c. Now our young Dolman or Walker for that is the wisemans name supposing that all those people were alive still that were old men 54. yeers agoe like a true Transcriber without the variation of a letter affirmes it confidently in pag. 43. of his Edition that many are yet living in England that have seen the severall Coronations of King Edw. the 6. Queen Mary and Queen Eliz. to which he also addeth King James and King Charls because they were crowned since and this we confesse is new in him Now by this very booke alone though much more we might say to this purpose t is very evident that these Children of Abaddon love the Iesuites Doctrine well enough so it comes not out in the Iesuites owne name if it be but authorized by themselves or those appointed to publish and Licence books for the Parliament O then 't is very excellent good and Orthodoxall And now shall not these doings so palpably vile and grosse inflame your spirits O English-men and quicken you up to free your selves from their thraldome who thus abuse you will you suffer them still to proceed till they have stubbed up and quite o'rthrowne Christianity from among you you now see plainly enough what they meant at first by Roote and branch it was not Episcopacy only Roote and branch but Monarchy also Roote and branch the King and his Posterity Roote and branch the Nobility and Ancient Gentry Roote and branch Peace and prosperity honesty and Loyalty Roote and branch with Protestant profession it selfe and all that good is which in your Protestation generall you vowed to maintaine ' â—is fit you should observe it All the particulars in the said Protestation save onely one are already averted and welnigh destroyed the Religion and worship of Christ established in the English Church how is that suppressed and persecuted His Majesties Person Honour and Estate how are they abused blasted and imbezelled the Priviledges of Parliament Laws of the Land and Liberties of the Subject how notoriously have they been infringed violated and overthrowne there remaines now but one particular to finish the whole worke of plucking up or abolishing the Protestation Roote and branch and that is breaking the union betwixt the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland which now also they are indeavouring to effect as appears sufficiently by their unfriendly nay reproachfull Declaration against the Scotch Commissioners and indeed against the whole Nation and no question but they will if they can force many of those whom they have made to sweare the contrary to joyne with them in this breach also as they have done in all the former if the Scots once begin to make conscience of their old oath of Allegeance and talke of their duty to their Soveraigne Lord the King His Crowne and Dignity of supporting His Power and Greatnesse according as they are bound by all Laws of God and nature then away with these fellows from the earth cry those that resolve to make no more Addresses to the King 't is not fitting they should live though they were our dear Brethren before yet now they are so no more but Malignants as well as other folks and fit for nothing but to have scorns obloquies and contempts cast upon them And here by the way let the Scottish Nation observe it well and they shall find upon tryall that those Loyall English who from the beginning have adhered to their King out of Conscience and Allegiance will be more carefull by all loving and friendly offices to preserve peace and unity betwixt the two Nations from that Common bond of Christianity and humanity which ties us all together then those others are or will ever be who have taken so many new Oaths and Covenants to that purpose all which as they are unwarrantable wanting Legality and life from the Soveraign so will they prove invalid and too weak to hold those who have ventured on them nor were they intended by those State-engineers who first devised them as Hen. Martin tells the world to bind the takers everlastingly to each other or indeed to any other end then to drive on present designes and to batter the Consciences and souls of poor men who are ingaged by them in very deed to nothing else but to Repentance But we return to those of our own Nation who now we think have fully seen the aymes scopes and endeavours of these miscreant persons that have slighted all their Oaths broken all parts of their Protestation and are guilty of all the crimes that can be named from the highest Treason to the lowest Trespasse what is now therefore to be done by you of this Anciently-noble English Nation but to stand up for your Religion Laws and Liberties to free your selves and Country from the insupportable Tyranny of these usurpers to bring these superlative Delinquents to condigne punishment to endeavour speedily your Soveraignes restoration to His Dignity and to venture your lives like good Christians and Gallant men to deliver Him that so many years protected and defended you and hath now undergone for your sakes such unparalleld sufferings as nothing is superiour unto but His incomparable vertues and which alas so many of you have ignorantly by the fraudulent suggestion of these perfidious men helped to bring upon Him Be you assured that all those Arguments and Reasons which they falsely urged to stir you up to combine with them against him are onely good and to be lawfully thought upon to perswade you to associate now against them Had the King been truely taxable of that they charged on Him yet Gods word Christian verity and the Law of the Land forbids Resistance but they all command the same against such as these though they were quite free from those other villanies which they abound in even because they are usurpers for there is a vast difference between usurpers of Authority and ill managers of lawfull Authority betwixt those that take power to themselves to doe mischiefe with it and those that exercise evilly that lawfull power entrusted to them Our Saviour in the dayes of his flesh would not so much as censure Pilate for his cruell and bloody act upon the Galileans when some did tempt him to it that he might not seeme to countenance any in so much as speaking evilly of lawful power authority though abused People when oppressed and wronged by their lawfull Superiour have allowance onely to cry unto God as 1 Sam. 8.18 and to sue for reliefe by way of Petition as the Israelites in Egypt did to Pharaoh when they were so cruelly used by his Task-masters But t is otherwise if men be usurpers and set up themselves as Abimelech the Bramble did Iudg. 9. or endeavour to destroy the Royall Family as Athaliah did if they oppresse or whether they oppresse or no all men are bound to rise up against them and to help that Royall Person or Family to their right that suffers wrong by them for fiat Iustitia
Kingdome to be just and right then His Humble and Loyall Subjects would have vouchsafed to cast a look upon Him and deign'd so far as to have spoke a word with him Herein also besides the Conditions of a Treaty are discovered divers faults in His Majesties late Messages which neither Himself nor any other was able to have discern'd but the two Parliaments of England and Scotland after a diligent search having sat close some weeks about it for they were not idle all the 40 daies of the Kings waiting did in their deep wisdomes descry and find them out and then thought fit that their Soveraigne might not sleep in His sins to admonish His Majesty of them as 1. His requiring of them ingagement for His own security if He came amongst them which was a great errour and mistake in Him for though He be a David and a man after Gods owne heart yet they are not subjects of the same stamp as Davids were who thought their King worth ten thousand of themselves 2. This request of His was in their judgements against the Priviledge and Honour of Parliament for the speciall Priviledge of this Parliament or rather the swaying faction in the same is to destroy if they can and not to preserve the King at all 3. His mentioning the Mayor Aldermâ—n Common-Councell and Militia of the City as if He believed Himself to have any interest in them and that they were concern'd to ingage for His security they give Him to understand was another grand mistake in Him for all they together with Sir Thomas Fairfax his Army and the Scots too are their subjects and not His and subordinate to their Authority and therefore for Him to expect any ingagement for safety from any of them was directly also in their sense against the Honour and Priviledge of Parliament Nay 4. they give His Majesty to know that He had not onely sinned thus against the Honour and Priviledge of Parliament but also against the very freedome of it by His propounding with so many earnest expressions a Personall Treaty as the way to a Peace which they interpret no other then a plaine enforcement upon the Liberty of Parliament or a violent rape upon their wisdome as if they had not Brains enow to find out some other way then that was which His Majesty had propounded But truly with their favour this Errour might more prudently have been passed by and the aggravation of it omitted had they but remembred how often themselves had told the world that all their fighting was but to bring the King home from His evill Counsellours to Treat in Person with His Parliament for what may the world now think of these wise men may they not liken them to little Children who in a crosse peevish humour wil none of that thing when offered to them but throw it away which before they had cried and roared for the old and true way to a Peace between different parties hath alwaies been by Treaty and so was it hitherto judged by these men as themselves told us but now they dislike it only because the King propounds it And another way they have devised and that must be by Propositions of their owne making which by this their Preface are promised to be such as Benhadad sent to the King of Israel neither good for Him nor for His people but destructive unto both But His sacred Majesty the true mirror of wisdome meeknesse and patience receiving from them after divers Messages and forty daies waiting only this reproachfull Paper which was able to stir passion in a very Moses doth send back on the very same day without returning one word of ill Language this ensuing Answer His Majesties sixt Message CHARLES R. HIs Majesty thinks not fit now to answer those aspersions which are returned as arguments for His not admittance to Westminster for a Personall Treaty because it would inforce a style not sutable to His end it being the Peace of these miserable Kingdoms yet thus much He cannot but say to those who have sent Him this Answer That if they had considered what they have done themselves in occasioning the shedding of so much innocent bloud by withdrawing themselves from their duty to Him in a time when He had granted so much to His Subjects and in violating the knowne Laws of the Kingdome to draw an exorbitant power to themselves over their fellow Subjects to say no more to do as they have done they could not have given such a false character of His Majesties actions Wherefore His Majesty must now remember them that having some howers before His receiving of their last Paper of the 13. of Ian. sent another Message to them of the 15. wherein by divers particulars He inlargeth Himself to shew the reality of His endevours for Peace by His desired personall Treaty which He still conceives to be the likeliest way to attain to that blessed end He thinks fit by this Message to call for an Answer to that and indeed to all the former For certainly no rationall man can think their last Paper can be any Answer to His former demands the scope of it being that because there is a War therefore there should be no Treaty for Peace And is it possible to expect that the Propositions mentioned should be the grounds of a Lasting Peace when the Persons that send them will not endure to hear their own King speak But whatever the successe hath been of His Majesties former Messages or how small soever His hopes are of a better considering the high strain of those who deal with His Majesty yet He will neither want fatherly bowels to His Subjects in generall nor will He forget that God hath appointed Him for their King with whom He Treats Wherefore He now demands a speedy Answer to His last and former Messages Given at our Court at Oxon this 17. of Jan. 1645. For the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated c. THese earnest desires of His Majesty for a speedy Answer shall nothing prevail with them to hasten the same for His unparallel'd meeknesse in passing by such unheard-of Affronts without return of any passionate expression is so high a vexation to their black and ungodly souls that they resolve in themselves to make Him wait above three times forty daies longer now before He shall get a word more from them let Him send as oft as He will to solicite for it which purposed contempt though His Majesty in His Candour and Charity did not haply at that present fancy of them yet being too well acquainted with their dispositions He conceived they might make some ill use among His People of His silence to their impediments objected against the Personall Treaty propounded by Him and therefore thought meet seven daies after to speak somewhat in Confutation of those their frivolous Arguments and again to urge the thing as the only likely way of setling Peace unto His People
this my profession I know not what a wiser may doe then by desiring and urging that all chief Interests may be heard to the end each may have just satisfaction As for example the Army for the rest though necessary yet I suppose are not difficult to content ought in my judgment to enjoy the liberty of their consciences have an Act of Oblivion or Indempnity which should extend to all the rest of my Subjects and that all their Arrears should be speedily and duly paid which I will undertake to doe so I may be heard and that I be not hindred from using such lawfull and honest means as I shall chuse To conclude let me be heard with Freedome Honour and Safety and I shall instantly breake through this Cloud of Retirement and shew my selfe really to be Pater Patriae Hampton-Court Novemb. 11. 1647. 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 HE that reads His Majesty in these His Messages and Declarations and considers well the discovery made therein of His disposition must needs conclude that never King since Christs time was indued with more of Christs spirit In this Declaration we observe among many other things worthy our speciall notice three particulars 1. His Majesties most Christian and fatherly Affection to us all in generall How like a truly good Shepherd He did willingly undergo and indure a most tedious restraint so long as He had hopes that the same might conduce any thing to our peace and prevent the further effusion of our Bloud but when He saw by certaine proofs that His continued patience was likely to turn onely to His Personall ruine whereby ours and that of the publike would certainly be hastened He thought Himself bound to endevour His peoples safety by His own in retiring for some time from publike view 2. His Majesties great care of preserving the being of the English Nobility whose destruction he perceived was openly intended as well as His by those that aymed at the taking away their Negative voice Had those of them who have so shamefully degenerated with the times from the dignity of their Auncestors been as carefull of His Honour and Rights as He we see is and hath been of theirs both He and they and we all had not been so miserable at this present when God shall lay this sin unto their Charge woe woe woe will be unto them 3. His Majesties fervent desire that all Interests may be Heard and just satisfaction given to them the Presbyterians Independants Army Scots and all who have combined together and ingaged against Him as wel as those who had adhered to Him and yet none of them except those had evidenced any full readinesse of mind that might be restored to those His rights which God and the Law commands should be given to Him Concerning Himself we observe He desires but only to be Heard and that for these two Ends first to procure peace for His people which is not probably otherwise to be setled and Secondly to prevent Gods Curse from falling upon His Gainsayers which otherwise is most likely to overwhelme them His words we see are these Can any reasonable man think that according to the ordinary course of affairs there can be a setled peace without it or that God will blesse those who refuse to hear their own King Surely no. May His Majesty obtain but hopes of this He will instantly break through His cloud of Retirement and shew Himself really to be as indeed He hath alwaies been Pater patriae But can His Majesty conceal His Affection so long can He forbear soliciting His peoples peace till Himself be Heard 't is impossible no no He cannot contain Himself seven daies from returning to His former labour in vain or fruitlesse endevours but sets immediately to the same again so soon at He arrived at the Isle of Wight the place of His retirement though whether destined so to be by His own choice or others designation time will discover But it plainly appears His Majesty had a good opinion of the Army in Generall in His not removing quite from among them and of the Governour of that place in particular or else being in a free or open road and in the night season He might easily have turned some other way He removed from Hampton-Court Novemb. the 11. and on the 17. of the same Month He writes from Wight this which follows His Majesties nineteenth Message His Majesties most Gracious Message from the Isle of Wight for a Personall Treaty for Peace CHARLES R. HIs Majesty is confident that before this time His two Houses of Parliament have received the Message which He left behind Him at Hampton-Court the eleventh of this Month by which they will have understood the reasons which enforced Him to go from thence as likewise His constant endeavours for the setling of a safe and wel-grounded Peace wheresoever He should be And being now in a place where He conceives Himself to be at much more freedome and security then formerly He thinks it necessary not only for making good of His own professions but also for the speedy procuring of a Peace in these languishing and distressed Kingdoms at this time to offer such grounds to His two Houses for that effect which upon due examination of all Interests may best conduce thereunto And because Religion is the best and chiefest foundation of Peace His Majesty will begin with that Particular That for the abolishing Arch-bishops Bishops c. His Majesty cleerly professeth that He cannot give His consent thereunto both in relation as He is a Christian and a King For the first He avows that He is satisfied in His Judgement that this order was placed in the Church by the Apostles themselves and ever since their time hath continued in all Christian Churches throughout the world untill this last century of years And in this Church in all times of Change and Reformation it hath been upheld by the wisdome of His Ancestours as the great preserver of Doctrine Discipline and Order in the service of God As a King at His Coronation He hath not only taken a Solemn Oath to maintain this Order but His Majesty and His Predecessours in their confirmations of the Great Charter have inseperably woven the right of the Church into the Liberties of the rest of the Subjects And yet He is willing it be provided that the particular Bishops perform the severall Duties of their callings both by their personall residence and frequent Preachings in their Diocesses as also that they exercise no act of Jurisdiction or Ordination without the consent of their Presbyters And will consent that their Powers in all things be so limited that they be not grievous to tender Consciences Wherefore since His Majesty is willing to give ease to the Consciences of others He sees no reason why He alone and
full power to act even as if He had been personally there but if He were suffered to be absent He would doubtlesse in His naturall Capacity be very mischievous to the Kingdome having such ill Councellours about Him as they said He had and such damned Cavaliers who as their preachers taught us to beleeve for good Doctrine were as bad as devills and whose very shape and faces the Lord in his judgement had already so altered that they did not now look like men as formerly but like strange horrid monsters So that God having set a visible mark of His vengeance upon them as He did on Cain our duty was and we were bound in Conscience to pursue them as Reprobates and as men cursed of God unlesse our selves would runne the hazard of that bitter Curse which was layed upon the Inhabitants of Meroz because they did not help the Lord against the Mighty After this manner they seduced us and led us too many of us to think ill of the King and of those that were Conscientious and faithfull unto Him Having thus consorted themselves with His Majesty in the Empire by their incroaching on His Authority and thus gulled us by this device of His Politick and naturall Capacity as if being arm'd or Authorized by the one we might destroy him in the other Which distinction we now understand since the returne of Reason to us to be but a meer vaporous Fancy a grosse Bull a very absurd Juggle invented by state Empericks to cheat silly people into disorder and disobedience And we are confident if we shall now goe about to pay them the interest of this their distinction and make it good upon themselves as indeed we ought to endeavour for in such a case onely it may goe for currant themselves would be directly of our opinion Should we but tell them that we consider of them two wayes in a Politick and in a Naturall capacity As they are in the first we honour and worship them we love them and regard them as they are members of the Body Politick Representative but by their favours in their naturall Capacity as they are men we intend to order and handle them as Rebels Traytors parricides fratricides thieves and murderers use to be dealt withall even according to Law and Justice and the due desert of their owne merits let them aske their own hearts whether in such a case and at such a time they will readily approve of it But hereby as we were saying they began to raise Forces in the name of King and Parliament and under that stile or rather Contradiction Commissions are issued Souldiers are levied and Taxes of divers sorts and unheard-of names imposed upon us the Kings Subjects to fight against and oppresse our King as we now perceive and to take His Regall power directly from Him for they are not ashamed now to publish in plain English before all the world that this Warre was undertaken to wrest the Militia and Legislative power from the King and His Posterity In the 64. pag. of their late Declaration against the Scots or concerning the Papers of the Scots Commissioners their words to this purpose are these The Kingdome of Scotland say they ingaged wiâ—h us in this war upon these Principles viz. for to have the Legislative power and the exercise of the Militia without and against the Kings consent If the Kingdome of Scotland did engage with them on these terms and for these ends as they now tell us yet we are confident that the people of England were better instructed then to do so for they had not so learned Christ who commands to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and not to take them away from Him We were here told of no other causes of the war then to maintain Protestant Religion established in this Church to defend the Kings Person Honour and Estate and to free Him from ill Counsellours and to preserve the Priviledges of Parliament the Laws of the Land and Liberties of the Subject and to bring Delinquents to punishment all which we were assured and that from the Pulpit too as well as from the Parliament and the Presse were lawfull causes for a War though now we see how we were abused in that also for Christian verity gives warrant to none of them unlesse withall we have the call and allowance of the Supream Authority Yea and besides how many times did these Declarers protest before all the world that it was not in their thoughts to loosen the reines of Government or to diminish any of the Kings rights no we professe said they in the sight of Almighty God which is the strongest obligation of a Christian c. that no ill Affection to His Majesties Person no designe to the prejudice of His just Honour and Authority ingaged us to raise Forces and to take up Armes And again We professe from our very hearts and souls our Loyalty and Obedience to His Crown our readinesse and resolution to defend His Person and support His estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our powers And again oftentimes God deal so by them as they intended to make Him terrible to His Enemies abroad and glorious among His friends at home c. And yet now they tell the world after all this that they ingaged at the very first in this War to have the Legislative power and the exercise of the Militia without and against the Kings consent and they say the Scots ingaged with them herein which we scarce believe for we know the Scots are too politick and wise a Nation then not to foresee their own damage if the Legislative power and the Militia of this Kingdome should be wrested out of the hands of the King their Country-man and Soveraign and put solely into the hands of those who have no such relations or Affections to them And beside the Scots Commissioners had said as these their opposers do alleage in the same page that they were obliged by their Covenant Allegiance and Duty of Subjects not to diminish but to support the Kings just Power and Greatnesse and therefore we have reason to believe they did not intend the Contrary at the beginning and the rather because these men say they did whom we never yet found true in any thing Indeed in Answer to that of the Scots Commissioners they affirm though without proof or reason that the King Contrary to His Oath had diminished the just Priviledges of Parliament and Liberties of the Subjects and how say they can He that breaks down the hedge complain of incroachment upon His severall so that the Kings pretended incroachment on them is now become a warrant for them to incroach really upon Him and to take away all His Kingly power from Him only because by their own sole testimony He had made a diminution of somewhat that belonged to them This is good Parliament Divinity as the world goes in these daies fetched sure out of