so It hath been the judgment and language of the law it self in all Ages and the language of all Parliaments themselves It was the judgment of the Parliament in the 2 year of King Hen. 5. remembred and mentioned by the King in his Answer to the 19 Propositions That it is of the Kings regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself which was the forme then usuall to present those desires which by the Kings approbation and consent were enacted into Laws It was the language of the Law in the 36 year of K. H. 6. reported by my Lord Dyer that the King is the head and that the Lords are chief and principall Members and the Commons to wit the Knights Citizens and Burgesses the inferiour Members and that they all make the Body of Parliament and doubtlesse the Priviledge of Parliament was not in that time held so sacred a thing when an Action of Debt was brought against the Sheriffe of Cornwall for having discharged one Trewynnard a Burgesse of Parliament taken in Execution during the Session of Parliament upon a Writ of priviledge directed to the said Sheriffe and the Kings Bench where the Action was brought and the Sheriffe justified was in those daies the proper place to judge what was the priviledge of Parliament the Law being the most proper Judge of that priviledge as well as of all other rights It is the language of the Authour of Modus tenendi Parliamentum who lived before the time of William the Conquerour and it is the language of Sir Edw. Coke in the Chapter of the high Court of Parliament which was published by a speciall Order of the House of Commons since the beginning of this Parliament that there is no Act of Parliament but must have the consent of the Lords the Commons and the royall assent of the King and the same Sir Edward Coke saies in the 11. p. of that Chapter that Innovations and Novelties in Parliamentary proceedings are most dangerous and to be refused It is the language of the Parliament in the 1 year of King James when to the first Act that was past they desired His Majesties royall assent without which they say it can neither be compleat or perfect nor remaine to all posterity c. Lastly it is the language of this present Parliament and in a time in which they were not very modest in their pretences for in their Declaration of the 19 of May they acknowledge that by the constitution of this Kingdome the power is in His Majesty and Parliament together albeit they conclude in the same Declaration that if He refused to
joyne with them they will doe their work themselves without Him There is no one Proposition that hath more mis-led men then the discourse of the Parliaments being the supream Court of Judicature and therefore that they have the sole power to declare Law It is confessed that the House of Peers in Parliament for any pretence of the House of Commons to judicature is groundlesse and unreasonable and unheard of till within these last seven years is the supream Court of Judicature whither any person that conceives himself oppressed by the judgment of any other Court may by writ of Error remove that judgment of which he Complaines and from the Sentence of that Court there is no Appeale which His Majesty well expressed in His Answer to that Declaration of the 19 of May in these words We deny not but they may have a power to declare in a particular doubtfull case regularly brought before them what Law is but to make a generall Declaration whereby the known rule of the Law may be crossed or altered they have no power nor can exercise any without bringing the Life and Liberty of the Subject to a lawlesse and arbitrary subjection Which assertion the too sad experience of all men hath evinced to be most reasonable The truth is that power of declaring in a particular case so brought before them is rather a power to declare what shall be done in that case then what the law is for if they reverse a judgment brought before them and determine the right otherwise then it hath been judged by the sworne Judges that judgement is no rule to the sworne Judges to judge by but they may in the like case without imputation of Crime or error judge as they did formerly which shews that the Judges are the onely Interpreters of the Law in their severall Courts though in these cases removed regularly before the Lords the party must acquiesce there being no other Court to appeale to Adde to this that there hath been in all times that reverence to the sworne Judges of the Law that the Lords in Parliament have alwaies guided themselves by their opinion in matters of law neither will it be ever found before this Parliament that the House of Peers ever declared or judged the law in any particular case against the unanimous opinion of the Judges who are assistants only for that purpose neither is it reason that any should be thought fit Interpreters or Declarers of the law but they who have studied it and are sworne to doe it truly And to this point though there are multitude of examples and Presidents there shall be one only remembred In the Parliament in the 28 year of Hen. 6. upon the 16 of January the Commons desired That William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk should be Committed to prison for many Treasons other hainous Crimes cōmitted by him The Lords in Parliament were in doubt what Answer to give they demanded the opinion of the Judges their opinion was that he ought not to be Committed And the reason was for that the Commons did not charge him with any particular Offence but with generall Slanders and Reproaches And therefore because the specialties were not shewed he was not to be Committed this opinion was allowed and the Duke was not Committed till a Fortnight after that the Commons had exhibited speciall Articles against him that he conspired with the French King to invade the Realme c. And then he was sent to the Tower So great respect did those times beare to the Judges of the Law and so much courage had the Judges then to declare what the Law was Having now made it manifest that this most destructive maxime or principle is no new position but agreeable to antiquity Conscience truth and Law and therefore not like to be a fit foundation for all Tyranny It will not be unseasonable to observe that these words were spoken by His Majesty at the first Session of Parliament in the 3 year of his Reigne and that though the matter of them hath been often since and must be alwaies averred by him the very words have not been used in Speech or Declaration by His Majesty since the beginning of this Parliament and that that very Parliament continued many Months after and never in the least degree made question of them nor hath any objection been made to them till this new Declaration of the Commons near 18 years after and therefore it is not probable that they have been before mis-interpreted or censured It may be likewise in this place fit to inform the people what these men meane by the power of Declaring Law which they are so ambitious of that they may know how little else they would need to destroy King and people if they were possessed of this power in the sense they intend which will best appear by the instances in which they have assumed it The King proclaimes Sir John Hotham guilty of high Treason for having shut the Gates of Hull and having made resistance with armed men in defiance of His Majesty which he saies is high Treason by the Statute of the 25 year of Edw. 3. c. 2. They declare that Sir John Hotham did not shut the Gates against Him in defiance but in obedience to His Majesty and that the meaning of that Statute is onely against those who levyed War against the Kings laws and authority that the Kings Authority is only in them and they only can judge of the laws and therefore that they who shall levy War by their authority though against the personall Commands of the King and accompanied with his presence incur no danger by that Statute And that they who did attend His Person against them are guilty of Treason within that Statute The King for the information of his Subjects remembers them of the Statute made in the 11 year of K. Hen. 7. cap. 1. by which it is enacted That no manner of person whosoever he be that attends upon the King and Soveraign Lord of this Land for the time being in His Person and doe Him true and faithfull service of allegiance in the same or be in other places by His Commandement in His Wars shall be convict or attaint of high Treason nor lose Lands Goods c. They declare that by the King in this Statute is meant the Parliament If they are told the King is Supreme head and Governour over all persons within His Dominions and that He is so acknowledged to be by the Oaths themselves have taken They presently declare that it is meant of singular persons rather then of Courts or of the collective body of the whole Kingdome Examples innumerable of this kind might be remembred and the consequence needs not be pressed That the absurdity may a little appeare as well as the mischief they apply this faculty of declaring to the satisfying their Curiosity and supporting their Credit to matter of right and matter of
reasons might not as lawfully accuse those Members of high Treason as the Attourny Generall in the first year of this King's Reigne did accuse the Earle of Bristoll upon a Charge more generall who was thereupon committed to the Tower And why His Majesty might not as well have expected that upon his Articles not so generall as a meer verball accusation of high Treason either House would have Committed their severall Members as they had done so many this Parliament and about that time twelve Bishops together upon a confessed ground which every man there who knew what Treason was knew that fact to be none meerly because they were accused His Majesty upon occasion of mentioning this passage saies He could neither then nor yet can understand This being the case there remains nothing but His Majesties own going to the House of Commons for which hear His own words in His Answer to the Declaration of the 19. of May where that matter was loudly laid to His charge When We resolved that it was fit for Our own safety and honour and the peace of the Kingdome to proceed against those persons though We well know there was no degree of priviledge in that case yet to shew Our desire of correspondence with the two Houses of Parliament We chose rather then to apprehend those persons by the ordinary Ministers of Justice which according to the opinion and practice of former times We might have done to command Our Attourny generall to acquaint Our House of Peers with Our intention and the generall matters of Our Charge which was yet more particular then a meer Accusation and to proceed accordingly and at the same time sent a sworn Servant a Sergeant at Armes to Our House of Commons to acquaint them that We did accuse and intended to prosecute the five Members of that House for high Treason and did require that their persons might be secured in custody This We did not only to shew that We intended not to violate or invade their Priviledges but use more ceremony towards them then We conceived in justice might be required of Us and expected at least such an Answer as might informe Us if We were out of the way But We received none at all only in the instant without offring any thing of their Priviledges to Our consideration an Order was made and the same night published in print That if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest the person of any Member of that House without first acquainting that House therewith and receiving further order of that House That it should be lawfull for such Members or any person to assist them and to stand upon his or their guard of defence and to make resistance according to the Protestation taken to defend the Priviledges of Parliament and this was the first time we heard the Protestation might be wrested to such a sence or that in any case though of the most undoubted and unquestionable priviledge it might be lawfull for any person to resist and to use violence against a publique Minister of Justice armed with lawfull authority though we well know that even such a Minister might be punished for executing such authority Upon viewing this Order we must confesse We were somewhat amazed having neither seen nor heard of the like before though We had known Members of either House Committed without so much formality as We had used and upon crimes of a far inferiour nature to those We had suggested And having no course proposed to Us for Our proceeding We were upon the matter onely told that against those persons We were not to proceed at all that they were above Our reach of the Law It was not easie for Us to resolve what to doe if We imployed Our Ministers of Justice in the usuall way for their apprehension who without doubt would not have refused to have executed Our lawfull Commands We saw what resistance and opposition was like to be made which very probable might cost some bloud if We sate still and desisted upon this terrour We should at the best have confessed Our owne want of Power and the weakness of the Law in this strait We put on a sudden resolution to try whether Our own presence and clear discovery of Our intentions which haply might not have been so well understood could remove those doubts and prevent those inconveniences which seemed to be threatned And thereupon We resolved to go in Our Person to Our House of Commons which we discovered not till the minute of our going when We sent out That Our Servants and such Gentlemen as were then in Our Court should attend Us to Westminster but giving them expresse command that no accidents or provocation should draw them to any such Action as might imply a purpose of force in Us and Our self requiring those of Our traine not to come within the Dore went into the House of Commons the bare doing of which We did not conceive would have been thought more a breach of priviledge then if We had then gone to the House of Peers and sent for them to come to Us which is the usuall custome This was His Majesties Answer formerly to this Charge which is therefore here inserted at large as being so full that nothing need be added and it appeared by the Deposition of Barnard Ashly and others taken by them that the King gave His Traine expresse and positive charge that they should give no offence or ill word to any body what provocation soever they met with which Depositions were carefully suppressed and concealed whilst they made use of the testimony of indigent and infamous Fellows to reproach His Majesty from some light and unadvised discourse which was pretended to be uttered by some young Gentlemen who had put themselves into the Traine To conclude it is to be observed that though it were so high a transgression in the King against whom Treason can onely be committed to prefer such a Charge against five Members of the House of Commons who were called together by His Writ and accountable to Him for any breach of Duty that it did absolve them from their Allegiance yet the preferring the like Charge since against Eleven Members by the Army raised and maintained by them and to which they were not accomptable for any thing they did hath been held no crime and it may be no ill exercise for those Gentlemen who with such high contempt of that Soveraigne power to which they owed their allegiance took delight to despise and resist His Majesties just Authority now in their affliction restraint and banishment to consider the hand of God upon them which hath compelled them to submit to the mercenary power raised by themselves to suppresse their King That though they broke through the Kings Article for endeavouring to subvert the fundamentall Laws and Government of this Kingdome and to deprive the King of His legall power and to place on Subjects an Arbitrary and tyrannicall
upon so dangerous a Precedent to their owne Crownes and Monarchies without contributing to suppresse this so pernicious a designe begun in this Kingdome God forgive those Princes who suffered His Majesty to be deceived in so just and Princely an expectation It is here likewise to be remembred that the two Houses had dispatched their Agent Strickland to the States of the united Provinces to invite them to their amity and assistance and to decline their League with His Majesty before Colonel Cockram was sent for Denmarke their Declaration to those Provinces bearing date the 8 of Occtober which was before the time that Cockram went towards Denmarke 19. The Queens going into Holland is next objected to the King and that contrary to His trust He sent the ancient Jewels of the Crowne of England to be pawned or sold for Ammunition and Armes of which they say they had certain knowledge before they took up Armes and that they had not so much as once asked the Militia till the Queen was going for Holland and that Her going beyond Sea was stayed many Months before Her going into Holland by their motions to the King because amongst other reasons they had heard that She had packed up the Crowne Jewels by which they might see what was then intended by that Iourney had not they prevented it till the Winter They are very unwilling to agree upon the time when they first took up Armes and would have their seizing upon the King's Forts possessing themselves of the Militia of the Kingdome of the Royall Navy to be thought only an exercise of their Soveraigne power and no taking up of Armes but though they could perswade the world that their countenancing and bringing downe the Tumults by which they first drove away many Members from the Houses and then the King Himself from Whitehall was not taking up Armes because there was no avowed Act of both Houses to bring downe those Tumults yet sure they cannot deny their marching out of the City with all the Trained bands of London in a hostile manner to Westminster where both Houses gave the chief Officers thanks approved what they had done undertook to save them harmlesse and appointed a new Officer of their own to Command those Traine bands which was on the 11 of Ianuary 1641. to be taking up Armes When they appointed the next day their own new Officer Skippon to besiege the Tower of London with the City Forces by land and water and not suffer any provision to be carried thither when the King's Lieutenant was in it and declared that whosoever should trouble him for so doing was an Enemy to the Common-wealth which was accordingly executed by him they must confesse undoubtedly that they took up Armes and both these high actions which by the expresse Statute of the 25 year of King Edw. 3. are High Treason were before any one Iewell belonging to the Crowne or the King was carried out of the Kingdome For the time of asking the Militia though no circumstance of time could make it justifiable not to speak of the Bill preferred to that purpose many Months before the House of Commons by their Petition of the 26 of Ianuary after the House of Peers had refused to concur with them in so dis-loyall a suit desired His Majesty to put the Tower of London and the principall Forts of the Kingdome and the whole Militia into such hands as they thought fit and the Queen went not into Holland till the 23 of February neither was her journy resolved on till the beginning of that Month so that their assertion of not having so much as asked the Militia till the Queen was going into Holland is utterly untrue and when they were made acquainted of such Her Majesties purpose they never in the least degree disswaded it But what was the Queens going into Holland and the King 's sending with Her the Iewels of the Crown to their taking Armes The Queen might very well go to any place the King thought fit She should go the Princess Mary being at that time to go into Holland to her Husband His Maj. thought it fit that the Queens Maj. should accompany Her Daughter thither And for the Jewels of the Crowne though most of the Jewels carried over by the Queen were Her owne proper goods let them shew any Law that the King may not dispose of those Jewels for the safety of His life and to buy Arms Ammunition to defend Himself against Rebels who have seized all His Revenue and have left Him nothing to live upon but those Jewels which He had only in His power to convey out of theirs or to leave them to be seized on and sold by them who applied all that He had else and His own Revenue to hasten His destruction In their mention of the Queens former purpose of going beyond Seas stayed as they say upon their motion because they had then heard She had packed up the Crown Jewels and Plate they use their old and accustomed licence If they will examine their own Journall they will not find amongst all those reasons which were carried up by Master Pim to the Lords at a Conference on the 14 of Iuly and the next day presented to the King to disswade Her Majesties Journy the least mention of Her having packed up the Crown Jewels and Plate but that they had received information of great quantity of treasure in Iewels Plate and ready Mony packed up to be conveyed away with the Queen and that divers Papists and others under pretence of Her Majesties Goods were like to convey great sums of Money and other treasure beyond the Seas which would not only impoverish the State but might be imployed to the fomenting some mischievous attempts to the trouble of the publike peace And they might remember that the chief reasons they gave to disswade Her Majesty was their profession and Declaration since they heard that the chief cause of Her Majesties sicknesse proceeded from dis-content of Her mind that if any thing which in the power of Parliament might give Her Majesty contentment they were so tender of Her health both in due respect to His most excellent Majesty and Her self that they would be ready to further Her satisfaction in all things and that it would be some dis-honour to this Nation if Her Majesty should at this unseasonable time go out of the Kingdome upon any grief or discontent received here and therefore they would labour by all good means to take away and prevent all just occasions of Her Majesties trouble in such manner as might further Her content and therein Her health which would be a very great comfort and joy to themselves and the rest of His Majesties loving Subjects These obligations they should have remembred and left the world to remember how punctuall they were in the performance The discourse at Burrough Bridge that the King would pawne His Iewels for the Army is as materiall
it was done and in both cases by the help of God and the Law he would have justice or lose his life in the requiring it so that certainly the King never concealed or dissembled his purposes and accordingly he did indeed toward the middle of Iuly go with his Guards to Beverly having some reason to believe that Sir Iohn Hotham had repented himself of the crime he had committed and would have repaired it as far as he had been able of which failing to his own miserable destruction without attempting to force it his Majesty again returned to Yorke Having made it now plainly appear how falsly and groundlesly his Majesty is reproached with the least tergiversation or swarving from his promises or professions which no Prince ever more precisely and religiously observed it will be but a little expence of time again to examine how punctuall these conscientious reprehenders of their Soveraigne have been in the observation of what they have sworn or said In the first Remonstrance of the House of Commons of the State of the Kingdome they declare that it is far from their purpose or desire to let loose the golden reines of discipline and government in the Church to have private persons or particular Congregations to take up what forme of divine Service they please for they said they held it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realme a conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyne In their Declaration of the 19 of May speaking of the Bill for the continuance of this Parliament they say We are resolved the gratious favour His Majesty expressed in that Bill and the advantage and security which thereby we have from being dissolved shall not encourage us to do any thing which otherwise had not been fit to have been done In the conclusion of their Declaration of the 26 of May 1642. apprehending very justly that their expressions there would beget at least a great suspition of their loyalty they say They doubt not but it shall in the end appear to all the world that their endeavours have been most hearty and sincere for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Kings just Prerogatives the Lawes and Liberties of the Land and the Priviledges of Parliament in which endeavours by the grace of God they would still persist though they should perish in the worke In their Declaration of the 14 of Iune 1642. the Lords and Commons doe declare That the designe of those Propositions for Plate and Money is to maintain the Protestant Religion the King's Authority and Person in His Royall dignity the free course of Iustice the Laws of the Land the Peace of the Kingdome and Priviledges of Parliament As they have observed these and other their professions to the King and the Publique so they have as well kept their promises to the people in their Propositions of the 10 of Iune 1642. for bringing in Mony or Plate the Lords and Commons do declare That no mans affection shall be measured according to the proportion of his offer so that he expresse his good will to the Service in any proportion whatsoever the first designe was to involve as many as they could in the guilt how small soever the supply was but on the 29 of November following the same Lords and Commons appointed Six persons who or any Four of them should have power to assesse all such persons as were of ability and had not contributed and all such as had contributed yet not according to their ability to pay such summe or sums of mony according to their estates as the Assessors or any Four of them should think fit and reasonable so as the same exceeded not the twentieth part of their Estates Infinite examples of this kind may be produced which are the lesse necessary because whosoever will take the pains to read their own Declarations and Ordinances shall not be able to find one protestation or profession made by them to God Almighty in the matter of Religion or to the King in point of duty and obedience or one promise to the people in matter of Liberty Law and Iustice so neer pursued by them as that they have ever done one composed Act in Order to the performance of either of them which very true assertion shall conclude this Answer to that reproach of his Majesties not having made good his Protestations 21. The next Charge is That His Majesty proclaimed them Traytors and Rebels setting up His Standard against the Parliament which never any King of England they say did before Himself His Majesty never did nor could proclaime this Parliament Traytors he well knew besides his own being the head of it that four parts of five of the House of Peers were never present at any of those trayterous conclusions and that above a major part of the House of Commons was alwaies absent and that of those who were present there were many who still opposed or dissented from every unlawfull act and therefore it were very strange if all those innocent men of whom the Parliament consisted as well as of the rest should have been proclaimed Rebels and Traytors for the acts of a few seditious persons who were upon all occasions named and if the Parliament were ever proclaimed Traytors it was by them only who presumptuously sheltred their rebellious acts under that venerable name and who declared that whatsoever violence should be used either against those who exercise the Militia or against Hull they could not but believe it as done against the Parliament They should have named one person proclaimed Rebell or Traytor by the King who is not adjudged to be such by the Law The King never proclaimed Sir Iohn Hotham Traytor though it may be he was guilty of many treasonable acts before till he shut the Gates of Hull against him and with armed men kept his Majesty from thence and besides the concurrent testimony of all Judgments at Law it appears and is determined by the Lord Chief Justice Coke published by the House of Commons this Parliament in his Chapter of High Treason That if any with strength and weapons invasive and defensive doth hold and defend a Castle or Fort against the King and His power this is leavying of War against the King within the Statute of the 25 year of Edw. 3. The King proclaimed not those Rebels or Traytors who Voted That they would raise an Army and that the Earl of Essex should be Generall of that Army what ever he might have done nor the Earle of Essex himself a Traytor upon those Votes untill he had accepted that title and command of Captaine Generall and in that quality appeared amongst the Souldiers animating and encouraging them in their trayterous and rebellious designes as appears by his Majesties Proclamation of the 9 of August 1642. by which he was first proclaimed Traytor and there was no other way to clear the Earle of Essex from being
they were brought to that great exigent that they were ready to rob and spoile one another that their wants began to make them desperate That if the Lords Justices and Councell there did not find a speedy way for their preservation they did desire that they might have leave to go away that if that were not granted they must have recourse to the law of nature which teacheth all men to preserve themselves The two Houses who had undertaken to carry on that War and received all the Mony raised for that Service neglecting still to send supplies thither the Lords Justices and Councell by their Letters about the middle of May advertised the King That they had no Victuall Cloths or other provisions no Mony to provide them of any thing they want no Armes not above forty Barrels of Powder no strength of serviceable Horse no visible means by Sea or Land of being able to preserve that Kingdome And by others of the 4 of Iuly that his Armies would be forced through wants to disband or depart the Kingdome and that there would be nothing to be expected there but the instant losse of the Kingdome and the destruction of the remnant of his good Subjects yet left there This was the sad condition of that miserable Kingdome to whose assistance his Majesty was in no degree of Himself able to contribute and His recommendation and interposition to the two Houses whom He had trusted was so much contemned that when upon their Order to issue out at one time one hundred thousand pounds of the Monies paid for Ireland to the supply of the Forces under the Earl of Essex albeit it was enacted by the Law upon which those Monies were raised that no part of it should be imployed to any other purpose then the reducing the Rebels of Ireland His Majesty by a speciall Message advised and required them to retract that Order and to dispose the Monies the right way the necessities of Ireland being then passionately represented by those upon the place they returned no other satisfaction or Answer to his Majesty but a Declaration That those directions given His Majesty for the retracting of that Order was a high breach of priviledge of Parliament When His Majesty perceived that no assistance was or was like to be applied to them and that the Enemy still increased in strength power He referred the consideration and provision for themselves to those whose safeties and livelyhoods were most immediately concerned and who were the nearest witnesses of the distresses and the best Judges how they could be borne or how they were like to be relieved and so with the full advice and approbation of the Lords Justices and Councell there and concurrent opinion of all the chief Officers of the Army that Cessation was made by which onely the Protestants in that Kingdome and His Majesties interest there could at that time have been preserved Of this Cessation neither His Majesties good Subjects in that or this Kingdom have reason to complain Examine now the peace which they say was afterwards made on such odious shamefull and unworthy conditions that His Majesty Himself blushed to owne or impart to His owne Lieutenant the Earle of Ormond but a private Commission was made to the Lord Herbert to manage it Whilst the King had any hope of a tolerable peace in this or a probable way of carrying on the War in that Kingdome He never gave a Commission to conclude a peace there and it plainly appears by the relation of the Treaty at Uxbridge to the truth of which there hath not been the least objection the Acts of the Commissioners of both sides being extant that there was no expedient proposed though desired often on the King's party for the proceeding in that War but that His Majesty would quit absolutely all His Regall power in that Kingdome and so put all His Subjects there English and Irish out of His protection into that of the two Houses of Parliament here who at the same time were fighting for the same Supremacy in this and who had at the same time disposed a greater power thereof to the Scots then they reserved to themselves it concerned the King then in piety and policy in His duty to God and man to endevour to preserve that Kingdom by a peace which He could not reduce by a war and to draw from thence such a body and number of His own Subjects as might render Him more considerable to those who having put off all naturall allegiance and reverence to his Majesty looked only what power and strength and not what right He had left The peace that was concluded was upon such tearms and conditions as were in that conjuncture of time just and honourable and when it could not be continued without yeilding to more shamefull and lesse worthy conditions the Marquesse of Ormond his Majesties Lieutenant of that Kingdome who had the sole and intire authority from his Majesty to conclude a peace and against whom all their envy and all their malice hath not been able to make the least objection best knowing his Masters mind chose rather to make no peace and to trust providence with his Majesties Rights then to consent to such Propositions nor had the Lord Herbert ever any Commission to make a peace there but being a person whose loyalty and affection to his service the King had no reason to suspect and being of the same Religion with the Enemy might have some influence upon them was qualified with such a testimony as might give him the more credit amongst them to perswade them to reason His restraint and commitment was very reall by the whole Councell board there though when it appeared that his errors had proceeded from unskilfulnesse and unadvisednesse and not from malice he was afterwards inlarged by the same power The unnaturall conclusions and inferences these men make from what the King hath said or done applying actions done lately to words spoken seven years before cannot cast any blemish upon the Kings Religion which shines with the same lustre in Him as it did in the primitive Martyrs and even those Letters taken at Nazeby which no wise Rebel or gallant Enemy would have published will to posterity appear as great Monuments of His zeale to the true Protestant Religion in those straits in which He was driven by those who professed that Religion as any Prince hath left or have been left by any Prince since Christianity was imbraced And if that Religion should prosper with lesse vigour then it hath done and the Christian and Pagan world have lesse reverence towards it then they have had these Reformers may justly challenge to themselves the honour and glory of that declension and triumph in the reproaches they have brought upon the most Orthodox Church that hath flourished in any age since the Apostles time These Charges and reproaches upon the King which have been now particularly examined and answered and of which
spent at Uxbridge is published to the world in which the last observation made by the King's Commissioners must not be forgotten That after a War of neer foure years for which the defence of the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Priviledges of the Parliament were made the cause and grounds in a Treaty of Twenty daies nor indeed in the whole Propositions upon which the Treaty should be there hath been nothing offered to be treated concerning the breach of any Law or of the Liberty or Property of the Subject or Priviledge of Parliament but onely Propositions for the altering a Government established by Law and for the making new Laws by which almost all the old are or may be cancelled and there hath been nothing insisted on of the Kings part which is not Law or denied by the Kings Commissioners that the other required as due by Law For the Protestation which they say was entred about the time of this Treaty in the Councell-Book and of which his Majesty gave the Queen account it is known to be no other then a Declaration that by calling them a Parliament there could be no acknowledgment inferred that he esteemed them a free Parliament which few at that time did believe them to be and they have since upon as small reasons confessed themselves not to be They alleage as a wonderfull testimony of their meeknesse and good nature that after His Majesties Armies were all broken so that in disguise He fled from Oxford to the Scots at Newarke and from thence went to Newcastle they tendred to Him at Newcastle and afterwards when the Scots had left Him to the Commissioners of Parliament at Hampton-Court still the same Propositions in effect which had been presented before in the midst of all His strength and Forces which is rather an Argument that they had at first made them as bad as possibly they could then that they were good since and considering the natures of these Declarers there cannot be a more pregnant evidence of the ilnesse and vilenesse of those Propositions then that they have not made them worse nor is the condition in which they have now impiously put His Majesty for His refusall worse then it had been or would be His Personall liberty only excepted if He consented to them and in one consideration it is much better because it is now a confessed act of violence and treason upon Him which if He once consent to their Propositions they will when ever they find occasion appear legally qualified to do the same They have once again out of their desire of his Majesties concurrence descended to one other addresse to Him and they said they did so qualifie the said Propositions that where it might stand with the publique safety His wonted scruples and objections were prevented or removed and yeilded to a Personall Treaty on condition the King would signe but foure Bils which they judged not only just and honourable but necessary even for present peace and safety during such a Treaty and upon His deniall of these they are in despair of any good by addresses to the King neither must they be so injurious to the people in further delaying their setlement as any more to presse His consent to these or any other Propositions What the former Propositions and Addresses to His Majesty have been and how impossible it hath been for Him to consent to them with His Conscience Honour or Safety appears before and how inconvenient it would have been to the Kingdome if He had done it they themselves have declared by making such important alterations in respect of the English interest in those presented at Newcastle from the other treated on at Uxbridge it will be fit therefore to examine these foure Bils which were to be the condition of the Treaty One of these Bils is to devest His Majesty and His Posterity for ever of any power over the Militia and to transfer this right and more then ever was in the Crown to these men who keep Him Prisoner for it is in their power whether they will ever consent that it shall be in any other and to give them power to raise what Forces they please and what Mony they think fit upon His Subjects and by any waies or means they appoint and so frankly exclude Himself from any power in the making Laws There need no other Answer why it is not fit or possible for the King to consent to this then what the Commissioners from Scotland gave to the Houses when they declared their dissent If the Crownes have no power of the Militia how can they be able to resist their Enemies and the Enemies of the Kingdomes protect their Subjects or keep friendship or correspondence with their Allyes All Kings by their royall Office and Oath of Coronation are obliged to protect their Laws and Subjects it were strange then to seclude the Crown for ever from the power of doing that which by the Oath of Coronation they are obliged to perform and the obedience whereunto falleth within the Oath of Allegiance and certainly if the King and His Posterity shall have no power in making Laws nor in the Militia it roots up the strongest foundation of honour and safety which the Crown affords and will be interpreted in the eyes of the world to be a wresting of the Scepter and Sword out of their hands Nor can this just and honourable Assertion be answered and evaded by saying that the Militia was the principall immediate ground of their quarrell in order to the preservation of Religion and the just Rights and Liberties of the people and that the Scots Commissioners have often agreed with them in it and that the Kingdome of Scotland fought together with them for it and upon the ground thereof and that now they argue against their injoying it almost in the very same words as the King did at the beginning of the War in His Declarations It is no wonder that what these men have done and the horrid confusion they have made have evinced many truths which appeared not so manifest to all understandings by what the King said or that they have not so good an opinion of those who tell them that there is another and a more naturall way to peace and to the ending the war then by Agreement namely by Conquest As they had of them who with all imaginable solemnity swore that they would sincerely really and constantly endeavour with their estates and lives mutually to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdomes that the world may bear witnesse with their Consciences of their Loyalty and that they had no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesties Power and Greatnesse which Engagements might perswade many that their purposes were other then they now appear to be For that other power they
require to raise what Monies they please and in what way they please All the people of England will say that which the Army said honestly in their Representation agreed upon at Newmarket on the 4 5 of June against the Ordinance of Indempnity We shall be sorry that our relief should be the occasion of setting up more Arbitrary Courts then there are already with so large a power of imprisoning any Free-men of England as this Bill gives let the persons intrusted appear never so just and faithfull Indeed that is asked of his Majesty by this Bill which the King can neither give nor they receive the King cannot give away His Dominion nor make His Subjects subject to any other Prince or power then to that under which they were born no man believes that the King can transfer His Soveraigne power to the French King or the King of Spaine or to the States of the united Provinces nor by the same reason can He transfer it to the States at Westminster And the learned and wise Grotius who will by no means endure that Subjects should take Armes against their Princes upon any specious pretences whatsoever concludes Si rex tradere regnum aut subjicere moliatur quin ei resisti in hoc possit non dubito aliud enim est imperium aliud habendi modus qui ne mutetur obstare potest populus to the which he applies that of Seneca Etsi parendum in omnibus patri in eo non parendum quò efficitur ne pater sit And it may be this may be the only case in which Subjects may take up defensive Armes that they may continue Subjects for without doubt no King hath power not to be a King because by devesting himselfe he gives away the right which belongs to others their title to and interest in his protection The two Houses themselves seemed to be of opinion when in their Declaration of the 27 of May 1642. they said the King by his Soveraignty is not enabled to destroy His people but to protect and defend them and the high Court of Parliament and all other His Majesties Officers and Ministers ought to be subservient to that power and authority which Law hath placed in His Majesty to that purpose though He Himself in His own Person should neglect the same So that by their own judgment and confession it is not in the King's power to part with that which they ask of Him and it is very probable if they could have prevailed with Him to do it they would before now have added it to His charge as the greatest breach of trust that ever King was guilty of They cannot receive what they ask if the King would give it in the Journall of the House of Commons they will find a Protestation entred by themselves in the third year of this King when the Petition of Right was depending in the debating whereof some expressions had been used which were capable of an ill interpretation That they neither meant nor had power to hurt the King's Prerogative And the Lord chief Justice Coke in the fourth part of his Institutes published by their Order since the beginning of this Parliament saies That it was declared in the 42 year of King Edw. 3. by the Lords and Commons in full Parliament that they could not assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the disherison of the King and his Crowne whereunto they were sworne And Judge Hutton in his Argument against Ship-mony printed likewise by their Order since this Parliament agrees expresly That the power of making War Leagues the power of the Coyne and the Value of the Coynes usurped likewise by these Declarers and many other Monarchicall powers and prerogatives which to be taken away were against naturall reason and are incidents so inseparable that they cannot be taken away by Parliament To which may be added the authority of a more modern Author who uses to be of the most powerfull opinion Mr. Martin who saies that the Parliament it self hath not in his humble opinion authority enough to erect another authority equall to it self And these ambitious men who would impiously grasp the Soveraign power into their hands may remember the fate which attended that Ordinance in the time of King Hen. 3. to which that King metu incarcerationis perpetuae compulsus est consentire and by which the care and government of the Kingdom was put into the hands of four and twenty how unspeakable miseries befell the Kingdom thereby and that in a short time there grew so great faction and animosity amongst themselves that the major part desired the Ordinance might be repealed and the King restored to His just power that they who refused came to miserable ends and their Families were destroyed with them and the Kingdome knew no peace happinesse or quiet till all submission and acknowledgment and reparation was made to the King and that they got most reputation who were most forward to return to their duty So that it is believed if the King would transfer these powers though many persons of honour and fortune have been unhappily seduced into this combination that in truth no one of those would submit to bear a part of that insupportable burthen and that none would venture to act a part in this administration but such whose names were scarce heard of or persons known before these distractions If the King should consent to another of their four Bils He should subvert the whole foundations of government and leave Himself Posterity and the Kingdome without security when the fire that now burns is extinguished by making Rebellion the legitimate Child of the Law for if what these men have done be lawfull and just and the grounds upon which they have done it be justifiable the like may be done again and besides this He must acknowledge and declare all those who have served Him faithfully and out of the most abstracted considerations of Conscience and Honour to be wicked and guilty men and so render those glorious persons who have payed the full debt they owed to His Majesty and their Country by loosing their lives in His righteous cause and whose memories must be kept fresh and pretious to succeeding ages infamous after their deaths by declaring that they did ill for the doing whereof and the irreparable prejudice that would accrue thereby to truth innocence honour and justice all the Empires of the world would be a cheap and vile recompence Nor can this impossible demand be made reasonable by saying It would be a base and dishonourable thing for the Houses of Parliament being in that condition they are to have treated under the Gallows to have treated as Traytors their cause being not justified nor the Declarations against them as Rebels recalled It would be a much more base and dishonourable thing to renounce the Old and New Testament and declare that they are not the word of God
A FVLL ANSWER TO AN INFAMOUS AND TRAYTEROUS PAMPHLET ENTITULED A Declaration of the Commons of England in Parliament assembled expressing their Reasons and Grounds of passing the late Resolutions touching no further Addresse or Application to be made to the KING MICAH 3. 11. The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets thereof divine for mony yet will they leane upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us none evill can come upon us Printed for R. ROYSTON 1648. THE CONTENTS THe Authors Method pag. 2. Their severall Charges against the KING ib. 1. That His Majesty hath laid a fit foundation for all Tyranny by this Maxime or Principle That He oweth an account of His actions to none but God alone and That the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law p. 3. 2. The private Articles agreed in order to the Match with Spaine and those other private Articles upon the French marriage c. p. 12 3. The Death of King James ib. 4. The businesse of Rochel p. 17. 5. The Designe of the German Horse Loanes Privy-Seales Coat and Conduct-mony Ship-mony and the many Monopolies p. 19. 6. The torture of our bodies by whipping cutting off eares pillories c. with close-imprisonment aggravated with the dominion exercised over our souls by Oaths Excommunications new Canons c. p. 24. 7. The long intermission of Parliaments and at the dissolution of some how Priviledges have been broken and some Members imprisoned p. 26. 8. The new Liturgy and Canons sent into Scotland And the cancelling and burning the Articles of Pacification p. 27. 9. The calling and dissolving the short Parliament and the Kings proceeding after the dissolution therof p. 28. 10. The King summoned the present Parliament to have assistance against the Scots And when He found that hope vaine He was so passionately affected to His Malignant Counsellours that He would rather desert His Parliament and Kingdome then deliver them to Law and Justice p. 29. 11. The Queens designe to advance Popery and Her observing a Popish Fast with Secretary Windebank's going beyond Sea by His Majesties Passe after he was questioned p. 30. 12. Commissions given to Popish Agents for private Leavies p. 31. 13. The bringing up the Northerne Army to over-awe the Parliament ib. 14. Offers made to the Scots of the plunder of London if they would advance or of 4 Northern Counties with three hundred thousand pounds but to stand Neuters p. 36. 15. The businesse of Ireland p. 38. 16. The unusuall preparation of Ammunition and Armes upon the Kings return from Scotland with new Guards within and about Whitehall the Fire-works taken and found in Papists houses the Tower filled with new Guards Granadoes and all sorts of Fire-works Morters and great Pieces of Battery the displacing Sir William Balfore and placing other Officers who were suspected by them and the whole City p. 58. 17. The Charge of Treason against some of both Houses and the Kings going so attended to the House of Commons p. 62. 18. A Parallel between the Kings proceedings against the 5 and the Armies against 11 Members p. 67. 19. Commissions granted to the E. of Newcastle and Colonel Legg for attempting Newcastle and Hull And their intelligence of forain Forces from Denmark p. 72. 20. The Queens going into Holland and her carrying away and pawning the anncient Iewels of the Crowne p. 76. 21. When they first took up Arms against the King ib. 22. Breach of Honour and faith in the King for making so many solemn Protestations against any thought of bringing up the Northerne Army or of Levying Forces to wage war with His Parliament or of bringing in forain Forces or Aids from beyond Sea p. 79. 23. They have not observed their Professions made to the King nor kept their promises to the People p. 95. 96. 24. That His Majesty proclaimed them Traytors and Rebels setting up His Standard against the Parliament which never any King of England did before Himself p. 97. 25. The setting up a Mock-Parliament at Oxford to oppose and protest against the Parliament of England p. 102. 26. A full Relation of the first Tumults p. 107. 27. The Pacification and peace in Ireland p. 113. The King 's severall Messages and their Propositions and Addresses for peace p. 118. Their 4 Bills presented to His Majesty at Carisbrook-Castle p. 132. The Commons Resolutions of making no more Addresses to the King p. 148. The Conclusion Demonstrating That they can never establish a Peace to the Kingdome or any security to themselves but by Restoring the just Power to the KING and dutifully submitting and joyning themselves to His protection p. 156. An ANSWER to an infamous and trayterous Pamphlet entituled A DECLARATION of the Commons of England in Parliament expressing their reasons and grounds of passing the late Resolutions touching no further addresse or application to be made to the KING IF the nature and minds of men were not more inclined to errour and vice then they are to truth and vertue and their memories more retentive of the Arguments and evidence which is administred to pervert then of those applied to reclaime them there would be little need of composing any Answer to this seditious and trayterous Declaration which consists onely of the severall infamous and scandalous imputations and reproaches except the odious and groundlesse discourse of the death of King James which though they have alwaies whisper'd they never thought fit to own till now which have been thrown and scattered against the King throughout their Declarations and Remonstrances and is but the same Calumny and Treason bound up in a lesser Volume to every particular whereof His Majesty whilst he was at liberty to speak for himself and to take the pains to undeceive and inform his people gave full and clear answers in His severall Declarations and Expresses so that from thence all men may gather the most naturall and proper Antidotes to expell this poyson the spirit and malignity whereof it is hoped is so near spent by the stalenesse and palpable unskilfulnesse as well as malice of the Composition that it will neither be received by or work upon any healthfull Constitutions yet it will not be amisse for the information of those who it may be have not taken the pains to read the KING 's former Answers and Declarations and refreshing the memory of others who have forgotten what they have read to collect the Answers formerly given to those particulars with which His Majesty is now charged and to adde to those Answers what the knowledge and observation of most men who have been faithfull inquirers into past Actions with that integrity and duty that becomes Subjects may supply them with For which there will need no great Apology since every honest man hath a more regular and legall qualification to vindicate His Majesty from those foule aspersions then any Combination
fact or to any purpose that may advance their Designes They intercept a Letter directed to the Queens Majesty from the Lord Digby before the War began and declare it would be dishonourable to His Majesty and dangerous for the Kingdome if it should not be opened and thereupon with unheard-of presumption they open and peruse the Letter Her Majesty being within a daies journey of them And when the King caused Sir John Hotham's Letters to be opened which were intercepted after he was in Rebellion They declare that it was a high breach of Priviledge which by the Laws of the Kingdome and by the Protestation we are bound to defend with our lives and fortune One Master Booth a Gentleman of quality of Lincolnshire delivered a Petition to the King at Yorke in which he complained of certaine Gentlemen who as Deputy-Lieutenants had put the Ordinance for the Militia in execution in that County and set forth in his Petition severall Actions done and words spoken by them at that time and both himself and one Master Scroope made affidavit before a Master of the Chancery that the Information in the Petition was punctually and precisely true which Petition and Oath being printed the House of Commons frankly declared That it was false Not to speak of their declaring that the Kings comming to the House of Commons was a trayterous design against the King and Parliament and that His Proclamation which He published for the apprehension of those Members was false So that this sole power of declaring would not stand in need of any other power to subvert the whole frame of Government and so dispose of the intire rights of Prince and People according to the variety of their appetites and humour For they say as some presidents of their Predecessours ought not to be rules for them to follow so none can be limits to bound their proceedings And in truth the inconstancy and contradiction in their rules and resolutions is no lesse observable then the other extravagancy In their Petition of the 14 of Decem. 1641. they declared that the King ought not to manifest or declare His consent or dissent approbation or dislike of any Bill in preparation or debate before it be presented to Him in due course of Parliament yet within few daies after in the Petition that accompanied the Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdome they desired His Majesty that He would concur with them for the depriving the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament the Bill for that purpose being still depending in the Lords House and then not like to passe By the Order of the 3 of January 1641. and many Declarations after they declared that if any Person whatsoever shall offer to Arrest or detain the Person of any Member without first acquainting the House that it is lawfull for him to stand upon his defence and make resistance and for any other Person to assist him in so doing but in their Declaration of the 2 of November following they deny that they had said so and acknowledged that a Member in the cases of Treason Felony or the Peace may be Arrested and detained in ordine to his appearance before the Parliament There would be no end of these instances not to speak of those where the House of Peers have declared the Law one way and the Commons an other as in the Order of the 9 of September 2. The next Charge is the private Articles agreed in order to the Match with Spaine and those other private Articles upon the French Marriage so prejudiciall to the Peace Safety Laws c. What those private Articles were or are is not expressed which doubtlesse would have been if a reasonable advantage might have been hoped from it all those Papers being seized and perused by those who have neither respect to the dignity of their Soveraigne or regard of the honour of their Country The Articles with both Kingdomes were transacted by the great wisdome of King James and cannot be imputed to His Majesty that now is neither is there in one or the other any one Article that was not in the Kings power to agree to in the manner in which he did agree and that neither of them were prejudiciall to the Peace Safety Laws and Religion here established is most evident for that Peace and Safety were never more visible nor the Laws and Religion established did ever flourish more in any age then from the time of those Articles to the beginning of this unhappy Parliament which no discourse of correspondence with Rome can hinder from being acknowledged 3. The third matter objected is a Discourse concerning the Death of King JAMES in which there is mention of a Clause in the Impeachment carried up against the Duke of Buckingham by the House of Commons in the 2 year of this King that the King came into the Lords House and took notice of that Charge and said He could be a Witnesse to clear him in every one of them and that shortly after the Parliament was dissolved and they conclude that they leave it to the world to judge where the guilt remaines During the life of King James and to the hour of his death there was no earthly thing He took equall joy and comfort in as in the obedience piety of His Son who was not more reputed and known to be Heire apparent to the Crown then to be the most dutifull and pious Son in the Kingdome and was never known to displease His Father in His life The King died in the 59 year of his age after many terrible fits of an Ague which turned to a quotidian Fever a disease usually mortall to persons of that age and corpulency of body which K. James was of After His death in the 1 year of His Majesties Reigne there was a Parliament called during which time there was never the least whisper or imagination of the King's death to be otherwise then naturall and yet the King had many great persons in His Councel and there were more afterwards in that Parliament who did not pretend any kindnesse to the Duke of Buckingham many of whom must necessarily have observed or at least have been informed of any Arguments for such a notorious and odious practice and would not have suffered any jealousie that could reflect on the Duke to be untaken notice of By that time the Parliament in the 2 year of the King began one George Eglisham an infamous Scotch-man and a Papist having an ambition to be taken notice of as an Enemy to the Duke transported himself into Flanders and from thence about the beginning of that Parliament sent over a small Pamphlet in the form of a Petition in his owne name to the Parliament accusing the Duke of Buckingham of having poysoned the Marquesse of Hamilton and King JAMES which Pamphlet was industriously scattered up and down the streets in the City of London and the House of Commons being
Subjects who have not trespassed against any known Law and imprison others with such unusuall circumstances of restraint cruelty and inhumanity that many persons of reputation integrity and fortunes being first robbed and spoiled of all their Estates for not conforming themselves to the wickednesse of the time have perished in prison and very many of the same condition are like to doe so for want of such nourishment as may satisfie nature and whosoever compares the good old Oaths formed and administred by lawful Authority to every clause whereof the consciences of these very men have seemed fully to submit with the Oathes and Covenants injoyned by themselves will have reason to conclude mens Soules were never in so much danger of captivity and that what the worst men underwent for their notorious crimes in the time of which they complain was recreation and pleasure to what all are now compelled to endure for being honest and conscientious men 7. The long intermission of Parliaments is remembred and that at the dissolution of some priviledges have been broken and that followed with close imprisonment and death That long intermission of Parliaments was graciously prevented and remedied for the future long before these troubles by His Majesties consent to the Bill for trienniall Parliaments and the people would think themselves very happy if they had no more cause to complain of the continuance of this then of the former intermission they having during those twelve years injoyed as great a measure of prosperity and plenty as any people in any age have known and an equall proportion of misery since the beginning of this For the breach of Priviledge and imprisonment of Members the Lawes were open for all men to appeale and have recourse to and that single person that died under restraint suffered that restraint by a Judgment of the Kings Bench so that if there were any injustice in the Case it cannot be charged upon His Majesty 8. The Scene is now removed into Scotland and the new Liturgy and Canons with what succeeded thereupon makes up the next Charge aggravated with the Cancelling and burning the Articles of Pacification which had been there made upon the mediation of the Lords If the King had not been so tender of the Act of Oblivion in the Treaty of Pacification between the two Kingdomes that he would not suffer any provocation to incline Him to ravell into that businesse he might easily have freed Himself from all those calumnies and aspersions And it will be but justice and gratitude in that Nation highly to resent that whilst all guilty men shelter themselves under that Act of Oblivion His Majesty who is the only innocent and injured Person should have His mouth stopped by it which is His own expression and complaint in His Answer to the Declaration at Newmarket from any Reply to the reproaches cast on Him in that matter otherwise He might easily have made it appear that that Liturgy and those Canons were regularly made and framed and sent thither by the advice or with the approbation of the Lords of the Councell of that Kingdome and if the putting them in practice and execution was pursued with more passion impatience there then in prudence policy was agreeable the error was wholly to be imputed to those Ministers of that Kingdome who were most proper to be trusted in it however that so generall a defection and insurrection was not in any degree justifiable or warrantable by the Laws of that Kingdom is most certain they having no visible Forme either of Parliament or King to countenance them as the Army hath lately observed And that the Pacification first made by His Majesties mercy and Christian desire to prevent the effusion of the bloud of His Subjects how ill soever was broken by them and thereupon declined by the full advice of the Lords of His Councell by whose unanimous advice the Articles were publickly burned as may appear by the Record in the Councell Book of that transaction 9. In the next is remembred the calling and dissolving the short Parliament and the Kings proceeding after the dissolution That the calling that Parliament was an Act of the Kings great wisdome and goodnesse was then justly and generally acknowledged and that it was in His owne power to dissolve it when He thought fit is as little doubted but that He did unhappily for Himself by false Information in matter of fact and evill advice dissolve that Parliament is believed by all men and upon the matter confessed by Himself and that that information and advice was most pernicious and the rise of all the miseries we have since undergone is not denied and 't is therefore the more wondred at that the charge of that guilt being part of the impeachment against two great persons whose bloud they have since drunk that particular was declined in the prosecution of them both and that though it be enough known by whose false information and instigation that unfortunate counsell was followed extraordinary care hath been taken that he should not be questioned for it which together with the excessive joy that the principall Actors in these late mischiefs expressed at that sad time gives men reason to conclude that it was contrived by those who have reaped the fruit and advantage of the error What the King took from His Subjects by power which He could not otherwise obtain after that dissolution is not particularly set forth and therefore it is very probable there was no ground for the calumny nor indeed was any man a loser by any such Act of His Majesty 10. Thus far the catalogue reaches of the Kings enormous crimes during the first sixteen years of His Reigne to the beginning of this Parliament in which they confesse they proceeded with ease as long as there was any hope that they would comply with His Majesty against the Scots and give assistance to that war but when He found that hope vaine and that they began to question the Authours of those pernicious Counsells His Majesty discovered Himself so strongly and passionately affected to malignant Counsellours and their Councells that He would sooner desert and force the Parliament and Kingdome then alter His course and deliver up His wicked Counsellours to Law and Justice There are not so many years expired since the beginning of this Parliament though it hath been a tedious age of misery and confusion but that all mens memories will recollect and represent to them the folly and the falshood of this Charge It is not imaginable that the King could expect after the beginning of this Parliament that it would comply with Him and give Him assistance in a War against the Scots when He plainly discover'd that they who were like to be and afterwards proved the chief Leaders and Directors in that Councell were of the same party and how far He was from sheltring any Counsellour or Servant from justice or any colourable proceeding of the
mention was made of bringing up the Army to London and making sure the Tower and as soon rejected as proposed and onely proposed as their evidence saies to shew the vanity and danger of other Propositions And that when the King was made acquainted with it He said those waies were vain and foolish and that they should think of them no more That the Petition it self which His Majesty approved was not above the size of Petitions and very much modester then any one Petition received by the Authors of this Declaration with approbation appears by the Petition it self to be read in the 563 pag. of the 1 vol. of the Collect. of Ord. published by themselves which being directed to the two Houses as well as to the King took notice of the seditious Tumults which they said had beset the Parliament and White-Hall it self not onely to the prejudice of that freedome which is necessary to great Councells and Judicatories but possibly to some personall danger of His sacred Majesty and Peers and therefore desired that the Ring-leaders of those Tumults might be punished and that His Majesty and the Parliament might be secured from such insolencies hereafter for the suppressing of which they offered themselves to wait on them if they pleased which hath not been since thought so unnaturall a security an Army being since called up and kept about them upon the same pretences to the same purpose of which more must be said anon And for the strangeness suggested that three Gentlemen should flee beyond Sea upon discovery of a modest Petition it is no wonder when men were every day imprisoned ruined and destroyed upon the most triviall discoveries and unreasonable conjectures and apprehensions that men desired to avoid their Judgment who had it in their power to put what interpretation they pleased upon any discovery and to inflict what punishment they thought fit upon such interpretation or that the King contributed His allowance to remove His Servants from such a Tribunall It is a wonderfull presumption these men have upon the credulity of the people that they will not examine the truth of any thing they alleage how easie soever it is to disprove them otherwise they would not affirme that at the meeting of Officers at Burrough-Bridge Propositions were made and private instructions brought from the King whereas it appears by their own evidence that Capt. Chudleigh who is supposed to have brought those Propositions thither and what they were appears not did not receive those Propositions from the King and that when he kissed the Kings hand His Majesty spake not a word to him of those Propositions which without doubt He would have done if He had been privy to or expected any thing from His agitation it being not alleaged that there was any other Officer of the Army at that time so immediatly imployed or trusted in that Agitation And as there hath not been the least colourable evidence in any of the Depositions then or since published which can reflect upon the King And as there is much in Master Goring's second Examination and other Depositions suppressed by them which if produced would manifest that there was never any such designe as is suggested and that to the very Communication concerning it the King was not any way privy and dis-liked it when he heard of it So it was observed then and not a little wondred at that Capt. Chudleigh who was the principall person imployed and who confesses in his Examination of the 10 of May that he used all his power to incense the Army against the Parliament and to kindle a zeale in them towards the King was so far from being in disfavour with them that he was immediately imployed by them into Ireland and afterwards re-called thence and trusted in the second if not the first Command in the West against the King which they would not have done if he had been in that manner first engaged by His Majesty For the discourse of the Prince his meeting the Army with the Earle of Newcastle and a body of Horse it is proved to be by a private Major in the Army who had not only any relation to the King but at that time had never spoken word with His Majesty in his life and had no more ground then the other of the designe for some French to seize on Portsmouth which is so ridiculous that it needs no other Answer then repeating it 14. The Offers made to the Scots of the plunder of London if they would advance or of four Northerne Counties with three hundred thousand pounds or Iewels of great value but to stand Newters in that designe is another impossible branch of this Charge for which there appears not the least pretence of proof in any thing published by them and they have not been tender of publishing all they know or imagined but that Master Oneale asked Sir Jacob Ashly what if the Scots could be made Newtrall It is not imaginable that the King knew not the temper of that time which he so grievously felt well enough to conclude that the Parliament and the Scots were too fast combined to be sever'd for any interest of his and the offer of four Northern Counties a thing so confessedly out of the King's power to give is so senslesse a calumny that no man out of the highest fit of madnesse can believe it and they to whom this Offer is supposed to be made would in all this time have accused the King of it if they had been able to justifie any thing like it However it is to be observed that though these men hold these imaginable overtures and designes to be very hainous crimes in the King they reckon the reducing such designes into reall and compleat execution no Offences in themselves and that though the King may not wish His Subjects of Scotland to stand newters in the differences between His Majesty and His English people yet it is no fault in them to engage that Nation to assist them in Armes against the Soveraigne of both Kingdomes and though a cursory discourse by other men of bringing up the Army to awe the Parliament be alleaged as a breach of trust against the King never to be forgotten yet the actuall bringing up an Army upon them and thereby awing it so far as the driving away many Members and making those who remained do any thing that Army directs is no offence in them either against the freedome or priviledge of Parliament To that clause His Majesty not being perswaded by their Petitions to defer His journey into Scotland in the year 1641. there needs no Answer then the remembring His Majesties owne words in His Declaration of the 12. of August which are these We gave them warning that if there were any more good Bills which they desired might passe for the benefit of Our Subjects We wished they might be made ready against such a time when We resolved according
two Houses then to the King and were more owned by them who tooke speciall care for their Accommodation By what is said it sufficiently appears how unjust and unreasonable all the particular Scandals are with relation to the businesse of Ireland in which His Majesty how impudently soever He hath been aspersed never did any or omitted the doing any thing but according to those rules which are most justifiable before God and man it were to be wished that the two Houses of Parliament had but as well performed their duty and obligations but it cannot be forgotten that neer the beginning of this Rebellion when the Houses pretended wonderfull difficulty to raise men for that Service and when a seasonable supply would utterly have broken and defeated the Rebels the King sent a Message to them on the 28 of December 1641. That His Majesty being very sensible of the great miseries and distresses of His Subjects in the Kingdome of Ireland which daily increased and the bloud which had been already spilt by the cruelty and barbarousnesse of those Rebels crying out so loud and perceiving how slowly the succours designed thither went on His Majesty Himself would take care that by Commissions which He would grant ten thousand English Voluntiers should be speedily raised for that service if the House of Commons would declare that they would pay them which offer from His Majesty was rejected and no considerable supplies sent till they had compelled His Majesty to consent to such a Bill for Pressing as might devest and rob Him of a necessary and legall power inherent in His Crowne Nor can it be forgotten that they reserved those men which were raised for Ireland and would not otherwise have been engaged in their Service but on that pretence and brought them to fight against His Majesty at Edge-hill and afterwards retained them still in their Service That they imployed the mony raised by Act of Parliament for the relief of Ireland and with a particular caution that it should be imployed no other way for the support and maintenance of that Army led by the Earle of Essex against the King and that from the beginning of the Rebellion in England though they received vast sums of mony raised only for Ireland they never administred any considerable supply thither that they could apply to the advancement of their owne Designes at home against the King These particulars of which kind every man may call to mind many more nor their notable compliance with the Irish Committee when they came first over are remembred to imply that the two Houses of Parliament were guilty of raising the Rebellion in Ireland otherwise then by their principles and proceedings in diminution of the King 's soveraigne power or that they cherished it after it was begun otherwise then by not wisely and vigorously endeavouring to suppresse it before it spread so universally but that which may be justly laid to their charge is their affecting and grasping the power of carrying on that War which so great a body is not fit for their imprudent and unpolitique declaring an animosity against the whole Nation and even a purpose for their utter extirpation and disposing their Lands to those who would be adventurers for it which Act and Declaration it is known drove many into open Rebellion who were not before suspected or at least declared to be affected to the Rebels and lastly their giving all their minds up to the kindling that horrid and monstrous rebellion here rather then to the extinguishing the other in Ireland 16. Next succeeds the Charge against the King for the unusuall preparation of Ammunition and Armes upon His return from Scotland with new Guards within and about White-hall the Fire-works taken and found in Papists houses the Tower filled with New guards Granadoes and all sorts of Fire-works Morters and great pieces of Battery the dis-placing Sir William Balfore and placing other Officers who were suspected by them and the whole City Not to speak of the entertainment they provided for the King against His return out of Scotland when in stead of thanking Him for having passed so many good Acts of grace and favour to them that there was no one thing more that the Kingdome could reasonably aske from Him or requisite to make them the most happy Nation of the world They presented Him a Remonstrance as they called it of the State of the Kingdome laying before Him to use His Majesties own words and publishing to the world all the mistakes and all the mis-fortunes which hapned from His first comming to the Crowne and before to that houre forgetting the blessed condition all His Subjects had enjoyed in the benefit of peace and plenty under His Majesty to the envy of Christendome Not to speak of the licence then used in language when upon debate of some pretended breach of Order one of the principall Promoters of this Declaration publickly said in the House of Commons without controle that their Discipline ought to be severe for the enemy was in view when the King was come within one daies journey of the City His Majesty found a band of Souldiers entertained to guard the two Houses of Parliament which as it had bin never known in age before in that manner so there was not now the least visible cause for it but that there had been a Plot in Scotland against the persons of the Marquesse of Hamilton and Argyle and therefore there might be the like upon some principall Members here Upon the King's return the Earl of Essex resigned up the Commission with which he had been intrusted by His Majesty during His absence to preserve the peace of the Kingdome and thereupon that Guard which was drawn together by vertue of that authority in that Earle was dissolved with it The King came then to White-hall and for what passed afterward heare in His owne words in His Declaration of the 12. of August Great multitudes of mutinous people every day resorted to Westminster threatned to pul down the lodgings where divers of the Bishops lay assaulted some in their Coaches chased others with Boats by water laid violent hands on the Arch-bishop of Yorke in his passing to the House and had he not been rescued by force it is probable they had murdered him crying through the streets Westminster-hall and between the two Houses No Bishops no Bishops no Popish Lords and mis-used the severall Members of either House who they were informed favoured not their desperate and seditious ends proclaiming the names of severall of the Peers as evill and rotten-hearted Lords and in their return from thence made stand before Our gate at White-hall said they would have no more Porters Lodge but would speak with the King when they pleased and used such desperate rebellious discourse that We had great reason to believe Our owne Person Our Royall Consort and Our Children to be in evident danger of violence and therefore were compelled at Our
great charge to entertain a Guard for securing Us from that danger These are His Majesties own words and containe no more then is known to all men and hath never yet been particularly denied by themselves therefore sure the King had great reason to provide some Guard for Himself and what was that Guard Many Colonels and Officers of quality attended the Parliament for Mony due to them by the publique Faith which to this day hath not been paid to them these Gentlemen upon the Offer of their Service to the King in this exigent were listed and attended at White-hall to defend it against the insolency of those Tumults and the little Ammunition and Armes which was brought thither was for that purpose That the Houses within few daies after raised a stronger Guard for themselves without and against the King's Consent and with that and other Forces countenanced by that drove the King from the Towne is as true and notorious to all the world What is meant by the Fire-works found and taken in Papists houses is not understood except they intend the Lord Herbert's house which being at that time mentioned and examined was in the House of Commons rejected as an idle bruite some of their principall Members affirming they had been there and were satisfied that there was nothing in the practice or designe but what was very justifiable The Tower was so farre from being filled with new Guards that there were no new Guards put there till the Houses took the boldnesse to doe it and if the King had made any addition of strength to His own Fort it would have been no more then He might well have done But that the having Granadoes and all sorts of Fire-works Morters and great Pieces of Battery ready prepared in the Tower should be objected to the King is wonderfull since it is the proper place where such Utensils for war are to be and if they had been in any other place it might have administred some occasion of jealousie there were no more pieces of Battery prepared and mounted against the City then had been usuall and accustomed It was in the King 's just power to remove any man from being Lieutenant of the Tower whose fidelity or affection he suspected or made question of yet what just reason soever He had for either Sir William Balfore was removed with his own consent and upon such a present recompence in mony as himself thought an ample compensation it is true some factious Citizens who were alwaies ready to be applied to any seditious action petitioned against Sir John Byron who succeeded in that Command and alleaged that their jealousie was such that they were forced to forbear the bringing in of Bullyon to the Mint when in truth there was not one of those who concurred in that Petition that ever brought Bullyon thither or used thar Trade and to use His Majesties owne words it is notoriously known There was more Bullyon brought into the Mint in the time that Gentleman was Lieutenant then in the same quantity of time in any mans remembrance And surely it will be a great brand upon that time and the City to posterity and an evidence how far they were from lodging English hearts in their brests that they would think themselves lesse secure in Sir John Byron a person of Noble Extraction generous education unblemished reputation and a full fortune then of an indigent Forainer who had no other Arts to live by then those of which they justly complained and could not serve them without betraying his faith to his Master to whom he was particularly sworn and ingaged by infinite Obligations Hitherto they have examined only the errors and oversights at least the lesse raging enormities of the first Sixteen or Seventeen years of His Majesties Reigne now they are entring into the high waies where they say the tract of open force against the Parliament and Kingdom did appear more visible 17. The first instance is the Charge of Treason against some of both Houses and that unparallel'd Act of violence by the King 's coming so attended to the House of Commons which they say was but the Prologue to a bloudy Tragedy c. Though the tale of the Members did at that time serve their turne to worke upon the un-skilfull and un-distinguishing minds of the people and to apply them to their Service it was believed they would have now blushed to have remembred it since as discerning-men were not at that time in any degree satisfied of their innocence so all men by the demeanour of those Members afterwards have concluded that the King had very good reason then to accuse them though it may be the act was not so happily deliberated on as to foresee those accidents which might disturb the progresse of it Before any thing be said of the matter it self how far the King was from doing what was not right it will not be amisse to look back how far they then imputed this act to the King which is now so principall a part of the Charge against Him After His Majesty had excepted against some expressions used by them of His comming to the House of Commons as if He had intended violence in their Petition presented to Him at Tiballs 1. of March 1641. they besought His Majesty to believe that the dangerous and desperate designe upon the House was not inserted with any intention to cast the least aspertion upon His Majesty but therein they reflected upon the malignant party c. so that it seems the Houses then were not of the same opinion these men are now of For the matter it self That any Members of either House may be prosecuted in the same manner as if they were not Members in the case of Treason or Felony is so known a truth that no man who pretends to know the Laws of the Kingdome or Presidents of Parliament ever thought the contrary or heard the contrary said till since the case of these Members and the same hath been alwaies acknowledged in all Parliaments and may be said to be acknowledged by this since the Lord chief Justice Coke sets it down as a maxime in his Chapter of the High Court of Parliament which was printed by the especiall Order of the House of Commons since this Parliament began That the King had reason to accuse these Members of high Treason can be as little doubted since He could make particular proof against them of a solemn Combination entred into by them for altering the Government of the Church and State of their soliciting and drawing down the Tumults to Westminster and of their bidding the people in the height of their rage and fury to go to White-hall of their scornfull and odious mention of His Majesties Person and their designe of getting the Prince into their hands and of their Treating with Forain power to assist them if they should faile in their enterprizes And why the King's Attourny upon these
power yet they could not break through the Charge of the Army for invading infringing or endeavouring to overthrow the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects of this Nation in arbitrary violent and oppressing waies and for endeavouring by indirect and corrupt practises to delay and obstruct Justice to the great damage and prejudice of divers of the poor Commoners of England Though they were too mighty to be touched upon the Kings accusation of having endeavoured by many foule aspersions upon His Majesty and His Government to alienate the affections of His people and to make His Majesty odious to them yet they were not able to bear the burthen of an Accusation of having endeavoured by false informations mis-representations or scandalous suggestions against the Army to beget mis-understandings prejudices or jealousies in the Parliament against the Army and to put insufferable injuries abuses and provocations upon the Army whereby to provoke and put the Army into dis-temper Though they slighted the King's Charge of having trayterously invited and incouraged a forain power to invade His Majesties Kingdome of England yet they cannot throw off the Charge from the Army of having invited the Scots and other forain Forces to come into this Kingdome in a hostile manner to abet and assist them in the prosecution and effecting of their designes Lastly they may with their eyes hands and hearts lift up to Heaven remember how they contemned and despised the King when he charged them that they had endeavoured as far as in them lay by force and terrour to compell the Parliament to joyne with them in their trayterous designes and to that end had actually raised and countenanced Tumults against the King and Parliament And now their owne Army whereof very many then assisted them in those Tumults to drive away the King and the Members of both Houses accuses them of having invited incouraged abetted or countenanced divers Reformadoes and other Officers and Souldiers tumultuously and violently to gather together at Westminster to affright and assault the Members of Parliament in passing to and from the House to offer violence to the House it self and by such violence outrages and threats to awe and inforce the Parliament As the Charge allowed and countenanced now from their owne Army is upon the matter the same which was with so much noise and insolence rejected when it was presented from the King and is now objected against Him as a hainous crime so with reference to their Priviledges which like the Logitians line is divisibilis in semper divisibilia and serves their turne to inable them to aske any thing from the King they think fit to demand and to refuse any thing to Him He requires from them the progresse and proceedings thereupon hath been very different in stead of suspending and discountenancing them upon the King's accusation they are brought in triumph with an Army to the House the Army upon the bare exhibiting their generall Articles require that the persons impeached may be forthwith suspended from sitting in the House and will receive no deniall it must be consented to for they will not indure that the persons impeached by them shall continue in power and capacity to obstruct due proceedings against themselves and for their own escape from justice to threaten ruine to the whole Nation as by the Letter from the Army of the 21. of June appears The King was checked upon the matter of Priviledge and then imperiously required to send the evidence which He had against those He had accused to the House where they principally governed and could easily judge what was secure for themselves His Majesty desired that before His proofs were discovered against them and lest a new mistake should breed more delaies it might be resolved whether His Majesty were bound in respect of Priviledges to proceed against them by impeachment in Parliament or whether He were at liberty to prefer an Indictment against them at Common Law in the usuall way or had His choice to which they would give no other Answer then that they desired Him to give directions that the Parliament might be informed before Friday next what proof there was against them that accordingly they might be called to a legall triall it being the undoubted right and priviledge of Parliament that no Member of Parliament can be proceeded against without the consent of Parliament The Army tells them plainly by their Letter of the 25. of June That they wish the name of Priviledges may not lie in ballance with the Safety of a Kingdome and the reality of doing justice which as they had said too often they could not expect whilst the persons they had accused were the Kingdomes and their Judges And in the Remonstrance of the Army of the 23. of June that no priviledges ought to protect wicked men in doing wrong to particulars or mischief to the publick and that whoever most adores or tenders those priviledges will best expresse his Zeale towards them in taking care they be not abased or extended to private wrong and publique mischief for they say they clearly find and all wise men may see it that Parliament priviledges as well as Royall prerogative may be perverted abused to the destruction of those greater ends for whose protection and preservation they were admitted or intended viz. the Rights and Liberties of the people and safety of the whole and in case they be so the abuse evill or danger of them is no lesse to be contended against and a remedy thereof no lesse to be endeavoured then of the other And upon these grounds they conclude that they shall be inforced to take such courses extraordinary as God shall enable and direct them to unlesse by Thursday night next they receive assurance and security to themselves and the Kingdome for a more safe and hopefull proceeding in an ordinary way by having those things granted which before they insisted on These have been the proceedings of late in the point of accusing Members and in the case of Priviledge all which are so far justified by the Houses that the Army hath received publique thanks and approbation for all that they have done and their accusations have been received countenanced and promoted and their desires granted against the persons they accused so that as the King did nothing in the accusation of those Members but what was justifiable by the Law and former Presidents of Parliament so whatsoever He did is since justified by the later Presidents which themselves have consented to and approved And so we return to the place from whence this consideration carried us There is a mention of the Lord Digby's appearing in a War-like manner and afterwards his going beyond the Seas and from thence giving advice to the King to retire to some strong place c. which are all so well known have been so often answered and have so little reference to the King that time is not to
be wasted to reply to them 18. The next Charge is the Commissions granted to the Earle of Newcastle and Colonel Legg for attempting Newcastle and Hull which they say occasioned them to provide for their security to which their intelligence of forain Forces from Denmark contributed and then they take great paines to make that jealousie of Denmarke reasonable and fit to sink into them The Commissions granted by the King to the Earle of Newcastle and Colonel Legg were no other then by Law He might grant neither did He grant any such before He was assured the leading Members in the House of Commons had it in their purpose to procure an Order for the seizing that Towne and after they had caused a power to be placed about the Tower of London both by land and water under the Command of their new Officer Skippon who was required not to suffer any provisions to be brought in thither by what Authority or Warrant soever If there had been any expectation or apprehension of forain Forces to be brought from Denmarke that could be no warrant for them to seize on Hull without and against the King's leave whose peculiar jurisdiction and right it is to provide against forain Invasions but as that discourse of Forces from Denmarke was then looked upon as most ridiculous by all men of sense so experience hath since made it apparent that there was not the least colour for it And the arrivall of that Vessell with Ammunition and Armes for there came no Commanders in her near Hull was near six Months after the Houses had put a Garrison into Hull and neer three Months after Sir John Hotham had shut the Gates of it against His Majesty and if it had not been for that rebellious Act that Ammunition and Armes had not been sent The Invasion of the King of Denmark's Dominions by the Swedes was above two years after the seizing of Hull therefore that could not be any interruption to that designe if it had been intended but that a frivolous report of a discourse between a Servant of the Lord Digby's that was never named with a Mariner whom he had never seen before to conduct a Fleet into England from Denmarke or an intercepted Letter from the Hague to Secretary Nicholas which is pretended to be written the 26 of Novemb. after the Battle of Edge-hill and in which is mention of Armes for ten thousand Foot and for fifteen hundred Horse should be thought of moment to justifie a rebellious jealousie of the King's purpose of countenancing an Invasion of His owne Kingdome is below the folly and sottishnesse of any to whom satisfaction ought to be applied The imploying of Colonel Cockram to the King of Denmark was after the Rebellion was begun and when the Earl of Essex was marching with his Army against His Majesty and the principall instruction given to him was to presse that King to assist His Majesty with Mony Armes and Ammunition the two Houses having seized all which belonged to His Majesty and that the same might be sent by some Ships of that Crowne because all the King 's owne were taken from Him and lay in wait to intercept any Provision that should be sent to His Majesty and it is no wonder if the King indevoured by His instructions to His Agent to make His Uncle of Denmarke as sensible as he could of the injuries and indignities offered to His Majesty nor was that very clause with which these wicked men so insolently and rudely reproach His Majesty without good grounds it being known that they ordinarily whisper'd many things then in their private Caballs which they durst not publiquely avow of which nature were their discourses of the Death of King James which they are now grown up to the wickednesse to publish and the other which was mentioned in that instruction They say they repeat this rather because when they declared their intelligence that Cockram was sent into Denmarke to procure Forces thence the King disavowed it calling it a vile scandall in His Answer to their Decl. of the 22 of Octob. 1642. Their charge upon the King in that Declaration of the 22 of Octob. was That Sir John Henderson and Colonel Cockram men of ill report both for Religion and Honesty were sent to Hanborough and Denmarke as they were credibly informed to raise Forces there and to bring them to Newcastle and to joyne with the Earle of Newcastle c. To this the King made Answer That He had never greater cause to be confident of security in His owne Subjects and therefore He could not believe so vile a scandall could make any impression in sober men And it is known He did desire no other aide or supply at that time from Denmarke or from any of his Allies but Mony Armes and Ammunition but if He had not been confident in the security of His owne Subjects He would have been justly to be blamed if He had not endeavoured to get any forain succours to preserve Himself His Crowne and the Kingdome from being over-run and subdued by the power and strength of His rebellious Subjects In the same instructions to Cockram they say the King declared that He then expected assistance from His neighbour Princes and Allyes in particular the greatest part of the States Fleet from Holland which if it were truly set forth needs no Answer it being very reasonable that the King should have expected that all His neighbour Princes and Allyes should have assisted Him against so odious and horrid a Rebellion and it may be many of them may live to find the inconveniencie of not being sensible of the assault which hath been made upon Soveraignty especially if in stead of assisting the King they have contributed toward the oppressing the Regall power but these men are such enemies to ingenuity that in the very repeating what hath been said or done by the King they will leave out any words that will make the sense otherwise understood then fits their purpose though any man that will take the pains to examine it will quickly find the truth so they who will peruse these instructions by what means soever they came by them published by themselves will find that the King mentioned the Holland Fleet only as allowed by the States to give Her Majesty a Convoy into England which these men would have understood as lent to assist the King against His rebellious Subjects whereas it is too well known that at that time the two Houses found more respect and assistance from those States then His Majesty did and what His Majesty then said of His neighbour Princes and Allyes which they would perswade the people to relate to some present engagement from them to send Forces to Him being only grounded upon His reasonable hope of the sense those Princes would have of the indignities offered to His Majesty His words being He expects and hopes that all His neighbour Princes and Allyes will not look
the act which had been done and willing to doe any thing for the King's service declared That the Thursday night following he should have the Guard at the North Gate and that if an Alarum were given at another Gate called Hessell-Gate he would let those in who came from the King Mr. Beckwith promised if he would perform this he should have a very good reward and that if he could convert his Captain one Lowanger a Dutch-man to joyn with him he should likewise be very liberally rewarded This is all that was alleaged against Mr. Beckwith as appears by Sir John Hothams Letter of the whole information to Mr. Pim entred in the Journall booke of the House of Commons and printed by their Order Fookes as soon as he returned to Hull discovered all to Sir Iohn Hotham and he derived it to the House of Commons as is said and they upon this evidence sent their Sergeant at Armes or his Messenger to apprehend Beckwith as a Delinquent who upon notice of the treachery of his Son-in-law durst not stay at his house but removed to Yorke The Messenger with the confidence of his Masters boldly came thither and finding the Gentleman in the Court and in the Garden where the King himself was walking had the presumption to serve the Warrant upon him and to claim him as his Prisoner it was indeed a great wonder that the Messenger was not very severely handled but the reverence to the King's Person preserved him who bore no reverence to it and His Majesty being informed what had hapned called for the Fellow and having seen his Warrant bid him return to those that sent him and forbear committing the like insolency lest he fared worse this was the beating their Messenger and this the protection Mr. Beckwith had nor was there ever any Posse Comitatus raised the High Sheriffe daily waiting on His Majesty and observing the Orders he received from Him according to the duty of his office Whatever this offence had been it was never knowne before this Parliament that the Messenger of either House ever presumed to serve a warrant within the King's Court much lesse in his Presence which whilst loyalty and duty were in reputation was held too sacred for such presumptions the Law confessing such priviledges and exemptions to be due to those places That the Lord cannot seize his Villaine in the King's presence because the presence of the King is a sanctuary unto him saies my Lord Dyer For the matter it self sure there is no man yet that will avow himself to be so much out of his wits as to say that the King should have suffered Mr. Beckwith to be carried to Westminster as a Delinquent for doing the part of a good Subject and to be tried by those who owned the Treason that was committed nor can there be one person named whom they sent for as a Delinquent and the King protected except those who had been a yeare together attending upon them and demanding justice or those against whom nothing was objected but that they waited on and attended his Majesty For the Traytors and Felons they were only to be found within their owne verge and protected by their owne priviledges Very few lines will serve here to take notice of the difference between the King's usage of their Messengers and their usage of the King 's their Messenger sent by them on an unlawfull imployment to apprehend a person they had no power to send for and for a crime of which if he had been guilty they had no cognisance and executing their commands in an unlawfull manner and in a place where he ought not to have done it though the command had been just was by the King fairly dismissed without so much as imprisonment or restraint The Kings Messenger sent by his Majesty with a legall Writ to London for the adjournment of the Tearme which is absolutely in the King's power to do and can be regularly done no other way for performing his duty in this Service according to his Oath and for not doing whereof he had been punishable and justly forfeited his place without any other crime objected to him was taken imprisoned tried at a Court of War by them condemned to be hanged and was executed accordingly That bloud will cry aloud But they say with those Guards Cannon and Armes from beyond Sea the King attempted to force Hull in a hostile manner and that within few daies after that solemne Protestation at Yorke What the Protestation was is before set downe and his Majesties published resolution in this point before that Protestation nor did his Majesty ever conceal his purpose in this or other cases of that nature or disguised his purpose with any specious promises or pretences but plainly told them and the world what they were to expect at his hands To their expostulatory and menacing Petition delivered to his Majesty at his first comming to Yorke on the 26 of March the King in his Answer used these words As we have not nor shall refuse any way agreeable to justice or honour which shall be offered to Us for the begetting a right understanding between Us so We are resolved that no straits or necessities to which We may be driven shall ever compell Us to doe that which the reason and understanding that God hath given Us and Our honour and interest with which God hath trusted Us for the good of Our Posterity and Kingdomes shall render unpleasant and grievous to Us. In this second Message concerning Hull the second day after the Gates were shut against him his Majesty uses these words If We are brought into a condition so much worse then any of Our Subjects that whilst you all enjoy your priviledges and may not have your possessions disturbed or your titles questioned We only may be spoiled thrown out of Our Townes and Our goods taken from Us 't is time to examine how We have lost those priviledges and to trie all possible waies by the help of God the Law of the Land and the affection of our good Subjects to recover them and vindicate Our self from those injuries In his reply to their Answer concerning Sir Iohn Hotham presented to him on the 9 of May his Majesty told them that He expected that they would not put the Militia in execution untill they could shew Him by what Law they had authority to do the same without His consent or if they did He was confident that He should find much more obedience according to Law then they against Law Lastly in his Answer to a Declaration of the 21 of Iune 1642. about a fortnight before his going towards Hull with his Guards his Majesty told them plainly That the keeping Him out of Hull by S r John Hotham was an act of High Treason against him and the taking away his Magazine and Munition from him was an act of violence upon him by what hands or by whose directions soever
guilty of Treason by that act of his within the expresse words of the 2 Chapter of the 25 yeare of King Edw. 3. but by declaring that by leavying war against our Lord the King in his Realme which in that Statute is declared to be high Treason is meant leavying war against the Parliament and yet Mr. St. Iohn observed in his Argument against the Earle of Strafford printed by Order that the word KING in that Statute must be understood of the King 's naturall person for that person can onely die have a Wife have a Son and be imprisoned The Lord chief Justice Coke in his Commentary upon that Statute saith If any leavy War to expulse Strangers to deliver men out of Prisons to remove Counsellours or against any Statute or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own head without any warrant this is leavying war against the King because they take upon them Royall authority which is against the King and that there may be no scruple by that expression without warrant the same Author saies in the same place and but few lines preceding that no Subject can leavy War within the Realm without authority from the King for to him it only belongeth Preparation by some overt act to depose the King or to take the King by force and strong hand and to imprison Him untill he hath yeilded to certain demands this is a sufficient overt act to prove the compassing and imagination of the death of the King for this is upon the matter to make the King a Subject and to disspoyle Him of His Kingly Office of Royall government as is concluded by the same reverend Authour and likewise that to rise to alter Religion established within the Kingdome or Lawes is Treason These Declarers cannot name one person proclaimed a Rebell or Traytor by the King who was not confessedly guilty of at least one of these particulars and being so the King did no more then by the Law He ought to doe and Mr. St. Johns acknowledged in his Argument against the Earle of Strafford that he that leavies War against the Person of the King doth necessarily compasse His death and likewise that it is a War against the King when intended for the alteration of the Lawes or Government in any part of them or to destroy any of the great Officers of the Kingdome For the setting up the Standard it was not till those persons who bearing an inward hatred and malice against his Majesties Person and Government had raised an Army and were then trayterously and rebelliously marching in battle-array against his Majesty their Liege Lord and Soveraigne as appears by his Majesties Proclamation of the 12 of August 1642. in which He declared His purpose to erect His royall Standard and after they had with an Army besieged his Majesties antient standing Garrison of Portsmouth and required the same in which the King's Governour was to be delivered to the Parliament and after they had sent an Army of Horse Foot and Cannon under the command of the Earle of Bedford into the West to apprehend the Marquesse of Hertford who was there in a peaceable manner without any Force till he was compelled to raise the same for his defence and to preserve the peace of those Counties invaded by an Army and then when his Majesty was compelled for those reasons to erect his Standard with what tendernesse He did it towards the two Houses of Parliament cannot better appear then by His owne words in his Declaration published the same day on which that Proclamation issued out which are these What Our opinion and resolution is concerning Parliaments We have fully expressed in our Declarations We have said and will still say they are so essentiall a part of the constitution of this Kingdome that We can attaine to no happinesse without them nor will We ever make the least attempt in Our thought against them We well know that Our self and Our two Houses make up the Parliament and that We are like Hipocrates Twins We must laugh and cry live and die together that no man can be a friend to the one and an enemy to the other the injustice injury and violence offered to Parliaments is that which We principally complaine of and We again assure all Our good Subjects in the presence of Almighty God that all the Acts passed by Us this Parliament shall be equally observed by Us as We desire those to be which do most concern Our Rights Our quarrell is not against the Parliament but against particular men who first made the wounds and will not suffer them to be healed but make them deeper and wider by contriving fostering and fomenting mistakes and jealousies betwixt body and head Us and the two Houses whom We name and are ready to prove them guilty of High Treason c. And then his Majesty names the persons This was the King's carriage towards and mention of the Parliament very different from theirs who are now possessed of the Soveraigne power the Army who in their Remonstrance of the 23 of June last use these words We are in this case forced to our great grief of heart thus plainly to assert the present evill and mischief together with the future worse consequences of the things lately done even in the Parliament it self which are too evident and visible to all and so in their proper colours to lay the same at the Parliament Dores untill the Parliament shall be pleased either of themselves to take notice and rid the House of those who have any way mis-informed deluded surprized or otherwise abused the Parliament to the passing such foule things there or shall open to us and others some way how we may c. which would not have been mentioned here if they had been onely the extravagant act and words of the Army but they are since justified and made the words of the two Houses by their declaring in their late Declaration of the 4 of March in Answer to the Papers of the Scots Commissioners That if there be any unsound principles in relation to Religion or the State in some of the Army as in such a body there usually are some extravagant humours they are very injuriously charged upon the whole Army whereof the governing part hath been very carefull to suppresse and keep down all such peccant humours and have hitherto alwaies approved themselves very constant and faithfull to the true interest of both Kingdomes and the cause wherein they have engaged and the persons that have engaged therein so that this Remonstrance being the Act of the Generall Lieutenant-Generall and the whole Councell of War which is sure the governing part it is by this Declaration fully vindicated to be the Sense of the two Houses 22. The setting up a mock Parliament at Oxford to oppose and protest against the Parliament of England which his Majesty and both Houses had continued by Act of Parliament is in the
next place objected against his Majesty There was neither reall nor mock Parliament set up at Oxford but when the King found that most of the Members of either House were driven from Westminster by force as his Majesty had been and yet that the authority and reputation of Parliament was applied for the justification of all the rebellious Acts which were done even to the invitation of Forain power to invade the Kingdome as well for the satisfaction of His people that they might know how many of the true Members of Parliament abhorred the acts done by that pretended authority as for His owne information his Majesty by his Proclamation of the 22 of Decemb. in the year 1643. invited all the Members of both Houses who had been driven or being conscious of their want of freedome had withdrawn from Westminster to assemble at Oxford upon the 22 of January following when He said all His good Subjects should see how willing He was to receive advice for the Religion Laws and safety of the Kingdome from those whom they had trusted though He could not receive it in the place where He had appointed Upon which Summons and Invitation by his Majesty eight and forty Peers attended his Majesty there being at least twenty others imployed in his Armies and in the severall Counties whose attendance was dispenced with and nine others in the parts beyond the Seas with his Majesties leave and of the House of Commons above one hundred and forty there being likewise absent in the Armies neer thirty more who could not be conveniently present at Oxford When his Majesty found the appearance so great and so much superiour in number as well as quality to those at Westminster He hoped it would prove a good expedient to compose the minds of the other to a due consideration of the misery into which they had brought their Country and referred it to them to propose any advice which might produce so good an effect what addresses and overtures were then made by them and afterwards by His Majesty to perswade them to enter upon any Treaty of Peace and with what contempt and scorne the same was rejected will be too long to insert here and is sufficiently known to the world thereupon this body of Lords and Commons published a Declaration to the Kingdome at large setting forth the particular acts of violence by which they had been driven from Westminster and by which the freedome of Parliament was taken away and then declared how much they abhorred the undutifull and rebellious acts which were countenanced by those who staid there and declared their own submission and allegiance to his Majesty and in the end concluded That as at no time either or both Houses of Parliament can by any Orders or Ordinances impose upon the people without the King's consent so by reason of the want of Freedome and Security for all the Members of the Parliament to meet at Westminster and there to sit speak and vote with freedome and safety all the Actions Votes Orders Declarations and pretended Ordinances made by those Members who remaine still at Westminster were void and of none effect yet they said they were far from attempting the dissolution of the Parliament or the violation of any Act made and confirmed by his Majesty but that it was their grief in the behalf of the whole Kingdome that since the Parliament was not dissolved the power thereof should by the treason and violence of those men be so far suspended that the Kingdome should be without the fruit and benefit of a Parliament which could not be reduced to any action or authority till the liberty and freedome due to the Members should be restored and admitted which Declaration hath not onely ever received any Answer but with great care hath not been suffered to be printed in the last Collection of Orders and Declarations where the other proceedings at Oxford of that time are set forth that the people may lose that evidence against them which can never be answered or evaded This was that Assembly which these Declarers call the mock Parliament at Oxford and these the proceedings of it of the justice and regularity whereof if there could have been heretofore any doubt made the same is lately vindicated sufficiently by both Houses for if those Lords and Commons at Oxford might not justifiably absent themselves from Westminster where their safety and freedome was taken from them by what right or authority could a smaller number withdraw themselves in July last upon the same pretence and if that body of Lords and Commons regularly convened by his Majesties Authority to Oxford who had first called them together at Westminster might not declare the Acts made by those who remained at Westminster void and of none effect because they might not attend there and Vote with freedome and safety by what imaginable authority could the Speaker of the House of Commons who hath no more freedome or power to make any such Declaration then every single Member of the House declare that such and such Votes passed in the House were void and null and that the omission of a circumstance or some formality in the adjournment of the Houses could not be any prejudice to the future meetings and proceedings of Parliament when it might meet and sit again as a free Parliament as he did by his own single Declaration in July last whereupon that powerfull Umpire the Army very frankly declared That all such Members of either House of Parliament as were already with the Army for the security of their persons and were forced to absent themselves from Westminster that they should hold and esteem them as persons in whom the publique trust of the Kingdome was still remaining though they could not for the present sit as a Parliament with freedome and safety at Westminster and by whose advice and counsels they desired to governe themselves in the managing those weighty affairs and to that end invited them to make their repair to the Army and said they held themselves bound to own that honourable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons who had actually withdrawn himself and they engaged to use their utmost and speedy endevour that he and those Members of either House that were then inforced any way from Westminster might with freedome and security sit there and againe discharge their trust as a free and legall Parliament and in the meane time they did declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster as contrary to all right reason law and custome and professed themselves to be most cleerly satisfied in all their judgments and were confident the Kingdome would therein concur with them that as things then stood there was no free nor legall Parliament sitting being through the foresaid violence at present suspended and that the Orders Votes or resolutions forced from the Houses on Munday the 26 of July last as also all such as should
the world may judge are aggravated by the King 's so often refusing their addresses for peace the truth of which suggestions though for method sake the Order of their Declaration hath been inverted must be now considered and all of that kind which is scattered and dis-jointed in the Declaration shal for the same method sake be gathered together and resolved and in this Argument they seem to think they are so much upon the advantage ground that they are rather to make an Apology to the world for having so often made Addresses to their King then for resolving to doe so no more that is for enduring so long to be Subjects then for resolving hereafter to be so no more The truth is they never yet made any one addresse for peace onely somtime offered to receive his Crown if his Majesty would give it up to them without putting them to fight more for it for other sense or interpretation no Propositions yet ever sent to Him can bear and whereas they say they must not be so unthankfull to God as to forget they were never forced to any Treaty it is affirmed that there are not six Members who concur in this Declaration who ever gave their consent to any Treaty that hath yet been but when they were forced by the major part to consent to it they were so unthankfull to God for the opportunity of restoring a blessed peace to their Country that they framed such Propositions and clogged their Commissioners with such Instructions as made any Agreement impossible Though no Arithmetique but their own can reckon those Seven times in which they have made such applications to the King and tendred such Propositions that might occasion the world to judge they had not only yeilded up to their wills and affections but their reason also and judgment for obtaining a true peace and accommodation yet it will be no hard matter shortly to recollect the overtures which have bin made on both sides and thence it may best appear whether the King never yet offred any thing fit for them to receive or would accept of any tender fit for them to make What Propositions were made by them to prevent the War need not be remembred who ever reads the nineteen sent to Him to Yorke will scarce be able to name one Soveraigne power that was not there demanded from him nor can they now make Him lesse a King then He should have been if He had consented to those After His Standard was set up and by that his Majesty had shewed that He would not tamely be stripped of His Royall power without doing His best to defend it He sent a Message before bloud was yet drawn from Nottingham to desire that some fit persons might be inabled by them to treat with the like number to be authorized by His Majesty in such a manner and with such freedome of debate as might best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desired The peace of the Kingdome to which gracious overture from His Majesty the Answer was that untill the King called in His Proclamations and Declarations and took down His Standard they could give Him no Answer And at the same time published a Declar to the Kingdome That they would not lay down their Arms untill the King should withdraw His protection from all such persons as had been voted by both Houses to be Delinquents or should be voted to be such that their Estates might be disposed to the defraying of the charges the Common-wealth had been put to And who they meant by those Delinquents they had in a former Declaration to the Inhabitants of York-shire expressed that all persons should have reparation out of the Estates of all such persons in any part of the Kingdome whatsoever who had withdrawn themselves to Yorke and should persist to serve the King c. This was one of their Applications in which they had yeilded up their wills and affections and their reason and judgment for obtaining peace They say they have cause to remember that the King somtimes denied to receive their humble Petitions for peace the which they had rather should be believed in grosse then trouble themselves with setting down the time and manner when it was done but out of their former writings it is no hard matter to guesse what they meane When the KING was at Shrewsbury and the Earle of Essex at Worcester towards the end of September 1642. the two Houses sent a Petition to their Generall to be presented to His Majesty in some safe and honourable way In which Petition they most humbly besought his Majesty to withdraw His Person from His own Army and to leave them to be suppressed by that power which they had sent against them and that He would in peace and safety without His Forces return to His Parliament The Earl of Essex by Letter to the Earle of Dorset who then attended his Majesty intimated that He had a Petition from both Houses to be delivered to his Majesty and for that purpose desired a safe Conduct for those who should be sent with it The Earle of Dorset by his Majesties command returned Answer That as He had never refused to receive any Petition from His Houses of Parliament so He should be ready to give such a reception and Answer to this as should be fit and that the Bringers of it should come and go with safety onely He required that none of those persons whom He had particularly accused of High Treason which at that time were very few should by colour of that Petition be imployed to His Majesty This Answer was declared to be a breach of priviledge and so that Petition which as His Majesty saies in His Answer to the Declaration of the 22 of October was fitter to be delivered after a Battle and full Conquest of Him then in the head of His Army when it might seem somwhat in His power whether He would be deposed or no was never delivered to his Majesty and this is the Petition which they now say He somtimes denied to receive They say that when they desired Him to appoint a place for a Committee of both Houses to attend His Majesty with Propositions for Peace He named Windsor promising to abide thereabouts till they came to Him but presently marched forward so neer London that He had almost surprized it whilst He had so ingaged Himself for a Treaty This likewise refers to the Petition sent to his Majesty at Colebrooke and all the circumstances were fully answered by his Majesty in his Declaration upon that occasion when this aspertion was first unreasonably cast upon Him It is true after the Battle at Edge-hill when they could no longer perswade their friends of the City that the King's Forces were scattered and their Army in pursuit of Him but in stead thereof they had pregnant evidence that his Majesties Army was marching towards them and was possessed
of Reading whilst the Earl of Essex continued still at or about Warwicke on the 2 of November they resolved to send an Overture to his Majesty concerning Peace and though it must not be said they were forced to that Addresse yet truly who ever reads that Petition which was brought to his Majesty to Colebrooke will be of opinion by the stile of it that they were fuller of fear or of duty then they were when they rejected his Majesties offer from Notingham or then they were ten daies after or ever since That Petition was answered with all imaginable candor by his Majesty and Windsor chosen if they would remove their Garrison out of it for the place of Treaty But when the Messengers were returned who made not the least mention of a Cessation it appeared by sure intelligence that the Earl of Essex who had the night before brought his Army to or neer London after those Messengers were dispatched to his Majesty had drawn a great part of his Forces and the London Traine bands towards his Majesty and sent others to Acton on the one side and Kingston on the other so that there being likewise a Garrison at Windsor if the King had staid at Colebrooke He had been insensibly hemmed in and surrounded by the Enemy whereupon He took a sudden resolution to advance to Brainceford thereby to compell them to draw their Body together so making His way through that Towne with the defeat of a Regiment or two which made resistance there and thereby causing those at Kingston to remove the King went to His own House at Hampton Court and having there in vaine expected the Commissioners from the Houses to Treat retired to Reading where He staid till He found they had given over all thought of Treaty and they sent Him a new scornfull Petition to returne to His Parliament with His Royall not His Martiall attendance In January following the importunity of the City of London and generall clamour of the people forced them to pretend an inclination to peace and so they sent Propositions to his Majesty which though but 14 in number contained the whole matter of the former 19. with an addition of some Bils ready passed the two Houses to which His royall assent was demanded one of which was for the extirpation and eradication of the whole frame of Church-government and another for the confirming an Assembly of such Divines as they had chosen to devise a new Government which they were so much the fitter to be trusted with because in the whole number which consisted of above one hundred and might be increased as they thought fit there were not above a dozen who were not already declared Enemies to the old to the which notwithstanding there were few of them who had not subscribed and a promise required from his Majesty that He would give His assent to all such Bils which the two Houses should hereafter present to Him upon consultation with that Assembly How extravagant soever these Propositions were the King so much subdued and suppressed His Princely indignation that He drew them to a Treaty even upon those Propositions expecting as He expressed in His Answer when He proposed the Treaty that such of them as appeared derogatory from and destructive to His just Power and Prerogative should be waved and many other things that were darke and doubtfull in them might be cleared and explained upon debate and concluding that if they would consent to a Treaty they would likewise give such authority and power of reasoning to those whom they should trust that they might either give or take satisfaction upon those principles of piety honour and justice as both sides avowed their being governed by How that Treaty was managed how their Commissioners were limited and bound up by their Instructions that they had no power to recede from the least materiall tittle of the Propositions upon which they treated how they were not suffered to stay one houre beyond the time first assigned to them albeit his Majesty earnestly desired the Treaty might be continued till He had received an Answer to Propositions of His owne which He had sent to the Houses because the Committee had no power to answer them and how the same day their Commissioners left Oxford the Earl of Essex marched with his whole Army to besiege Reading is known to all men who may conclude thereupon that they never intended that Treaty should produce a peace On the other side the King proposed only That His Ships might be restored to Him and His Castles and Revenue which by the confession of all had been violently taken from Him and that His Majesty and the Members of both Houses who had been driven from Westminster might either return thither upon such a provision as might secure them against Tumults for the future or that the Parliament might be adjourned to some safe place and so all Armies presently to be disbanded To which Proposition from his Majesty they never vouchsafed to return Answer and the King after He had above a Month in vain expected it from them and in that time received a good supply of Ammunition which He was before thought to want sent another Message by Mr. Alexander Hambden on the 19 of May 1643. in which He told them That when He considered that the scene of all the calamity was in the bowels of His own Kingdome that all the bloud which was spilt was of His owne Subjects and that what victory it should please God to give Him must be over those who ought not to have lifted up their hands against Him when He considered that those desperate civill dissentions might encourage and invite a forain Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation That Ireland was in present danger to be lost That the heavy judgments of God Plague Pestilence and Famine would be the inevitable attendants of this unnaturall contention and that in a short time there would be so generall a habit of uncharitablenesse and cruelty contracted throughout the Kingdome that even peace itself would not restore His people to their old temper and security His Majesty could not suffer Himself to be discouraged though He had received no Answer to His former Message but by this did again with much earnestnesse desire them to consider what He had before offred which gave so fair a rise to end those unnaturall distractions This most gracious Message from the King met with so much worse entertainment and successe then the former as it was not only ever Answer'd but the Messenger likewise being a Gentleman of quality and singular integrity though he was civilly received by the House of Lords to whom he was directed was by the House of Commons apprehended and imprisoned and never after freed from his restraint till he ended his life after a long and consuming sicknesse This is the Messenger they mean who to excuse their inhumanity and cruelty towards him they say at the
same time he brought a specious Message of renewing a Treaty was instructed how to manage that bloudy Massacre in London which was then designed by vertue of the Kings Commission since published Before any thing be said of that Plot it is known that Gentleman was imprisoned many daies before there was any mention of a Plot and the House of Peers solemnly expostulated the injury done to them in it and in vaine required his inlargement which they would not have done if there had been any other objection against him then the comming without a Passe from their Generall which was never understood to be requisite till the House of Commons very few daies before declared it to be so albeit themselves sent Messengers to the King without ever demanding a Passe Now to the Plot it self They have indeed published a Narration of that Plot which served their turn barbarously to put two very honest men to death and to undoe very many more and it is very probable they made that relation as full and clear as their evidence enabled them to do and yet who ever reads it cannot conclude reasonably that there was ever more in it then a communion between honest men of good reputation and fortunes and desirous of peace how they might be able to discountenance that disorderly rabble which upon all occasions protested against peace by appearing as strong and considerable in numbers as they and which certainly ought to have found as great countenance and encouragement from the Parliament as the other these discourses produced a disquisition of the generall affections of the City and that a more particular computation and estimate of the inclinations of particular men and so mention of severall things which in such and such cases would be necessary to be done and these discourses being by the treachery of a Servant discovered to those who could compound Plots and Conspiracies out of any Ingredients they joyned those and a Commission they had likewise met with together and so shaped a Conspiracy that they used as a Scar-crow to drive away any avowed and publique inclinations for peace the pressing whereof at that time was like to prove inconvenient to them but those discourses and that Commission had not the least relation to each other nor was there one man who was accused of or privy to those discourses whose name was in that Commission or indeed privy to it which had issued out a good time before and was to have been made use of being no other then a fair legall Commission of Array in English if the Kings motion with His Army towards those parts gave the people so much courage to appear for Him nor can there be a sober objection against the Kings granting such a Commission when they had their Ordinances ready upon all occasions to be executed in the Kings Quarters and had named Commissioners for that purpose in all the Counties of the Kingdome But to proceed in the Overtures for peace from the end of the Treaty at Oxford which was in April 1643. they never made one Overture or Addresse to his Majesty towards peace till the end of November 1644. in the mean time what approaches the King made towards it must be remembred After the taking of Bristol when his Majesties strength and power was visible and confessed in the West and in the North and the Enemies condition apparently low and in many of their opinions even desperate the King albeit His last Messenger was still in Prison and no Answer to his Messages by His Declaration of the 30 of June again renewed all the professions and offers He had before made and told them that revenge and bloud thirstinesse had never been imputed to His Majesty by those who had neither left His government or nature un-examined with the greatest boldnesse and malice and therefore besought them to return to their Allegiance what passed from his Majesty himself and from the Lords and Commons at Oxford in March following and with what importunity they desired there might be a Treaty by which some waies means might be found how a peace might be procured and how peremptorily and disdainfully they rejected that desire in their Answer to his Majesty of the 9 of March because the greatest and the greatest number of the Peers of the Kingdome and the greatest part of the House of Commons then with his Majesty at Oxford seemed by Him to be put in an equall condition with them at Westminster though they had been content since to put the Officers of the Army into at least an equall condition with them by treating with them is to be seen and read and needs no repetition In July following which was in the year 1644. after He had routed the best part of Sir William Waller's Army and taken his Cannon his Majesty sent from Evesham another Message to the two Houses to desire them that there might yet be a Cessation and that some persons might be sent to Him with any Propositions that might be for the good of His people and He would condescend to them to which they never returned Answer Two Months after on the 8 of September when He had totally defeated the Army of the Earl of Essex in Cornwall taken all their Cannon Armes and Baggage the King again sent to them that the extraordinary successe with which God had blessed Him in so eminent a manner brought Him no joy for any other consideration then for the hopes He had that it might be a means to make others lay to heart as He did the miseries brought and continued upon this Kingdome by this unnaturall war and that it might open their ears and dispose their minds to imbrace those offers of peace and reconciliation which had been so often and so earnestly made unto them by Him and from the constant and fervent endeavours of which He resolved never to desist and so conjured them to consider His last Message and to send Him an Answer To this Message likewise they never sent Answer and these were the tenders made by his Majesty which they say were never fit for them to receive we shall now proceed to those they thought fit to offer and accuse his Majesty for not accepting On the 23 of November 1644. the Committee from the two Houses brought the Propositions to the King which they say were agreed on by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms not only as just but necessary also for the very being of these Kingdoms in a setled peace and safety And which required his Majesty to resigne up all His Regall power in His three Kingdomes to those who sent those Propositions to take their Covenant and injoyne all others to take it and to sacrifice all His owne Party who had served Him honestly and faithfully to the fury and appetite of those who had cast off their Allegiance to Him and to leave Himself the meer empty name of a King How the twenty daies were afterwards
to cancell and overthrow all the Lawes and Government of the Kingdome all which must be done before their cause or their manner of maintaining their cause can be justified and if that were not perversly blind to their owne interest they would know and discerne that such an act is as pernitious to themselves as to truth and reason their own security depending on nothing more then a provision that no others for the time to come shall do what they have done nor can they enjoy any thing but on the foundation of that Law they have endeavoured to overthrow The King hath often offered an Act of Oblivion which will cut down all Gallows and wipe out all opprobrious tearms and may make the very memory and mention of Treason and Traytors as penall as the crimes ought to have been they who desire more aske impossibilities and that which would prove their own destruction and who ever requires their cause to be justified can have no reason for doing it but because he knows it is not to be justified The end of the third Bill is to dishonour those of His own Party whom He hath thought fit to honour and to cancell those Acts of grace and favour He vouchsafed them which is against all reason and justice for if He had no power to confer those Honours there needs no Act of Parliament to declare or make them void if He had power there is no reason why they should be lesse Lords upon whom He conferred that honour the last year then those He shall create the next nor is this Proposition of the least imaginable moment to the peace of the Kingdome or security of a Treaty though it be of no lesse concernment to His Majesty then the parting with one of the brightest Flowers in His Crown The last Bill is to give the two Houses power to adjourn to what place and at what time they please which by the Act of continuance they cannot now do without the King's consent though there is no reason they should attribute more to His Person in that particular then they doe in other things to which His assent is necessary and if they do indeed believe that His Regall power is virtually in them they may as well do this Act without Him as all the rest they have done The King in His Message of the 12 of April 1643. rather intimated then propounded the Adjournment of the Parliament to any place twenty miles from London which the Houses should choose as the best expedient He could think of for His owne and their security from those tumultuous Assemblies which interrupted the freedome thereof to which though they returned no Answer to His Majesty yet in their Declaration after that Treaty at Oxford they declared the wonderfull inconvenience and unreasonablenesse of that proposition the inconveniences that would happen to such persons that should have occasion to attend the Parliament by removing it so far from the residency of the ordinary Courts of Justice and the places where the Records of the Kingdome remaine That it would give a tacite consent to that high and dangerous aspersion of awing the Members of this Parliament and it would give too much countenance to those unjust aspersions laid to the charge of the City of London whose unexampled zeale and fidelity to the true Protestant Religion and the Liberty of this Kingdome they said is never to be forgotten and that they were wel-assured that the loyalty of that City to His Majesty and their affections to the Parliament is such as doth equall if not exceed any other place or City in the Kingdome which reasons being as good now as they were then the King hath followed but their own opinion in not consenting to this Bill In a word All the world cannot reply to His Majesties owne Answer upon the delivery of these four Bils or justifie their proceeding That when His Majesty desires a Personall Treaty with them for the setling of a peace they in answer propose the very subject matter of the most essentiall part thereof to be first granted and therefore the King most prudently and magnanimously declares That neither the desire of being freed from this tedious and irksome condition of life He hath so long suffered nor the apprehension of what may befall Him shall make Him change His resolution of not consenting to any Act till the whole peace be concluded for in truth nothing is more evident then that if He passe these Bils He neither can be able to refuse any thing else they shall propose for He hath reserved no title to any power nor can have reason to do it for having resigned His choicest Regalities it would be great improvidence to differ with them upon more petty concessions and having made all honest men guilty He could not in justice deny to refer the punishment of them to those who could best proportion it to the crimes So that a Treaty could afterwards be to no other end then to finish His owne destruction with the greater pomp and solemnity whereas the end of a Treaty is and it can have no other upon debate to be satisfied That He may lawfully grant what is desired That it is for the benefit of His people that He should grant it how prejuditiall soever it may seem to Himself and that being granted Himself shall securely enjoy what is left how little soever it be and that His Kingdome shall by such His concessions be intirely possessed of peace and quiet the last of which cannot be at least His Majesty hath great reason to suspect it may not without the consent of the Scots who peremptorily protest against these Four Bils And say that it is expresly provided in the 8 Article That no Cessation nor any Pacification or Agreement for Peace whatsoever shall be made by either Kingdome or the Armies of either Kingdome without the mutuall advice and consent of both Kingdomes or their Committees in that behalf appointed which is neither Answered or avoided by saying that no impartiall man can read that Article of the Treaty but He must needs agree that it could be meant only whilst there was War and Armies on both sides in being and that it must of necessity end when the War is at an end for besides that war is not nor can be at an end till there be an Agreement and if it be why is there so great an Army kept up in the Kingdome by the same reason that Article was so understood as it is now urged by the Scots before their comming into the Kingdome it may be so understood after they are gone and that the Houses themselves did understand it so in the beginning of January 1643. before the Scots Army entred appears by a Declaration Mr. St. Johns made at that time in the name of the Houses and printed by Order to the City of London at Guild-hall upon the discovery of a cunning Plot as they said to
divide and destroy the Parliament and the City of London under the notion of peace and by engaging them in a Treaty of peace without the advice and consent of their Brethren of Scotland which he said would be contrary to the late Articles solemnly agreed upon by both Kingdomes and to the perpetuall dishonour of this Nation by breach of their Publique Faith engaged therein to that Nation so that the two Houses having given their judgment in the point the King hath great reason if He had no other to have the whole well debated before Him and the severall interests weighed and agreed upon before He give His consent to any particulars which will else produce more mischief then His refusing all can possibly doe Nor will these and their other extravagant and licentious demands be better justified by their undervaluing the Kings present power in their insolent question in their late Declaration concerning the Scots Commissioners which in truth throughout is but a paraphrase upon that Speech of Demetrius to his Companions of the like occupation Sirs you know that by this craft we have our wealth what can the King give them but what they have already It is not out of their duty or good will to Him that they make any Application to Him and if they did indeed believe that His Majesty could give them nothing but what they have already He should hear no more from them but they very well know they have yet nothing except He give them more and that the man that is robbed and spoyled of all that He hath when He hath procured a pardon for and given a Release to the Thieves and Robbers He hath given them more then they had before and that which onely can make what they had before of benefit and advantage to them they know and will feel the judgment upon the wicked man in Job He hath swallowed down Riches and he shall vomit them up again God shall cast them out of his belly Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor Because he hath violently taken away a house which he builded not In the fulnesse of his sufficiency he shall be in straits That all their reproachings and revilings with which they have triumphed over the Lords Anointed must come into their Bowels like water and like Oyle into their bones And that nothing can restore and preserve them but the Antidotes and Cordials and Balme which the King only can Administer they know very well that even the most unfortunate Kings that ever have been in England could never be destroyed without their own consent and that all their power and strength and successe though for a time it may oppresse can never subdue the Crown without its owne being accessary to its own ruine and the King very well knows that what He yet suffers is not through His own default but by such a defection as may determine all the Empires of the world and that in the unspeakable miseries which all His good Subjects have undergone He is yet innocent the conscience whereof hath refreshed Him in all His sufferings and maketh Him superiour to their insolence contempt and Tyranny and keeps Him constant to His Princely and pious resolution but that if by any unhappy consent of His own such an establishment shall be made as shall expose Himself His Posterity and people to misery it will lie all upon His own account and rob Him of that peace of mind which He now enjoyes and values above all the considerations of the world well knowing that God requires the same and no more of Him then he did of his servant Joshuah Only be thou strong and very couragious that thou mayest observe to doe according to all the Law which Moses my servant commanded thee turne not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest Honest men and good Christians will be lesse moved with their bold and presumptuous conclusion which they have learned from their new Confederates the Turkes That God himself hath given his Verdict on their sides in their successes not unlike the Logick used by Dionysius who because he had a good gale of wind at Sea after he had sacked the Temple of Proserpine concluded That the immortall Gods favoured Sacriledge It is very true they have been the instruments of Gods heavy judgments upon a most sinfull people in very wonderfull successes yet if they would believe Solomon they would find There is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt and prosperity was never yet thought a good argument of mens piety or being in the right and yet if these men did enough think of God Almighty and seriously revolve the works of his owne hand throughout this Rebellion and since they had looked upon themselves as Conquerours they would be so far from thinking that he had given his Verdict on their side that they would conclude that he hath therefore onely suffered to prosper to this degree that his owne power and immediate hand might be more cleerly discerned and manifested in their destruction and that the cause might appear to be his own by his most miraculous vindication of it If Master Hambden had been lesse active and passionate in the businesse of the Militia which might have proceeded from naturall reason and reformation of his understanding the judgment and Verdict of God would not have been so visible as it was in the loosing his life in that very Field in which he first presumed to execute that Ordinance against the King If Sir John Hotham had never denied his Majesty entrance into and shut the Gates of Hull against Him from which naturall Allegiance and civill prudence might have restrained him the judgment and Verdict of God had been lesse evident then it was when after he had wished that God would destroy him and his posterity if he proved not faithfull to the King at the same time that he had planted his Cannon against him he and his Son were miserably executed by the judgment of those who but by his Treason could never have been enabled to have exercised that jurisdiction and that having it in his power he should perfidiously decline to serve his Majesty and afterwards loose his head for desiring to do it when he had no power to perform it They who remember the affected virulency of Sir Alexander Carew against the King and all those who adhered to him and how passionately he extolled and magnified the perjury and treachery of a Servant as if he had done his duty to the Kingdome by being false to his Master the King and that this man afterwards should by the treachery of his Servant be betrayed and lose his head by their judgments for whose sakes he had forfeited it to the King cannot but think the Verdict of God more visible then if he had contained himself within the due limits of his obedience and
never swarved from his Allegiance To omit infinite other instances which the observation of all men can supply them with the Verdict of God had not been so remarkable and notorious if the King had prevailed with his Army and reduced his rebellious Subjects to their duty which might naturally have been expected from the cause and the fate that Rebels usually meet with as that after a totall defeat of the King's Forces and their gaining all the power into their hands they could possibly propose to themselves they should not only be in more perplexity and trouble then when they had a powerfull Army to contend with but in more insecurity and danger then if they had been overcome by that Army That the City of London should be exposed to all imaginable scorn contempt and danger upon the same Ordinance of the Militia by which their pride and sedition principally exposed the Kingdome to the miseries it hath endured that the same Arts and Stratagems of Petitions and Acts of Common Councell with which they affronted the King and drove Him from them should be applied to their own confusion and ruine That those Members who were the principall Contrivers of our miseries the most severe and uncharitable persecutors of all who were not of that opinion and the greatest cherishers of those Tumults which drove the King and all that wished well and were faithfull to Him from Westminster should themselves be persecuted for their opinions by those whom they had supported and be driven thence by the same force and as they had to make the KING odious to the people against their own consciences cast aspersions on Him of favouring the Rebellion in Ireland so themselves to the same end should be accused of the obstructing the relief of Ireland so that to some of them that Story of Jason which though it be not canonicall Scripture is yet canonicall History may be literally applied who slew his own Citizens without mercy not considering that to get the day of them of his own Nation would be a most unhappy day for him who afterwards flying from City to City was pursued of all men hated as a forsaker of the Laws and being had in abomination as an open Enemy of his Country and Country-men was cast out into Aegypt Thus he that had driven many out of their Country perished in a strange Land and he that had cast out many unburied had none to mourn for him nor any solemn Funerall at all nor Sepulcher with his Fathers That they who told the King that if He should persist in the deniall of the Militia the dangers and distempers of the Kingdome are such as would endure no longer delay but unlesse He would be graciously pleased to assure by those Messengers that He would speedily apply His Royall Assent to the satisfaction of their former desires they should be inforced for the safety of His Majesty and the Kingdomes to dispose of the Militia by the authority of both Houses in such manner as had been propounded and they resolved to do it accordingly and upon that ground did raise the Rebellion against the King That these men should be told by their own Militia That they were cleerly convinced and satisfied that both their duties and trust for the Parliament and Kingdom called upon them and warranted them and an imminent necessity inforced them to make or admit of no longer delaies but they should take such courses extraordinary as God should enable and direct them unto to put things to a speedy issue unlesse by Thursday next they received assurance and security to themselves and the Kingdome that those things should be granted which they insisted on which were to have severall Acts passed by the Houses speedily reversed and other Acts formerly refused to be consented to all which was done accordingly That their own Army should rebell against them upon the principles of their own Declarations which they tell them directed still to the equitable sense of all laws and constitutions as dispensing with the very letter of the same and being supreme to it when the safety and preservation of all is concerned and assuring them that all authority is fundamentally seated in the Office and but ministerially in the persons and that it is no resisting of Magistracy to side with the just principles and law of Nature and Nations All which were the very grounds and assertions upon which they raised and justified their Rebellion against the King Lastly that this very Declaration which they hoped would prepare the minds and affections of the people with so much prejudice to his Majesty that they would concur with them in any desperate Act against Him and His Posterity should so much incense all sorts of people against them that they are since looked on as the most odious scum of men that ever infested a Nation and have lost more by it then they have ever got by any Victory These are the visible instances of Gods Verdict in the cause so that if they had with all their hypocriticall discourses of Religion the least sense of Gods favours or fear of his judgments if they had not said unto him Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy waies they would before this have felt that agony of heart and trembling in their joynts out of the very sense of the hand of God upon them that they would take no rest till they cast themselves at his feet whom they have offended and imploy all their faculties towards repayring their gracious Soveraign and binding up the wounds of their almost ruined Country Instead of which to make their madness as publick and notorious as their Rebellion they have resolved published their resolutions to the Kingdome 1. That they will make no further addresse or application to the KING 2. That no person whatsoever shall make any without their leave 3. That whosoever shall break this Order shall incur the penalties of High Treason 4. That they will receive no more any Message from the KING and that no person shall presume to bring any Message from the KING to them or to any other person By the first and last of which they have made and declared themselves no Parliament for being called by the King 's Writ to Treat with Him if they will neither send to Him or hear from Him they can be no longer a Parliament By the second they have taken away from the Subjects of the three Kingdomes that which themselves acknowledge to be their naturall right and liberty for they say and they say truly in their Declaration of the 6 of May 1643. That to present their humble desires and Propositions to His Majesty is a liberty incident unto them not only as Members of Parliament but as free-born Subjects yet this freedom is by this Vote taken away To the third there needs be no more said then what the Army who no doubt will justifie what they
say said upon this Argument Not only to be denied the right and the liberty to Petition but withall by a censure no lesse then capitall to be exposed to a forfeiture of Estate liberty life and all for but going to aske what a man conceives to be his due and this without ever asking or hearing what he can say in his excuse would carry so high a face of injustice oppression and tyranny as is not easie to be exampled in the proceedings of the most corrupt and arbitrary Courts towards the meanest single man And they shall do well to remember their own judgment in their Remonstrance of the 26 of May 1642. in these words If the solemn proclaiming a man Traytor signifie any thing it puts a man and all those that any way aide assist or adhere to him into the same condition of Traytors and draws upon him all the consequences of Treason and if this may be done by Law without due processe of Law the Subject hath a very poor defence of the Law and a very small if any proportion of Liberty thereby and it is as little satisfaction to a man that shall be exposed to such penalties by that Declaration of him to be a Traytor to say he shall have a legall triall afterwards as it is to condemn a man first and trie him afterwards All the particulars of their Declaration are now examined and however these desperate men may flatter themselves and how long soever they shall continue in this their damnable Apostasie the present age and posterity will believe that in stead of rendring and making the KING appear unworthy of or unequall to the high Office and charge to which God hath advanced Him they have in truth vindicated Him from all those aspertions and blemishes their malice had cast on Him and that He appears the most worthy the great trust He was born to if He had no other title to it then His admirable virtue perfection After the boldest strictest inquisition that was ever made into the life manners of any Gentleman after their examining all the actions and all the words of his life with impious licence perverting and torturing those actions and words with their unreasonable glosses and interpretations after their breaking into His Chamber by corrupting His neerest Servants and thereby knowing what in any passion or indisposition He hath said or done After their opening His breast and examining His most reserved thoughts by searching His Cabinets perusing His Letters even those He had written in cipher to His dearest Consort the Queen and His private memorials They have not been able to fix a crime or error upon Him which would draw a blush from the modestest cheek nor by all their threats and all their promises to shake His pious and magnanimous resolutions so that in truth their main trouble and vexation is no other then David heretofore gave Saul who when he saw that he behaved himself very wisely he was afraid of him But these miserable men must know that if the King were as unjust and as oppressing as they would have Him believed to be or as the best of them would be if he were in His place they have not any title or qualification to use Him as they have done For if it were lawfull for Subjects to take up Armes against their Soveraign upon pretence that He were injurious and performed not the duty and Office of a King besides the confusion that must follow upon their assuming the judgment in that case they would have it in their power to resist and avoid one of the greatest and most immediate judgments which God sends to correct and chastise a Nation which hath provoked him to displeasure And the Egyptians wil I give over into the hand of a cruel Lord and a fierce King shal rule over them saies God himself by the Prophet Isaiah He that can destroy a Nation by what judgement he pleases he that can humble this people by a famine and destroy that by a plague may if he think fit chuse to doe either by the cruelty and fiercenesse of a King I gave thee a King in mine anger saies the same Spirit by the Prophet Hosea Now if it were lawful for us to be angry with that King whō God hath in his anger given us or to be fierce against him whose fiercenesse the Lord hath sent as his judgment upon us we might easily elude those sentences of his wrath and drive those afflictions from us by our own courage without waiting his leisure for our redemption And it may be no ill reason of that expression in the Prophet Samuel that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft that as men go to Witches and Witches go to the Devill to get or discover somewhat which God would not have them get or discover so they who rebell endeavour by the help of the Devil to be too hard for God Almighty and to avoid by their own skill and activity a calamity by which God meant to reclaim them The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death but a wise man will pacifie it saies Solomon Not oppose and resist or rebell against it and yet the same Solomon tels us that wrath is cruell There is an ingredient of injustice of uncharitablenesse of cruelty in all wrath and yet the wise man the honest just conscientious man thinks of nothing but pacifying it gentlenesse application and humility should be used to soften and mollifie his wrath Indeed so much is due to any wrath A wise and a charitable man will take so much pains to reform and compose the wrath and distemper of his Neighbour of his equall but there is much more to be done to the wrath of a King and Tremelius extends this care of the wise man much further then such a pacifying and renders this Text Vir sapiens expiabit eam let this wrath be never so unjust so unreasonable so immerited the wise man expiabit eam he will behave himself as if the fault were in him as if he had provoked and incensed the King to that wrath he will expiate he will give satisfaction by prayer by submission by any sacrifice that may pacifie and be acceptable to the offended Majesty and by an exact and punctuall performance of what becomes a Subject convince the King of the errour and mistake of his passion They who under pretence of innocence and of faultlesnesse neglect and contemn the anger and displeasure of Princes are not innocent enough nor look on Majesty with that reverence which becomes them Solomons wise man will expiate the Kings wrath from what fountain of passion or prejudice soever it proceeds It cannot be denied that unjust cruell and unmercifull Princes are great afflictions and judgments upon a people yet the calamities under such are much more supportable then the confusion without any and therefore God frequently exercised his peculiar and chosen people with
profane wicked and tyrannicall Kings and refreshed them again with pious and devout and just Princes but it was a signall mark of their desolation when he declared that the Children of Israel should abide many daies without a King and without a Prince and it was a sure signe when they had no King that they had not feared the Lord and then what should a King do to them If the most notable Ministers of confusion and they who apprehend least the effects of it would but a little consider in their own stations the misery and desolation that must inevitably attend the breach of Order and subjection in little If the Father thought of the impossibility of living in his own house if his Wife and Children might follow the dictates of their own reasons and wills and appetites without observing his rule and directions If the Master would consider the intolerablenesse of his condition if his Servants might question dispute and contemn his commands and act positively against them they would be the more competent Considerers of the mischiefs and miseries that must befall Kingdomes and Common-wealths If Subjects may Rebell against the power and authority of Princes whom God hath appointed to governe over them There is not one of these Declarers who doth not think he hath a prerogative vested in him by nature It is the prerogative of the Husband the Father the Master not to have his pleasure disputed by his Wife his Child his Servant whose piety consists in obedience yet they cannot endure the mention of the Kings prerogative by and under which only it is possible for them to enjoy theirs It was a wel-weighed scoffe by which Lycurgus convinced him who desired him to establish a popular Government in Lacedemon Begin said he first to do it in thine own house and truly though these Ephori whose profession is to curb the power of Kings intended nothing lesse then to part with the least tittle of their own just authority They are appealed to whether they have not felt that power insensibly shrink from them whilst they have been ambitiously grasping at that belonged not to them Is the piety of Children and the obedience of Servants the same it was before these daies of licence Hath not God sent the same defection of reverence kindnesse and affectionate inclinations into Families to the rooting up and extirpating of all possible joy and delight in each other which the heads of those Families have cherished and countenanced in the State It may be there would not be a better or an easier expedient to reduce our selves and recover that Allegiance we have forsaken then by sadly waighing and considering the effects and kinds and species of Gods judgments upon us since we have been guilty of that breach If every Father whose soule hath been grieved and afflicted with the pertinacious undutifulnesse of a Child would believe as he hath great reason to do that God hath sent that perversnesse and obstinacy into his own bowels to punish his peremptory disobedience to the Father of the Kingdom his Soveraign Lord the King If every Master of a Family who hath been injured betrayed and oppressed by the treachery infidelity or perjury of a Servant would remember how false unfaithfull and forsworn he hath been to his Master the King and conclude that his Servant was but the Minister of Gods vengeance upon him for that transgression If the whole Nation would consider the scorn contempt and infamy it now endures and suffers under with all Nations Christian and Heathen in the known world and confesse that God hath sent that heavy judgment upon them for their contempt of him for whose sake they were owned and taken notice of for a Nation It would not be possible but we should bring our selves to that true remorse of conscience for the ill we have done that God would be wrought upon to take off the ill we have suffered and we could not entertaine a fond hope of injoying the least prosperity our selves without restoring to the King what hath been rebelliously taken from Him They say that though they have made those resolutions of making no more applications to the King yet they will use their utmost endeavours to settle the present Government as may best stand with the peace and happiness of this Kingdome What the present Government is no man understands and therefore cannot know what that peace and happinesse shall be which they intend shall accrue to the Kingdome by it The little Cabinet of Peers for the House is shrunk into that proportion hath no share in it as appeares by the giving possession of the Navy to Rainsborough without their consent after they had asked it and by their doing many other things of high moment without so much as asking their concurrence That it is not in the Commons is as plain by their repealing such Acts of their owne and making others as the Army requires them to doe And that the Army is not possest of it needs no other Argument then the invasion and violation of all the Articles ever made by the Army upon any Surrender which if the power were in them would for their own honour have been observed so that the endeavour they promise to use to settle the present Government is to take an effectuall care that all Laws and legall Authority may for the present be so suppressed that there may be no Government at all And truly it may be in their power for some time to improve the confusion that is upon us and to draw on the desolation which attends us but to settle any kind of Government which can bring peace or any degree of happinesse to the languishing Kingdome nay which can be any security to themselves and their posterity except they submit to the good old one under which they were born cannot be within their power nor sink into their reasonable hope Nothing is more demonstrable then that they can never establish a peace to the Kingdome or any security to themselves but by restoring the just power to the King and dutifully submitting and joyning themselves to his protection and it is as manifest that by that way they may restore the Kingdome to peace and preserve themselves and Families and Posterities in full security and honour The examination and cleering of which two Propositions shall conclude this discourse The reverence and superstition which the people generally paid to the name and authority of Parliament and by which they have been cozened into the miserable condition they now are in is so worn out that without captivating their reasons any longer to it as a Councell they plainly discern the ambition weaknesse vanity malice and stupidity of the particular Members of whom it is and of whom it ought not to be constituted and easily conclude that as they have robbed them of the most happy and plentifull condition any free-man of the world ever enjoyed so they can never be instruments
as any other part of the discourse there being said only by Captain Chudleigh who it seems believed it not by His engaging Himself to the Parliament from that time as the better Pay-masters and was highly valued by them 20. It seems they take it as granted that their frivolous and malitious allegations will serve turne in stead of proofs and therefore they take the boldnesse to tax His Majesty with breach of honour and faith and to reproach Him for calling God to witnesse and making so many solemn protestations against any thought of bringing up the Northern Army or of leavying Forces to wage war with His Parliament or of bringing in forain Forces or aids from beyond the Sea which they say Himself said would not only bury the Kingdom in sudden destruction and ruine but His own name and Posterity in perpetuall scorne and infamy If these Gentlemen would deale faithfully with the world and confesse what troubles them most they would acknowledge that their grief is that the King is so punctuall and severe in keeping His word and protestations not that He is apt to fall from them If He would have practised their arts of dissembling and descended to their vile licence of promising and protesting what He never meant to think of after He might have prevented them in many of their successes but the greatnesse of His mind alwaies disdained even to prosper or be secure by any deviations from truth and honour and what He hath promised He hath been religious in observing though to His own damage and inconvenience He hath made no protestation about bringing up the Northern Army or of leavying Forces against the Parliament or for the Rights of the Subject which was not exactly true and agreeable to the Princely thoughts and resolutions of His heart The occasion of His Majesties using that expression concerning forain Force which is here remembred by them was this In the Declaration delivered to His Majesty from the two Houses at Newmarket on the 9 of March 1641. they told Him that by the manifold advertisements which they had from Rome Venice Paris and other parts they expected that His Majesty had still some great designe in hand and that the Popes Nuntio had solicited the Kings of France and Spaine to lend His Majesty four thousand men apiece to help to maintain His Royalty against the Parliament were some of the grounds of their fears and jealousies To which His Majesty made answer in these words What your advertisements are from Rome Venice Paris and other parts or what the Pope's Nuntio solicited the Kings of France or Spaine to do or from what persons such informations come to you or how the credit and reputation of such persons have been sifted and examined We know not but are confident no sober honest man in Our Kingdomes can believe that We are so desperate or so senslesse to entertain such designes as would not only bury this Our Kingdome in sudden destruction and ruine but Our name and posterity in perpetuall scorn and infamy That this Answer was most prudently and justly applied to that extravagant and senslesse suggestion cannot be doubted but because the King at that time before the War or a declared purpose in them to raise a War against Him held it an odious and infamous thing to thinke of bringing in foraine Forces upon His owne Kingdome that He might not therefore think it afterwards necessary and find it just to call in forain Succours to defend Him from a Rebellion that besides mixtures of all Nations was assisted by an intire forain Army to oppresse Him and His posterity no reasonable man can suggest or suppose and yet how far He hath been from entertaining any such aide the event declares which it may be many wise men reckon amongst His greatest errours and oversights and which no question if He had not been full of as much tendernesse and compassion towards His people as these men want He would have found no difficulty to have practised They proceed to improve this most groundlesse and unreasonable scandall by another instance that when His Majesty Himself and the Lords made a Protestation at Yorke against leavying Forces He commanded His Subjects by Proclamation to resist the Orders of the Parliament and did many other Facts contrary to that Protestation the particulars whereof are mentioned and shall be examined and answered The Act which they call a Protestation by the King the Lords at Yorke passed on the 15 day of June 1642. being six and twenty daies after both Houses had declared that the King intended to leavy war against the Parliament and thereupon published their Propositions for bringing in Money or Plate for the raising and maintaining an Army The King conceiving so positive and monstrous an averment might make some impression upon and gain credit with his people called the Peers together who attended Him and taking notice of that wicked Declaration declared to them That He alwaies had and then did abhor all such designes and desired them to declare whether being upon the place they saw any colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such designe and whether they were not fully perswaded that His Majesty had no such intention whereupon seven and thirty Peers who then attended His Majesty being double the number that at that time or since remained in the House of Peers at Westminster unanimously declared under their hands which was published to the Kingdome that they saw not any colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such designe and did professe before God and testifie to all the world That they were fully perswaded that His Majesty had no such intention but that all His endeavours did tend to the firm and constant setlement of the true Protestant Religion the just Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Law Peace and prosperity of the Kingdome notwithstanding which clear evidence they made what haste they could to raise an Army and to engage the people against their Soveraigne Lord the King That His Majesty intended not by that profession on His part nor the Lords thought themselves obliged on their parts to give any countenance to or not to resist the Orders which then issued out every day from those at Westminster who called themselves the two Houses needs no other evidence then His Majesties Declaration published two daies before 13 of June in which amongst other particulars He declared to the Peers That He would not as was falsly pretended engage them or any of them in any War against the Parliament except it were for His owne necessary defence and safety against such as should insolently invade or attempt against His Majesty or such as should adhere to Him And that very day the very same Peers whereof the Earl of Salisbury was one engaged themselves to the King under their hands That they would defend
His Majesties Person Crowne and Dignity together with His Majesties just and legall Prerogative against all persons and power whatsoever and that they would not obey any rule Order or Ordinance whatsoever concerning any Militia that had not the Royall assent The first Commission of Array issued out some daies before this Profession and Protestation made by His Majesty and therefore cannot be said to be against it and above three Months after the passing the illegall and extravagant Ordinance for the Militia and after that Ordinance was executed in many parts of the Kingdome notwithstanding His Majesties Proclamation of the illegality and treason of it when He had desired them to produce or mention one Ordinance from the first beginning of Parliaments to this very Parliament which endeavoured to impose any thing upon the Subject without the King's consent of which to this day they never gave or can give one instance The Commission it self of Array is according to Law and so held to be at this time by most learned Lawyers and was so declared to be by Mr. Justice Hutton in his Argument in the Exchequer Chamber in the case of Mr. Hambden The Letter which they say they can produce under His Majesties owne hand to Sir John Heydon Lieutenant of the Ordnance of the 20 of June 1642. is no way contrary to His Majesties professions such as His Majesty in that ill time was necessarily to write being to a sworn Officer and Servant of His owne to send such of His own Goods to Him as were in His custody and which His Majesty so reasonably might have occasion to use and if He wished it might be done privately it is only an instance of the wickednes of that time that the King was forced to use art and privacy to get what belonged to Him lest He might be robbed by those who nine daies before the date of this Letter had published Orders to intercept whatsoever was going to Him His Majesty required not any subscription for Plate Horses or Armes till many daies after they had published their Propositions to that purpose received great sums of mony and vast quantities of plate upon those Propositions against which His Majesty writ His Princely Letter to the City of London on the 14 of June and two daies after published a Declaration with the testimony and evidence of all the Peers with Him in which He said That if notwithstanding so clear declaration and evidence of His intentions these men should think fit by those Alarums to awaken Him to a more necessary care of the defence of Himself and His people and should themselves in so unheard-of a manner provide and seduce others to do so too to offend His Majesty having given Him so lively testimony of their affections what they were willing to do when they should once make themselves able all His good Subjects would think it necessary for His Majesty to look to Himself and He did then excite all His wel-affected people according to their Oaths of Allegiance Supremacy according to their solemn Vow and Protestation whereby they were obliged to defend His Person Honour and Estate to contribute their best assistance to the preparations necessary for the opposing and suppressing of the trayterous attempts c. And then He would take it as an acceptable Service if any person upon so urgent and visible a necessity of His Majesty and such an apparent distraction of the Kingdome would bring in to Him or to His use Mony or Plate or would furnish Horse or Armes c. This was the time and the manner of His Majesties requiring subscription for Plate Horse and Armes which these men impute to Him They say the King raised a Guard of Horse and Foot about Him and by them did not only abuse their Committees sent to Him beat their publique Officers and Messengers protect notorious Papists Traytors or Felons such as Beckwith and others from the Posse Comitatus but also with those guards Cannon Arms from beyond Sea did attempt to force Hull in an hostile manner and that within few daies after that solemn Protestation at Yorke All which suggestions must be particularly examined The raising the King's Guard was on this occasion and in this manner The King residing with His Court at the City of Yorke and being pressed by both Houses of Parliament to consent that His Magazine at Hull might be removed from thence for the better supplies of the necessities for Ireland to the Tower of London which for many reasons He thought not convenient His Majesty resolved to go Himself in Person to His Town of Hull to view His Arms and Munition there that thereupon He might give directions what part thereof might be necessary to remaine there for the security and satisfaction of the Northerne parts the principall persons thereof having petitioned Him that it might not be all removed and what part might be spared for Ireland what for the arming the Scots who were to go thither and what to replenish His chiefest Magazine the Tower of London and going thither on the 23 day of April 1642. He found all the Gates shut against Him and the Bridges drawn up by the command of Sir John Hotham who flatly denied His Majesties entrance from the Walls which were strongly manned and the Cannon mounted thereon and planted against the King His Majesty having in vaine endeavoured to perswade Sir John Hotham and offered to go in with twenty Horse because he alleaged His retinue was too great was at last compelled to returne to Yorke after He had proclaimed Hotham Traytor which by all the knowne Lawes he was declared in that case to be The next day the King sent a Message to the Houses to require justice upon Sir John Hotham to which they returned no Answer till above a fortnight after in the mean time they sent down some of the choice Members to Hull to give Sir Iohn Hotham thanks for what he had done and to assure him that they would justifie him in it and others into Lincoln-shire with directions to their Deputy Lieutenants and all other Officers to assist him if he were in any distresse and then they sent some other Members as their Committee to Yorke with their Answer to the King in which they told Him That Sir John Hotham could not discharge the trust upon which nor make good the end for which he was placed in the Guard of that Towne and Magazine if he had let in His Majesty with such Counsellours and company as were then about Him and therefore upon full resolution of both Houses they had declared Sir John Hotham to be clear from that odious crime of Treason and had avowed that he had done nothing therein but in obedience to the commands of both Houses whereas in truth though they had presumed against law and right to send him thither and constitute him Governour for a time of that place there was