the like number should be likewise transported for France whereby the whole Army would have been disposed of against which the Irish Committee more pressed then against the other alleaging that there were not men in that Kingdome to spare whereupon the House of Commons by their private Agents prevailed with the French Ambassadour who more desired to hinder the supply for Spaine then to procure the like for his Master and it may be to see the King controlled by the Parliament then either of the other to release the King of His promise to him so that they would prevent the Spaniard's having any men And thereupon they re-inforced their importunity to the King for the present Disbanding and not sending any of that Army out of Ireland in such a manner as His Majesty was forced to yeild to it and thereby no question much was contributed to the opportunity and disposition of rebelling and to whose account that advantage is to be put all the world may judge yet it may be fit to observe that of that Irish Army which these men would have believed to be no lesse then a Stratagem against the Protestant Religion not one Officer above the quality of Captaine and not above two of that condition have served in that Rebellion in Ireland against the King In all Rebellions the chief Authors and Contrivers of it have made all fair pretences and entred into such specious Oaths as were most like to seduce and corrupt the people to joyne with them and to put the fairest glosse upon their foulest combination and conspiracy and therefore it is no wonder if the Rebels in Ireland framed an Oath by which they would be thought to oblige themselves to bear true Faith and Allegiance to King Charles and by all meanes to maintain His Royall Prerogative at a time when they intended nothing lesse And Owen Connelly who was the first happy discoverer of that Rebellion in the same Deposition in which he saies the Rebels would pay the King all His Rights saies likewise that they said they took that course to imitate Scotland who got a priviledge by it and Marke Paget in the same Examination in which he saies that the Rebels report that they have the Kings Warrant and great Seale for what they doe saies likewise that they threaten that as soon as they have rooted out the Brittish and English there to invade England and to assist the Papists in England and therefore it is a wonderfull thing that what they sweare or what they say should be imputed to Him against whom they have rebelled and forsworn themselves The Authours of this Declaration have besides their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in the Protestation of the 5. of May sworn that they would maintaine and defend the Kings royall Person honour and estate and shortly after would perswade the people that they were by that very Protestation obliged to take up Armes against Him in their Declaration of the 19. of May they used these words The providing for the publique peace and prosperity of His Majesty and all His Realmes we protest in the presence of the all-seeing Deity to have been and still to be the only end of all our Counsells and endeavours wherein we have resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aymes personall respects or passions whatsoever and the very next day Voted that He intended to make War against His Parliament and that whosoever should serve or assist Him were Traytors by the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome and upon that conclusion of His intention actually leavied an Army and marched against him In their Petition of the 2. of June they tell him that they have nothing in their thoughts and desires more pretious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithfull performance of their duty to His Majesty and together with that Petition present the 19. Propositions to Him by which they leave Him not so much power in His Kingdome as the meanest Member of either House reserves to himself Lastly to omit infinite other instances in their Instructions of the 18. of August to the Deputy Lieutenants of Cheshire they required them to declare unto all men that it had been and still should be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for His Majesty That they doe not nor ever did know of any evill intended to His Majesties Person when the only businesse and end of those directions and instructions were to raise that whole County against Him So that this clause of the Rebels Oath in Ireland is no more to be objected against the King then those other clauses in their own Oaths and Declarations which they have not yet charged His Majesty withall Concerning the Proclamation against the Rebels in Ireland which they say they could not obtaine in divers Months and then that but 40 Copies were printed and expresse Order given that none should be published till further directions hear His Maj. own full Answer to that Charge in His Answer to the Declaration of the 19. of May in these words 'T is well known that we were when that Rebellion brake forth in Scotland That We immediatly from thence recommended the care of that businesse to both Houses of Parliament here after We had provided for all fitting supplies from Our Kingdome of Scotland that after Our returne hither We observed all those formes for that service which We were advised to by Our Councell of Ireland or both Houses of Parliament here and if no Proclamation issued out sooner it was because the Lords Justices of that Kingdome desired them no sooner and when they did the number they desired was but Twenty which they advised might be Signed by us which we for expedition of the service commanded to be printed a circumstance not required by them and thereupon signed more then they desired So that it is an impudent Assertion that they could not obtain a Proclamation in divers Months when they never so much as desired or moved it and it was no sooner moved to the King but He gave Order in it the same Houre But it will not be amisse since this particular hath bin with so much confidence and so often unreasonably objected against His Majesty to speak somewhat of the custome and order usually observed in sending Proclamations into that Kingdome and of the reason why so many and no more were at that time sent except upon any extraordinary reasons the King never signes more then the first draught of the Proclamation fairly ingrossed in parchment which being sent to the Lord Deputy or Lords Justices in Ireland is there printed and the printed Copies dispersed as they are in England His Majesties signe Manuall being not to any of those Copies The Lords Justices and Councell taking notice of the rumour industriously spread amongst the Rebels that they had the Kings authority for what they did
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
next place objected against his Majesty There was neither reall nor mock Parliament set up at Oxford but when the King found that most of the Members of either House were driven from Westminster by force as his Majesty had been and yet that the authority and reputation of Parliament was applied for the justification of all the rebellious Acts which were done even to the invitation of Forain power to invade the Kingdome as well for the satisfaction of His people that they might know how many of the true Members of Parliament abhorred the acts done by that pretended authority as for His owne information his Majesty by his Proclamation of the 22 of Decemb. in the year 1643. invited all the Members of both Houses who had been driven or being conscious of their want of freedome had withdrawn from Westminster to assemble at Oxford upon the 22 of January following when He said all His good Subjects should see how willing He was to receive advice for the Religion Laws and safety of the Kingdome from those whom they had trusted though He could not receive it in the place where He had appointed Upon which Summons and Invitation by his Majesty eight and forty Peers attended his Majesty there being at least twenty others imployed in his Armies and in the severall Counties whose attendance was dispenced with and nine others in the parts beyond the Seas with his Majesties leave and of the House of Commons above one hundred and forty there being likewise absent in the Armies neer thirty more who could not be conveniently present at Oxford When his Majesty found the appearance so great and so much superiour in number as well as quality to those at Westminster He hoped it would prove a good expedient to compose the minds of the other to a due consideration of the misery into which they had brought their Country and referred it to them to propose any advice which might produce so good an effect what addresses and overtures were then made by them and afterwards by His Majesty to perswade them to enter upon any Treaty of Peace and with what contempt and scorne the same was rejected will be too long to insert here and is sufficiently known to the world thereupon this body of Lords and Commons published a Declaration to the Kingdome at large setting forth the particular acts of violence by which they had been driven from Westminster and by which the freedome of Parliament was taken away and then declared how much they abhorred the undutifull and rebellious acts which were countenanced by those who staid there and declared their own submission and allegiance to his Majesty and in the end concluded That as at no time either or both Houses of Parliament can by any Orders or Ordinances impose upon the people without the King's consent so by reason of the want of Freedome and Security for all the Members of the Parliament to meet at Westminster and there to sit speak and vote with freedome and safety all the Actions Votes Orders Declarations and pretended Ordinances made by those Members who remaine still at Westminster were void and of none effect yet they said they were far from attempting the dissolution of the Parliament or the violation of any Act made and confirmed by his Majesty but that it was their grief in the behalf of the whole Kingdome that since the Parliament was not dissolved the power thereof should by the treason and violence of those men be so far suspended that the Kingdome should be without the fruit and benefit of a Parliament which could not be reduced to any action or authority till the liberty and freedome due to the Members should be restored and admitted which Declaration hath not onely ever received any Answer but with great care hath not been suffered to be printed in the last Collection of Orders and Declarations where the other proceedings at Oxford of that time are set forth that the people may lose that evidence against them which can never be answered or evaded This was that Assembly which these Declarers call the mock Parliament at Oxford and these the proceedings of it of the justice and regularity whereof if there could have been heretofore any doubt made the same is lately vindicated sufficiently by both Houses for if those Lords and Commons at Oxford might not justifiably absent themselves from Westminster where their safety and freedome was taken from them by what right or authority could a smaller number withdraw themselves in July last upon the same pretence and if that body of Lords and Commons regularly convened by his Majesties Authority to Oxford who had first called them together at Westminster might not declare the Acts made by those who remained at Westminster void and of none effect because they might not attend there and Vote with freedome and safety by what imaginable authority could the Speaker of the House of Commons who hath no more freedome or power to make any such Declaration then every single Member of the House declare that such and such Votes passed in the House were void and null and that the omission of a circumstance or some formality in the adjournment of the Houses could not be any prejudice to the future meetings and proceedings of Parliament when it might meet and sit again as a free Parliament as he did by his own single Declaration in July last whereupon that powerfull Umpire the Army very frankly declared That all such Members of either House of Parliament as were already with the Army for the security of their persons and were forced to absent themselves from Westminster that they should hold and esteem them as persons in whom the publique trust of the Kingdome was still remaining though they could not for the present sit as a Parliament with freedome and safety at Westminster and by whose advice and counsels they desired to governe themselves in the managing those weighty affairs and to that end invited them to make their repair to the Army and said they held themselves bound to own that honourable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons who had actually withdrawn himself and they engaged to use their utmost and speedy endevour that he and those Members of either House that were then inforced any way from Westminster might with freedome and security sit there and againe discharge their trust as a free and legall Parliament and in the meane time they did declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster as contrary to all right reason law and custome and professed themselves to be most cleerly satisfied in all their judgments and were confident the Kingdome would therein concur with them that as things then stood there was no free nor legall Parliament sitting being through the foresaid violence at present suspended and that the Orders Votes or resolutions forced from the Houses on Munday the 26 of July last as also all such as should
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
to cancell and overthrow all the Lawes and Government of the Kingdome all which must be done before their cause or their manner of maintaining their cause can be justified and if that were not perversly blind to their owne interest they would know and discerne that such an act is as pernitious to themselves as to truth and reason their own security depending on nothing more then a provision that no others for the time to come shall do what they have done nor can they enjoy any thing but on the foundation of that Law they have endeavoured to overthrow The King hath often offered an Act of Oblivion which will cut down all Gallows and wipe out all opprobrious tearms and may make the very memory and mention of Treason and Traytors as penall as the crimes ought to have been they who desire more aske impossibilities and that which would prove their own destruction and who ever requires their cause to be justified can have no reason for doing it but because he knows it is not to be justified The end of the third Bill is to dishonour those of His own Party whom He hath thought fit to honour and to cancell those Acts of grace and favour He vouchsafed them which is against all reason and justice for if He had no power to confer those Honours there needs no Act of Parliament to declare or make them void if He had power there is no reason why they should be lesse Lords upon whom He conferred that honour the last year then those He shall create the next nor is this Proposition of the least imaginable moment to the peace of the Kingdome or security of a Treaty though it be of no lesse concernment to His Majesty then the parting with one of the brightest Flowers in His Crown The last Bill is to give the two Houses power to adjourn to what place and at what time they please which by the Act of continuance they cannot now do without the King's consent though there is no reason they should attribute more to His Person in that particular then they doe in other things to which His assent is necessary and if they do indeed believe that His Regall power is virtually in them they may as well do this Act without Him as all the rest they have done The King in His Message of the 12 of April 1643. rather intimated then propounded the Adjournment of the Parliament to any place twenty miles from London which the Houses should choose as the best expedient He could think of for His owne and their security from those tumultuous Assemblies which interrupted the freedome thereof to which though they returned no Answer to His Majesty yet in their Declaration after that Treaty at Oxford they declared the wonderfull inconvenience and unreasonablenesse of that proposition the inconveniences that would happen to such persons that should have occasion to attend the Parliament by removing it so far from the residency of the ordinary Courts of Justice and the places where the Records of the Kingdome remaine That it would give a tacite consent to that high and dangerous aspersion of awing the Members of this Parliament and it would give too much countenance to those unjust aspersions laid to the charge of the City of London whose unexampled zeale and fidelity to the true Protestant Religion and the Liberty of this Kingdome they said is never to be forgotten and that they were wel-assured that the loyalty of that City to His Majesty and their affections to the Parliament is such as doth equall if not exceed any other place or City in the Kingdome which reasons being as good now as they were then the King hath followed but their own opinion in not consenting to this Bill In a word All the world cannot reply to His Majesties owne Answer upon the delivery of these four Bils or justifie their proceeding That when His Majesty desires a Personall Treaty with them for the setling of a peace they in answer propose the very subject matter of the most essentiall part thereof to be first granted and therefore the King most prudently and magnanimously declares That neither the desire of being freed from this tedious and irksome condition of life He hath so long suffered nor the apprehension of what may befall Him shall make Him change His resolution of not consenting to any Act till the whole peace be concluded for in truth nothing is more evident then that if He passe these Bils He neither can be able to refuse any thing else they shall propose for He hath reserved no title to any power nor can have reason to do it for having resigned His choicest Regalities it would be great improvidence to differ with them upon more petty concessions and having made all honest men guilty He could not in justice deny to refer the punishment of them to those who could best proportion it to the crimes So that a Treaty could afterwards be to no other end then to finish His owne destruction with the greater pomp and solemnity whereas the end of a Treaty is and it can have no other upon debate to be satisfied That He may lawfully grant what is desired That it is for the benefit of His people that He should grant it how prejuditiall soever it may seem to Himself and that being granted Himself shall securely enjoy what is left how little soever it be and that His Kingdome shall by such His concessions be intirely possessed of peace and quiet the last of which cannot be at least His Majesty hath great reason to suspect it may not without the consent of the Scots who peremptorily protest against these Four Bils And say that it is expresly provided in the 8 Article That no Cessation nor any Pacification or Agreement for Peace whatsoever shall be made by either Kingdome or the Armies of either Kingdome without the mutuall advice and consent of both Kingdomes or their Committees in that behalf appointed which is neither Answered or avoided by saying that no impartiall man can read that Article of the Treaty but He must needs agree that it could be meant only whilst there was War and Armies on both sides in being and that it must of necessity end when the War is at an end for besides that war is not nor can be at an end till there be an Agreement and if it be why is there so great an Army kept up in the Kingdome by the same reason that Article was so understood as it is now urged by the Scots before their comming into the Kingdome it may be so understood after they are gone and that the Houses themselves did understand it so in the beginning of January 1643. before the Scots Army entred appears by a Declaration Mr. St. Johns made at that time in the name of the Houses and printed by Order to the City of London at Guild-hall upon the discovery of a cunning Plot as they said to