Southampton the Earl of Kingston the Earl of Chichester the Lord Capell the Lord Seymour the Lord Hatton the Lord Culpeper Secretary Nicholas Master Chancellor of the Exchequer the Lord Chief Baron Lane Sir Orlando Bridgeman Sir Thomas Gardiner M. John Ashburnham M. Jeffrey Palmer together with Dr. Steward Clerk of His Majesty's Closet upon the Propositions concerning Religion to meet with the persons mentioned in the said Message at Vxbridge on Wednesday night the 29 th of this instant January the Treaty to begin the next day which persons or any Ten of them shall be sufficiently authorized by His Majesty to Treat and conclude on His Majesty's part And to the end that the persons aforesaid and their Retinue may repair to Vxbridge stay there and return at their pleasure without interruption or go or send during their abode there to His Majesty as often as occasion shall require His Majesty desires that a safe Conduct may accordingly be sent for the said persons and their Retinue according to a List of their names herewith sent And then also inclosed in a Letter from Prince Rupert to the Earl of Essex His Majesty sent Propositions to be Treated upon on His Majesty's part which Letter and Propositions follow My Lord I Am commanded by His Majesty to send these enclosed Propositions to your Lordship to be presented to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland to the end that there may be as little loss of time as is possible but that the same may be treated on as soon as may be thought convenient after the entry upon the Treaty His MAJESTY'S Propositions to the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland for a safe and well-grounded Peace I. THAT His Majesty's own Revenue Magazines Towns Forts and Ships which have been taken or kept from Him by force be forthwith restored unto Him II. That whatsoever hath been done or published contrary to the known Laws of the Land or derogatory to His Majesty's Legal and known Power and Rights be renounced and recalled that no seed may remain for the like to spring out of for the future III. That whatsoever illegal Power hath been claimed or exercised by or over His Subjects as Imprisoning or putting to Death their Persons without Law stopping their Corpus's and imposing upon their Estates without Act of Parliament c. either by both or either House or any Committee of both or either or by any Persons appointed by any of them be disclaimed and all such persons so committed forthwith discharged IV. That as His Majesty hath always professed His readiness to that purpose so He will most chearfully consent to any good Acts to be made for the suppression of Popery and for the firmer settling of the Protestant Religion established by Law as also that a good Bill may be framed for the better preserving of the Book of Common-Prayer from scorn and violence and that another Bill may be framed for the ease of tender Consciences in such particulars as shall be agreed upon For all which His Majesty conceives the best expedient to be that a National Synod be legally called with all convenient speed V. That all such persons as upon the Treaty shall be excepted and agreed upon on either side out of the General Pardon shall be tried per Pares according to the usual course and known Law of the Land and that it be left to that either to acquit or condemn them VI. And to the intent this Treaty may not suffer interruption by any intervening Accidents that a Cessation of Arms and free Trade for all His Majesty's Subjects may be agreed upon with all possible speed Given at the Court at Oxford the 21th day of Jan. 1644. The Earl of Essex upon receipt hereof returned to Prince Rupert together with a safe Conduct this Letter of the 25. of January Sir I AM commanded by both Houses of the Parliament of England and desired by the Commissioners of the Kingdom of Scotland to desire Your Highness to let His Majesty know That they do agree that their Committees do begin the Treaty at Vxbridge on Thursday the 30 th of this January with the Persons appointed by His Majesty on the matters contained in the Propositions lately sent unto His Majesty in such manner as was proposed And their Committees shall have Instructions concerning the Propositions sent from His Majesty in your Highness Letter And you will herewith receive a safe Conduct from the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England for the Persons that are appointed by His Majesty to come to Vxbridge to Treat on the Propositions for a safe and well-grounded Peace with their Retinue in a List hereunto annexed Sir I am Your Highness humble Servant Essex Westminster 25. Jan. 1644. Thursday the 30th of January all the Commissioners named by His Majesty and Commissioners named by the two Houses of Parliament in England and the Estates of the Parliament in Scotland did meet at Uxbridge where their Commissions were mutually delivered in and read and are as followeth His MAJESTY'S Commission CHARLES R. VVHereas after several Messages sent by Us to the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Westminster expressing Our desires of Peace certain Propositions were sent from them and brought unto Us at Oxford in November last by the Earl of Denbigh and others and upon our Answers Messages and Propositions to them and their Returns to Us it is now agreed That there shall be a Treaty for a safe and well grounded Peace to begin at Vxbridge on Thursday the 30 th of this instant January as by the said Propositions Answers Messages and Returns in writing may more fully appear We do therefore hereby appoint assign and constitute James Duke of Richmond and Lenox William Marquess of Hartford Thomas Earl of Southampton Henry Earl of Kingston Francis Earl of Chichester Francis Lord Seymour Arthur Lord Capell Christopher Lord Hatton John Lord Culpeper Sir Edward Nicholas Knight one of Our principal Secretaries of State Sir Edward Hyde Knight Chancellour and under-Under-Treasurer of Our Exchequer Sir Richard Lane chief Baron of Our said Exchequer Sir Thomas Gardiner Sir Orlando Bridgeman Mr. John Ashburnham and Mr. Jeffrey Palmer together with Doctor Richard Steward upon these Propositions concerning Religion to be Our Commissioners touching the premises and do hereby give unto them and to any Ten or more of them full power and authority to meet and on Our part to Treat with Algernon Earl of Northumberland Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Bafil Earl of Denbigh Thomas Lord Viscount Wenman Denzil Hollis William Pierrepont Esquires Sir Henry Vane the younger Knight Oliver St. John Bulstrode Whitelock John Crew and Edmund Prideaux Esquires for the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster and
of such late Members of either House of Parliament as sate in the unlawful Assembly at Oxford and shall not have rendred themselves before the first of December 1645. shall be taken and employed for the payment of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom 3. Branch That one full moiety of the Estates of such Persons late Members of either of the Houses of Parliament who have deserted the Parliament and adhered to the Enemies thereof and shall not have rendred themselves before the first of Decemb. 1645. shall be taken and employed for the payment of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom 10. Qualification That a full third part on the value of the Estates of all Judges and Officers towards the Law Common or Civil and of all Serjeants Councellors and Attorneys Doctors Advocates and Proctors of the Law Common or Civil and of all Bishops Clergy-men Masters and Fellows of any Colledge or Hall in either of the Universities or elsewhere and of all Masters of Schools or Hospitals and of Ecclesiastical Persons who have deserted the Parliament and adhered to the Enemies thereof and have not rendred themselves before the first of December 1645. shall be taken and employed for the payment of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom That a full sixth part on the full value of the Estates of the Persons excepted in the sixth Qualification concerning such as have been actually in Arms against the Parliament or have counselled or voluntarily assisted the Enemies thereof and are disabled according to the said Qualification to be taken and employed for the payment of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom 11. Qualification That the Persons and Estates of all common Souldiers and others of the Kingdom of England who in Lands or Goods be not worth two hundred pounds Sterling and the Persons and Estates of all common Souldiers and others of the Kingdom of Scotland who in Lands or Goods be not worth one hundred pounds Sterling be at liberty and discharged 1. Branch This Proposition to stand as to the English and as to the Scots likewise if the Parliament of Scotland or their Commissioners shall so think fit 2. Branch That the first of May last is now the day limited for the persons to come in that are comprised within the former Qualification That an Act be passed whereby the Debts of the Kingdom and the Persons of Delinquents and the value of their Estates may be known and which Act shall appoint in what manner the Confiscations and Proportions before mentioned may be levied and applied to the discharge of the said Engagements The like for the Kingdom of Scotland if the Estates of Parliament or such as shall have power from them shall think fit XVII That an Act of Parliament be passed to declare and make void the Cessation of Ireland and all Treaties and Conclusions of Peace or any Articles thereupon with the Rebels without Consent of both Houses of Parliament and to settle the Prosecution of the War of Ireland in both Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by them and the King to assist and to do no Act to discountenance or molest them therein That Reformation of Religion according to the Covenant be setled in the Kingdom of Ireland by Act of Parliament in such manner as both Houses of the Parliament of England have agreed or shall agree upon after Consultation had with the Assembly of Divines here That the Deputy or chief Governour or other Governours of Ireland and the Presidents of the several Provinces of that Kingdom be nominated by both the Houses of the Parliament of England or in the Intervals of Parliament by such Committees of both Houses of Parliament as both Houses of the Parliament of England shall nominate and appoint for that purpose and that the Chancellour or Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer Commissioners of the great Seal or Treasury Lord Warden of the Cinque-ports Chancellour of the Exchequer and Dutchy Secretaries of State Master of the Rolls Judges of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the vice-Vice-Treasurer and Treasurers at Wars of the Kingdom of Ireland be nominated by both Houses of the Parliament of England to continue quam diu se bene gesserint and in the Intervals of Parliament by the fore-mentioned Committees to be approved or disallowed by both Houses at their next sitting The like for the Kingdom of Scotland concerning the nomination of the Lords of the Privy Council Lords of Session and Exchequer Officers of State and Justice General in such manner as the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit XVIII That the Militia of the City of London and Liberties thereof may be in the ordering and government of the Lord Maior Aldermen and Commons in Common Council assembled or such as they shall from time to time appoint whereof the Lord Maior and Sheriffs for the time being to be three to be imployed and directed from time to time in such manner as shall be agreed on and appointed by both Houses of Parliament That no Citizen of the City of London nor any of the Forces of the said City shall be drawn forth or cempelled to go out of the said City or Liberties thereof for Military service without their own free Consent That an Act be passed for the granting and confirming of the Charters Customs Liberties and Franchises of the City of London notwithstanding any Non-user Misuser or Abuser That the Tower of London may be in the Government of the City of London and the chief Officer and Governour thereof from time to time be nominated and removeable by the Common-Council And for prevention of inconveniences which may happen by the long intermission of Common-Councils it is desired that there may be an Act that all by-Laws and Ordinances already made or hereafter to be made by the Lord Maior Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council assembled touching the calling continuing directing and regulating the same Common-Councils shall be as effectual in Law to all Intents and Purposes as if the same were particularly Enacted by the Authority of Parliament and that the Lord Maior Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council may add to or repeal the said Ordinances from time to time as they shall see cause That such other Propositions as shall be made for the City for their further Safety Welfare and Government and shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament may be granted and confirmed by Act of Parliament XIX That all Grants Commissions Presentations Writs Process Proceedings and other things passed under the Great Seal of England in the custody of the Lords and other Commissioners appointed by both Houses of Parliament for the custody thereof be and by Act of Parliament with the Royal Assent shall be declared and Enacted to be of like full force and effect to all intents and purposes as the same or like Grants Commissions Presentations Writs Process Proceedings and
Days then the Duke had done in so many Months before But in the mean while Rochel was barricadoed to an impossibility of Relief Therefore the Earl of Lindsey who commanded the Forces after some gallant yet fruitless attempts returned to England and the Rochellers to the Obedience of the French King As Providence had removed the great Object of the Popular hate and as was pretended the chief Obstruction of the Subjects Love to their King the Duke of Buckingham so the King Himself labours to remove all other occasions of quarrel before the next Session He restores Archbishop Abbot who for his remissness in the Discipline of the Church had been suspended from his Office and was therefore the Darling of the Commons because in disgrace with the King so contrary are the affections of a corrupted State to those of their Governours to the administration of it again Dr Potter the great Calvinist was made Bishop of Carlisle Mr Mountague's Book of Appello Caesarem was called in Proclamations were issued out against Papists Sir Thomas Wentworth an active Leader of the Commons was toward the beginning of this Session as Sir John Savil had been at the end of the last called up into the Lord's House being made Viscount Wentworth and Lord President of the North. But the Honours of these Persons whose Parts the King who well understood Men thought worthy of His Favour and Employment seeming the rewards of Sedition and the spoils of destructive Counsels the Demagogues were more eager in the pursuit of that which these had attained unto by the like arts And therefore despising all the King 's obliging Practices in the next Session they assumed a Power of reforming Church and State called the Customers into question for Levying Tonnage and Poundage made now their Invectives as they formerly did against the Duke against the Lord Treasurer Weston so that it appeared that not the Persons of Men but the King's trust of them was the object of their Envy and His Favour though never so Vertuous marked them out for Ruine And upon these Points they raised the Heat to such a degree that fearing they should be dissolved e're they had time to vent their Passions they began a Violence upon their own Body an Example which lasted longer then their Cause and at last produced the overthrow of all their Priviledges They lock'd the Doors of the House kept the Key thereof in one of their own Pockets held the Speaker by strong Hand in the Chair till they had thundred out their Votes like dreadful Anathemaes against those that should levy and which was more ranting against such as should willingly pay the Tonnage and Poundage This Force the King went with His Guard of Pensioners to remove which they hearing adjourned the House and the King in the House of Lords declaring the Injustice of those Vipers who destroyed their own Liberties dissolved the Parliament While the Winds of Sedition raged thus furiously at home more gentle gales came from abroad The French King's Designs upon other Places required Peace from us and therefore the Signiory of Venice by her Ambassadors was moved to procure an Accord betwixt Charles and Lewis An. 1629 which the King accepted And not long after the Spaniard pressed with equal necessities desired Amity which was also granted The King being thus freed from His Domestick Embroilments and Foreign Enmities soon made the World see His Skill in the Arts of Empire and rendred Himself abroad more considerable then any of His Predecessors And He was more glorious in the Eyes of the good and more satisfied in His own Breast by confirming Peace with Prudence then if He had finished Wars with destroying Arms. So that His Scepter was the Caduceus to arbitrate the differences of the Potentates of Europe His Subjects likewise tasted the sweetness of a Reign which Heaven did indulge with all its favours but only that of valuing their Happiness While other Nations weltred in Blood His People enjoyed a Profound Peace and that Plenty which the freedom of Commerce brings along with it The Dutch and Easterlings used London as the surest Bank to preserve and increase their Trading The Spanish Bullion was here Coined which advantaged the King's Mint and encreased the Wealth of the Merchants who returned most of that Money in our Native Commodities While He dispensed these Blessings to the People An. 1630 Heaven was liberal to Him in giving Him a Son to inherit His Dominions May 29. An. 1630. which was so great matter of rejoycing to the People of uncorrupted minds that Heaven seemed also concerned in the Exultation kindling another Fire more than Ordinary making a Star to be seen the same day at noon From which most men presaged that that Prince should be of high Undertakings and of no common glory among Kings which hath since been confirmed by the miraculous preservation of Him and Heaven seemed to conduct Him to the Throne For this great Blessing the King gave publick Thanks to the Author of it Almighty God at St Paul's Church and God was pleased in a return to those thanks with a numerous Issue afterwards to increase this Happiness For neither Armies nor Navies are such sure props of Empire as Children are Time Fortune private Lusts or Errors may take off or change Friends but those that Nature hath united must have the same Interest especially in Royal Families in whose Prosperities strangers may have a part but their Adversities will be sure to crush their nearest Allies Prospering thus in Peace at home a small time assisted His frugality to get such a Treasure and gave Him leasure to form such Counsels as might curb the Insolence of His Enemies abroad He confederated with other Princes to give a check to the Austrian Greatness assisting by his Treasure Arms and Counsel the King of Sweden to deliver the oppressed German States from the Imperial Oppressions And when Gustavus's Fortune made him Insolent and he would impose unequal Conditions upon the Paltsgrave the King's Brother-in-law He necessitated him notwithstanding his Victories to more easie Articles The next year was notorious for two Tryals An. 1631 one of the Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven who being accused by all the abused parts of his Family of a prodigious wickedness and unnatural uncleanness was by the King submitted to a Tryal by his Peers and by them being found guilty was condemned and his Nobility could be no patronage for his Crimes but in the King's eyes they appeared more horrid because they polluted that Order and was afterwards executed The other was of a Tryal of Combate at a Marshal's Court betwixt Donnold Lord Rey a Scottish High-lander and David Ramsey a Scottish Courtier The first accused the last to have sollicited him to a Confederacy with the Marquess Hamilton who was then Commander of some Forces in assistance of the King of Sweden in which Ramsey said all Scotland was ingaged but three and that their friends had gotten
provision of Arms and Powder out of England that the Court was extreamly corrupted and that the matters of Church and State were so out of frame as must tend to a Change There were no Witnesses and the Defendant denying what the Appellant affirmed the Tryal was thought must be by Duel In order to which the King grants a Commission for a Court-Marshal where though the presumptions of Ramsey's guilt were more heightned yet the King hinders any further process by Combat which is doubted whether it be lawful either thinking none so foolish as to strive for Empire which He found so full of Trouble or knowing that Magistracy being the sole Gift of Heaven it was vain to commit a Crime in hope of enjoying it or in fear of losing it which was the Principle upon which Excellent Princes have neglected the diligent Inquisition of Conspiracies and fatally continues Hamilton in that favour as did enable him afterwards more falsly to act that Treason of which he was then accused Some Tumults in Ireland shewed a defect in that Government which made the King send over as Deputy thither the Lord Wentworth An. 1632 a most accomplished Person in affairs of Rule of great Abilities equal to a Minister of State The King 's choice of him he soon justified by reducing that tumultuary people to such a condition of Peace and security as it had never been since its first annexion to this Crown and made it pay for the Charges of its own Government which before was deducted out of the English Treasury their Peace and Laws now opening accesses for Plenty This enjoyment of Peace and Plenty through all the King's Dominions made Him mindful of employing some fruits of it to the Honour of that God that caused it and not to let so great a Prosperity wholly corrupt the minds of men to a neglect of Religion which is usual He shewed his own Zeal for the Ornaments of it and spent part of His Treasure towards the repair of St Paul's Church and by His Example Admonitions and Commands drew many of His Subjects to a Contribution for it and had restored it to its primitive lustre and firmness adorned it to a magnificence equal with the Structure which is supposed the goodliest in the Christian World had not the Malice of His Enemies forced him to Arms mingled His Mortar with the blood of innocent people and sacrilegiously diverted all the Treasure and Materials gathered for this pious design to maintain an impious and unjust War and afterwards to dishonour His cares for Religion they barbarously made it a Stable for their Horse and Quarters for their unhallowed Foot Some reasons of State drew the King from London An. 1633 May 13. to receive the Imperial Crown of Scotland Himself professed that He had no great stomach to the Journey nor delight in the Nation being a race of men that under the Scheme of an honest animosity and specious plain-dealing were most perfidious A full Character of their great Movers Yet as He had been nobly treated all along His Journey by the English Nobility so was He there magnificently received and crowned at Edinburgh June 10th But the King soon found all those Caresses false For the Nobility and Laick Patrons could not concoct His Revocation though legal and innocent of such things as had been stoln from the Crown during His Father's Minority with a Commission for Surrendry of Superiorities and Tithes to be retaken from the King by the present Occupants who could as then pretend no other Title than the unjust usurpation of their Ancestors on such conditions as might bring some Profit to the Crown to which they justly belonged some Augmentation of the Clergy and far more ease and benefit to the common People whom by advantage of those illegal Tenures they oppressed with a most bitter Vassalage This Act of His Majesty being so full of equity and publick good those whose greatness was builded upon Injustice did not bare-facedly oppose it but endeavoured to hinder that and all the other designs of Peace and Order by opposing in the Parliament next after the Coronation the Act of Ratification of all those Laws which King James had made in that Nation for the better regulating the affairs of that Church both as to the Government and Worship of it This was highly opposed by such as were sensible of their diminution by a legal restitution of their unrighteous Possessions And although the King carried it by the major part of Voices yet to prevent their own fires with the publick Ruine they did most assiduously slander it among the People as the abetting of Popery and the betraying their Spiritual Liberty to the Romish yoke These Calumnies received more credit by the King's Order for a more decent and reverend Worship of God at His Royal Chappel at Edinburgh conformably to the English Usage Their noise grew lowder by the Concent of their party of Malecontents in England who also took advantage to diffuse their poison from the King's Book of Sports which King JAMES had in his time published in Lancashire and was now ratified by King CHARLES for a more universal Observance The Occasision of which was the Apostasie of many to Popery whose Doctrines and Practices are more indulgent to the licentious through the rigid Opinion of some Preachers who equall'd all Recreations on the Sabbath as they call'd it to the most prodigious transgressions On the contrary some of the ignorant Teachers had perverted many to down-right Judaisme by the consequence of so strict an Observance of the Sabbath And some over-busie Justices of Peace had suppressed all the ancient Feasts of the Dedications of Churches The King therefore intended by this Edict to obstruct the success of the Enemies on both sides and to free His People from the yoke of this Superstition But such is the weakness of Humane Prudence that the Remedies it applies to one Inconvenience are pregnant of another and whereas the Generality of men seldom do good but as necessitated by Law when Liberty is indulged all things are soon filled with Disorder and Confusion And so it happened in this that the Vulgar abusing the King's Liberty which was no more than is granted in other Protestant Churches and committing many undecencies made many well-temper'd Spirits too capable and credulous of those importunate Calumnies of the Faction that His Majesty was not well-affected to Religion The boldness of the Pickeroons An. 1634 Turks and Dunkirk-Pirates infesting our Coasts damaging our Traffique the Usurpation of the Holland Fishers on the King's Dominion in the Narrow Seas and His Right disputed in a Tract by the Learned Grotius call the King 's next Cares for His own Honour and the People's Safety But the Remedy appeared exceeding difficult the furnishing of a Navy for so honourable an undertaking being too heavy a burden for His Exchequer which although not emptied by any luxuriant Feasts nor profusely wasted on some prodigal and unthirsty Favourite
Honour than those who had even forced Him to it like those malignant and damned Spirits who upbraid unhappy Souls with those Crimes and ruines to which they themselves have tempted and betrayed them But the heaviest Censor was Himself for he never left bewailing His Compliance or rather Connivence with this Murder till the issue of his Blood dried up those of His Tears By the other Bill He had as some censured renounced His Crown and granted it to those men who at present exercised so Arbitrary a Power that they wanted nothing but length of time to be reputed Kings and this they now had gotten But the more Speculative concluded it an act of especial Prudence for the King made that an evidence of His sincere intention to oblige His people and overcome the Malice of His Enemies with Benefits which the Faction would have usurped and by the boldness of the attempt ingaged the People to them as the only Patrons of their Liberty And they were furnished with an Example for it by their Confederates in Scotland who indicted an Assembly without the King's leave and continued it against His pleasure and as all imitations of Crimes exceed their first pattern it was conceived these men whose furies were more unjust and so would be more fierce intended to improve that Precedent to the extreamest guilt The Bill was no sooner signed but they hastened the Execution and so much the more eagerly because the King desired in a most passionate Letter delivered by the Prince to the Lords that the Excellent Soul which found so much Injustice on Earth might have the more time to fit it self for the Mercy of Heaven But this favour which became Christians to grant agreed not with the Religion of his Adversaries and therefore the second day after he was brought to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill in his Passage thither he had a sight of the Archbishop of Canterbury whose Prayers and Blessing he with a low Obeisance begged and the most pious Prelate bestowed them with Tears where with a greater presence of mind than he had looked his Enemies in the face did he encounter Death and submitted his neck to the stroke of the Executioner He was a person of a generous Spirit fitted for the noblest enterprises and the most difficult parts of Empire His Counsels were bold yet just and he had a Vigour proper for the Execution of them Of an Eloquence next to that of his Master's masculine and most excellent He was no less affectionate to the Church than to the State and not contented while living to defend the Government and Patrimony of it he commended it also to his Son when he was about to die and charged his abhorrency of Sacriledge His Enemies called the Majesty of his Miene in his Lieutenancy Pride and the undaunted execution of his Office on the contumacious the insolency of his Fortune He was censured for committing that fatal Errour of following the King to London and to the Parliament after the Pacification with the Scots at York and it was thought that if he had gone over to his charge in Ireland he might have secured both himself and that Kingdom for his Majesty's Service But some attributed this Counsel to a necessity of Fate whose first stroke is at the brain of those whom it designs to ruine and brought him to feel the effects of Popular Rage which himself in former Parliaments had used against Government and to find the Experience of his own advices against the Duke of Buckingham Providence teaching us to abhor over-fine Counsels by the mischiefs they bring upon their Authors The Fall of this Great Man so terrified the other Officers of State that the Lord High Treasurer resigned his Staff to the Hands from whence he received it the Lord Cottington forsook the Mastership of the Court of Wards and the Guardian of the Prince returned Him to the King These Lords parting with their Offices like those that scatter their Treasure and Jewels in the way that they might delude the violence of their greedy pursuers But the King was left naked of their faithful Ministery and exposed to the Infusions and Informations of those who were either Complices or Mercenaries to the Faction to whom they discovered his most private Counsels When the Earl of Strafford was dead then did the Parliament begin to think of sending away the Scots who hitherto had much impoverished the Northern Counties and increased the charges of the Nation but now they were voted to receive 300000 l. under the notion of a Brotherly assistance but in truth designed by the Faction as a reward for their Clamours for the Earl's Blood yet were they kept so long till the King had passed away more of His Prerogative in signing the Bills to take away the High-Commission and the Star-Chamber After which spoils of Majesty they disband the English and the Scotch Armies August 6. and on the 10th of that Month the King follows them into Scotland to settle if it were possible that Kingdom But the King still found them as before when he satisfied their greedy appetites then would they offer Him their Lives and Fortunes but when gain or advantage appeared from His Enemies they appeared in their proper nature ungrateful changeable and perfidious whom no favours could oblige nor any thing but Ruine was to be expected by building upon their Love While the King was in Scotland labouring to settle that Nation by granting all that the Covetousness and Ambition of their Leaders pretended was for the Publick good and so aimed at no less than a Miracle by His Benefits to reduce Faith which like Life when it is once departed doth never naturally return into those perfidious breasts the Parliament adjourns and leaves a standing Committee of such as were the Leaders or the Servants of the Faction These prepared new Toils for His Majesties return and by them was the Grand Remonstrance formed in it were reckoned for Grievances all the Complaints of Men that were impatient of Laws and Government the Offences of Courtiers the unpleasing Resolves of Judges the Neglects or Rigours of the Ministers of Justice the undigested Sermons of some Preachers yea the Positions of some Divines in the Schools were all exaggerated to defame the present Government both in Church and State and to magnifie the skill of these State-Physicians that offered Prescripts for all these Distempers Beside more easily to abuse the Vulgar who reckon Misfortunes as Crimes unpleasing accidents were represented as designs of Tyranny and those things which had been reformed were yet mentioned as continued burthens From which the People were assured there could be no deliverance but by the Wisdom and Magnanimity of the Remonstrants To prepare the way for this the most opprobrious parts of it were first whispered among the Populacy that by this seeming suppression men impatient of Secrets might more eagerly divulge them and the danger appear greater by an affected silence Then prodigious Calumnies
Lexington Mr Denzil Hollis Mr Pierrepont Mr Henry Bellasis Mr Richard Spencer Sir Thomas Fairfax Mr John Ashburnham Sir Gervas Clifton Sir Henry Vane Junior Mr Robert Wallop Mr Thomas Chicheley Mr Oliver Cromwell Mr Philip Skippon supposing that these are persons against whom there can be no just exception But if this doth not satisfie then His Majesty offers to name the one half and leaves the other to the election of the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster with the Powers and Limitations before mentioned Thus His Majesty calls God and the World to witness of His sincere intentions and real endeavours for the composing and setling of these miserable Distractions which he doubts not but by the blessing of God will soon be put to a happy conclusion if this His Majesties offer be accepted Otherwise He leaves all the World to judge who are the continuers of this unnatural War And therefore He once more conjures you by all the bonds of Duty you owe to God and your King to have so great a compassion onthe bleeding and miserable estate of your Country that you joyn your most serious and hearty endeavours with His Majesty to puta happy and speedy end to these present Miseries Given at our Court at Oxford the 26. of Decem. 1645. XVI From OXFORD Dec. 29. MDCXLV In pursuance of the former for a Personal Treaty at Westminster For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. ALthough the Message sent by Sir Peter Killegrew may justly require an expostulatory Answer yet His Majesty lays that aside as not so proper for His present endeavours leaving all the World to judge whether His Proposition for a Personal Treaty or the flat denial of a safe Conduct for Persons to begin a Treaty be greater signs of a real intention to Peace and shall now only insist upon His former Message of the 26. of this December That upon His repair to Westminster He doubts not but so to joyn His endeavours with His two Houses of Parliament as to give just satisfaction not only concerning the business of Ireland but also for the setling of a way for the payment of the publick Debts as well to the Scots and to the City of London as others And as already He hath shewn a fair way for the setling of the Militia so He shall carefully endeavour in all other particulars that none shall have cause to complain for want of security whereby just Jealousies may arise to hinder the continuance of the desired Peace And certainly this Proposition of a Personal Treaty could never have entred into His Majesties thoughts if He had not resolved to make apparent to all the World that the publick good and Peace of this Kingdom is far dearer to Him than the respect of any particular Interest Wherefore none can oppose this motion without a manifest demonstration that he particularly envies His Majesty should be the chief Author in so blessed a work besides the declaring himself a direct opposer of the happy Peace of these Nations To conclude whosoever will not be ashamed that his fair and specious protestations should be brought to a true and publick test and those who have a real sense and do truly commiserate the miseries of their bleeding Country let them speedily and chearfully embrace His Majesties Proposition for His Personal Treaty at Westminster which by the blessing of God will undoubtedly to these now-distracted Kingdoms restore the happiness of a long-wisht-for and lasting Peace Given at Our Court at Oxford the nine and twentieth day of December 1645. XVII From OXFORD January 15. MDCXLV VI. In pursuance of the former Containing His Majesty's Concessions and Offers For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and to the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. BUT that these are times wherein nothing is strange it were a thing much to be marvelled at what should cause this unparallel'd long detention of His Majesties Trumpeter sent with His gracious Message of the 26. of December last Peace being the only subject of it and His Majesties Personal Treaty the means proposed for it And it were almost as great a wonder that His Majesty should be so long from enquiring after it if that the hourly expectation thereof had not in some measure satisfied His impatience But lest His Majesty by His long silence should condemn Himself of Carelesness in that which so much concerns the good of all His People He thinks it high time to enquire after His said Trumpeter For since all men who pretend any goodness must desire Peace and that all men know Treaties to be the best and most Christian way to procure it and there being as little question that His Majesties Personal presence in it is the likeliest way to bring it to an happy issue He judges there must be some strange variety of accidents which causeth this most tedious delay Wherefore His Majesty earnestly desires to have a speedy account of His former Message the subject whereof is Peace and the means His Personal presence at Westminster where the Government of the Church being setled as it was in the times of the happy and glorious Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James and full liberty for the ease of their Consciences who will not communicate in that Service established by Law and likewise for the free and publick use of the Directory prescribed and by command of the two Houses of Parliament now practised in some parts of the City of London to such as shall desire to use the same and all Forces being agreed to be disbanded His Majesty will then forthwith as He hath in His Message of the 29. of December last already offered joyn with His two Houses of Parliament in setling some way for the payment of the publick Debts to His Scotch Subjects the City of London and others And His Majesty having proposed a fair way for the setling of the Militia which now by this long delay seems not to be thought sufficient security His Majesty to shew how really He will imploy Himself at His coming to Westminster for making this a lasting Peace and taking away all Jealousies how groundless soever will endeavour upon debate with His two Houses so to dispose of it as likewise of the business of Ireland as may give to them and both Kingdoms just satisfaction not doubting also but to give good contentment to His two Houses of Parliament in the choice of the Lord Admiral the Officers of State and others if His two Houses by their ready inclinations to Peace shall give Him encouragement thereunto Thus His Majesty having taken occasion by His just impatience so to explain His intentions that no man can doubt of a happy issue to this succeeding Treaty if now
upon Tweed already raised both for Sea and Land service and shall from time to time during the space of ten years raise levy arm train and discipline or cause to be raised levied armed trained and disciplined any other Forces for Land and Sea service in the Kingdoms Dominions and places aforesaid as in their judgments they shall from time to time during the said spaceof ten years think fit to appoint and that neither the King His Heirs or Successors or any other but such as shall Act by the Authority or approbation of the said Lords and Commons shall during the said space of ten years exercise any of the powers aforesaid That Monies be raised and levied for the maintenance and use of the said Forces for Land-service and of the Navy and Forces for Sea-service in such sort and by such ways and means as the said Lords and Commons shall from time to time during the said space of ten years think fit and appoint and not otherwise That all the said Forces both for Land and Sea-service so raised or levied or to be raised or levied and also the Admiralty and Navy shall from time to time during the said space of ten years be imployed managed ordered and disposed by the Lords and Commons in such sort and by such ways and means as they shall think fit and appoint and not otherwise And the said Lords and Commons or such as they shall appoint during the said space of ten years shall have power 1. To suppress all Forces raised or to be raised without authority and consent of the said Lords and Commons to the disturbance of the publick Peace of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernesey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them 2. To suppress any foreign Forces who shall invade or indeavour to invade the Kingdoms of England and Ireland Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernesey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them And after the expiration of the said ten years neither the King His Heirs or Successors or any person or persons by colour or pretence of any Commission power deputation or authority to be derived from the King His Heirs or Successors or any of them shall without the consent of the said Lords and Commons raise arm train discipline imploy order manage disband or dispose any the Forces by Sea or Land of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland the Dominion of Wales Isles of Gernesey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed nor exercise any of the said powers or authorities herein before-mentioned and expressed to be during the space of ten years in the said Lords and Commons nor do any act or any thing concerning the execution of the said powers or authorities or any of them without the consent of the said Lords and Commons first had and obtained And with the same Provisoes for saving the ordinary legal power of Officers of Justice not being Military Officers as is set down in your Propositions and with a Declaration That if any persons shall be gathered and assembled together in a warlike manner or otherwise to the number of thirty persons and shall not forthwith disperse themselves being required thereto by the said Lords and Commons or command from them or any by them especially authorized for that purpose then such person or persons not so dispersing themselves shall be guilty and incur the pains of high Treason being first declared guilty of such offence by the said Lords and Commons any Commission under the Great Seal or other Warrant to the contrary notwithstanding and he or they that shall so offend herein to be uncapable of any pardon from His Majesty His Heirs or Successors And likewise that it be provided that the City of London shall have and enjoy all their Rights Liberties c. in raising and imploying the Forces of that City in such sort as is mentioned in the said Proposition With these Provisoes following to be inserted in the said Act. First That none be compelled to serve in the War against their Wills but in case of coming in of strange Enemies into this Kingdom And that the powers above-mentioned as concerning the Land-Forces other than for keeping up and maintenance of Forts and Garrisons and the keeping up maintaining and pay of this present Army so long as it shall be thought fit by both Houses of Parliament be exercised to no other purposes than for the suppressing of Forces raised or to be raised without authority and consent of the said Lords and Commons as aforesaid or for suppressing of any Foreign Forces which shall invade or endeavour to invade the Kingdoms Dominions or places aforesaid And that the Monies be raised by general and equal Taxations saving that Tunnage and Poundage and such Imposts as have been applyed to the Navy be raised as hath been usual And that all Patents Commissions and other Acts concerning the premisses be made and acted in His Majesties name by Warrant signified by the Lords and Commons or such others as they shall authorize for that purpose If it shall be more satisfactory to His two Houses to have the Militia and powers thereupon depending during the whole time of His Majesty's Reign rather than for the space of ten years His Majesty gives them the election Touching Ireland His Majesty having in the two preceding Propositions given His consent concerning the Church and the Militia there in all things as in England as to all other matters relating to that Kingdom after advice with His two Houses He will leave it to their determination and give His consent accordingly as is herein hereafter expressed Touching publick Debts His Majesty will give His consent to such an Act for raising of Monies by general and equal Taxations for the payment and satisfying the Arrears of the Army publick Debts and engagements of the Kingdom as shall be agreed on by both Houses of Parliament and shall be audited and ascertained by them or such persons as they shall appoint within the space of twelve Months after the passing of an Act for the same His Majesty will consent to an Act that during the said space of ten years the Lord Chancellour or Lord Keeper Commissioners of the Great Seal or Treasury Lord Warden of the Cinque-ports Chancellour of the Exchequer and Dutchy Secretaries of State Master of the Rolls Judges of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer of England be nominated by both Houses of the Parliament of England to continue quam diu se bene gesserint and in the intervals of Parliament by such others as they shall authorize for that purpose His Majesty will consent that the Militia of the City of London and Liberties thereof during the space of ten years may be in the ordering and Government of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons in the Common Council assembled or such as they shall from time to
the atchievement the War with the Crown is devolved upon Me. To the prosecution whereof as I am obliged both in Nature and Honour so I question not but the same necessity continuing you will cherish the Action with the like affection and further it with a ready Contribution True it is You furnished My Father with affectionate Supplies but they held no symmetrie or proportion with the charge of so great an Enterprise for those your Donatives are all disburst to a peny and I am inforced to summon you hither to tell you that neither can the Army advance nor the Fleet set forth without farther Aid Consider I pray you the eyes of all Europe are defixt upon Me to whom I shall appear ridiculous as though I were unable to outgo Muster and Ostentation if you now desert Me. Consider it is My first attempt wherein if I sustain a foil it will blemish all My future Honour If Mine cannot let your own Reputation move you Deliver and expedite Me fairly out of this War wherewith you have incumbred let it never be said whereinto you have betrayed Me. I desire therefore your speedy Supplie Speedy I call it for else it will prove no Supply The Sun you know is entring into his declining point so it will be soon too late to set forth when it will be rather not too soon to return Again I must mind you of the Mortality now regnant in this City which should it as so it may and no breach of Priviledge neither arrest any one Member of either House it soon would put a period both to Consultation and Session so that your own Periclitation necessitates an early Resolution In summ Three of the best Rhetoricians Honour Opportunity and Safety are all of a Plot and plead you see for Expedition Perhaps it may be expected I should say something in way of account of My Religion as also of the temper and tenor of My future Government But as I hope I have not been guilty of any thing which may justly start the least question in either so I desire you would repose in this assurance that I will in neither vary from those Principles wherein I have been instituted at the feet of that eminent Gamaliel My late Father III. To the Speaker of the House of Commons of His Second Parliament MDCXXV VI. MAster Speaker The Answer of the Commons delivered by you I like well of and do take it for a full satisfactory Answer and I thank them for it and I hope you will with all expedition take a course for performance thereof the which will turn to your own good as well as Mine But for your Clause therein of presenting of Grievances I take that but for a Parenthesis in your Speech and not a Condition and yet for answer to that part I will tell you I will be as willing to hear your Grievances as My Predecessors have been so that you will apply your selves to redress Grievances and not to inquire after Grievances I must let you know that I will not allow any of My Servants to be questioned among you much less such as are of eminent place and near unto Me. The old question was What shall be done to the man whom the King will honour but now it hath been the labour of some to seek what may be done against him whom the King thinks fit to honour I see you specially aim at the Duke of Buckingham I wonder what hath so altered your affections toward him I do well remember that in the last Parliament in My Father's time when he was an Instrument to break the Treaties all of you and yet I cannot say all for I know some of you are changed but yet the House of Commons is always the same did so much honour and respect him that all the honour conferred on him was too little and what he hath done since to alter or change your minds I wote not but can assure you he hath not medled or done any thing concerning the Publick or Commonwealth but by special directions and appointment and as My Servant and is so far from gaining or improving his Estate thereby that I verily think he hath rather impaired the same I would you would hasten for My Supply or else it will be worse for your selves for if any ill happen I think I shall be the last shall feel it IV. To the Lords and Commons at WHITE-HALL Mar. 29. MDCXXVI MY Lords and Gentlemen I have called you hither to day I mean both Houses of Parliament but it is for several and distinct reasons My Lords you of the Upper House to give you thanks for your Care of the state of the Kingdom now and not only for the care of your own Proceedings but for inciting your Fellow-House of the Commons to take that into their consideration Therefore My Lords I must not only give you thanks but I must also avow that if this Parliament do not redound to the good of this Kingdom which I pray God it may it is not your faults And you Gentlemen of the House of Commons I am sorry that I may not justly give the same thanks to you but I must tell you that I am come here to shew you your Errors and as I may call it Unparliamentary Proceedings in this Parliament But I do not despair because you shall see your faults so clearly by the Lord Keeper that you may so amend your Proceeding that this Parliament shall end comfortably and happily though at the beginning it hath had some rubs After the Lord Keeper had declared His MAJESTY's pleasure to them Himself added I must withal put you in mind a little of times past You may remember that in the time of My Blessed Father you did with your Counsel and perswasion prevail with My Father and Me to break off the Treaties I confess I was your Instrument for two Reasons One was the fitness of the time the other because I was seconded by so great and worthy a Body as the whole Body of Parliament Then there was no body in so great favour with you as this man whom you seem now to touch but indeed My Father's Government and Mine Now that you have all things according to your wishes and that I am so far ingaged that you think there is no retreat now you begin to set the Dice and make your own Game But I pray you be not deceived it is not a Parliamentary way nor is it a way to deal with a King Master Coke told you It was better to dye by a foreign Enemy than to be destroyed at home Indeed I think it is more Honour for a King to be invaded and almost destroyed by a foreign Enemy than to be despised by His Own Subjects Remember that Parliaments are altogether in My Power for their Calling Sitting and Dissolution therefore as I find the fruits of them good or evil they are to continue or not to be And remember
touching which is a great deal of inconvenience Therefore I think it very necessary to lay before you the state of My Affairs as they now stand thereby to hasten not to interrupt your proceedings First I must remember you that there are two Armies in the Kingdom in a manner maintained by you the very naming of which doth more clearly shew the inconvenience thereof than a better tongue than Mine can express Therefore in the first place I shall commend unto you the quick dispatch of that business In the next place I must recommend unto you the state of My Navy and Forts the condition of both which is so well known unto you that I need not tell you the particulars Only thus much they are the walls and defence of this Kingdom which if out of order all men may easily judge what encouragement it will be to our Enemies and what disheartning to our Friends Last of all and not the least to be considered I must lay before you the Distractions that are at this present occasioned through the connivence of Parliament for there are some men that more maliciously than ignorantly will put no difference between Reformation and Alteration of Government Hence it cometh that Divine Service is irreverently interrupted and Petitions in an ill way given in neither disputed nor denied But I will enter into no more particulars but shew you a way of Remedy by shewing you My clear intentions and some Rocks that may hinder this Good Work I shall willingly and chearfully concur with you for the Reformation of all Innovations both in Church and Commonwealth and consequently that all Courts of Justice may be reformed according to Law For My intention is clearly to reduce all things to the best and purest times as they were in the time of Queen Elizabeth Moreover whatsoever part of My Revenue shall be found illegal or heavy to My Subjects I shall be willing to lay down trusting in their Affections Having thus clearly and shortly set down My intentions I will shew you some Rubs and must needs take notice of some very strange I know not what term to give them Petitions given in in the names of divers Counties against the present established Government of the Church and of the great threatnings against the Bishops that they will make them to be but Cyphers or at least their Voices to be taken away Now I must tell you that I make a great difference between Reformation and Alteration of Government Though I am for the first I cannot give way to the latter If some of them have overstretched their power and incroached too much upon the Temporalty if it be so I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed as all other Abuses according to the wisdom of former times So far I shall go with you Nay further if upon serious debate you shall shew Me that Bishops have some Temporal Authority inconvenient to the State and not so necessary for the Government of the Church and upholding Episcopal Jurisdiction I shall not be unwilling to desire them to lay it down But this must not be understood that I shall any way consent that their Voices in Parliament should be taken away For in all the times of My Predecessors since the Conquest and before they have enjoyed it and I am bound to maintain them in it as one of the Fundamental Constitutions of this Kingdom There is another Rock you are on not in Substance but in Form yet the Form is so essential that unless it be reformed it will marr the Substance There is a Bill lately put in concerning Parliaments The thing I like well to have frequent Parliaments But to give power to Sheriffs and Constables and I know not whom to use My Authority that I cannot yield unto But to shew you that I am desirous to give you contentment â—n Forms which destroy not the Substance you shall have a Bill for this purpose so that it trench neither against My Honour nor against the ancient Prerogative of the Crown concerning Parliaments To which purpose I have commanded My Learned Counsel to wait on you My Lords with such Propositions as I hope will give you content For I ingenuously confess that frequent Parliaments are the best means to keep a right understanding between Me and My People which I so much desire To conclude I have now shewed you the state of My Affairs My Own clear intentions and the Rocks I wish you to eschew in all which you may perceive the desire I have to give you content as you shall find also by those Ministers I have or shall have about Me for the effecting of these My good intentions which I doubt not will bring peace and happiness to My Subjects and contentment to you All. Concerning the Conference you shall have a direct Answer on Monday which shall give you satisfaction XXV To the Lords and Commons in Answer to their Remonstrance about Papists Feb. 3. MDCXL XLI HAving taken into My serious Consideration the late Remonstrance of the Houses of Parliament I give you this Answer That I take in good part your care of the true Religion established in this Kingdom from which I will never depart as also your tenderness of My Safety and the Security of this State and Government It is against My mind that Popery or Superstition should any way increase within this Kingdom I will restrain the same by causing the Laws to be put in execution I am resolved to provide against the Jesuits and Papists by setting forth a Proclamation with all speed commanding them to depart the Kingdom within one Month of which if they fail or shall return then they shall be proceeded against according to the Laws Concerning Rosetti I give you to understand that the Queen hath always assured Me that to Her knowledge he hath no Commission but only to retain a Personal Correspondence between Her and the Pope in things requisite for the exercise of Her Religion which is warranted to Her by the Articles of Marriage which gave Her a full liberty of Conscience Yet I have perswaded Her that since the misunderstanding of that Persons condition gives offence She will within a convenient time remove him Moreover I will take a special care to restrain My Subjects from resorting to Mass at Denmark-House Saint James's and the Chappels of Ambassadors Lastly concerning John Goodman the Priest I will let you know the reason why I reprieved him that as I am informed neither Queen Elizabeth nor My Father did ever avow that any Priest in their times was executed merely for Religion which to Me seems to be this particular Case Yet seeing that I am pressed by both Houses to give way to this because I will avoid the inconvenience of giving so great discontent to My People as I conceive this Mercy may produce therefore I do remit this particular case to both the Houses But I desire them to take into their
If the time spent in this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long growth and deep root of those Grievances which we have removed to the powerful supports of those Delinquents which we have pursued to the great necessities and other charges of the Commonwealth for which we have provided or if it be considered in relation forward to many advantages which not only the present but future ages are like to reap by the good Laws and other proceedings in this Parliament we doubt not but it will be thought by all indifferent judgments that our time hath been much better imployed then in a far greater proportion of time in many former Parliaments put together and the charges which have been laid upon the Subjects and the other inconveniences which they have born will seem very light in respect of the benefit they have and may receive And for the matter of Protections the Parliament is so sensible of it that therein they intend to give them whatsoever ease may stand with Honour and Justice and are in a way of passing a Bill to give them satisfaction They have sought by many subtle practices to cause jealousies and divisions betwixt us and our brethren of Scotland by slandering their proceedings and intentions towards us and by secret endeavours to instigate and incense them and us one against another They have had such a party of Bishops and Popish Lords in the House of Peers as hath caused much opposition and delay in the prosecution of Delinquents hindered the proceedings of divers good Bills passed in the Commons House concerning the reformation of sundry great abuses and corruptions both in Church and State They have laboured to seduce and corrupt some of the Commons House to draw them into Conspiracies and Combinations against the Liberty of the Parliament and by their Instruments and agents they have attempted to disaffect and discontent His Majesties Army and to engage it for the maintenance of their wicked and traiterous designs the keeping up of Bishops in their Votes and Functions and by force to compel the Parliament to order limit and dispose their proceedings in such manner as might best concur with the intentions of this dangerous and potent faction And when one mischievous design and attempt of theirs to bring on the Army against the Parliament and the City of London had been discovered and prevented they presently undertook another of the same damnable nature with this addition to it to endeavour to make the Scotish Army neutral whilst the English Army which they had laboured to corrupt and invenome against us by their false and slanderous suggestions should execute their malice to the subversion of our Religion and the dissolution of our Government Thus they have been continually practising to disturb the Peace and plotting the destruction even of all the Kings dominions and have employed their Emissaries and Agents in them all for the promoting of their devilish designs which the vigilancy of those who were well-affected hath still discovered and defeated before they were ripe for execution in England and Scotland only in Ireland which was farther off they have had time and opportunity to mould and prepare their work and had brought it to that perfection that they had possessed themselves of that whole Kingdom totally subverted the Government of it rooted out Religion and destroyed all the Protestants whom the conscience of their duty to God their King and Countrey would not have permitted to joyn with them if by God's wonderful providence their main enterprise upon the City and Castle of Dublin had not been detected and prevented upon the very Eve before it should have been executed Notwithstanding they have in other parts of that Kingdom broken out into open Rebellion surprized Towns and Castles committed murders rapes and other villanies and shaken off all bonds of Obedience to His Majesty and the Laws of the Realm and in general have kindled such a fire as nothing but God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this State will be able to quench it And certainly had not God in his great mercy unto this Land discovered and confounded their former designs we had been the Prologue to this Tragedy in Ireland and had by this time been made the lamentable spectacle of misery and confusion And now what hope have we but in God when as the only means of our subsistence and power of Reformation is under Him in the Parliament But what can we the Commons without the conjunction of the House of Lords and what conjunction can we expect there when the Bishops and Recusant Lords are so numerous and prevalent that they are able to cross and interrupt our best endeavours for Reformation and by that means give advantage to this malignant party to traduce our proceedings They infuse into the People that we mean to abolish all Church-government and leave every man to his own fancy for the Service and Worship of God absolving him of that Obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty whom we know to be entrusted with the Ecclesiastical Law as well as with the Temporal to regulate all the members of the Church of England by such rules of order and discipline as are established by Parliament which is his great Council in all affairs both of Church and State We confess our intention is and our endeavours have been to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the Prelates have assumed unto themselves so contrary both to the Word of God and to the Laws of the Land to which end we past the Bill for the removing them from their Temporal power and employments that so the better they might with meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions Which Bill themselves opposed and were the principal instruments of crossing it And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a Conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn according to the Word of God and we desire to unburthen the Consciences of men of needless and superstitious Ceremonies suppress innovations and take away the monuments of Idolatry And the better to effect the intended Reformation we desire there may be a general Synod of the most grave pious learned and judicious Divines of this Island assisted with some from foreign parts professing the same Religion with us who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good Government of the Church and represent the results of their consultations unto the Parliament to be there allowed of and confirmed and receive the stamp of Authority thereby to find passage and obedience throughout the Kingdom They have malitiously charged us that we intend to destroy and discourage
and all their Jealousies and apprehensions which may lessen their Charity to each other and then if the Sins of this Nation have not prepared an inevitable Judgment for us all God will yet make Us a Great and a Glorious King over a Free and Happy People MDCXLI To the Kings most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament The humble PETITION and PROTESTATION of all the Bishop and Prelates now called by His Majesties Writs to attend the Parliament and present about London and Westminster for that service THat whereas the Petitioners are called up by several and respective Writs and under great Penalties to attend in Parliament and have a clear and indubitate Right to vote in Bills and other matters whatsoever debatable in Parliament by the Ancient Customes Laws and Statutes of this Realme and ought to be protected by Your Majesty quietly to attend and prosecute that great Service They humbly remonstrate and protest before God Your Majesty and the Noble Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament That as they have an indubitate Right to sit and vote in the House of the Lords so are they if they may be protected from Force and Violence most ready and willing to perform their Duties accordingly and that they do abominate all Actions or Opinions tending to Popery and the maintenance thereof as also all propension and inclination to any Malignant party or any other side or party whatsoever to the which their own Reasons and Consciences shall not move them to adhere But whereas they have been at several times violently Menaced Affronted and Assaulted by multitudes of people in their coming to perform their services in that Honourable House and lately chased away and put in danger of their lives and can find no redress or protection upon sundry complaints made to both Houses in these particulars They likewise humbly protest before Your Majesty and the Noble House of Peers That saving unto themselves all their Rights and Interests of Sitting and Voting in that House at other times they dare not Sit or Vote in the House of Peers until Your Majesty shall further secure them from all Affronts Indignities and Dangers in the premisses Lastly Whereas their Fears are not built upon Phantasies and Conceits but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well terrifie men of good Resolutions and much Constancy they do in all humility protest before Your Majesty and the Peers of that most Honourable House of Parliament against all Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and Determinations as in themselves Null and of none effect which in their absence since the twenty seventh of this instant Month of December 1641. have already passed as likewise against all such as shall hereafter pass in that most Honourable House during the time of this their forced and violent absence from the said most Honourable House Not denying but if their absenting of themselves were wilful and voluntary that most Honourable House might proceed in all these premisses their Absence or this their Protestation notwithstanding And humbly beseeching Your most Excellent Majesty to command the Clerk of that House of Peers to enter this their Petition and Protestation among his Records They will ever pray to God to bless and preserve c. Jo. Eborac Thomas Duresme Rob. Co. Lich. Jos Norwich Jo. Asaphen Guil. Ba. Wells Geo. Hereford Rob. Oxon. Mat. Ely Godfr Glouc. Jo. Peterburg Mor. Llandaff MDCXLI Jan. 3. ARTICLES of HIGH TREASON and other High Misdemeanours against the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Denzil Hollis Sir Arthur Hesilrig Mr. John Pym Mr. John Hambden and Mr. William Stroude I. THAT they have traitorously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom of England to deprive the King of His Regal Power and to place in Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical power over the Lives Liberties and Estates of His Majesties Liege People II. That they have traitorously endeavoured by many foul Aspersions upon His Majesty and His Government to alienate the Affections of His People and to make His Majesty odious unto them III. That they have endeavoured to draw His Majesties late Army to disobedience to His Majesties Commands and to side with them in their Traitorous Designs IV. That they have traitorously invited and encouraged a foreign Power to invade His Majesties Kingdom of England V. That they have traitorously indeavoured to subvert the Rights and very Being of Parliaments VI. That for the compleating of their Traitorous Designs they have indeavoured as far as in them lay by force and Terror to compel the Parliament to joyn with them in their Traitorous Designs and to that end have actually raised and countenanced Tumults against the King and Parliament VII That they have traitorously conspired to levy and actually have levied War against the King MDCXLII Jun. 2. PROPOSITIONS made by both Houses of Parliament to the KINGS Majesty for a Reconciliation of the Differences between His Majesty and the said Houses YOUR Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more pretious and of higher esteem next to the Honour and immediate Service of God then the just and faithful Performance of their Duty to Your Majesty and this Kingdom and being very sensible of the great Distractions and Distempers and of the imminent Dangers and Calamities which those Distractions and Distempers are like to bring upon Your Majesty and Your Subjects all which have proceeded from the subtle Insinuations mischievous Practices and evil Counsels of men disaffected to God's true Religion Your Majesties Honour and Safety and the publick Peace and Prosperity of Your People after a serious observation of the Causes of those Mischiefs do in all humility and sincerity present to Your Majesty their most dutiful Petition and Advice That out of your Princely Wisdome for the establishing Your own Honour and Safety and gracious tenderness of the welfare and security of Your Subjects and Dominioins You will be pleased to grant and accept these their humble Desires and Propositions as the most necessary effectual means through God's blessing of removing those Jealousies and Differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt You and Your People and procuring both Your Majesty and them a constant course of Honour Peace and Happiness I. That the Lords and others of Your Majesties Privy Council and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the seas may be put from Your Privy Council and from those Offices and Imployments excepting such as shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that the persons put into the places and imployments of those that are removed may be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that all Privie-Counsellours shall take an Oath for the due execution of their places in such form as shall be agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament II. That the great Affairs of this Kingdom may not be concluded or transacted by
the advice of private men or by any unknown or unsworn Counsellors but that such matters as concern the publick and are proper for the High Court of Parliament which is Your Majesties great and supreme Council may be debated resolved and transacted only in Parliament and not elsewhere and such as shall presume to do any thing to the contrary shall be reserved to the censure and judgment of Parliament And such other matters of State as are proper for Your Majesties Privy Council shall be debated and concluded by such of the Nobility and others as shall from time to time be chosen for that place by approbation of both Houses of Parliament And that no publick Act concerning the Affairs of the Kingdom which are proper for Your Privy Council may be esteemed of any validity as proceeding from the Royal Authority unless it be done by the advice and consent of the major part of Your Council attested under their hands And that Your Council my be limited to a certain number not exceeding twenty five nor under fifteen And if any Counsellors place happen to be void in the Intervals of Parliament it shall not be supplied without the assent of the major part of the Council which choice shall be confirmed at the next sitting of the Parliament or else to be void III. That the Lord High Steward of England Lord High Constable Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Lord Treasure Lord Privy Seal Earl Marshal Lord Admiral Warden of the Cinque-Ports chief Governor of Ireland Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Wards Secretaries of State two Chief Justices and Chief Baron may always be chosen with the approbation of both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament by assent of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before exprest in the choice of Counsellors IV. That he or they unto whom the government and education of the King's Children shall be committed shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliaments by the assent of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before exprest in the choice of Counsellours And that all such Servants as are now about Them against whom both Houses shall have any just exception shall be removed V. That no Marriage shall be concluded or treated for any of the King's Children with any foreign Prince or other person whatsoever abroad or at home without the consent of Parliament under the penalty of a Praemunire unto such as shall so conclude or treat any Marriage as aforesaid and that the said Penalty shall not be pardoned or dispensed with but by the consent of both Houses of Parliament VI. That the Laws in force against Jesuites Priests and Popish Recusants be strictly put in execution without any toleration or dispensation to the contrary and some more effectual course may be enacted by authority of Parliament to disable them from making any disturbance in the State or eluding the Law by trusts or otherwise VII That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Peers may be taken away so long as they continue Papists And that His Majesty would consent to such a Bill as shall be drawn for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion VIII That Your Majesty will be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made in the Church-Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise wherein they intend to have consultations with Divines as is expressed in their Declaration to that purpose And that your Majesty will contribute Your best assistance to them for the raising of a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers through the Kingdom And that Your Majesty will be pleased to give Your consent to Laws for the taking away of Innovations and Superstition and of Pluralities and against Scandalous Ministers IX That Your Majesty will be pleased to rest satisfied with that course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for ordering the Militia until the same shall be further setled by a Bill And that Your Majesty will recall Your Declarations and Proclamations against the Ordinance made by the Lords and Commons concerning it X. That such Members of either House of Parliament as have during this present Parliament been put out of any Place and Office may either be restored to that Place and Office or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the Petition of that House whereof he or they are Members XI That all Privy-Counsellours and Judges may take an Oath the form whereof to be agreed on and setled by Act of Parliament for the maintaining of the Petition of Right and of certain Statutes made by this Parliament which shall be mentioned by both Houses of Parliament And that an inquiry of all the breaches and violations of these Laws may be given in charge by the Justices of the King's Bench every Term and by the Judges of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of Peace at the Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law XII That all the Judges and all Officers placed by approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their places Quam diu bene se gesserint XIII That the Justice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it And that all persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the censure of Parliament XIV That the General Pardon offered by Your Majesty may be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament XV. That the Forts and Castles of this Kingdom may be put under the Command and Custody of such persons as Your Majesty shall appoint with the approbation of Your Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament with the approbation of the major part of the Council in such manner as is before expressed in the choice of Counsellours XVI That the extraordinary Guards and Military Forces now attending Your Majesty may be removed and discharged And that for the future You will raise no such Guards or extraordinary Forces but according to Law in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion XVII That Your Majesty will be pleased to enter into a more strict Alliance with the States of the United Provinces and other neighbour-Princes and States of the Protestant Religion for the defence and maintenance thereof against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his adherents to subvert and suppress it whereby Your Majesty will obtain a great access of strength and reputation and Your Subjects be much encouraged and enabled in a Parliamentary way for Your aid and assistance in restoring Your Royal Sister and the Princely Issue to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them and relieving the other distressed Protestant Princes who have suffered in the same Cause XVIII That Your Majesty will be pleased by Act of Parliament to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the
We utterly profess against it being most confident of the Loyalty good Affections and Integrity of the intentions of that great Body and knowing well that very many of both Houses were absent and many dissented from all those particulars We complain of But we do believe and accordingly profess to all the world that the Malignity of this Design as dangerous to the Laws of this Kingdom the Peace of the same and the Liberties of all Our good Subjects as to Our Self and Our just Prerogative hath proceeded from the subtle Informations mischievous Practices and evil Counsels of ambitious turbulent Spirits disaffected to God's true Religion and the Unity of the Professors thereof Our Honour and Safety and the publick Peace and Prosperity of Our People not without a strong influence upon the very actions of both Houses But how faulty soever others are We shall with God's assistance endeavour to discharge Our Duty with uprightness of heart and therefore since these Propositions come to Us in the name of both Houses of Parliament We shall take a more particular notice of every of them If the 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 15 16 19. Demands had been writ and printed in a tongue unknown to Us and Our People it might have been possible We and they might have charitably believed the Propositions to be such as might have been in order to the ends pretended in the Petition to wit the establishing of Our Honour and Safety the Welfare and Security of Our Subjects and Dominions and the removing those Jealousies and Differences which are said to have unhappily fallen betwixt Vs and Our People and procuring both Vs and them a constant course of Honour Peace and Happinss But being read and understood by all We cannot but assure Our Self that this Profession joyned to these Propositions will rather appear a Mockery and a Scorn the Demands being such as We were unworthy of the Trust reposed in Us by the Law and of Our Descent from so many great and famous Ancestours if We could be brought to abandon that Power which only can inable Us to perform what We are sworn to in protecting Our People and the Laws and so assume others into it as to devest Our Self of it although not only Our present Condition which it can hardly be were more necessitous then it is and We were both vanquish'd and a Prisoner and in a worse condition then ever the most unfortunate of Our Predecessours have been reduced to by the most criminal of their Subjects and though the Bait laid to draw Us to it and to keep Our Subjects from indignation at the mention of it the promises of a plentiful and unparallel'd Revenue were reduced from generals which signifie nothing to clear and certain particulars since such a Bargain would have but too great a resemblance of that of Esau's if We should part with such Flowers of Our Crown as are worth all the rest of the Garland and have been transmitted to us from so many Ancestours and have been found so useful and necessary for the Welfare and Security of Our Subjects for any present Necessity or for any low and sordid considerations of Wealth and Gain And therefore all men knowing that those Accommodations are most easily made and most exactly observed that are grounded upon reasonable and equal Conditions We have great cause to believe that the Contrivers of these had no intention of setling any firm Accommodation but to increase those Jealousies and widen that Division which not by Our fault is now unhappily fallen between Us and both Houses It is asked That all the Lords and others of Our Privy Council and such We know now what you mean by such but We have cause to think you mean all great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas For care is taken to leave out no Person or Place that Our Dishonour may be sure not to be bounded within this Kingdom though no subtle Insinuations at such a distance can probably be believed to have been the cause of our Distractions and Dangers should be put from our Privy Council and from those Offices and imployments unless they be approved by both Houses of Parliament how faithful soever We have found them to Us and the publick and how far soever they have been from offending against any Law the only rule they had or any others ought to have to walk by We therefore to this part of this Demand return you this Answer That We are willing to grant that they shall take a larger Oath then you your selves desire in your Eleventh Demand for maintaining not of any part but of the whole Law and We have and do assure you That We will be careful to make election of such Persons in those places of trust as shall have given good testimonies of their abilities and integrities and against whom there can be no just cause of exception whereon reasonably to ground a diffidence That if We have or shall be mistaken in Our election We have and do assure you that there is no man so near to Us in place or affection whom we will not leave to the Justice of the Law if you shall bring a particular charge and sufficient proofs against him and that We have given you the best pledge of the effects of such a promise on Our part and the best security for the performance of their duty on theirs a Triennial Parliament the apprehension of whose Justice will in all probability make them wary how they provoke it and Us wary how We chuse such as by the discovery of their faults may in any degree seem to discredit Our Election But that without any shadow of a Fault objected only perhaps because they follow their Conscience and preserve the established Laws and agree not in such Votes or assent not to such Bills as some persons who have now too great an Influence even upon both Houses judge or seem to judge to be for the publick good and as are agreeable to that new Vtopia of Religion and Government into which they endeavour to transform this Kingdom for We remember what names and for what Reasons you left out in the Bill offered Us concerning the Militia which you had your selves recommended in the Ordinance We will never consent to the displacing of any whom for their former Merits from and Affection to Us and the publick We have intrusted since We conceive that to do so would take away both from the affection of Our Servants the care of Our Service and the Honour of Our Justice And We the more wonder that it should be ask'd by you of Us since it appears by the Twelfth Demand That your selves count it reasonable after the present turn is served that the Judges and Officers who are then placed may hold their places quamdiu se bene gesserint And We are resolved to be as careful of those We have chosen as you are of those you would
have of late been perswaded by the new doctrines of some few to think that proper for your debates which hath not used to be at all debated within those walls but been trusted wholly with Our Predecessors and Us and to transact those things which without the Regal Authority since there were Kings of this Kingdom were never transacted It therefore concerns us the more that you speak out and that both We and Our People may either know the bottom of your Demands or know them to be bottomless What concerns more the Publick and is more indeed proper for the high Court of Parliament then the making of Laws which not only ought there to be transacted but can be transacted no where else but then you must admit Us to be a part of the Parliament you must not as the sense is of this part of this Demand if it have any deny the freedom of Our Answer when We have as much right to reject what We think unreasonable as you have to propose what you think convenient or necessary nor is it possible Our Answers either to Bills or any other Propositions should be wholly free if We may not use the Liberty of every one of you and of every Subject and receive advice without their danger who shall give it from any person known or unknown sworn or unsworn in these matters in which the manage of Our Vote is trusted by the Law to Our own judgment and Conscience which how best to inform is and ever shall be left likewise to Us and most unreasonable it were that two Estates proposing something to the third that third should be bound to take no advice whether it were fit to pass but from those two that did propose it We shall ever in these things which are trusted wholly to Us by the Law not decline to hearken to the Advice of Our great Council and shall use to hear willingly the free debates of Our Privy Council whensoever We may be suffered to have them for sending for and they shall not be terrified from that freedom by Votes and Brands of Malignants and Enemies to the State for advising what no Law forbids to advise but We will retain Our power of admitting no more to any Counsel then the nature of the business requires and of discoursing with whom We please of what We please and informing Our Understanding by debate with any Persons who may be well able to inform and advise Us in some particular though their Qualities Education or other Abilities may not make them so fit to be of Our sworn Council and not tye Our Self up not to hear any more then twenty five and those not chosen absolutely by Us out of a Kingdom so replenished with Judicious and experienced Persons in several kinds And though We shall with the proportionable Consideration due to them always weigh the Advices both of Our Great and Privy Council yet We shall also look upon their Advices as Advices not as Commands or Impositions upon them as Our Counsellours not as Our Tutors and Guardians and upon Our self as their King not as their Pupil or Ward For whatsoever of Regality were by the Modesty of interpretation left in Us in the first part of the Second Demand as to the Parliament is taken from Us in the second part of the same and placed in this new-fangled kind of Counsellours whose power is such and so expressed by it that in all publick Acts concerning the Affairs of this Kingdom which are proper for Our Privy Council for whose Advice all publick Acts are sometimes proper though never necessary they are desired to be admitted joynt-Patentees with Us in the Regality and it is not plainly expressed whether they mean Us so much as a single Vote in these Affairs but it is plain they mean Us no more at most then a single Vote in them and no more power then every one of the rest of Our Fellow Counsellours only leave to Us out of their respect and duty and that only is left of all Our ancient Power a Choice whether these that are thus to be joyned with or rather set over Us shall be fifteen or twenty five and great care is taken that the Oath which these men shall take shall be such in the framing the form of which though sure We are not wholy unconcerned in it We may be wholy excluded and that wholy reserved to be agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament And to shew that no more care is taken of Our Safety then of Our Power after so great Indignities offered to Us and countenanced by those who were most obliged to resent them after Our Town and Fort kept from Us from which if it were no otherwise Ours then the whole Kingdom is We can no more legally be kept out then out of Our whole Kingdom which sure your selves will not deny to be Treason Our Arms Our Goods sent away and our Money stopt from Us Our Guards in which We have no other Intention then to hinder the End of these things from being proportionable to their Beginnings are not only desired to be dismissed before satisfaction for the Injury punishments of the Injurers and care taken for Our future Security from the like but it is likewise desired and for this Law is pretended and might as well have been for the rest which yet with some ingenuity are it seems acknowledged to be but Desires of Grace that We shall not for the future raise any Guards or extraordinary Forces but in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion which if it had been Law and so observed in the time of Our famous Predecessours few of those Victories which have made this Nation famous in other Parts could have been legally atchieved nor could Our blessed Predecessour Queen Elizabeth have so defended Her self in 88. And if no forces must be levied till Rebellions and Invasions which will not stay for the calling of Parliaments and their consent for raising Forces be actual they must undoubtedly at least most probably be effectual and prevalent And as neither care is taken for Our Rights Honour nor Safety as a Prince so Our Rights as a Private person are endeavoured to be had from Us it being asked that it may be unlawful and punishable not only to conclude but even to treat of any Marriage with any Person for Our own Children or to place Governours about them without consent of Parliament and in the intermission of those without the consent of Our good Lords of the Council that We may not only be in a more despicable state then any of Our Predecessours but in a meaner and viler condition then the lowest of Our Subjects who value no Liberty they have more then that of the free Education and Marriage of their Children from which We are asked to debar Our Self and have the more reason to take it ill that We are so because for Our choice of a Governour for Our Son and of a
wisdoms You would be pleased to remove such Dangers by punishing the Ring-leaders of these Tumults and that Your Majesty and the Parliament may be secured from such Insolencies hereafter For the suppressing of which in all humility we offer our selves to wait upon You if You please hoping we shall appear as considerable in way of Defence to our Gracious Sovereign the Parliament our Religion and the established Laws of the Kingdom as what number soever shall audaciously presume to violate them so shall we by the wisdom of Your Majesty and the Parliament not only be vindicated from precedent Innovations but be secured from the future that are threatned and likely to produce more dangerous effects than the former And we shall pray c. MDCXLII His MAJESTY's Declaration to all his loving Subjects upon occasion of His late Messages to both Houses of Parliament and their refusal to Treat with Him for the Peace of the Kingdom IF it had not evidently appeared to all Men who have carefully examined and considered Our Actions Messages and Declarations how far We are and have been from begetting or promoting the present Distractions and that the Arms We have now taken are for the necessary safety and defence of Our Life being not taken up by Us till Our Town and Fort of Hull were kept from Us by force of Arms Our Navy imployed against Us to keep back all forein supply of Arms and Mony when Our own here was seized and detained from Us and an Army raised in pay and marching against Us yet the late reception of Our Message of the 25th of August sent by persons of Honour and Trust will sure satisfy the World that We have omitted nothing on our part that a gracious and Christian Prince could or can doe to prevent the effusion of Christian Blood but that the malignant party which have with great subtilty and industry begot this Misunderstanding between Us and Our good Subjects resolve to satisfy and secure their Malice and Ambition with the Ruine of the Kingdom and in the blood of Us and all Our good Subjects When they had forced Us after the neglect of Our Message from Beverly by raising a great Army and incensing Our Subjects against Us to erect Our Royal Standard that Our Subjects might be informed of Our Danger and repair to our Succour though We had no great reason to believe any Message of Ours would receive a very good entertainment if those Men might prevail who had brought all these Miseries upon the Kingdom to satisfy their own private ends yet observing the miserable Accidents which already befell Our good Subjects by the Souldiers under their command and well knowing that greater would ensue if timely prevention were not applyed and finding that the Malice and Cunning of these Men had infused into Our People a Rumor that We had rejected all Propositions and offers of Treaty and desired to ingage Our Subjects in a Civil War which Our Soul abhors We prevailed with Our Self for a full expression of Our desire to prevent the effusion of Blood to send a gracious Message to both Our Houses of Parliament on the 25 of August in these words WE have with unspeakable grief of heart long beheld the Distractions of this Our Kingdom Our very Soul is full of anguish until We may find some remedy to prevent the Miseries which are ready to overwhelm this whole Nation by a Civil War And though all Our endeavours tending to the Composing of those unhappy Differences betwixt Vs and Our two Houses of Parliament though pursued by Vs with all zeal and sincerity have been hitherto without that Success We hoped for yet such is Our constant and earnest care to preserve the publick Peace that We shall not be discouraged from using any Expedient which by the blessing of the God of Mercy may lay a firm foundation of Peace and Happiness to all Our good Subjects To this end observing that many mistakes have arisen by the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt Vs and Our two Houses of Parliament which haply may be prevented by some other way of Treaty wherein the matters in difference may be more clearly understood and more freely transacted We have thought fit to propound to you That some fit persons may be by you inabled to treat with the like number to be authorized by Vs in such a manner and with such freedom of debate as may best tend to that happy Conclusion which all good Men desire The peace of the Kingdom Wherein as We promise in the Word of a King all safety and encouragement to such as shall be sent to Vs if you shall chuse the place where We are for the Treaty which We wholly leave to you presuming of your like care of the safety of those We shall imploy if you shall name another place so We assure you and all Our good Subjects that to the best of Our understanding nothing shall be therein wanting on Our parts which may advance the True Protestant Religion oppose Popery and Superstition secure the Law of the Land upon which is built as well Our just Prerogative as the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject confirm all just Power and Priviledges of Parliament and render Vs and Our People truly happy by a good understanding betwixt Vs and Our two Houses of Parliament Bring with you as firm Resolutions to do your Duty and let all Our good People joyn with Vs in Our Prayers to Almighty God for his Blessing upon this Work If this Proposition shall be rejected by you We have done Our Duty so amply that God will absolve Vs from the Guilt of any of that Blood which must be spilt and what opinion soever other Men may have of Our Power we assure you nothing but Our Christian and Pious care to prevent the effusion of blood hath begot this Motion Our Provision of Men Arms and Mony being such as may secure Vs from farther Violence till it shall please God to open the eyes of Our People Our Messengers were not suffered to sit in the Houses and one of them the Earl of Southampton against whom there was not the least colour of Exception or so much as a Vote not suffered to deliver Our Message but compelled to send it by the Gentleman Usher and then commanded to depart the Town before they would prepare any Answer which they shortly sent Us in these words May it please Your Majesty THe Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled having received Your Majesty's Message of the 25. of August do with much grief resent the dangerous and distracted state of this Kingdom which we have by all means endeavoured to prevent both by our several Advices and Petitions to Your Majesty which have been not only without success but there hath followed that which no ill Counsel in former times hath produced or any Age hath seen namely those several Proclamations and Declarations against both the Houses of Parliament whereby
Miseries and the general Calamities of this Kingdom which must if this War continue speedily overwhelm this whole Nation take no Advantage of it But if you shall really pursue what you presented to Us at Colebrook We shall make good all that We then gave you in Answer to it whereby the hearts of Our distressed Subjects may be raised with the Hopes of Peace without which Religion the Laws and Liberties can no ways be settled and secured Touching the late and sad Accident you mention if you thereby intend that of Brainceford We desire you once to deal ingenuously with the People and to let them see Our last Message to you and Our Declaration to them concerning the same both which We sent to Our Press at London but were taken away from Our Messenger and not suffered to be published and then We doubt not but they will be soon undeceived and easily find out those Counsels which do rather perswade a desperate Division than a good Agreement betwixt Us Our two Houses and People MDCXLII III. The Proceedings in the late Treaty of Peace Together with several Letters of His MAJESTY to the Queen and of Prince Rupert to the Earl of Northampton which were intercepted and brought up to the Parliament With a Declaration of the Lords and Commons upon those Proceedings and Letters The humble Desires and Propositions of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled tendred unto His Majesty Feb. 1. 1642. WE Your Majesty's most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled having in our thoughts the Glory of God Your Majesty's Honour and the Prosperity of Your People and being most grievously afflicted with the pressing Miseries and Calamities which have overwhelmed Your two Kingdoms of England and Ireland since Your Majesty hath by the perswasion of evil Counsellors withdrawn Your Self from the Parliament raised an Army against it and by force thereof protected Delinquents from the Justice of it constraining us to take Armes for the defence of our Religion Laws Liberties Privileges of Parliament and for the sitting of the Parliament in safety which Fears and Dangers are continued and increased by the raising drawing together and arming of great numbers of Papists under the command of the Earl of Newcastle likewise by making the Lord Herbert of Ragland and other known Papists Commanders of great Forces whereby many grievous Oppressions Rapines and Cruelties have been and are daily exercised upon the persons and estates of Your People much innocent blood hath been spilt and the Papists have attained means of attempting and hopes of effecting their mischievous Design of rooting out the Reformed Religion and destroying the professors thereof in the tender sense and compassion of these evils under which Your People and Kingdom lie according to the duty which we owe to God Your Majesty and the Kingdom for which we are intrusted do most earnestly desire that an end may be put to these great Distempers and Distractions for the preventing of that Desolation which doth threaten all Your Majesties Dominions And as we have rendred and still are ready to render to Your Majesty that Subjection Obedience and Service which we owe unto You so we most humbly beseech Your Majesty to remove the Cause of this War and to vouchsafe us that Peace and Protection which we and our Ancestors have formerly enjoyed under Your Majesty and Your Royal Predecessors and graciously to accept and grant these most humble Desires and Propositions I. That Your Majesty will be pleased to disband Your Armies as we likewise shall be ready to disband all those Forces which we have raised and that You will be pleased to return to your Parliament II. That You will leave Delinquents to a Legal Trial and Judgement of Parliament III. That the Papists may not only be disbanded but disarmed according to Law IV. That Your Majesty will be pleased to give Your Royal Assent unto the Bill for taking away Superstitious Innovations to the Bill for the utter abolishing and taking away of all Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Subdeans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chanters Chancellors Treasurers Subtreasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church and all other their under-Officers out of the Church of England to the Bill against Scandalous Ministers to the Bill against Pluralities and to the Bill for Consultation to be had with godly religious and learned Divines That Your Majesty will be pleased to promise to pass such other good Bills for settling of Church-Government as upon consultation with the Assembly of the said Divines shall be resolved on by both Houses of Parliament and by them be presented to your Majesty V. That Your Majesty having exprest in Your Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of both Houses of Parliament a hearty affection and Intentions for the rooting out of Popery out of this Kingdom and that if both the Houses of Parliament can yet find a more effectual course to disable Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants from disturbing the State or eluding the Laws that You would willingly give Your Consent unto it That You would be graciously pleased for the better discovery and speedier conviction of Recusants that an Oath may be established by Act of Parliament to be administred in such manner as by both Houses shall be agreed on wherein they shall abjure and renounce the Popes Supremacy the doctrine of Transubstantiation Purgatory worshipping of the consecrated Hoast Crucifixes and Images and the refusing the said Oath being tendred in such manner as shall be appointed by Act of Parliament shall be a sufficient Conviction in Law of Recusancy And that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to give Your Royal Assent unto a Bill for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion That for the more effectual execution of the Laws against Popish Recusants Your Majesty would be pleased to consent to a Bill for the true levying of the Penalties against them and that the same Penalty may be levyed and disposed of in such manner as both Houses of Parliament shall agree on so as Your Majesty be at no loss and likewise to a Bill whereby the practice of Papists against the State may be prevented and the Laws against them duly executed VI. That the Earl of Bristol may be removed from Your Majesty's Counsels and that both he and the Lord Herbert eldest Son to the Earl of Worcester may likewise be restrained from coming within the verge of the Court and that they may not bear any Office or have any imployments concerning the State or Commonwealth VII That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased by Act of Parliament to settle the Militia both by Sea and Land and for the Forts and Ports of the Kingdom in such a manner as shall be agreed on by both Houses VIII That Your Majesty will be pleased
and Baronet Sir Arthur Hesilrigge Baronet Sir Henry Ludlow Sir Edward Hungerford Sir Francis Popham Knights Nathanael Fiennes John Hampden John Pym William Stroude Henry Martin and Alexander Popham Esquires Isaak Pennington Alderman of London and Captain Venne who being the principal Authors of these present Calamities have sacrificed the Peace and Prosperity of their Country to their own Pride Malice and Ambition and against whom We shall proceed as against Persons guilty of High Treason by the known Laws of the Land and shall in the proceeding be most careful to preserve all Privileges in the fullest manner that by the Law or the usage of former times is due to them if they shall within Ten days after the publishing this Our Proclamation return to their Duty and Allegiance to Us. And lastly We further enjoyn and command all Our Subjects upon their Allegiance to Us as they will answer the contrary to Almighty God and as they desire that they and their Posterity should be free from the foul Taint of High Treason and as they tender the Peace of this Kingdom that they presume not to give any Assistance to the before-mentioned Rebellious Armies in their Persons or Estates in any sort whatsoever but joyn with Us according to their Duty and the Laws of the Land to suppress this horrid Rebellion And Our Pleasure and Command is That this Our Proclamation be read in all Churches and Chapels within this Our Kingdom Given at Our Court at Oxford the twentieth Day of June in the Nineteenth Year of Our Reign God save the King A DECLARATION CONCERNING THE CESSATION IN IRELAND ALSO DECLARATIONS and PASSAGES of the PARLIAMENT at OXFORD MDCXLIII Octob. 19. The Grounds and Motives inducing His MAJESTY to agree to a Cessation of Arms for one Year with the Roman Catholicks of IRELAND AS there hath been no Argument with which the Minds and Affections of Our People have with more Subtilty and Malice been infected and corrupted by the great Authors and Contrivers of this unnatural and odious Rebellion in England than with the gross and senseless Imputations of Our neglect of Our poor Protestant Subjects in Ireland so there is no Calumny of theirs against which We can with more Confidence Clearness and Integrity justifie Our Self and all Our Actions before God and Man We will not now trouble Our Self with the remembring Our several Messages and Importunities to Our two Houses of Parliament in that business Our offer to engage Our own Royal Person in that War and the scornful rejection of that offer Our consenting to all Propositions and Acts proposed to Us for the raising of Men or providing of Money for that Service till it was evident that Men and Money being raised under pretence of quenching the Rebellion there were both imployed in kindling and maintaining the Rebellion here Our granting a Commission to Persons named by themselves for the managing the Affairs of that Kingdom according to Instructions drawn by themselves not one of which have been observed by them We shall have occasion of publishing all these particulars in a full and clear Narration to the World that all Our good Subjects may see that the same Men and only they who have brought all these Miseries and Calamities upon them here have been the Promoters if not the Contrivers of the Miseries of their Brethren in Ireland by preventing those Remedies and diverting that Assistance which being seasonably applyed might have eased that poor People of many of those Calamities they have since endured But for the present We shall only being to publish the Articles of Cessation agreed on Our behalf by the Persons trusted by Us in that Kingdom let Our good Subjects briesty know the Grounds and Circumstances of that Treaty and Conclusion About the Month of November last after We had been advertised as well by Our Council-board of that Kingdom as several Petitions and Remonstrances of all the principal Commanders and Officers of Our Army of the miserable condition of Our Forces there by the extream want of Money Victuals and Ammunition of which they were so far from being like to receive supply from Our two Houses here who had undertaken to defray those Charges that We had had too sad experience that both the Money raised by Act of Parliament and the Men raised by Our own Commission for that purpose were imployed against Us in that Rebellious Army which not long before had given Us Battle a short Petition was sent to Us by the Lords Justices and Council of that Kingdom which they had received in the name of the Roman Catholicks of Our Kingdom of Ireland directed to Us in which nothing was desired of Us but that We would appoint some Persons to hear what they could say for themselves with many expressions of Duty and Submission to Us. Shortly after in the end of that Month or beginning of December the Committee for Ireland attended Us at Oxford and set forth by their Petition That all passages by which Comfort and Life should be conveyed unto that gasping Kingdom seemed totally to be obstructed and that unless timely Relief were afforded Our Loyal Subjects there must yield their Fortunes a prey their Lives a sacrifice and their Religion a scorn to the merciless Rebels Hereupon We granted a Commission to some Persons of Honour and Trust to meet and confer with such Persons as the Rebels should imploy but without power to conclude any thing or with other Authority than only to receive such Propositions as they should make and to derive the same to Us. The meeting upon this Commission produced little effect in so much that the Lieutenant-General of Our Army there whom We trusted principally in that Commission being unsatisfied with the Cavils and Proceedings of the Rebels in February marched out with 2500. Foot and 500. Horse to force Victual and Provision from them for the subsistance of Our Army in which Expedition he performed those good services which are known to most men so that all men may observe the discourse or expectation of a Treaty caused Us not to omit any opportunity which was offered for Our advantage No success of Our Army there though God blessed it then with a very great Victory could supply those extreme wants they suffered by not having received any Relief either of Money or Victual in above four Months from hence and therefore the Lords Justices and Council by their Letter of the 16 th of March signified unto Us That the State and Army there were in very terrible want of means to support a War and that unless supplies of Money Munition Arms Cloaths and other Abiliments of War were speedily sent thither there was little hope to escape utter Destruction and Loss of the Kingdom And by their Letter of the 4 th of July after mentioning how often and how much in vain they had recommending their condition to the Two Houses they told Us plainly that unless the supplies then mentioned in their
Foreign Power to invade this Kingdom is from having the Countenance Authority and Approbation of the two Houses of Parliament The great Industry and ill Arts used by those who have since been principal Instruments of the present Rebellion to bring in Persons of their Faction into the House of Commons the admitting and receiving such who were neither lawfully chosen nor lawfully returned by their Country and the putting and keeping out others whose Opinions were not liked the reprehending reproaching and imprisoning of Members for speaking freely according to their Consciences in matters in debate the posting and setting up mens Names in publick places and proscribing them as Enemies to their Country who dissented in the Houses in opinion in matters debated and being complained plained of no reparation granted the sitting at unparliamentary hours thereby wearying and tiring many Members from attendance and so in a thin House altering and reversing the resolution taken in a full House the refusing to receive and suppressing Petitions against Persons in favour though in point of Bribery and corruption in Judicatory and the like of other Petitions from whole Counties for the preservation of the Government of the Church as from Notinghamshire and Somerseshire whilst others against it were received with great countenance and approbation from mean unknown People the getting with great labour and Faction several hands to Petitions from Counties and then framing new Petitions at London and annexing the hands formerly gotten in the Country to those Petitions of which they who subscribed their hands know nothing as in the Petition of Buckinghamshire and the setting names in London to Petitions in the name of as if they had been subscribed in remote Counties the usurping of Jurisdictions to supersede Acts of Parliament and to dispense with the breach of Laws in force the suffering undutiful and disloyal language against the Sacred Person of the King without so much as Reprehension and the denying His Majesty's Negative Voice we insist not so much on though very prejudicial and scandalous to the Privileges and Honour of Parliament as on those Acts of Force and Violence which are contrary and destructive to the Freedom and Liberty of Parliament Shortly after His Majesty returned from Scotland there being a very long debate in the House of Commons concerning an unparliamentary Remonstrance to be published to the People of the State of the Kingdom which many of us then thought might prove prejudicial to the Peace thereof Captain Venne then a Member of the House of Commons who had before bragged of having brought down the People upon the two Houses and so drawn Resolutions from them sent Notes in writing under his Hand into the City that the People should come down to Westminster for that the better part of the House was like to be over-powered by the worser part whereupon both at that time and some days after Multitudes of the meanest sort of people with weapons not agreeing with their condition or custom in a manner very contrary and destructive to the Privilege of Parliament filled up the way between both Houses offering Injuries both by words and actions to and laying violent hands upon several Members proclaiming the Names of several of the Peers as evil and rotten-hearted Lords crying out many hours together against the established Laws in a most tumultuous and menacing way This action of Captain Venne's was complained of to the House of Commons and Witnesses offered to prove it a fellow who had assaulted and reproached a Member of the House of Commons in those Tumults was complained of and shewed to the House in the number of those who brought a Petition to the Bar and yet in neither of these cases Justice or so much as an Examination could be obtained Upon a suggestion and pretence of Danger and suit made to His Majesty a Guard was allowed and appointed by Him for the Security of both Houses shortly after this Guard was refused and discharged by themselves and a new Guard appointed by them without His Majesty's Consent thereby to awe all those who concurred not with them A legal Writ issuing out by the direction of the House of Peers under the Great Seal of England to prevent those Tumults which daily infested both Houses the Justices of the Peace for executing that Writ according to their Oaths were imprisoned by the House of Commons A Commission under the Great Seal of England for enquiry after Riots committed in Southwark was likewise superseded by an Order of the House of Commons and when the Lords desired by several Messages that the House of Commons would joyn with them in a Declaration against Tumults they refused or neglected to joyn with them it being said by Mr. Pym in the House of Commons God forbid we should dishearten our Friends who came to assist us And albeit some of the Lords professed that if the People were again drawn down in that tumultuous manner they would no more come to the House and albeit an Order was made that in such a case the House should be presently adjourned yet those Tumults again appearing that Order though urged by several Lords was not suffered to be executed The House of Commons having desired the House of Peers to join with them in desiring His Majesty that the Militia of this Kingdom might be put into such hands as both Houses did confide in and this desire having been put to the Question and carried negatively by much the major part of the Lords it being again resumed at another time contrary to the course of Parliament the debate was begun with a Declaration made by several of those Lords against whom that Question was twice carried by Votes and that by much the major part that whosoever refused in this particular to joyn with the House of Commons were in their opinions enemies to the State words destructive from the Liberty and Freedom of debate During the time that this business of the Militia was in debate that is before it had the approbation and consent of the House of Peers a Petition in a tumultuous manner was delivered to the House of Lords in the name of the Knights Gentlemen Free-holders and others the Inhabitants of the County of Hartford reckoning up the causes of the present Fears Troubles and Distractions and amongst them the want of Compliance in that Honourable House with the House of Commons in entertaining those many good motions and passing those necessary Bills presented to them from that House for the publick good and desiring liberty to protest against all those as Enemies to the publick who refused to joyn with the Honourable Lords whose endeavours were for the publick good and with the House of Commons for the putting the Kingdom into a posture of Safety under the Command of such persons as the Parliament should appoint Several Petitions of the same nature particularly one under the Title of the Knights Gentlemen Free-holders and other Inhabitants of the
Estates of the Parliament in Scotland or the said Commissioners of that Kingdom whereof they are Subjects and that in those cases of joynt concernment to both Kingdoms the Commissioners to be directed to be there all or such part as aforesaid to act and direct as joynt Commissioners of both Kingdoms 4. To order the War of Ireland according to the Ordinance of the 11 th of April and to order the Militia and conserve the peace of the Kingdom of Ireland XVIII That His Majesty give His assent to what the two Kingdoms shall agree upon in prosecution of the Articles of the large Treaty which are not yet finished XIX That by Act of Parliament all Peers made since the day that Edward Lord Littleton then Lord Keeper of the great Seal deserted the Parliament and that the said great Seal was surreptitiously conveyed away from the Parliament being the 21. day of May 1642. and who shall be hereafter made shall not sit or Vote in the Parliament of England without consent of both Houses of Parliament and that all Honour and Title conferred on any without consent of both Houses of Parliament since the 20. day of May 1642. being the day that both Houses declared That the King seduced by evil Counsel intended to raise War against the Parliament be declared null and void The like for the Kingdom of Scotland those being excepted whose Patents were passed the great Seal before the 4. of June 1644. XX. That by Act of Parliament the Deputy or chief Governour or other Governours of Ireland be nominated by both Houses of Parliament or in the Intervals of Parliament by the Commissioners to continue during the pleasure of the said Houses or in the Intervals of Parliament during the pleasure of the said Houses or in the Intervals of Parliament during the pleasure of the aforementioned Commissioners to be approved or disallowed by both Houses at their next sitting And that the Chancellor or Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer Commissioners of the great Seal or Treasury Lord Warden of the Cinque-Ports Chancellors of the Exchequer and Dutchy Secretaries of State Judges of both Benches and of the Exchequer of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland be nominated by both Houses of Parliament to continue quamdiu se bene gesserint and in the Intervals of Parliament by the aforementioned Commissioners to be approved or disallowed by both Houses at their next sitting The like for the Kingdom of Scotland adding the Justice General and in such manner as the Estates in Parliament there shall think fit XXI That by Act of Parliament the Education of Your Majesty's Children and the Children of Your Heirs and Successors be in the true Protestant Religion and that their Tutors and Governours be of known Integrity and be chosen by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms or in the Intervals of Parliaments by the aforenamed Commissioners to be approved or disallowed by both Parliaments at their next sitting and that if they be Male they be married to such only as are of the true Protestant Religion if they be Female they may not be marryed but with the advice and consent of both Parliaments or in the Intervals of Parliament by their Commissioners XXII That Your Majesty will give Your Royal Assent to such ways and means as the Parliaments of both Kingdoms shall think fitting for the uniting of the Protestant Princes and for the entire Restitution and Re-establishment of Charles Lodwick Prince Elector Palatine His Heirs and Successors to His Electoral Dignity Rights and Dominions Provided that this extend not to Prince Rupert or Prince Maurice or the Children of either of them who have been the Instruments of so much blood-shed and mischief against both Kingdoms XXIII That by Act of Parliament the concluding of Peace or War with Foreign Princes and States be with advice and consent of both Parliaments or in the Intervals of Parliaments by their Commissioners XXIV That an Act of Oblivion be passed in the Parliaments of both Kingdoms respectively relative to the Qualifications in the Propositions aforesaid concerning the joint Declaration of both Kingdoms with the exception of all Murderers Thieves and other Offenders not having relation to the War XXV That the Members of both Houses of Parliaments or others who have during this Parliament been put out of any Place or Office Pension or Benefit for adhering to the Parliament may either be restored thereunto or otherwise have Recompence for the same upon the humble desire of both Houses of Parliament The like for the Kingdom of Scotland XXVI That the Armies may be Disbanded at such time and in such manner as shall be agreed upon by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms or such as shall be Authorized by them to that effect XXVII That an Act be passed for the granting and confirming of the Charters Customs Liberties and Franchises of the City of London notwithstanding any Non-user Mis-user or Abuser That the Militia of the City of London may be in the ordering and Government of the Lord Major Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council assembled or such as they shall from time to time appoint whereof the Lord Major and Sheriffs for the time being to be three And that the Militia of the Parishes without London and the Liberties within the weekly Bills of Mortality may be under Command of the Lord Major Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council of the said City to be ordered in such manner as shall be agreed on and appointed by both Houses of Parliament That the Tower of London may be in the Government of the City of London and the chief Officer and Governour thereof from time to time be nominated and removable by the Common-Council That the Citizens or Forces of London shall not be drawn out of the City into any other parts of the Kingdom without their own consent and that the drawing of their Forces into other parts of the Kingdom in these distracted times may not be drawn into example for the future And for prevention of Inconveniences which may happen by the long intermission of Common-Councils it is desired that there be an Act that all By-Laws and Ordinances already made or hereafter to be made by the Lord Major Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council assembled touching the calling continuing directing and regulating of the same shall be as effectual in Law to all intents and purposes as if the same were particularly enacted by the Authority of Parliament and that the Lord Major Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council may add to or repeal the said Ordinances from time to time as they shall see cause That such other Propositions as shall be made for the City for their farther Safety Welfare and Government and shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament may be granted and confirmed by Act of Parliament Upon consideration of which Propositions His Majesty sent the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton with this Message of the 13. of December HIS Majesty hath seriously
contrary to our expectations that instead of being rewarded we have been prejudiced instead of getting a Fortune we have spent part of one and though we behave our selves never so well abroad and perform the actions of honest men yet we have the reward of Rogues and Rebels which is Misery and Want when we come home Now my Lords although we be brought to so great an exigence that we are ready to rob and spoil one another yet to prevent such outrages we thought it better to try all honest means for our subsistence before we take such indirect courses Therefore if your Lordships will be pleased to take us timely into your considerations before our urgent Wants make us desperate we will as we have done hitherto serve your Lordships readily and saithfully But if your Lordships will not find a way for our Preservations here we humbly desire we may have leave to go where we may have a better Being and if your Lordships shall refuse to grant that we must then take leave to have our recourse to that first and primary Law which God hath endued all men with we mean the Law of Nature which teacheth all men to preserve themselves The Letter of the Lords Justices and Council of Ireland to His MAJESTY of the 11. of May 1643. May it please your most Excellent Majesty AS soon as we Your Majesties Justices entred into the charge of this Government we took into our consideration at this Board the state of Your Army here which we find suffering under unspeakable Extremities of Want of all things necessary to the support of their Persons or maintenance of the War here being no Victuals Cloaths or other Provisions requisite towards their sustenance no Money to provide them of any thing they want no Arms in Your Majesties Stores to supply their many defective Arms not above Forty Barrels of Powder in Your Stores no strength of serviceable Horses being now left here and those few that are their Arms for the most part lost or unserviceable no Ships arrived here to guard the Coasts and consequently no security rendred to any that might on their private Adventures bring in Provisions of Victuals or other necessaries towards our subsistence and finally no visible means by Sea or Land of being able to preserve for You this Your Kingdom and to render deliverance from utter Destruction to the remnant of Your good Subjects yet left here We find that Your Majesties late Justices and this Board have often and fully by very many Letters advertised the Parliament in England of the extremities of Affairs here and besought Relief with all possible importunity which also have been fully represented to Your Majesty and to the Lord Lieutenant and Mr. Secretary Nicholas to be made known to Your Majesty and although the Winds have of late for many days and often formerly stood very fair for Accessions of Supply forth of England hither and that we have still with longing expectations hoped to find Provisions arrive here in some degree answerable to the Necessities of Your Affairs yet now to our unexpressible grief after full six months waiting and much longer patience and long suffering we find all our great Expectations answered in a mean and inconsiderable quantity of Provisions viz. threescore and fifteen Barrels of Butter and fourteen Tun of Cheese being but the fourth part of a small Vessels loading which was sent from London and arrived here on the fifth day of this month which is not above seven or eight days Provision for that part of the Army which lies in Dublin and the out-Garrisons thereof no Money or Victuals other than that inconsiderable proportion of Victual having arrived in this place as sent from the Parliament of England or from any other forth of England for the use of the Army since the beginning of November last We have by the Blessing of God been hitherto prosperous and successful in Your Majesties Affairs here and should be still hopeful by the mercy of God under the Royal Directions of Your Sacred Majesty to vindicate Your Majesties Honour and recover Your Rights here and take due Vengeance on these Traitors for the innocent Blood they have spilt if we might be strengthened and supported therein by needful Supplies forth of England but these Supplies having hitherto been expected to come from the Parliament of England on which if Your Majesty had not relied we are assured You would in Your high Wisdom have found out some other means to preserve this Your Kingdom and so great and apparent a failer having hapned therein and all the former and late long continuing Easterly Winds bringing us no other Provisions than those few Cheeses and Butter and no Advertisements being brought us of any future Supply to be so much as in the way hither whereby there might be any likelihood that considerable means of support for Your Majesties Army might arrive here in any reasonable time before we be totally swallowed up by the Rebels and Your Kingdom by them wrested from you we find our selves so disappointed of our hopes from the Parliament as must needs trench to the utter loss of the Kingdom if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom ordain not some present means of preservation for us And considering that if now by occasion of that unhappy and unexpected failing of support from thence we shall be less successful in Your Services here against the Rebels than hitherto whilst we were enabled with some means to serve You we have been the shame and dishonour may in common construction of those that know not the inwards of the cause be imputed to us and not to the failings that disabled Us and considering principally and above all things the high and eminent trust of your Affairs here deposited with us by Your Sacred Majesty we may not forbear in discharge of our Duty thus freely and plainly to declare our humble apprehensions to the end Your Majesty thus truly understanding the terribleness of our Condition may find out some such means of support to preserve to Your Majesty and Your Royal Posterity this Your Ancient and Rightful Crown and Kingdom and derive Deliverance and Safety to the Remnant of Your good Subjects yet left here as in Your Excellent Judgment You shall find to be most for Your Honour and Advantage And so praying to the King of Kings to guide and direct You for the best in this high and important Cause and in all other Your Counsels and Actions we humbly remain from Your Majesties Castle of Dublin the 11 th Day of May 1643. Your Majesties most Loyal and most Faithful Subjects and Servants His MAJESTIES Answers to certain Papers delivered in to His Commissioners at Uxbridge upon the Close of the Treaty one concerning the Militia and two concerning Ireland To which being long and coming in so near the breaking up of the Treaty no Answers could then be given HAving received an account of the Passages of the late
Decemb. 1645. Grey of Wark Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons His MAJESTIES Gracious Answer to both Houses sent by Sir Peter Killegrew December 29. For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. ALthough the Message sent by Sir Peter Killegrew may justly require an expostulatory Answer yet His Majesty layes that aside as not so proper for His present Endeavours leaving all the World to judge whether His Proposition for a Personal Treaty or the flat denial of a safe Conduct for Persons to begin a Treaty be greater signs of a real Intention to Peace and shall now only insist upon His former Message of the 26. of this December That upon His repair to VVestminster He doubts not but so to joyn His Endeavours with His two Houses of Parliament as to give just satisfaction not only concerning the business of Ireland but also for the settling of a way for the payment of the Publick Debts as well to the Scots and the City of London as others And as already He hath shewn a fair way for the settling of the Militia so He shall carefully endeavour in all other particulars that none shall have cause to complain for want of Security whereby just Jealousies may arise to hinder the continuance of the desired Peace And certainly this Proposition of a Personal Treaty could never have entred into His Majesties Thoughts if He had not resolv'd to make apparent to all the World that the Publick good and peace of this Kingdom is far dearer to Him than the respect of any particular Interest Wherefore none can oppose this Motion without a manifest demonstration that he particularly envies His Majesty should be the chief Author in so blessed a Work besides the declaring himself a direct opposer of the happy Peace of these Nations To conclude whosoever will not be ashamed that his fair and specious Protestations should be brought to a true and publick Test and those who have a real sense and do truely commiserate the Miseries of their bleeding Countrey let them speedily and chearfully embrace His Majesties Proposition for His Persosonal Treaty at VVestminster which by the blessing of God will undoubtedly to these now distracted Kingdoms restore the Happiness of a long-wish'd-for and lasting Peace Given at the Court at Oxford the 29. day of December 1645. His MAJESTIES Message to both Houses from Oxford Jan. 15. 1645-46 For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. BUT that these are times wherein nothing is strange it were a thing much to be marvelled at what should cause this unparallel'd long detention of His Majesties Trumpet sent with His Gracious Message of the 26. of December last Peace being the only subject of it and His Majesties Personal Treaty the means proposed for it And it were almost as great a wonder that His Majesty should be so long from inquiring after it if that the hourly expectation thereof had not in some measure satisfied His Impatience But lest His Majesty by His long silence should condemn Himself of Carelesness in that which so much concerns the good of all His People He thinks it high time to inquire after His said Trumpeter For since all men who pretend any goodness must desire Peace and that all men know Treaties to be the best and most Christian way to procure it and there being as little question that His Majesties Personal Presence in it is the likeliest way to bring it to a happy Issue He judges there must be some strange variety of accidents which causeth this most tedious Delay Wherefore His Majesty earnestly desires to have a speedy Account of His former Message the subject whereof is Peace and the means His Personal Presence at Westminster where the Government of the Church being setled as it was in the times of the happy and glorious Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James and full Liberty for the ease of their Consciences who will not communicate in that Service established by Law and likewise for the free and publick use of the Directory prescribed and by Command of the two Houses of Parliament now practised in some parts of the City of London to such as shall desire to use the same and all Forces being agreed to be Disbanded His Majesty will then forthwith as He hath in His Message of the 29. of December last already offered joyn with His two Houses of Parliament in setling some way for the payment of the publick Debts to His Scots Subjects the City of London and others And His Majesty having proposed a fair way for the setling of the Militia which now by this long Delay seems not to be thought sufficient Security His Majesty to shew how really He will imploy Himself at His coming to Westminster for making this a lasting Peace and taking away all Jealousies how groundless soever will endeavour upon debate with His two Houses so to dispose of it as likewise of the business of Ireland as may give to them and both Kingdoms just satisfaction not doubting also but to give good contentment to His two Houses of Parliament in the choice of the Lord Admiral the Officers of State and others if His two Houses by their ready inclinations to Peace shall give him encouragement thereunto Thus His Majesty having taken occasion by His just impatience so to explain His Intentions that no man can doubt of a happy issue to this succeeding Treaty if now there shall be so much as a Delay of the same He calls God and the World to witness who they are that not only hinder but reject this Kingdoms future Happiness it being so much the stranger that His Majesties coming to Westminster which was first the greatest pretence for taking up Arms should be so much as delayed much less not accepted or refused But His Majesty hopes that God will no longer suffer the Malice of Wicked men to hinder the Peace of this too much afflicted Kingdom Given at the Court at Oxford the 15. of January 1645. The Answer of both Houses to His MAJESTIES two former Messages of the 26. and 29. of Dec. May it please your Majesty WE your humble and loyal Subjects of both Kingdoms have received your Letters of the 26. and 29. of December last unto which we humbly return this Answer That there hath been no Delay on our parts but what was necessary in a business of so great a consequence as is exprest in our former Letter to Your Majesty Concerning the Personal Treaty desired by your Majesty There having been so much innocent blood of Your good Subjects shed in this War by Your Majesties Commands and Commissions Irish Rebels brought over into
Rumors spread and Informations given which may have induced many to believe that We intend to make War against Our Parliament We Profess before God and Declare to all the World That We always have and do abhor all such Designs and desire all Our Nobility and Commoners who are here upon the place to declare Whether they have not been Witnesses of Our frequent and earnest Declarations and Professions to this purpose whether they see any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such Design and whether they be not fully perswaded that We have no such intention but that all Our Endeavours according to Our many Professions tend to the firm and constant settlement of the true Protestant Religion the just Priviledges of Parliaments the Liberty of the Subject the Law Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom MDCXLVII Aug. 1. The Heads of the Proposals agreed upon by his Excellency Sir THOMAS FAIRFAX and the Council of the Army to be tendred to the Commissioners of Parliament residing with the Army and with them to be treated on by the Commissioners of the Army Containing the particulars of their Desires in pursuance of their former Declarations and Papers in order to the clearing and securing of the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom and the settling a just and lasting Peace To which are added some further particular Desires for the removing and redressing of divers present pressing Grievances being also comprized in or in necessary pursuance of their Former Representations and Papers appointed to be Treated upon I. THat the things hereafter proposed being provided for by this Parliament a certain period may by Act of Parliament be set for the ending of this Parliament such period to be within a year at most and in the same Act provision to be made for the succession and constitution of Parliaments in future as followeth 1. That Parliaments may Biennially be called and meet at a certain day with such provision for the certainty thereof as in the late Act was made for Triennial Parliaments and what further other provision shall be found needful by the Parliament to reduce it to more certainty And upon the passing of this the said Act for Triennial Parliaments to be repealed 2. Each Biennial Parliament to sit 120. days certain unless adjourned or dissolved sooner by their own Consent afterwards to be adjournable or dissolvable by the King and no Parliament to sit past 240. days from their first meeting or some other limited number of days now to be agreed on upon the expiration whereof each Parliament to dissolve of course if not otherwise dissolved sooner 3. The King upon Advice of the Council of State in the Intervals betwixt Biennial Parliaments to call a Parliament extraordinary provided it meet above seventy days before the next Biennial day and be dissolved at least sixty days before the same so as the course of Biennial Elections may never be interrupted 4. That this Parliament and each succeeding Biennial Parliament at or before adjournment or dissolution thereof may appoint Committees to continue during the Interval for such purposes as are in any of these Proposals referr'd to such Committees 5. That the Elections of the Commons for succeeding Parliaments may be distributed to all Counties or other parts or divisions of the Kingdom according to some Rule of equality or proportion so as all Counties may have a number of Parliament-Members allowed to their choice proportionable to the respective Rates they bear in the common Charges and burthens of the Kingdom according to some other Rule of equality or proportion to render the House of Commons as near as may be an equal Representative of the whole and in order thereunto that a present consideration be had to take off the Elections of Burgesses for poor decayed or inconsiderable Towns and to give some present addition to the number of Parliament-Members for great Counties that have now less than their due proportion to bring all at present as near as may be to such a Rule of proportion as aforesaid 6. That effectual provision be made for future freedom of Elections and certainty of due Returns 7. That the House of Commons alone have the power from time to time to set down further Orders and Rules for the Ends expressed in the Two last preceding Articles so as to reduce the Elections of Members for that House to more and more perfection of Equality in the distribution Freedom in the Election Order in the proceeding thereto and Certainty in the Returns which Orders and Rules in that case to be as Laws 8. That there be a Liberty for entring Dissents in the House of Commons with provision that no Member be censurable for ought said or voted in the House further than to exclusion from that Trust and that onely by the judgment of the House it self 9. That the Judicial Power or power of final Judgment in the Lords and Commons and their power of Exposition and Application of Law without further Appeal may be cleared and that no Officer of Justice Minister of State or other person adjudged by them may be capable of Protection or Pardon from the King without their Advice and Consent 10. That the Right and Liberty of the Commons of England may be cleared and vindicated as to a due Exemption from any Judgment Trial or other Proceeding against them by the House of Peers without the concurring Judgment of the House of Commons as also from any other Judgment Sentence or Proceeding against them other than by their Equals or according to the Law of the Land 11. The same Act to provide that Grand-Jury-men may be chosen by and for several parts or divisions of each County respectively in some equal way and not remain as now at the discretion of an Under-Sheriff to be put on or off and that such Grand-Jury-men for their respective Counties may at each Assize present the Names of persons to be made Justices of Peace from time to time as the County hath need for any to be added to the Commission and at the Summer-Assize to present the Names of Three Persons out of whom the King may prick one to be Sheriff for the next year II. For the future security to Parliaments and the Militia in general in order thereunto that it be provided by Act of Parliament 1. That the power of the Militia by Sea and Land during the space of Ten years next ensuing shall be ordered and disposed by the Lords and Commons assembled and to be assembled in the Parliament or Parliaments of England or by such persons as they shall nominate and appoint for that purpose from time to time during the said space 2. That the said power shall not be ordered disposed or exercised by the King's Majesty that now is or by any person or persons by any Authority derived from Him during the said space or at any time hereafter by His said Majesty without the Advice
such others as they shall authorise for that purpose If it shall be more satisfactory to His two Houses to have the Militia and Powers thereupon depending during the whole time of His Majesties Reign rather than for the space of ten years His Majesty gives them the Election Touching Ireland His Majesty having in the two preceding Propositions given His Consent concerning the Church and the Militia there in all things as in England as to all other matters relating to that Kingdom after advice with His two Houses He will leave it to their determination and give His Consent accordingly as is herein hereafter expressed Touching Publick Debts His Majesty will give His Consent to such an Act for raising of Monies by general and equal Taxations for the payment and satisfying the Arrears of the Army Publick Debts and Engagements of the Kingdom as shall be agreed on by both Houses of Parliament and shall be audited and ascertained by them or such persons as they shall appoint within the space of twelve Months after the passing of an Act for the same His Majesty will Consent to an Act that during the said space of ten years the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper Commissioners of the Great Seal or Treasury Lord Warden of the Cinque-Ports Chancellor of Exchequer and Dutchy Secretaries of State Master of the Rolles and Judges of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer of England be nominated by both Houses of the Parliament of England to continue quamdiu se bene gesserint and in the intervals of Parliament by such others as they shall authorise for that purpose His Majesty will Consent That the Militia of the City of London and Liberties thereof during the space of ten years may be in the Ordering and Government of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons in the Common-Councel assembled or such as they shall from time to time appoint whereof the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs for the time being to be three to be imployed and directed from time to time during the said space of ten years in such manner as shall be agreed upon and appointed by both Houses of Parliament And that no Citizen of the City of London nor any of the Officers of the said City shall be drawn forth or compelled to go out of the said City or Liberties thereof for Military service without their own free consent That an Act be passed for granting and confirming the Charters Customes Liberties and Franchises of the City of London notwithstanding any Nonuser Misuser or Abuser And that during the said ten years the Tower of London may be in the Government of the City of London and the Chief Officer and Governor from time to time during the said space to be nominated and removable by the Common-Council as are desired in your Propositions His Majesty having thus far expressed His Consent for the present satisfaction and security of His two Houses of Parliament and those that have adhered unto them touching your four first Propositions and other the particulars before specified as to all the rest of your Propositions delivered to Him at Hampton-Court not referring to those Heads and to that of the Court of Wards since delivered as also to the remaining Propositions concerning Ireland His Majesty desires only when He shall come to Westminster Personally to advise with His two Houses and to deliver His Opinion and the reasons of it which being done He will leave the whole matter of those remaining Propositions to the determination of His two Houses which shall prevail with Him for his Consent accordingly And His Majesty doth for His own particular only propose that He may have Liberty to repair forthwith to Westminster and be restored to a condition of absolute Freedom and Safety a thing which He shall never deny to any of His Subjects and to the possession of His Lands and Revenues and that an Act of Oblivion and Indemnity may pass to extend to all persons for all matters relating to the late unhappy Differences Which being agreed by His two Houses of Parliament His Majesty will be ready to make these His Concessions binding by giving them the force of Laws by His Royal Assent Votes concerning His MAJESTIES Propositions and Concessions Die Lunae Octobr. 2. 1648. Resolved by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled THat they are not satisfied in the Propositions made by His Majesty in His Letter And that a Letter be sent to the Commissioners in the Isle of Wight to acquaint them that the Houses do well approve of their proceedings and do give them thanks for their great care and pains in managing of this important and weighty business requiring them still to proceed and act punctually according to their Instructions But upon further Debate in the Treaty some things being yet further cleared and more fully granted by His Majesty out of His earnest desire of Peace they at last came so near to an Agreement that the Lower House after long consultation passed the following Vote Die Martis 5. Decembr 1648. Resolved upon the Question That the Answers of the King to the Propositions of both Houses are a Ground for the House to proceed upon for the Settlement of the Peace of the Kingdom The Chief Heads of the Remonstrance of the Army presented to the House of Commons Nov. 20. MDCXLVII To the Right Honourable the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament The humble Remonstrance of his Excellency the Lord General Fairfax and his General Council of Officers held at St. Albans Thursday the 16. of Novemb. 1648. The Remonstrance it self being very long and serving only to introduce their Propositions in the end we have thought fit to represent only the Propositions themselves as they are contracted in their own Abridgment FIrst That the Capital and grand Author of our Troubles the Person of the King by whose procurement and for whose Interest only of will and power all our Wars have been may be brought to Justice for the Treason Blood and Mischief he is therein guilty of Secondly That a timely day may be set for the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York to come in by which time if they do not that then they may be immediately declared incapable of any Government or Trust in this Kingdom or its Dominions and thence to stand exil'd for ever as Enemies and Traitors to dye without mercy if ever after found and taken therein Or if by the time limited they do render themselves that then the Prince be proceeded with as on his appearance he shall give satisfaction or not and the Duke as he shall give satisfaction may be considered as to future Trust or not But however that the Revenue of the Crown saving necessary allowances for the Children and for Servants and Creditors to the Crown be sequestred and the costly Pomp suspended for a good number of years and that this Revenue be for that time disposed toward publick Charges Debts and Damages for the easing of the
attain to that Kingdom of Peace in my Heart and in thy Heaven which Christ hath purchased and thou wilt give to thy Servant tho a Sinner for my Saviours sake Amen II. Vpon the Earl of STRAFFORD's Death I Looked upon my Lord of Strafford as a Gentleman whose great Abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest affairs of State For those were prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great errors and many enemies Whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a sphear and with so vigorous a lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious exhalations which condensed by a Popular Odium were capable to cast a cloud upon the brightest Merit and Integrity Though I cannot in my Judgment approve all he did driven it may be by the necessities of Times and the Temper of that People more than led by his own disposition to any height and rigor of actions yet I could never be convinced of any such Criminousness in him as willingly to expose his life to the stroke of Justice and Malice of his Enemies I never met with a more unhappy conjuncture of affairs than in the business of that unfortunate Earl when between my own unsatisfiedness in Conscience and a necessity as some told Me of satisfying the importunities of some people I was perswaded by those that I think wished Me well to chuse rather what was safe than what seemed just preferring the outward Peace of my Kingdoms with men before that inward exactness of Conscience before God And indeed I am so far from excusing or denying that compliance on My part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in my Judgment I thought not by any clear Law guilty of Death that I never bare any touch of Conscience with greater regret which as a sign of my Repentance I have often with sorrow confessed both to God and men as an act of so sinful frailty that it discovered more a fear of Man than of God whose name and place on Earth no man is worthy to bear who will avoid inconveniencies of State by acts of so high injustice as no publick convenience can expiate or compensate I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans own Conscience thereby to salve State sores to calm the storms of Popular discontents by stirring up a tempest in a mans own bosome Nor hath Gods Justice failed in the event and sad consequences to shew the world the fallacy of that Maxime Better one man perish tho unjustly than the people be displeased or destroyed For In all likelihood I could never have suffered with my people greater calamities yet with greater comfort had I vindicated Strafford's Innocency at least by denying to sign that destructive BILL according to that Justice which my Conscience suggested to Me than I have done since I gratified some mens unthankful importunities with so cruel a favour And I have observed that those who counselled Me to sign that BILL have been so far from receiving the rewards of such ingratiatings with the People that no men have been harassed and crushed more than they He only hath been least vexed by them who counselled Me not to consent against the Vote of my own Conscience I hope God hath forgiven Me and them the sinful rashness of that business To which being in my Soul so fully conscious those Judgments God hath pleased to send upon Me are so much the more welcome as a means I hope which his Mercy hath sanctified so to Me as to make Me repent of that unjust Act for so it was to Me and for the future to teach Me That the best rule of Policy is to prefer the doing of Justice before all enjoyments and the Peace of my Conscience before the preservation of my Kingdoms Nor hath any thing more fortified my resolutions against all those violent importunities which since have sought to gain a like consent from Me to Acts wherein my Conscience is unsatisfied than the sharp touches I have had for what passed Me in my Lord of Strafford's Business Not that I resolved to have employed him in my Affairs against the advice of my Parliament but I would not have had any hand in his Death of whose Guiltlesness I was better assured than any man living could be Nor were the Crimes objected against him so clear as after a long and fair hearing to give convincing satisfaction to the Major part of both Houses especially that of the Lords of whom scarce a third part were present when the Bill passed that House And for the House of Commons many Gentlemen disposed enough to diminish my Lord of Strafford's greatness and power yet unsatisfied of his guilt in Law durst not condemn him to die who for their Integrity in their Votes were by Posting their Names exposed to the popular calumny hatred and fury which grew then so exorbitant in their clamours for Justice that is to have both My self and the two Houses Vote and do as they would have us that many 't is thought were rather terrified to concur with the condemning party than satisfied that of right they ought so to do And that after-Act vacating the Authority of the precedent for future imitation sufficiently tells the world that some remorse touched even his most implacable Enemies as knowing he had very hard measure and such as they would be very loath should be repeated to themselves This tenderness and regret I find in my Soul for having had any hand and that very unwillingly God knows in shedding one mans blood unjustly tho under the colour and formalities of Justice and pretences of avoiding publick mischiefs which may I hope be some evidence before God and Man to all Posterity that I am far from bearing justly the vast load and guilt of all that Blood which hath been shed in this unhappy War which some men will needs charge on Me to ease their own Souls who am and ever shall be more afraid to take away any mans life unjustly than to lose My own But Thou O God of infinite mercies forgive Me that act of sinful compliance which hath greater aggravations upon Me than any man Since I had not the least temptation of Envy or Malice against him and by My place should at least so far have been a preserver of him as to have denied my consent to his destruction O Lord I acknowledg my transgression and my sin is ever before Me. Deliver Me from blood-guiltiness O God thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing of thy righteousness Against Thee have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight for Thou sawest the contradiction between my heart and my hand Yet cast Me not away from thy presence purge Me with the Blood of my Redeemer and I shall be clean wash Me with that precious effusion and I shall be whiter
than a mocking and tempting of God to desire him to hinder those mischiefs whose occasions and remedies are in our own power it being every mans sin not to avoid the one and not to use the other There are ways enough to repair the Breaches of the State without the Ruines of the Church as I would be a Restorer of the one so I would not be an Oppressor of the other under the pretence of Publick Debts The occasions contracting them were bad enough but such a discharging of them would be much worse I pray God neither I nor Mine may be accessary to either To Thee O Lord do I address my Prayer beseeching Thee to pardon the rashness of my Subjects Swearings and to quicken their sense and observation of those just moral and indispensable bonds which thy Word and the Laws of this Kingdom have laid upon their Consciences From which no pretensions of Piety and Reformation are sufficient to absolve them or to engage them to any contrary practices Make them at length seriously to consider that nothing Violent and Injurious can be Religious Thou allowest no mans committing Sacriledg under the zeal of abhorring Idols Suffer not Sacrilegious designs to have the countenance of Religious ties Thou hast taught us by the wisest of Kings that it is a snare to take things that are holy and after Vows to make enquiry Ever keep thy Servant from consenting to Perjurious and Sacrilegious Rapines that I may not have the brand and curse to all posterity of robbing Thee and Thy Church of what thy Bounty hath given us and thy Clemency hath accepted from us wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion Tho my Treasures are exhausted my Revenues diminished and my Debts encreased yet never suffer Me to be tempted to use such profane Reparations lest a Coal from thine Altar set such a fire on my Throne and Conscience as will be hardly quenched Let not the Debts and Engagements of the Publick which some mens Folly and Prodigality hath contracted be an occasion to impoverish thy Church The State may soon recover by thy blessing of Peace upon us the Church is never likely in Times where the Charity of most men is grown so cold and their Religion so illiberal Continue to those that serve Thee and thy Church all those Incouragements which by the will of the pious Donors and the Justice of the Laws are due unto them and give them grace to deserve and use them aright to thy Glory and the relief of the Poor That thy Priests may be cloathed with Righteousness and the Poor may be satisfied with bread Let not Holy things be given to Swine nor the Churches bread to Dogs rather let them go about the City grin like a Dog and grudge that they are not satisfied Let those Sacred morsels which some men already by violence devoured never digest with them nor theirs Let them be as Naboth's Vineyard to Ahab gall in their mouths rottenness to their Names a moth to their Families and a sting to their Consciences Break in sunder O Lord all violent and Sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandied together against the Church and State that the Folly of such may be manifest to all men and proceed no further But so favour My righteous dealing O Lord that in the Mercies of Thee the Most High I may never miscarry XV. Vpon the many Jealousies raised and Scandals cast upon the KING to stir up the People against Him IF I had not My own Innocency and Gods Protection it were hard for Me to stand out against those stratagems and conflicts of Malice which by Falsities seek to oppress the Truth and by Jealousies to supply the defect of real causes which might seem to justifie so unjust Engagements against Me. And indeed the worst effects of open hostility come short of these Designs For I can more willingly lose my Crowns than my Credit nor are my Kingdoms so dear to Me as my Reputation and Honour Those must have a period with my Life but these may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality when I am dead and gone A good name being the embalming of Princes and a sweet consecration of them to an Eternity of Love and Gratitude among Posterity Those foul and false Aspersions were secret engines at first employed against my Peoples love of Me that undermining their opinion and value of Me My Enemies and theirs too might at once blow up their Affections and batter down their Loyalty Wherein yet I thank God the detriment of my Honour is not so afflictive to Me as the sin and danger of my Peoples Souls whose eyes once blinded with such mists of Suspicions they are soon misled into the most desperate precipices of actions wherein they do not only not consider their Sin and Danger but glory in their zealous adventures while I am rendred to them so fit to be destroyed that many are ambitious to merit the name of my Destroyers imagining they then fear God most when they least honour their King I thank God I never found but my Pity was above my Anger nor have my Passions ever so prevailed against Me as to exclude my most compassionate Prayers for them whom devout Errors more than their own Malice have betrayed to a most Religious Rebellion I had the Charity to interpret that most part of my Subjects fought against my supposed Errors not my Person and intended to mend Me not to end Me. And I hope that God pardoning their Errors hath so far accepted and answered their good Intentions that as he hath yet preserved Me so he hath by these Afflictions prepared Me both to do Him better service and My people more good than hitherto I have done I do not more willingly forgive their seductions which occasioned their loyal Injuries than I am ambitious by all Princely merits to redeem them from their unjust Suspicions and reward them for their good Intentions I am too conscious to My own Affections towards the generality of my People to suspect theirs to Me nor shall the Malice of my Enemies ever be able to deprive Me of the comfort which that confidence gives Me. I shall never gratifie the spightfulness of a few with any sinister thoughts of all their Allegiance whom Pious frauds have seduced The worst some mens Ambition can do shall never perswade Me to make so bad interpretations of most of my Subjects actions who possibly may be Erroneous but not Heretical in point of Loyalty The sense of the Injuries done to my Subjects is as sharp as those done to My self our welfares being inseperable in this only they suffer more than My self that they are animated by some Seducers to injure at once both themselves and Me. For this is not enough to the Malice of my Enemies that I be afflicted but it must be done by such instruments that my Afflictions grieve Me not more than this doth that
noise of my Evil Counsellors was another useful device for those who were impatient any mens counsels but their own should be followed in Church or State who were so eager in giving Me better counsel that they would not give Me leave to take it with Freedom as a Man or Honour as a King making their counsels more like a Drench that must be poured down than a Draught which might be fairly and leisurely drank if I liked it I will not justifie beyond humane errors and frailties My self or my Counsellors They might be subject to some Miscarriages yet such as were far more reparable by second and better thoughts than those enormous Extravagances wherewith some men have now even wildred and almost quite lost both Church and State The event of things at last will make it evident to my Subjects that had I followed the worst counsels that My worst Counsellors ever had the boldness to offer to Me or My self any inclination to use I could not so soon have brought both Church and State in Three flourishing Kingdoms to such a Chaos of Confusions and Hell of Miseries as some have done out of which they cannot or will not in the midst of their many great advantages redeem either Me or my Subjects No men were more willing to complain than I was to redress what I saw in Reason was either done or advised amiss and this I thought I had done even beyond the expectation of moderate men who were sorry to see Me prone even to injure My self out of a Zeal to relieve my Subjects But other mens insatiable desire of Revenge upon Me My Court and My Clergy hath wholly beguiled both Church and State of the benefit of all my either Retractations or Concessions and withal hath deprived all those now so zealous Persecutors both of the comfort and reward of their former pretended Persecutions wherein they so much gloried among the Vulgar and which indeed a truly-humble Christian will so highly prize as rather not to be relieved than be revenged so as to be bereaved of that Crown of Christian Patience which attends humble and injured Sufferers Another artifice used to withdraw My Peoples Affections from Me to their designs was The noise and ostentation of Liberty which men are not more prone to desire than unapt to bear in the Popular sense which is to do what every man liketh best If the divinest Liberty be to will what men should and to do what they so will according to Reason Laws and Religion I envy not my Subjects that Liberty which is all I desire to enjoy My self so far am I from the desire of oppressing theirs Nor were those Lords and Gentlemen which assisted Me so prodigal of their Liberties as with their Lives and Fortunes to help on the enslaving of Themselves and their Posterities As to Civil Immunities none but such as desire to drive on their Ambitious and Covetous Designs over the Ruines of Church and State Prince Peers and People will ever desire greater Freedoms than the Laws allow whose bounds good men count their Ornament and Protection others their Manacles and Oppression Nor is it just any man should expect the Reward and Benefit of the Law who despiseth its Rule and Direction losing justly his Safety while he seeks an unreasonable Liberty Time will best inform my Subjects that those are the best preservers of their true Liberties who allow themselves the least licentiousness against or beyond the Laws They will feel it at last to their cost that it is impossible those men should be really tender of their fellow-Subjects Liberties who have the hardiness to use their King with so severe restraints against all Laws both Divine and Humane under which yet I will rather perish than complain to those who want nothing to compleat their mirth and Triumph but such Musick In point of true Conscientious Tenderness attended with Humility and Meekness not with proud and arrogant activity which seeks to hatch every egg of different opinion to a Faction or Schism I have oft declared how little I desire my Laws and Scepter should intrench on Gods Soveraignty which is the only King of mens Consciences and yet He hath laid such restraints upon men as commands them to be subject for Conscience sake giving no men liberty to break the Law established further than with Meekness and Patience they are content to suffer the Penalties annexed rather than perturb the publick Peace The truth is some mens thirst after Novelties others despair to relieve the necessities of their Fortunes or satisfie their Ambition in Peaceable times distrusting Gods Providence as well as their own Merits were the secret but principal impulsives to these Popular Commotions by which Subjects have been perswaded to expend much of those plentiful Estates they got and enjoyed under My Government in peaceable times which yet must now be blasted with all the odious Reproaches which impotent Malice can invent and My self exposed to all those Contempts which may most diminish the Majesty of a King and encrease the ungrateful insolences of my People For mine Honour I am well assured that as mine Innocency is clear before God in point of any Calumnies they object so My Reputation shall like the Sun after Owls and Bats have had their freedom in the night and darker times rise and recover it self to such a degree of splendor as those feral Birds shall be grieved to behold and unable to bear For never were any Princes more glorious than those whom God hath suffer'd to be tried in the furnace of Afflictions by their injurious Subjects And who knows but the just and merciful God will do Me good for some mens hard false and evil speeches against Me Wherein they speak rather what they wish than what they believe or know Nor can I suffer so much in point of Honour by those rude and scandalous Pamphlets which like fire in great Conflagrations flie up and down to set all places on like flames as those men do who pretending to so much Piety are so forgetful of their duty to God and Me by no way ever vindicating the Majesty of their KING against any of those who contrary to the precept of God and precedent of Angels speak evil of dignities and bring railing accusations against those who are honoured with the name of Gods But 't is no wonder if men not fearing GOD should not Honour their KING They will easily contemn such shadows of God who reverence not that Supreme and adorable Majesty in comparison of whom all the Glory of Men and Angels is but obscurity yet hath he graven such Characters of Divine Authority and Sacred power upon Kings as none may without sin seek to blot them out Nor shall their black veils be able to hide the shining of My face while God gives Me a heart frequently and humbly to converse with him from whom alone are all the irradiations of true Glory and Majesty Thou O Lord knowest
Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for Meekness Wisdom and Charity in mens hearts as there was of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of God's Blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Christians Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformation to such private Designs as must needs hinder the publick good I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civil State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without pulling down Mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirm Mine not overthrow it since as I own Mine from Him so I desire to Rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good Ends cannot justifie evil Means so nor will evil Beginnings ever bring forth good Conclusions unless God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of our Confusions and Peace out of our Passions Thou O Lord who only canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings in stead of Christian Reformings Our greatest Deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls That we may in clearness of Judgment and Vprightness of heart be a means to reform what is indeed amiss in Church and State Create in us clean hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within-us that we may do all by thy directions to thy Glory and with thy Blessing Pity the Deformities which some rash and cruel Reformers have brought upon this Church and State quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their Divisions and Confusions what is the pravity of some mens Intentions and weakness of their Judgments so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of Ambition Revenge Covetousness or Sacrilege may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy Providence in just and lawful ways shall entrnst with so great good and now most necessary a work That I and My People may be so blest with inward Piety as may best teach us how to use the Blessing of outward Peace XXI Vpon His MAJESTIES Letters taken and divulged THE taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine Enemies could hardly have expected so they knew not how with honour and civility to use it Nor do I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My Reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness being discovered in the greatest advantages against an Enemy and the greatest Obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedom and secrecy of which commands a Civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publick view Yet since Providence will have it so I am content so much of My Heart which I study to approve to Gods Omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish my Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired Thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the Love and Care I have not more to preserve My own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and that extreme Grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens Malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My Constancy to my Wife the Laws and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poyson That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just Correspondencies no man can blame who loves Me or the Commonwealth since My Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their Peace and Liberty while I am oppressed The World may see how some Mens design like Absolom's is by enormous Actions to widen differences and exasperate all Sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with Patience bear this as other Indignities but with Charity forgive them The Integrity of My Intentions is not jealous of any injury My Expressions can do them for although the confidence of Privacy may admit greater freedom in Writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief Purposes cannot be so stained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men see that I wish nothing more than an happy composure of Differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own than My Peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdoms Affairs so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have always been very loth should be believed of Me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the name of Evil Counsellors It 's probable some men will now look upon Me as My own Counsellor and having none else to quarrel with under that notion they will hereafter confine their anger to My self Altho I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of My own Thoughts or follow the light of My own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing Me to think their Counsels to be other than good for Me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when My Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of Popular glory among the Vulgar with whom Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause as Adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect As if good fortune were always the shadow of Virtue and Justice and did not oftner attend Vicious and Injurious actions as to this world But
place I must let you know that I desire nothing more than to be rightly understood of My People and to that end I have of My self resolved to call a Parliament having already given order to My Lord Keeper to issue out the Writs instantly so that the Parliament may be assembled by the third of November next Whither if My Subjects bring the like good affections as I do it shall not fail on My part to make it a happy Meeting In the mean time there are two points to be considered wherein I shall desire your Advice which indeed is the chief cause of your Meeting First What Answer to give to the Petition of the Rebels and in what manner to treat with them Of which that you may give a sure judgement I have ordered that your Lordships shall be clearly and truly informed of the state of the whole business and upon what reasons the Advices that My Privy Counsel unanimously gave Me were grounded Secondly How My Army shall be kept on foot and maintained till the supplies of a Parliament may be had For so long as the Scots Army remains in England I think no man will counsel Me to disband Mine for that would be an unspeakable loss to all this part of the Kingdom by subjecting them to the greedy appetite of the Rebels beside the unspeakable dishonour that would thereby fall upon this Nation XXII To the Lords and Commons at the Opening of His Fifth Parliament at WESTMINSTER November 3. MDCXL MY Lords The knowledge that I had of the Designs of My Scotish Subjects was the cause of My calling the last Assembly of Parliament wherein had I been believed I sincerely think that things had not fallen out as now we see But it is no wonder that men are so slow to believe that so great a Sedition should be raised on so little ground But now My Lords and Gentlemen the Honour and Safety of this Kingdom lying so nearly at stake I am resolved to put My self freely and clearly on the love and affections of My English Subjects as those of My Lords that did wait on Me at York very well remember I there declared Therefore My Lords I shall not mention Mine own Interest or that Support I might justly expect from you till the Common Safety be secured Though I must tell you I am not ashamed to say those charges I have been at have been meerly for the securing and good of this Kingdom though the success hath not been answerable to My desires Therefore I shall only desire you to consider the best way both for the safety and security of this Kingdom wherein are two things chiefly considerable First the chasing out of the Rebels and secondly that other in satisfying your just Grievances wherein I shall promise you to concur so heartily and clearly with you that all the world may see My intentions have ever been and shall be to make this a glorious and flourishing Kingdom There are only Two things more that I shall mention to you The one is to tell you that the lone of Money which I lately had from the City of London wherein the Lords that waited on Me at York assisted Me will only maintain My Army for two months from the beginning of that time it was granted Now My Lords and Gentlemen I leave it to your considerations what dishonour and mischief it might be in case for want of Money My Army be disbanded before the Rebels be put out of this Kingdom Secondly the securing the Calamities the Northern People endure at this time and so long as the Treaty is on foot And in this I may say not only they but all this Kingdom will suffer the harm Therefore I leave this also to your Consideration For the ordering of these Great Affairs whereof you are to treat at this time I am so confident of your love to Me and that your care is such for the Honour and Safety of the Kingdom that I shall freely and willingly leave to you where to begin Only this that you may the better know the state of all the Affairs I have commanded My Lord Keeper to give you a short and free account of those things that have happened in this interim with this Protestation that if his account be not satisfactory as it ought to be I shall whensoever you desire it give you a full and perfect account of every particular One thing more I desire of you as one of the greatest means to make this an happy Parliament That you on your parts as I on Mine lay aside all suspicion one of another As I promised My Lords at York it shall not be My fault if this be not a happy and good Parliament XXIII To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER Nov. 5. MDCXL MY Lords I do expect that you will hastily make Relation to the House of Commons of those Great Affairs for which I have called you hither at this time and of the trust I have reposed in them and how freely I put My self on their love and affections at this time And that you may know the better how to do so I shall explain My self concerning one thing I spake the last day I told you the Rebels must be put out of this Kingdom 'T is true I must needs call them so so long as they have an Army that does invade us although I am under Treaty with them and under My Great Seal do call them Subjects and so they are too But the state of My Affairs in short is this It 's true I did expect when I did will My Lords and Great ones to be at York to have given a gracious Answer to all their Grievances for I was in good hope by their Wisdoms and Assistances to have made an end of that business but I must tell you that My Subjects of Scotland did so delay them that it was not possible to end there Therefore I can no ways blame My Lords that were at Rippon that the Treaty was not ended but must thank them for their pains and industry And certainly had they as much power as affections I should by this time have brought these distempers to a happy period So that now the Treaty is transported from Rippon to London where I shall conclude nothing without your knowledge and I doubt not but by your approbation for I do not desire to have this great Work done in a corner for I shall lay open all the steps of this Misunderstanding and the causes of the great Differences between Me and My Subjects of Scotland And I doubt not but by your assistance to make them know their Duty and also by your assistance to make them return whether they will or no. XXIV To the Lords and Commons at the Banquetting-House in WHITE-HALL Jan. 25. MDCXL XLI MY Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses The principal cause of My coming here at this time is by reason of the slow proceedings in Parliament