joyne with them they will doe their work themselves without Him There is no one Proposition that hath more mis-led men then the discourse of the Parliaments being the supream Court of Judicature and therefore that they have the sole power to declare Law It is confessed that the House of Peers in Parliament for any pretence of the House of Commons to judicature is groundlesse and unreasonable and unheard of till within these last seven years is the supream Court of Judicature whither any person that conceives himself oppressed by the judgment of any other Court may by writ of Error remove that judgment of which he Complaines and from the Sentence of that Court there is no Appeale which His Majesty well expressed in His Answer to that Declaration of the 19 of May in these words We deny not but they may have a power to declare in a particular doubtfull case regularly brought before them what Law is but to make a generall Declaration whereby the known rule of the Law may be crossed or altered they have no power nor can exercise any without bringing the Life and Liberty of the Subject to a lawlesse and arbitrary subjection Which assertion the too sad experience of all men hath evinced to be most reasonable The truth is that power of declaring in a particular case so brought before them is rather a power to declare what shall be done in that case then what the law is for if they reverse a judgment brought before them and determine the right otherwise then it hath been judged by the sworne Judges that judgement is no rule to the sworne Judges to judge by but they may in the like case without imputation of Crime or error judge as they did formerly which shews that the Judges are the onely Interpreters of the Law in their severall Courts though in these cases removed regularly before the Lords the party must acquiesce there being no other Court to appeale to Adde to this that there hath been in all times that reverence to the sworne Judges of the Law that the Lords in Parliament have alwaies guided themselves by their opinion in matters of law neither will it be ever found before this Parliament that the House of Peers ever declared or judged the law in any particular case against the unanimous opinion of the Judges who are assistants only for that purpose neither is it reason that any should be thought fit Interpreters or Declarers of the law but they who have studied it and are sworne to doe it truly And to this point though there are multitude of examples and Presidents there shall be one only remembred In the Parliament in the 28 year of Hen. 6. upon the 16 of January the Commons desired That William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk should be Committed to prison for many Treasons other hainous Crimes cōmitted by him The Lords in Parliament were in doubt what Answer to give they demanded the opinion of the Judges their opinion was that he ought not to be Committed And the reason was for that the Commons did not charge him with any particular Offence but with generall Slanders and Reproaches And therefore because the specialties were not shewed he was not to be Committed this opinion was allowed and the Duke was not Committed till a Fortnight after that the Commons had exhibited speciall Articles against him that he conspired with the French King to invade the Realme c. And then he was sent to the Tower So great respect did those times beare to the Judges of the Law and so much courage had the Judges then to declare what the Law was Having now made it manifest that this most destructive maxime or principle is no new position but agreeable to antiquity Conscience truth and Law and therefore not like to be a fit foundation for all Tyranny It will not be unseasonable to observe that these words were spoken by His Majesty at the first Session of Parliament in the 3 year of his Reigne and that though the matter of them hath been often since and must be alwaies averred by him the very words have not been used in Speech or Declaration by His Majesty since the beginning of this Parliament and that that very Parliament continued many Months after and never in the least degree made question of them nor hath any objection been made to them till this new Declaration of the Commons near 18 years after and therefore it is not probable that they have been before mis-interpreted or censured It may be likewise in this place fit to inform the people what these men meane by the power of Declaring Law which they are so ambitious of that they may know how little else they would need to destroy King and people if they were possessed of this power in the sense they intend which will best appear by the instances in which they have assumed it The King proclaimes Sir John Hotham guilty of high Treason for having shut the Gates of Hull and having made resistance with armed men in defiance of His Majesty which he saies is high Treason by the Statute of the 25 year of Edw. 3. c. 2. They declare that Sir John Hotham did not shut the Gates against Him in defiance but in obedience to His Majesty and that the meaning of that Statute is onely against those who levyed War against the Kings laws and authority that the Kings Authority is only in them and they only can judge of the laws and therefore that they who shall levy War by their authority though against the personall Commands of the King and accompanied with his presence incur no danger by that Statute And that they who did attend His Person against them are guilty of Treason within that Statute The King for the information of his Subjects remembers them of the Statute made in the 11 year of K. Hen. 7. cap. 1. by which it is enacted That no manner of person whosoever he be that attends upon the King and Soveraign Lord of this Land for the time being in His Person and doe Him true and faithfull service of allegiance in the same or be in other places by His Commandement in His Wars shall be convict or attaint of high Treason nor lose Lands Goods c. They declare that by the King in this Statute is meant the Parliament If they are told the King is Supreme head and Governour over all persons within His Dominions and that He is so acknowledged to be by the Oaths themselves have taken They presently declare that it is meant of singular persons rather then of Courts or of the collective body of the whole Kingdome Examples innumerable of this kind might be remembred and the consequence needs not be pressed That the absurdity may a little appeare as well as the mischief they apply this faculty of declaring to the satisfying their Curiosity and supporting their Credit to matter of right and matter of
Subjects who have not trespassed against any known Law and imprison others with such unusuall circumstances of restraint cruelty and inhumanity that many persons of reputation integrity and fortunes being first robbed and spoiled of all their Estates for not conforming themselves to the wickednesse of the time have perished in prison and very many of the same condition are like to doe so for want of such nourishment as may satisfie nature and whosoever compares the good old Oaths formed and administred by lawful Authority to every clause whereof the consciences of these very men have seemed fully to submit with the Oathes and Covenants injoyned by themselves will have reason to conclude mens Soules were never in so much danger of captivity and that what the worst men underwent for their notorious crimes in the time of which they complain was recreation and pleasure to what all are now compelled to endure for being honest and conscientious men 7. The long intermission of Parliaments is remembred and that at the dissolution of some priviledges have been broken and that followed with close imprisonment and death That long intermission of Parliaments was graciously prevented and remedied for the future long before these troubles by His Majesties consent to the Bill for trienniall Parliaments and the people would think themselves very happy if they had no more cause to complain of the continuance of this then of the former intermission they having during those twelve years injoyed as great a measure of prosperity and plenty as any people in any age have known and an equall proportion of misery since the beginning of this For the breach of Priviledge and imprisonment of Members the Lawes were open for all men to appeale and have recourse to and that single person that died under restraint suffered that restraint by a Judgment of the Kings Bench so that if there were any injustice in the Case it cannot be charged upon His Majesty 8. The Scene is now removed into Scotland and the new Liturgy and Canons with what succeeded thereupon makes up the next Charge aggravated with the Cancelling and burning the Articles of Pacification which had been there made upon the mediation of the Lords If the King had not been so tender of the Act of Oblivion in the Treaty of Pacification between the two Kingdomes that he would not suffer any provocation to incline Him to ravell into that businesse he might easily have freed Himself from all those calumnies and aspersions And it will be but justice and gratitude in that Nation highly to resent that whilst all guilty men shelter themselves under that Act of Oblivion His Majesty who is the only innocent and injured Person should have His mouth stopped by it which is His own expression and complaint in His Answer to the Declaration at Newmarket from any Reply to the reproaches cast on Him in that matter otherwise He might easily have made it appear that that Liturgy and those Canons were regularly made and framed and sent thither by the advice or with the approbation of the Lords of the Councell of that Kingdome and if the putting them in practice and execution was pursued with more passion impatience there then in prudence policy was agreeable the error was wholly to be imputed to those Ministers of that Kingdome who were most proper to be trusted in it however that so generall a defection and insurrection was not in any degree justifiable or warrantable by the Laws of that Kingdom is most certain they having no visible Forme either of Parliament or King to countenance them as the Army hath lately observed And that the Pacification first made by His Majesties mercy and Christian desire to prevent the effusion of the bloud of His Subjects how ill soever was broken by them and thereupon declined by the full advice of the Lords of His Councell by whose unanimous advice the Articles were publickly burned as may appear by the Record in the Councell Book of that transaction 9. In the next is remembred the calling and dissolving the short Parliament and the Kings proceeding after the dissolution That the calling that Parliament was an Act of the Kings great wisdome and goodnesse was then justly and generally acknowledged and that it was in His owne power to dissolve it when He thought fit is as little doubted but that He did unhappily for Himself by false Information in matter of fact and evill advice dissolve that Parliament is believed by all men and upon the matter confessed by Himself and that that information and advice was most pernicious and the rise of all the miseries we have since undergone is not denied and 't is therefore the more wondred at that the charge of that guilt being part of the impeachment against two great persons whose bloud they have since drunk that particular was declined in the prosecution of them both and that though it be enough known by whose false information and instigation that unfortunate counsell was followed extraordinary care hath been taken that he should not be questioned for it which together with the excessive joy that the principall Actors in these late mischiefs expressed at that sad time gives men reason to conclude that it was contrived by those who have reaped the fruit and advantage of the error What the King took from His Subjects by power which He could not otherwise obtain after that dissolution is not particularly set forth and therefore it is very probable there was no ground for the calumny nor indeed was any man a loser by any such Act of His Majesty 10. Thus far the catalogue reaches of the Kings enormous crimes during the first sixteen years of His Reigne to the beginning of this Parliament in which they confesse they proceeded with ease as long as there was any hope that they would comply with His Majesty against the Scots and give assistance to that war but when He found that hope vaine and that they began to question the Authours of those pernicious Counsells His Majesty discovered Himself so strongly and passionately affected to malignant Counsellours and their Councells that He would sooner desert and force the Parliament and Kingdome then alter His course and deliver up His wicked Counsellours to Law and Justice There are not so many years expired since the beginning of this Parliament though it hath been a tedious age of misery and confusion but that all mens memories will recollect and represent to them the folly and the falshood of this Charge It is not imaginable that the King could expect after the beginning of this Parliament that it would comply with Him and give Him assistance in a War against the Scots when He plainly discover'd that they who were like to be and afterwards proved the chief Leaders and Directors in that Councell were of the same party and how far He was from sheltring any Counsellour or Servant from justice or any colourable proceeding of the
or Congregation of men can have to traduce Him with them Before any discourse be applied to the monstrous Conclusions which are made and for the support and maintenance whereof that Declaration is framed and contrived or to the unreasonable glosses upon His Majesties Propositions and prosecution of his desires of peace and Treaty it will be the best method to weigh and consider those particulars upon which they would be thought to found their desperate Conclusions and in which they say there is a continued tract of breach of trust in the three Kingdomes since His Majesty wore the Crowne 1. The first Charge is that His Majesty in publique Speeches and Declarations hath laid a fit foundation for all Tyranny by this most destructive Maxime or Principle which he saith he must avow That He oweth an account of His Actions to none but God alone and that the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law That which all learned Christians in all ages have taught and all learned Lawyers of this Kingdome have alwaies held and acknowledged is not like to be a destructive principle and a fit foundation for Tyranny and surely this assertion of His Majesties hath no lesse authority For the first the incomparable Grotius upon whom all learned men look with singular reverence saies that even Samuel jus Regum describens satis ostendit adversùs Regis injurias nullam in populo relictam potestatem which saies he rectè colligunt veteres ex illo Psalmi Tibi soli peccavi Because being all ejusà em ordinis the people owe the same obedience to these as they did to those though the absolute power and jurisdiction the Kings of Israel had be no rule for other Princes to claime by And Grotius there cites Saint Ambrose his note upon the same Text Neque ullis ad poenam vocantur legibus tuti imperii potestate homini ergo non peccavit cui non tenebatur obnoxius The wise and learned Lord Chancellor Egerton in his Argument of the Postnati mentions some Texts in the Civill Law of the great and absolute power of Princes as Rex est lex loquens and Rex solus judicat de causa à jure non definita and saies he must not wrong the Judges of the Common Law of the Kingdome so much as to suffer an imputation to be cast upon them that they or the Common Law doe not attribute as great power and authority to their Soveraigns the Kings of England as the Canon Laws did to their Emperours and then cites out of Bracton the Chief Justice in the time of King Hen. 3. and an authentique Authour in the Law these words De Chartis Regiis factis Regum non debent nec possunt Justitiarii nec privatae personae disputare nec etiam si in illa dubitio oriatur possunt eam interpretari in dubiis obscuris vel si aliqua dictio duos contineat intellectus Domini Regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas and the same Bracton in another place saies of the King Omnis sub eo est ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo The ground of that excellent law of Premunire in the 16 year of King Rich 2. c. 5. and the very words of that Statute are That the Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly Subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regality of the same Crowne and to none other and upon that Maxime of the Law that good Statute against the Pope was founded If the King were bound to give an Account of his Actions to any person or power whatsoever God excepted he could not be the onely supream Governour of this Realme which he is declared and acknowledged to be by the Oath of Supremacy which every Member of the House of Commons hath taken or if he hath not he ought not to sit there or to be reputed a Member of Parliament by the Statute of 5 Eliz. c. 1. For the other part of this most destructive maxime or principle That the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any thing to be Law which hath not been formerly made to be so It hath been the judgment and language of the law it self in all Ages and the language of all Parliaments themselves It was the judgment of the Parliament in the 2 year of King Hen. 5. remembred and mentioned by the King in his Answer to the 19 Propositions That it is of the Kings regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself which was the forme then usuall to present those desires which by the Kings approbation and consent were enacted into Laws It was the language of the Law in the 36 year of K. H. 6. reported by my Lord Dyer that the King is the head and that the Lords are chief and principall Members and the Commons to wit the Knights Citizens and Burgesses the inferiour Members and that they all make the Body of Parliament and doubtlesse the Priviledge of Parliament was not in that time held so sacred a thing when an Action of Debt was brought against the Sheriffe of Cornwall for having discharged one Trewynnard a Burgesse of Parliament taken in Execution during the Session of Parliament upon a Writ of priviledge directed to the said Sheriffe and the Kings Bench where the Action was brought and the Sheriffe justified was in those daies the proper place to judge what was the priviledge of Parliament the Law being the most proper Judge of that priviledge as well as of all other rights It is the language of the Authour of Modus tenendi Parliamentum who lived before the time of William the Conquerour and it is the language of Sir Edw. Coke in the Chapter of the high Court of Parliament which was published by a speciall Order of the House of Commons since the beginning of this Parliament that there is no Act of Parliament but must have the consent of the Lords the Commons and the royall assent of the King and the same Sir Edward Coke saies in the 11. p. of that Chapter that Innovations and Novelties in Parliamentary proceedings are most dangerous and to be refused It is the language of the Parliament in the 1 year of King James when to the first Act that was past they desired His Majesties royall assent without which they say it can neither be compleat or perfect nor remaine to all posterity c. Lastly it is the language of this present Parliament and in a time in which they were not very modest in their pretences for in their Declaration of the 19 of May they acknowledge that by the constitution of this Kingdome the power is in His Majesty and Parliament together albeit they conclude in the same Declaration that if He refused to
without it could never probably have been again exercised in this Kingdome And here the people cannot enough observe and wonder that these grievances should in this manner be objected against the King who removed and abolished them in a time when and by those who have renued and improved the same and introduced new vexations upon His Subjects in an illimited manner and intolerable proportion That They should complain of a designe of bringing in German Horse to enslave us which if any such designs were by the goodnesse of the King was frustrated and rejected who have actually brought in an Army of all Rations upon us and have no pretence of continuing it but that they may subdue us dissolve the Government of the Kingdome and make us Slaves to their own passions and appetite That They should remember the King of inforced Loanes Privy Seales Coat and Conduct mony who since the same have been abrogated by Him have by their Ordinance compelled men to lend the Fifth and the Twentieth part of their Estates for the maintenance of their Armies that fifth and twentieth part to be rated according to such proportion as certain persons named by them shall assesse and if any person shall refuse to pay the mony so assessed upon him then Collectors shall leavy it by distresse and for want of distresse he shall be committed to prison with such circumstances of severity and uncharitablenesse as were never exercised by any Royall Command That They should complaine of the ingrossing of Gunpowder in which His Majesty did nothing but what by His legall Prerogative He might do who by their Ordinance of the 3 of April 1644. for the making of Salt-peter and by the other of the 7 of Febr. 1645. for making Gun-powder have established all those clauses in His Majesties Commission of which there was any colour of complaint to Projectors of their owne with so much worse circumstances as the jurisdiction their Committees exercise to whom appeales are to be made is more grievous chargeable and insupportable then that was of the Councell Table That They should mention the Patent of Wine which was to pay forty Shillings upon the Tun to His Majesty when by the Ordinance of the 22 of July 1643. they have laid an imposition upon it of six pounds over and above all Customes and by the Ordinance of the 9 of October following have authorized the Vintners to sell it at as great and some at greater prices then was ever tolerated during the time of His Majesties imposition Lastly to omit the other particulars of Salt Allum Tobacco and the rest upon every one of which they have by their particular Ordinances laid much heavier taxes then was thought of in those times that they should reproach the King with the Ship mony which by their own computation came not to above 200000l by the year as the compendium of all oppression and slavery for which His Majesty had a judgment in a Court of Law before all the Judges of England and which was alwaies leavied by the due formes of Law and which His Majesty when He was informed of the injustice of it frankly quitted and did His best to pull it up by the roots that no branch of it may hereafter grow up to the disquiet of His people when themselves have almost ever since by that one Ordinance of the 1 of March 1642. imposed a Weekly tax upon the Kingdome of three and thirty thousand five hundred and eighteen pounds which in the year amounts to no lesse then one million seven hundred forty two thousand nine hundred and odde pounds to which they have since added by their Ordinance of the 18 of October 1644. for the relief of the Brittish Army in Ireland a Weekly tax upon the Kingdome of three thousand eight hundred pounds w ch in the year comes to one hundred ninety seven thousand six hundred odde pounds as much as ever Ship mony arose to over and above Free-quarter and all their other Orders for Sequestration and twentieth part and the cruell circumstances in the executing those and all other Ordinances against the irregular doing whereof they will allow no Appeale to the Judges though of their own making but reserve the intire Connusance and direction to themselves It is pity that parenthesis of the Spanish Fleet with a great Army therein brought into the Downes 1639. of which out of their goodnesse they say they will say nothing should receive no Answer That having been often unskilfully spoken of as it is now insinuated as a designe against England whereas they who know any thing know that Fleet was bound from Spaine to Flanders with mony to pay their Army and new leavied Souldiers to recruit it of which there was the greater number because it was purposed to carry many old Soldiers from thence to Catalonia but all those Souldiers in the Fleet were without Armes and without Officers and the Fleet so far from being provided for an invasion that in a little Fight with the Hollanders before the winde brought them into the Downes they had so near spent their Powder that they had a supply for their mony from London which the King could not in honour and justice deny the Hollanders themselves offering them what Powder they wanted for ready mony 6. Next follows the torture our bodies heretofore suffered by whipping cutting off Eares Pillories and the like with close imprisonment aggravated with the Dominion exercised over our Soules by Oathes Excommunications new Canons c. by which they would have it concluded that His Majesties Government was full of cruelty and oppression It is an undeniable evidence of the excellent Government Sobriety and obedience of that time that there were not above six infamous persons from the beginning of His Majesties Reigne to the first day of this unhappy Parliament who were publickly taken notice of to have merited those corporall punishments and shame and of the mercy of that time that those suffered no greater there being not one of them who was not guilty of sedition to that degree that by the Law they were liable to heavier judgments then they underwent And for the Oathes Excommunications Ceremonies and Canons they were no other and no otherwise exercised then was agreeable to the Laws and the Government established Of and for which the Sects Schismes and Heresies the dissolutenesse profanenesse and impiety which have followed that since blessed Order hath bin discountenanced and suppressed hath made a fuller and more sensible Vindication then any discourse can doe And here the people will again take notice that these Judgments and proceedings which alwaies passed in due form of Law in Courts of Justice and in which no innocent man can pretend to have suffered are objected against the King by those who without any colour of jurisdiction but what themselves have assumed and usurped in stead of inflicting any ordinary punishment take away the lives of their fellow
mention was made of bringing up the Army to London and making sure the Tower and as soon rejected as proposed and onely proposed as their evidence saies to shew the vanity and danger of other Propositions And that when the King was made acquainted with it He said those waies were vain and foolish and that they should think of them no more That the Petition it self which His Majesty approved was not above the size of Petitions and very much modester then any one Petition received by the Authors of this Declaration with approbation appears by the Petition it self to be read in the 563 pag. of the 1 vol. of the Collect. of Ord. published by themselves which being directed to the two Houses as well as to the King took notice of the seditious Tumults which they said had beset the Parliament and White-Hall it self not onely to the prejudice of that freedome which is necessary to great Councells and Judicatories but possibly to some personall danger of His sacred Majesty and Peers and therefore desired that the Ring-leaders of those Tumults might be punished and that His Majesty and the Parliament might be secured from such insolencies hereafter for the suppressing of which they offered themselves to wait on them if they pleased which hath not been since thought so unnaturall a security an Army being since called up and kept about them upon the same pretences to the same purpose of which more must be said anon And for the strangeness suggested that three Gentlemen should flee beyond Sea upon discovery of a modest Petition it is no wonder when men were every day imprisoned ruined and destroyed upon the most triviall discoveries and unreasonable conjectures and apprehensions that men desired to avoid their Judgment who had it in their power to put what interpretation they pleased upon any discovery and to inflict what punishment they thought fit upon such interpretation or that the King contributed His allowance to remove His Servants from such a Tribunall It is a wonderfull presumption these men have upon the credulity of the people that they will not examine the truth of any thing they alleage how easie soever it is to disprove them otherwise they would not affirme that at the meeting of Officers at Burrough-Bridge Propositions were made and private instructions brought from the King whereas it appears by their own evidence that Capt. Chudleigh who is supposed to have brought those Propositions thither and what they were appears not did not receive those Propositions from the King and that when he kissed the Kings hand His Majesty spake not a word to him of those Propositions which without doubt He would have done if He had been privy to or expected any thing from His agitation it being not alleaged that there was any other Officer of the Army at that time so immediatly imployed or trusted in that Agitation And as there hath not been the least colourable evidence in any of the Depositions then or since published which can reflect upon the King And as there is much in Master Goring's second Examination and other Depositions suppressed by them which if produced would manifest that there was never any such designe as is suggested and that to the very Communication concerning it the King was not any way privy and dis-liked it when he heard of it So it was observed then and not a little wondred at that Capt. Chudleigh who was the principall person imployed and who confesses in his Examination of the 10 of May that he used all his power to incense the Army against the Parliament and to kindle a zeale in them towards the King was so far from being in disfavour with them that he was immediately imployed by them into Ireland and afterwards re-called thence and trusted in the second if not the first Command in the West against the King which they would not have done if he had been in that manner first engaged by His Majesty For the discourse of the Prince his meeting the Army with the Earle of Newcastle and a body of Horse it is proved to be by a private Major in the Army who had not only any relation to the King but at that time had never spoken word with His Majesty in his life and had no more ground then the other of the designe for some French to seize on Portsmouth which is so ridiculous that it needs no other Answer then repeating it 14. The Offers made to the Scots of the plunder of London if they would advance or of four Northerne Counties with three hundred thousand pounds or Iewels of great value but to stand Newters in that designe is another impossible branch of this Charge for which there appears not the least pretence of proof in any thing published by them and they have not been tender of publishing all they know or imagined but that Master Oneale asked Sir Jacob Ashly what if the Scots could be made Newtrall It is not imaginable that the King knew not the temper of that time which he so grievously felt well enough to conclude that the Parliament and the Scots were too fast combined to be sever'd for any interest of his and the offer of four Northern Counties a thing so confessedly out of the King's power to give is so senslesse a calumny that no man out of the highest fit of madnesse can believe it and they to whom this Offer is supposed to be made would in all this time have accused the King of it if they had been able to justifie any thing like it However it is to be observed that though these men hold these imaginable overtures and designes to be very hainous crimes in the King they reckon the reducing such designes into reall and compleat execution no Offences in themselves and that though the King may not wish His Subjects of Scotland to stand newters in the differences between His Majesty and His English people yet it is no fault in them to engage that Nation to assist them in Armes against the Soveraigne of both Kingdomes and though a cursory discourse by other men of bringing up the Army to awe the Parliament be alleaged as a breach of trust against the King never to be forgotten yet the actuall bringing up an Army upon them and thereby awing it so far as the driving away many Members and making those who remained do any thing that Army directs is no offence in them either against the freedome or priviledge of Parliament To that clause His Majesty not being perswaded by their Petitions to defer His journey into Scotland in the year 1641. there needs no Answer then the remembring His Majesties owne words in His Declaration of the 12. of August which are these We gave them warning that if there were any more good Bills which they desired might passe for the benefit of Our Subjects We wished they might be made ready against such a time when We resolved according
it was done and in both cases by the help of God and the Law he would have justice or lose his life in the requiring it so that certainly the King never concealed or dissembled his purposes and accordingly he did indeed toward the middle of Iuly go with his Guards to Beverly having some reason to believe that Sir Iohn Hotham had repented himself of the crime he had committed and would have repaired it as far as he had been able of which failing to his own miserable destruction without attempting to force it his Majesty again returned to Yorke Having made it now plainly appear how falsly and groundlesly his Majesty is reproached with the least tergiversation or swarving from his promises or professions which no Prince ever more precisely and religiously observed it will be but a little expence of time again to examine how punctuall these conscientious reprehenders of their Soveraigne have been in the observation of what they have sworn or said In the first Remonstrance of the House of Commons of the State of the Kingdome they declare that it is far from their purpose or desire to let loose the golden reines of discipline and government in the Church to have private persons or particular Congregations to take up what forme of divine Service they please for they said they held it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realme a conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyne In their Declaration of the 19 of May speaking of the Bill for the continuance of this Parliament they say We are resolved the gratious favour His Majesty expressed in that Bill and the advantage and security which thereby we have from being dissolved shall not encourage us to do any thing which otherwise had not been fit to have been done In the conclusion of their Declaration of the 26 of May 1642. apprehending very justly that their expressions there would beget at least a great suspition of their loyalty they say They doubt not but it shall in the end appear to all the world that their endeavours have been most hearty and sincere for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Kings just Prerogatives the Lawes and Liberties of the Land and the Priviledges of Parliament in which endeavours by the grace of God they would still persist though they should perish in the worke In their Declaration of the 14 of Iune 1642. the Lords and Commons doe declare That the designe of those Propositions for Plate and Money is to maintain the Protestant Religion the King's Authority and Person in His Royall dignity the free course of Iustice the Laws of the Land the Peace of the Kingdome and Priviledges of Parliament As they have observed these and other their professions to the King and the Publique so they have as well kept their promises to the people in their Propositions of the 10 of Iune 1642. for bringing in Mony or Plate the Lords and Commons do declare That no mans affection shall be measured according to the proportion of his offer so that he expresse his good will to the Service in any proportion whatsoever the first designe was to involve as many as they could in the guilt how small soever the supply was but on the 29 of November following the same Lords and Commons appointed Six persons who or any Four of them should have power to assesse all such persons as were of ability and had not contributed and all such as had contributed yet not according to their ability to pay such summe or sums of mony according to their estates as the Assessors or any Four of them should think fit and reasonable so as the same exceeded not the twentieth part of their Estates Infinite examples of this kind may be produced which are the lesse necessary because whosoever will take the pains to read their own Declarations and Ordinances shall not be able to find one protestation or profession made by them to God Almighty in the matter of Religion or to the King in point of duty and obedience or one promise to the people in matter of Liberty Law and Iustice so neer pursued by them as that they have ever done one composed Act in Order to the performance of either of them which very true assertion shall conclude this Answer to that reproach of his Majesties not having made good his Protestations 21. The next Charge is That His Majesty proclaimed them Traytors and Rebels setting up His Standard against the Parliament which never any King of England they say did before Himself His Majesty never did nor could proclaime this Parliament Traytors he well knew besides his own being the head of it that four parts of five of the House of Peers were never present at any of those trayterous conclusions and that above a major part of the House of Commons was alwaies absent and that of those who were present there were many who still opposed or dissented from every unlawfull act and therefore it were very strange if all those innocent men of whom the Parliament consisted as well as of the rest should have been proclaimed Rebels and Traytors for the acts of a few seditious persons who were upon all occasions named and if the Parliament were ever proclaimed Traytors it was by them only who presumptuously sheltred their rebellious acts under that venerable name and who declared that whatsoever violence should be used either against those who exercise the Militia or against Hull they could not but believe it as done against the Parliament They should have named one person proclaimed Rebell or Traytor by the King who is not adjudged to be such by the Law The King never proclaimed Sir Iohn Hotham Traytor though it may be he was guilty of many treasonable acts before till he shut the Gates of Hull against him and with armed men kept his Majesty from thence and besides the concurrent testimony of all Judgments at Law it appears and is determined by the Lord Chief Justice Coke published by the House of Commons this Parliament in his Chapter of High Treason That if any with strength and weapons invasive and defensive doth hold and defend a Castle or Fort against the King and His power this is leavying of War against the King within the Statute of the 25 year of Edw. 3. The King proclaimed not those Rebels or Traytors who Voted That they would raise an Army and that the Earl of Essex should be Generall of that Army what ever he might have done nor the Earle of Essex himself a Traytor upon those Votes untill he had accepted that title and command of Captaine Generall and in that quality appeared amongst the Souldiers animating and encouraging them in their trayterous and rebellious designes as appears by his Majesties Proclamation of the 9 of August 1642. by which he was first proclaimed Traytor and there was no other way to clear the Earle of Essex from being
the world may judge are aggravated by the King 's so often refusing their addresses for peace the truth of which suggestions though for method sake the Order of their Declaration hath been inverted must be now considered and all of that kind which is scattered and dis-jointed in the Declaration shal for the same method sake be gathered together and resolved and in this Argument they seem to think they are so much upon the advantage ground that they are rather to make an Apology to the world for having so often made Addresses to their King then for resolving to doe so no more that is for enduring so long to be Subjects then for resolving hereafter to be so no more The truth is they never yet made any one addresse for peace onely somtime offered to receive his Crown if his Majesty would give it up to them without putting them to fight more for it for other sense or interpretation no Propositions yet ever sent to Him can bear and whereas they say they must not be so unthankfull to God as to forget they were never forced to any Treaty it is affirmed that there are not six Members who concur in this Declaration who ever gave their consent to any Treaty that hath yet been but when they were forced by the major part to consent to it they were so unthankfull to God for the opportunity of restoring a blessed peace to their Country that they framed such Propositions and clogged their Commissioners with such Instructions as made any Agreement impossible Though no Arithmetique but their own can reckon those Seven times in which they have made such applications to the King and tendred such Propositions that might occasion the world to judge they had not only yeilded up to their wills and affections but their reason also and judgment for obtaining a true peace and accommodation yet it will be no hard matter shortly to recollect the overtures which have bin made on both sides and thence it may best appear whether the King never yet offred any thing fit for them to receive or would accept of any tender fit for them to make What Propositions were made by them to prevent the War need not be remembred who ever reads the nineteen sent to Him to Yorke will scarce be able to name one Soveraigne power that was not there demanded from him nor can they now make Him lesse a King then He should have been if He had consented to those After His Standard was set up and by that his Majesty had shewed that He would not tamely be stripped of His Royall power without doing His best to defend it He sent a Message before bloud was yet drawn from Nottingham to desire that some fit persons might be inabled by them to treat with the like number to be authorized by His Majesty in such a manner and with such freedome of debate as might best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desired The peace of the Kingdome to which gracious overture from His Majesty the Answer was that untill the King called in His Proclamations and Declarations and took down His Standard they could give Him no Answer And at the same time published a Declar to the Kingdome That they would not lay down their Arms untill the King should withdraw His protection from all such persons as had been voted by both Houses to be Delinquents or should be voted to be such that their Estates might be disposed to the defraying of the charges the Common-wealth had been put to And who they meant by those Delinquents they had in a former Declaration to the Inhabitants of York-shire expressed that all persons should have reparation out of the Estates of all such persons in any part of the Kingdome whatsoever who had withdrawn themselves to Yorke and should persist to serve the King c. This was one of their Applications in which they had yeilded up their wills and affections and their reason and judgment for obtaining peace They say they have cause to remember that the King somtimes denied to receive their humble Petitions for peace the which they had rather should be believed in grosse then trouble themselves with setting down the time and manner when it was done but out of their former writings it is no hard matter to guesse what they meane When the KING was at Shrewsbury and the Earle of Essex at Worcester towards the end of September 1642. the two Houses sent a Petition to their Generall to be presented to His Majesty in some safe and honourable way In which Petition they most humbly besought his Majesty to withdraw His Person from His own Army and to leave them to be suppressed by that power which they had sent against them and that He would in peace and safety without His Forces return to His Parliament The Earl of Essex by Letter to the Earle of Dorset who then attended his Majesty intimated that He had a Petition from both Houses to be delivered to his Majesty and for that purpose desired a safe Conduct for those who should be sent with it The Earle of Dorset by his Majesties command returned Answer That as He had never refused to receive any Petition from His Houses of Parliament so He should be ready to give such a reception and Answer to this as should be fit and that the Bringers of it should come and go with safety onely He required that none of those persons whom He had particularly accused of High Treason which at that time were very few should by colour of that Petition be imployed to His Majesty This Answer was declared to be a breach of priviledge and so that Petition which as His Majesty saies in His Answer to the Declaration of the 22 of October was fitter to be delivered after a Battle and full Conquest of Him then in the head of His Army when it might seem somwhat in His power whether He would be deposed or no was never delivered to his Majesty and this is the Petition which they now say He somtimes denied to receive They say that when they desired Him to appoint a place for a Committee of both Houses to attend His Majesty with Propositions for Peace He named Windsor promising to abide thereabouts till they came to Him but presently marched forward so neer London that He had almost surprized it whilst He had so ingaged Himself for a Treaty This likewise refers to the Petition sent to his Majesty at Colebrooke and all the circumstances were fully answered by his Majesty in his Declaration upon that occasion when this aspertion was first unreasonably cast upon Him It is true after the Battle at Edge-hill when they could no longer perswade their friends of the City that the King's Forces were scattered and their Army in pursuit of Him but in stead thereof they had pregnant evidence that his Majesties Army was marching towards them and was possessed
require to raise what Monies they please and in what way they please All the people of England will say that which the Army said honestly in their Representation agreed upon at Newmarket on the 4 5 of June against the Ordinance of Indempnity We shall be sorry that our relief should be the occasion of setting up more Arbitrary Courts then there are already with so large a power of imprisoning any Free-men of England as this Bill gives let the persons intrusted appear never so just and faithfull Indeed that is asked of his Majesty by this Bill which the King can neither give nor they receive the King cannot give away His Dominion nor make His Subjects subject to any other Prince or power then to that under which they were born no man believes that the King can transfer His Soveraigne power to the French King or the King of Spaine or to the States of the united Provinces nor by the same reason can He transfer it to the States at Westminster And the learned and wise Grotius who will by no means endure that Subjects should take Armes against their Princes upon any specious pretences whatsoever concludes Si rex tradere regnum aut subjicere moliatur quin ei resisti in hoc possit non dubito aliud enim est imperium aliud habendi modus qui ne mutetur obstare potest populus to the which he applies that of Seneca Etsi parendum in omnibus patri in eo non parendum quò efficitur ne pater sit And it may be this may be the only case in which Subjects may take up defensive Armes that they may continue Subjects for without doubt no King hath power not to be a King because by devesting himselfe he gives away the right which belongs to others their title to and interest in his protection The two Houses themselves seemed to be of opinion when in their Declaration of the 27 of May 1642. they said the King by his Soveraignty is not enabled to destroy His people but to protect and defend them and the high Court of Parliament and all other His Majesties Officers and Ministers ought to be subservient to that power and authority which Law hath placed in His Majesty to that purpose though He Himself in His own Person should neglect the same So that by their own judgment and confession it is not in the King's power to part with that which they ask of Him and it is very probable if they could have prevailed with Him to do it they would before now have added it to His charge as the greatest breach of trust that ever King was guilty of They cannot receive what they ask if the King would give it in the Journall of the House of Commons they will find a Protestation entred by themselves in the third year of this King when the Petition of Right was depending in the debating whereof some expressions had been used which were capable of an ill interpretation That they neither meant nor had power to hurt the King's Prerogative And the Lord chief Justice Coke in the fourth part of his Institutes published by their Order since the beginning of this Parliament saies That it was declared in the 42 year of King Edw. 3. by the Lords and Commons in full Parliament that they could not assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the disherison of the King and his Crowne whereunto they were sworne And Judge Hutton in his Argument against Ship-mony printed likewise by their Order since this Parliament agrees expresly That the power of making War Leagues the power of the Coyne and the Value of the Coynes usurped likewise by these Declarers and many other Monarchicall powers and prerogatives which to be taken away were against naturall reason and are incidents so inseparable that they cannot be taken away by Parliament To which may be added the authority of a more modern Author who uses to be of the most powerfull opinion Mr. Martin who saies that the Parliament it self hath not in his humble opinion authority enough to erect another authority equall to it self And these ambitious men who would impiously grasp the Soveraign power into their hands may remember the fate which attended that Ordinance in the time of King Hen. 3. to which that King metu incarcerationis perpetuae compulsus est consentire and by which the care and government of the Kingdom was put into the hands of four and twenty how unspeakable miseries befell the Kingdom thereby and that in a short time there grew so great faction and animosity amongst themselves that the major part desired the Ordinance might be repealed and the King restored to His just power that they who refused came to miserable ends and their Families were destroyed with them and the Kingdome knew no peace happinesse or quiet till all submission and acknowledgment and reparation was made to the King and that they got most reputation who were most forward to return to their duty So that it is believed if the King would transfer these powers though many persons of honour and fortune have been unhappily seduced into this combination that in truth no one of those would submit to bear a part of that insupportable burthen and that none would venture to act a part in this administration but such whose names were scarce heard of or persons known before these distractions If the King should consent to another of their four Bils He should subvert the whole foundations of government and leave Himself Posterity and the Kingdome without security when the fire that now burns is extinguished by making Rebellion the legitimate Child of the Law for if what these men have done be lawfull and just and the grounds upon which they have done it be justifiable the like may be done again and besides this He must acknowledge and declare all those who have served Him faithfully and out of the most abstracted considerations of Conscience and Honour to be wicked and guilty men and so render those glorious persons who have payed the full debt they owed to His Majesty and their Country by loosing their lives in His righteous cause and whose memories must be kept fresh and pretious to succeeding ages infamous after their deaths by declaring that they did ill for the doing whereof and the irreparable prejudice that would accrue thereby to truth innocence honour and justice all the Empires of the world would be a cheap and vile recompence Nor can this impossible demand be made reasonable by saying It would be a base and dishonourable thing for the Houses of Parliament being in that condition they are to have treated under the Gallows to have treated as Traytors their cause being not justified nor the Declarations against them as Rebels recalled It would be a much more base and dishonourable thing to renounce the Old and New Testament and declare that they are not the word of God
divide and destroy the Parliament and the City of London under the notion of peace and by engaging them in a Treaty of peace without the advice and consent of their Brethren of Scotland which he said would be contrary to the late Articles solemnly agreed upon by both Kingdomes and to the perpetuall dishonour of this Nation by breach of their Publique Faith engaged therein to that Nation so that the two Houses having given their judgment in the point the King hath great reason if He had no other to have the whole well debated before Him and the severall interests weighed and agreed upon before He give His consent to any particulars which will else produce more mischief then His refusing all can possibly doe Nor will these and their other extravagant and licentious demands be better justified by their undervaluing the Kings present power in their insolent question in their late Declaration concerning the Scots Commissioners which in truth throughout is but a paraphrase upon that Speech of Demetrius to his Companions of the like occupation Sirs you know that by this craft we have our wealth what can the King give them but what they have already It is not out of their duty or good will to Him that they make any Application to Him and if they did indeed believe that His Majesty could give them nothing but what they have already He should hear no more from them but they very well know they have yet nothing except He give them more and that the man that is robbed and spoyled of all that He hath when He hath procured a pardon for and given a Release to the Thieves and Robbers He hath given them more then they had before and that which onely can make what they had before of benefit and advantage to them they know and will feel the judgment upon the wicked man in Job He hath swallowed down Riches and he shall vomit them up again God shall cast them out of his belly Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor Because he hath violently taken away a house which he builded not In the fulnesse of his sufficiency he shall be in straits That all their reproachings and revilings with which they have triumphed over the Lords Anointed must come into their Bowels like water and like Oyle into their bones And that nothing can restore and preserve them but the Antidotes and Cordials and Balme which the King only can Administer they know very well that even the most unfortunate Kings that ever have been in England could never be destroyed without their own consent and that all their power and strength and successe though for a time it may oppresse can never subdue the Crown without its owne being accessary to its own ruine and the King very well knows that what He yet suffers is not through His own default but by such a defection as may determine all the Empires of the world and that in the unspeakable miseries which all His good Subjects have undergone He is yet innocent the conscience whereof hath refreshed Him in all His sufferings and maketh Him superiour to their insolence contempt and Tyranny and keeps Him constant to His Princely and pious resolution but that if by any unhappy consent of His own such an establishment shall be made as shall expose Himself His Posterity and people to misery it will lie all upon His own account and rob Him of that peace of mind which He now enjoyes and values above all the considerations of the world well knowing that God requires the same and no more of Him then he did of his servant Joshuah Only be thou strong and very couragious that thou mayest observe to doe according to all the Law which Moses my servant commanded thee turne not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest Honest men and good Christians will be lesse moved with their bold and presumptuous conclusion which they have learned from their new Confederates the Turkes That God himself hath given his Verdict on their sides in their successes not unlike the Logick used by Dionysius who because he had a good gale of wind at Sea after he had sacked the Temple of Proserpine concluded That the immortall Gods favoured Sacriledge It is very true they have been the instruments of Gods heavy judgments upon a most sinfull people in very wonderfull successes yet if they would believe Solomon they would find There is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt and prosperity was never yet thought a good argument of mens piety or being in the right and yet if these men did enough think of God Almighty and seriously revolve the works of his owne hand throughout this Rebellion and since they had looked upon themselves as Conquerours they would be so far from thinking that he had given his Verdict on their side that they would conclude that he hath therefore onely suffered to prosper to this degree that his owne power and immediate hand might be more cleerly discerned and manifested in their destruction and that the cause might appear to be his own by his most miraculous vindication of it If Master Hambden had been lesse active and passionate in the businesse of the Militia which might have proceeded from naturall reason and reformation of his understanding the judgment and Verdict of God would not have been so visible as it was in the loosing his life in that very Field in which he first presumed to execute that Ordinance against the King If Sir John Hotham had never denied his Majesty entrance into and shut the Gates of Hull against Him from which naturall Allegiance and civill prudence might have restrained him the judgment and Verdict of God had been lesse evident then it was when after he had wished that God would destroy him and his posterity if he proved not faithfull to the King at the same time that he had planted his Cannon against him he and his Son were miserably executed by the judgment of those who but by his Treason could never have been enabled to have exercised that jurisdiction and that having it in his power he should perfidiously decline to serve his Majesty and afterwards loose his head for desiring to do it when he had no power to perform it They who remember the affected virulency of Sir Alexander Carew against the King and all those who adhered to him and how passionately he extolled and magnified the perjury and treachery of a Servant as if he had done his duty to the Kingdome by being false to his Master the King and that this man afterwards should by the treachery of his Servant be betrayed and lose his head by their judgments for whose sakes he had forfeited it to the King cannot but think the Verdict of God more visible then if he had contained himself within the due limits of his obedience and
say said upon this Argument Not only to be denied the right and the liberty to Petition but withall by a censure no lesse then capitall to be exposed to a forfeiture of Estate liberty life and all for but going to aske what a man conceives to be his due and this without ever asking or hearing what he can say in his excuse would carry so high a face of injustice oppression and tyranny as is not easie to be exampled in the proceedings of the most corrupt and arbitrary Courts towards the meanest single man And they shall do well to remember their own judgment in their Remonstrance of the 26 of May 1642. in these words If the solemn proclaiming a man Traytor signifie any thing it puts a man and all those that any way aide assist or adhere to him into the same condition of Traytors and draws upon him all the consequences of Treason and if this may be done by Law without due processe of Law the Subject hath a very poor defence of the Law and a very small if any proportion of Liberty thereby and it is as little satisfaction to a man that shall be exposed to such penalties by that Declaration of him to be a Traytor to say he shall have a legall triall afterwards as it is to condemn a man first and trie him afterwards All the particulars of their Declaration are now examined and however these desperate men may flatter themselves and how long soever they shall continue in this their damnable Apostasie the present age and posterity will believe that in stead of rendring and making the KING appear unworthy of or unequall to the high Office and charge to which God hath advanced Him they have in truth vindicated Him from all those aspertions and blemishes their malice had cast on Him and that He appears the most worthy the great trust He was born to if He had no other title to it then His admirable virtue perfection After the boldest strictest inquisition that was ever made into the life manners of any Gentleman after their examining all the actions and all the words of his life with impious licence perverting and torturing those actions and words with their unreasonable glosses and interpretations after their breaking into His Chamber by corrupting His neerest Servants and thereby knowing what in any passion or indisposition He hath said or done After their opening His breast and examining His most reserved thoughts by searching His Cabinets perusing His Letters even those He had written in cipher to His dearest Consort the Queen and His private memorials They have not been able to fix a crime or error upon Him which would draw a blush from the modestest cheek nor by all their threats and all their promises to shake His pious and magnanimous resolutions so that in truth their main trouble and vexation is no other then David heretofore gave Saul who when he saw that he behaved himself very wisely he was afraid of him But these miserable men must know that if the King were as unjust and as oppressing as they would have Him believed to be or as the best of them would be if he were in His place they have not any title or qualification to use Him as they have done For if it were lawfull for Subjects to take up Armes against their Soveraign upon pretence that He were injurious and performed not the duty and Office of a King besides the confusion that must follow upon their assuming the judgment in that case they would have it in their power to resist and avoid one of the greatest and most immediate judgments which God sends to correct and chastise a Nation which hath provoked him to displeasure And the Egyptians wil I give over into the hand of a cruel Lord and a fierce King shal rule over them saies God himself by the Prophet Isaiah He that can destroy a Nation by what judgement he pleases he that can humble this people by a famine and destroy that by a plague may if he think fit chuse to doe either by the cruelty and fiercenesse of a King I gave thee a King in mine anger saies the same Spirit by the Prophet Hosea Now if it were lawful for us to be angry with that King whō God hath in his anger given us or to be fierce against him whose fiercenesse the Lord hath sent as his judgment upon us we might easily elude those sentences of his wrath and drive those afflictions from us by our own courage without waiting his leisure for our redemption And it may be no ill reason of that expression in the Prophet Samuel that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft that as men go to Witches and Witches go to the Devill to get or discover somewhat which God would not have them get or discover so they who rebell endeavour by the help of the Devil to be too hard for God Almighty and to avoid by their own skill and activity a calamity by which God meant to reclaim them The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death but a wise man will pacifie it saies Solomon Not oppose and resist or rebell against it and yet the same Solomon tels us that wrath is cruell There is an ingredient of injustice of uncharitablenesse of cruelty in all wrath and yet the wise man the honest just conscientious man thinks of nothing but pacifying it gentlenesse application and humility should be used to soften and mollifie his wrath Indeed so much is due to any wrath A wise and a charitable man will take so much pains to reform and compose the wrath and distemper of his Neighbour of his equall but there is much more to be done to the wrath of a King and Tremelius extends this care of the wise man much further then such a pacifying and renders this Text Vir sapiens expiabit eam let this wrath be never so unjust so unreasonable so immerited the wise man expiabit eam he will behave himself as if the fault were in him as if he had provoked and incensed the King to that wrath he will expiate he will give satisfaction by prayer by submission by any sacrifice that may pacifie and be acceptable to the offended Majesty and by an exact and punctuall performance of what becomes a Subject convince the King of the errour and mistake of his passion They who under pretence of innocence and of faultlesnesse neglect and contemn the anger and displeasure of Princes are not innocent enough nor look on Majesty with that reverence which becomes them Solomons wise man will expiate the Kings wrath from what fountain of passion or prejudice soever it proceeds It cannot be denied that unjust cruell and unmercifull Princes are great afflictions and judgments upon a people yet the calamities under such are much more supportable then the confusion without any and therefore God frequently exercised his peculiar and chosen people with
profane wicked and tyrannicall Kings and refreshed them again with pious and devout and just Princes but it was a signall mark of their desolation when he declared that the Children of Israel should abide many daies without a King and without a Prince and it was a sure signe when they had no King that they had not feared the Lord and then what should a King do to them If the most notable Ministers of confusion and they who apprehend least the effects of it would but a little consider in their own stations the misery and desolation that must inevitably attend the breach of Order and subjection in little If the Father thought of the impossibility of living in his own house if his Wife and Children might follow the dictates of their own reasons and wills and appetites without observing his rule and directions If the Master would consider the intolerablenesse of his condition if his Servants might question dispute and contemn his commands and act positively against them they would be the more competent Considerers of the mischiefs and miseries that must befall Kingdomes and Common-wealths If Subjects may Rebell against the power and authority of Princes whom God hath appointed to governe over them There is not one of these Declarers who doth not think he hath a prerogative vested in him by nature It is the prerogative of the Husband the Father the Master not to have his pleasure disputed by his Wife his Child his Servant whose piety consists in obedience yet they cannot endure the mention of the Kings prerogative by and under which only it is possible for them to enjoy theirs It was a wel-weighed scoffe by which Lycurgus convinced him who desired him to establish a popular Government in Lacedemon Begin said he first to do it in thine own house and truly though these Ephori whose profession is to curb the power of Kings intended nothing lesse then to part with the least tittle of their own just authority They are appealed to whether they have not felt that power insensibly shrink from them whilst they have been ambitiously grasping at that belonged not to them Is the piety of Children and the obedience of Servants the same it was before these daies of licence Hath not God sent the same defection of reverence kindnesse and affectionate inclinations into Families to the rooting up and extirpating of all possible joy and delight in each other which the heads of those Families have cherished and countenanced in the State It may be there would not be a better or an easier expedient to reduce our selves and recover that Allegiance we have forsaken then by sadly waighing and considering the effects and kinds and species of Gods judgments upon us since we have been guilty of that breach If every Father whose soule hath been grieved and afflicted with the pertinacious undutifulnesse of a Child would believe as he hath great reason to do that God hath sent that perversnesse and obstinacy into his own bowels to punish his peremptory disobedience to the Father of the Kingdom his Soveraign Lord the King If every Master of a Family who hath been injured betrayed and oppressed by the treachery infidelity or perjury of a Servant would remember how false unfaithfull and forsworn he hath been to his Master the King and conclude that his Servant was but the Minister of Gods vengeance upon him for that transgression If the whole Nation would consider the scorn contempt and infamy it now endures and suffers under with all Nations Christian and Heathen in the known world and confesse that God hath sent that heavy judgment upon them for their contempt of him for whose sake they were owned and taken notice of for a Nation It would not be possible but we should bring our selves to that true remorse of conscience for the ill we have done that God would be wrought upon to take off the ill we have suffered and we could not entertaine a fond hope of injoying the least prosperity our selves without restoring to the King what hath been rebelliously taken from Him They say that though they have made those resolutions of making no more applications to the King yet they will use their utmost endeavours to settle the present Government as may best stand with the peace and happiness of this Kingdome What the present Government is no man understands and therefore cannot know what that peace and happinesse shall be which they intend shall accrue to the Kingdome by it The little Cabinet of Peers for the House is shrunk into that proportion hath no share in it as appeares by the giving possession of the Navy to Rainsborough without their consent after they had asked it and by their doing many other things of high moment without so much as asking their concurrence That it is not in the Commons is as plain by their repealing such Acts of their owne and making others as the Army requires them to doe And that the Army is not possest of it needs no other Argument then the invasion and violation of all the Articles ever made by the Army upon any Surrender which if the power were in them would for their own honour have been observed so that the endeavour they promise to use to settle the present Government is to take an effectuall care that all Laws and legall Authority may for the present be so suppressed that there may be no Government at all And truly it may be in their power for some time to improve the confusion that is upon us and to draw on the desolation which attends us but to settle any kind of Government which can bring peace or any degree of happinesse to the languishing Kingdome nay which can be any security to themselves and their posterity except they submit to the good old one under which they were born cannot be within their power nor sink into their reasonable hope Nothing is more demonstrable then that they can never establish a peace to the Kingdome or any security to themselves but by restoring the just power to the King and dutifully submitting and joyning themselves to his protection and it is as manifest that by that way they may restore the Kingdome to peace and preserve themselves and Families and Posterities in full security and honour The examination and cleering of which two Propositions shall conclude this discourse The reverence and superstition which the people generally paid to the name and authority of Parliament and by which they have been cozened into the miserable condition they now are in is so worn out that without captivating their reasons any longer to it as a Councell they plainly discern the ambition weaknesse vanity malice and stupidity of the particular Members of whom it is and of whom it ought not to be constituted and easily conclude that as they have robbed them of the most happy and plentifull condition any free-man of the world ever enjoyed so they can never be instruments