offices of friendship It may be worth the labour briefly to set down the truth of that matter and the proceedings thereupon About the time of His Majesties Marriage with the Queen the French King had many designes upon Italy and a particular difference and contest with the States of Genoa and upon conclusion of that Treaty and renewing the antient League and amity confirmed strengthned by this Marriage His Majesty was content to lend the Vantguard and to give licence that six or seven Merchant Ships might be hired if the Owners were willing to serve the French King in the Mediterranean Sea and upon a precise promise that they should not be imployed against those of the Religion in France Accordingly the Vantguard and no other Vessell of the Navy Royall was delivered and the Merchants Ships likewise hired by the French Agents with the full consent of the Owners One of which or one by their nomination Commanded each Ship and carried the same into France and there themselves delivered the Ships into the possession of the French After these Ships were thus engaged in the French service and joyned to their Fleet in which were 20 Ships of Warre likewise borrowed of the Hollanders commanded by Hauthaine the Admirall and Dorpe his Vice-Admirall who it is very probable nor their Masters were privy or consenting to that enterprize and with which they were much superiour to those of the Religion though the English Ships had been away they fell upon the Rochel Fleet and took and destroyed many of them The King was no sooner informed of this then he highly resented it by His Ambassadour and the French King excused it upon those of the Religion who He Alleaged had without cause broken the peace the Duke of Subese having when all was quiet seized all the French Ships at Blauet which very Ships made the best part of the Fleet he had now incountred and broken And that the King of England ought to be sensible of the injury the peace thus broken having been made and consented to by the French King upon His Majesties earnest mediation and interposition Notwithstanding which His Majesty justly incensed that His Ships should be imployed contrary to His pleasure and the promise made to Him immediatly required the restitution of His and all the English Ships the which was no sooner made then to publish to the world how much He was displeased with that Action He entred into Hostility with France the chief ground of that quarrell being that the English Ships had been imployed against those of the Religion contrary to the expresse promise made that they should not be used against them as appears as well by the Manifest of the Duke of Buckingham dated 21 July and printed since this Parliament as by the Records of State of that time Let the world now judge with what colour the losse of Rochel which as is said before hapned not till neer or full two years after the return of the English Ships can be imputed to the King 5. The fifth Article is the designe of the Germane-Horse Loanes Privy Seales Coat and Conduct mony Ship-mony and the many Monopolies all which are particularly mentioned in the first Remonstrance of the House of Commons of the 15 of December 1642. as the effects of evill Counsellours and with a Protestation in that Petition which accompanied it to His Majesty that it was without the least intention to lay a blemish upon His Majesties Royall Person but only to represent how His Royall Authority and trust had been abused And finding that the vile language and aspersions which they cast upon the King were generally censured and ill spoken of The Lords and Commons afterwards in their Declaration of the 19 of May tell the people that if they should say that all the ill things done of late in His Majesties name have been done by Himself they should neither follow the direction of the Law nor the affection of their owne hearts which they say is as much as may be to clear His Majesty of all imputation of misgovernment and to lay the fault upon His Ministers and then finding fault with those who make His Majesty the Authour of evill Counsels they use these words We His Majesties loyall and dutifull Subjects can use no other Stile according to that Maxime of the Law The King can doe no wrong but if any ill be committed in matter of State the Councell if in matters of Iustice the Judges must answer for it So that if they would guide themselves either by the good old or their own new laws from which in truth they swerve no lesse then from the other they have themselves answered and declared against this Article but since that is not currant examine the particulars The time when this designe is supposed to have been was when His Majesty had a War with the two greatest Kings of Christendome France and Spaine and therefore if He had purposed to have drawn auxiliary Forces into His Service it had been no wonder nor more then all Princes use yet in truth there was never any designe to bring in Germane Horse only in those unquiet times when the Kingdom was so much threatned from abroad amongst other expedients for strength and defence such a proposition was made or rather some discourse upon it which the King rejected and did never consent that it should be put in practice and therefore it may seem strange that this designe should be now objected against His Majesty who alone refused and hindred it and that Balfore and Dalbiere who were the principall if not the only Projectors of it should be in such high reputation and esteem with the Declarers The Loanes Privy Seales and other courses of raising Money were upon extraordinary and immergent occasions and of the same nature that have been in all times practiced upon reason and necessity of State And Monopolies are weeds that have alwaies grown in the fat soile which long peace and plenty makes and of that kind they may find a larger Catalogue in their Journall book of the 43 year of Queen Elizabeth a time that no sober man complaines of then in any time since and which was not then nor reasonably can be imputed to the Crowne since new inventions have justly so great encouragements and priviledges by the Law that if those Ministers through whose hands such grants are to passe are not very vigilant it is not possible but upon specious pretences many things unwarrantable of that nature will have the countenance of the Kings hand yet those particulars were no sooner complained of to His Ma ty then He willingly applied the remedies w ch were proposed before these troubles began passed such excellent laws for the prevention of the like inconveniences for the future that a better security cannot be provided So that men must think this Rebellion to have been raised on the behalf of not against those exorbitances which
to Our promise to Our Scotch Subjects with which they were well acquainted to repair into Our Kingdome of Scotland to settle the unhappy differences there Upon this We were earnestly desired by both Our Houses of Parliament to defer Our journey thither as well upon pretence of the danger if both Armies were not first Disbanded as that they had many good Lawes in readinesse for the setling of differences here We were by their intreaty perswaded to defer Our journey to a day agreed on by themselves c. Which relation at large of what followed may satisfie all men of His Majesties extraordinary complyance and when He went He left such a Commission behind him as was agreeable to Law and sufficient to prevent any inconveniences which might arise in His absence whereas That desired by them being to consent to all Acts they should passe before He returned was so monstrous illegall and unheard-of that they were themselves ashamed to presse it farther and rested satisfied with that which His Majesty granted nor does it appeare that there was in any time before any issued out by the means of Secretary Windebanke of a larger extent or that was not agreeable to Law and the policy of that time 15. Now succeeds the high Charge of the businesse of Ireland as if they hoped to perswade the people that the King is accessary to a Treason and Rebellion against Himself and that in a time when there were so great distractions in two of His Kingdoms He should Himself put the third into a flame that so He might have none to help Him to quench the fire that was kindled in the other the particulars out of which this grand Charge is compounded shall be severally examined They who have used no kind of conscience or civility in the publishing all Letters of His Majesties by what ill means soever the same have come into their hands which they imagined might by the simplicity and weaknesse of the people or the most malitious glosses and interpretations they could put upon them beget any prejudice to His Majesty cannot be imagined now to conceale any thing that would contribute to their purpose and therefore their not publishing those Letters which they say the King sent into Ireland by the Lord Dillon immediately before the Rebellion is argument sufficient that either there were no such Letters or nothing in them which can in any sense reflect upon His Majesty nor can it find credit with any not malitiously and stupidly sottish that after so many reiterated infusions into the people by their severall Declarations that the Rebels of Ireland avowed that they had a Commissiion under the great Seale of England for what they did It is now inverted into a Commission under the great Seale of Scotland Sealed at Edenburgh when the King was last there when it is knowne He could no more have affixed that Seale in whose hands soever it was to any such Instrument if He had had the will which no Christian believes He had then He can now dispose of that at London of which Commission the world should long since have been informed by the Scots if they could have found a probable ground for the Suggestion And surely these men would have published the Depositions of those who they say have seen it if they had believed them such as would find credit amongst men What was promised to the Irish Committee at London is like to be much better known to the Authours of this Declaration then to His Majesty the greater part whereof being Papists and since Active Rebels having during their stay in London so great an interest in the powerfull and active Members there that they were able to prevaile with them to interpose in the affairs of that Kingdome in such manner as they desired and very probably then laid the foundation and designe of their future Rebellion upon the principles they then saw introduced and countenanced here By the earnest advice and importunate interposition of some of those principall Members they prevailed that after the death of the Lord Deputy Wansford no such person might be appointed temporarily to succeed as was like by his power and vigilance to prevent the wickednesse they intended and if the King gave away or promised them more then five Counties it was not upon their private mediation but their publique addresse according to their instructions from the Parliament after the House of Commons had made the recovery of and intit'ling His Majesty to those Counties a particular Article of their Impeachment against the Earle of Strafford and so blemished His Majesties just and legall interest and what His Majesty did thereupon was by the full and deliberate advice of His Councell Board according to usuall forms observed in the affairs of that Kingdome It is very probable that His Majesty might think Himself at that time oppressed by the two Houses of Parliament as He had great cause but that He should expresse so much and wish that He could be revenged on them to or before that Committee whom at that time He had reason to believe to be combined with the other is more then very unlikely The not Disbanding the Irish Army is next remembred and indeed ought not to be forgotten the not seasonably disposing that body giving no doubt a great rise and contributing much to the Rebellion that shortly after brake out but where the fault of that was is as evident That Army was justly and prudently raised when the intention in Scotland was clearly known to invade England and with a purpose to restraine or divert that expedition and if need were to reduce that Kingdome to their Allegiance which was the sense and could be no other of those words charged upon the Earl of Strafford if any such words were spoken And after the Scots Army was entred England it was no wonder if the King were not forward to Disband that Army till He could discerne that the other did in truth intend to return and He no sooner was confident of the one then He resolved the other but then He wisely considered that the Disbanding such a body at that time when so much licence was transplanted out of this into that Kingdome was not so like to contribute to the peace of it as the transporting them and therefore His Majesty agreed with the Spanish Ambassadour that he should have leave to transport three or four thousand of them for his Masters service which was no sooner known but the Irish Committee then at London who it may be had otherwise design'd the service of those men prevailed with the House of Commons to interpose and hinder the execution of that Agreement who principally upon consideration of the umbrage the Crowne of France might take at such an assistance given to Spaine pressed the King to revoke that grant and to consent to the Disbanding That objection was easily answered by His Majesty having agreed likewise with the French Ambassadour that
two Houses then to the King and were more owned by them who tooke speciall care for their Accommodation By what is said it sufficiently appears how unjust and unreasonable all the particular Scandals are with relation to the businesse of Ireland in which His Majesty how impudently soever He hath been aspersed never did any or omitted the doing any thing but according to those rules which are most justifiable before God and man it were to be wished that the two Houses of Parliament had but as well performed their duty and obligations but it cannot be forgotten that neer the beginning of this Rebellion when the Houses pretended wonderfull difficulty to raise men for that Service and when a seasonable supply would utterly have broken and defeated the Rebels the King sent a Message to them on the 28 of December 1641. That His Majesty being very sensible of the great miseries and distresses of His Subjects in the Kingdome of Ireland which daily increased and the bloud which had been already spilt by the cruelty and barbarousnesse of those Rebels crying out so loud and perceiving how slowly the succours designed thither went on His Majesty Himself would take care that by Commissions which He would grant ten thousand English Voluntiers should be speedily raised for that service if the House of Commons would declare that they would pay them which offer from His Majesty was rejected and no considerable supplies sent till they had compelled His Majesty to consent to such a Bill for Pressing as might devest and rob Him of a necessary and legall power inherent in His Crowne Nor can it be forgotten that they reserved those men which were raised for Ireland and would not otherwise have been engaged in their Service but on that pretence and brought them to fight against His Majesty at Edge-hill and afterwards retained them still in their Service That they imployed the mony raised by Act of Parliament for the relief of Ireland and with a particular caution that it should be imployed no other way for the support and maintenance of that Army led by the Earle of Essex against the King and that from the beginning of the Rebellion in England though they received vast sums of mony raised only for Ireland they never administred any considerable supply thither that they could apply to the advancement of their owne Designes at home against the King These particulars of which kind every man may call to mind many more nor their notable compliance with the Irish Committee when they came first over are remembred to imply that the two Houses of Parliament were guilty of raising the Rebellion in Ireland otherwise then by their principles and proceedings in diminution of the King 's soveraigne power or that they cherished it after it was begun otherwise then by not wisely and vigorously endeavouring to suppresse it before it spread so universally but that which may be justly laid to their charge is their affecting and grasping the power of carrying on that War which so great a body is not fit for their imprudent and unpolitique declaring an animosity against the whole Nation and even a purpose for their utter extirpation and disposing their Lands to those who would be adventurers for it which Act and Declaration it is known drove many into open Rebellion who were not before suspected or at least declared to be affected to the Rebels and lastly their giving all their minds up to the kindling that horrid and monstrous rebellion here rather then to the extinguishing the other in Ireland 16. Next succeeds the Charge against the King for the unusuall preparation of Ammunition and Armes upon His return from Scotland with new Guards within and about White-hall the Fire-works taken and found in Papists houses the Tower filled with New guards Granadoes and all sorts of Fire-works Morters and great pieces of Battery the dis-placing Sir William Balfore and placing other Officers who were suspected by them and the whole City Not to speak of the entertainment they provided for the King against His return out of Scotland when in stead of thanking Him for having passed so many good Acts of grace and favour to them that there was no one thing more that the Kingdome could reasonably aske from Him or requisite to make them the most happy Nation of the world They presented Him a Remonstrance as they called it of the State of the Kingdome laying before Him to use His Majesties own words and publishing to the world all the mistakes and all the mis-fortunes which hapned from His first comming to the Crowne and before to that houre forgetting the blessed condition all His Subjects had enjoyed in the benefit of peace and plenty under His Majesty to the envy of Christendome Not to speak of the licence then used in language when upon debate of some pretended breach of Order one of the principall Promoters of this Declaration publickly said in the House of Commons without controle that their Discipline ought to be severe for the enemy was in view when the King was come within one daies journey of the City His Majesty found a band of Souldiers entertained to guard the two Houses of Parliament which as it had bin never known in age before in that manner so there was not now the least visible cause for it but that there had been a Plot in Scotland against the persons of the Marquesse of Hamilton and Argyle and therefore there might be the like upon some principall Members here Upon the King's return the Earl of Essex resigned up the Commission with which he had been intrusted by His Majesty during His absence to preserve the peace of the Kingdome and thereupon that Guard which was drawn together by vertue of that authority in that Earle was dissolved with it The King came then to White-hall and for what passed afterward heare in His owne words in His Declaration of the 12. of August Great multitudes of mutinous people every day resorted to Westminster threatned to pul down the lodgings where divers of the Bishops lay assaulted some in their Coaches chased others with Boats by water laid violent hands on the Arch-bishop of Yorke in his passing to the House and had he not been rescued by force it is probable they had murdered him crying through the streets Westminster-hall and between the two Houses No Bishops no Bishops no Popish Lords and mis-used the severall Members of either House who they were informed favoured not their desperate and seditious ends proclaiming the names of severall of the Peers as evill and rotten-hearted Lords and in their return from thence made stand before Our gate at White-hall said they would have no more Porters Lodge but would speak with the King when they pleased and used such desperate rebellious discourse that We had great reason to believe Our owne Person Our Royall Consort and Our Children to be in evident danger of violence and therefore were compelled at Our
guilty of Treason by that act of his within the expresse words of the 2 Chapter of the 25 yeare of King Edw. 3. but by declaring that by leavying war against our Lord the King in his Realme which in that Statute is declared to be high Treason is meant leavying war against the Parliament and yet Mr. St. Iohn observed in his Argument against the Earle of Strafford printed by Order that the word KING in that Statute must be understood of the King 's naturall person for that person can onely die have a Wife have a Son and be imprisoned The Lord chief Justice Coke in his Commentary upon that Statute saith If any leavy War to expulse Strangers to deliver men out of Prisons to remove Counsellours or against any Statute or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own head without any warrant this is leavying war against the King because they take upon them Royall authority which is against the King and that there may be no scruple by that expression without warrant the same Author saies in the same place and but few lines preceding that no Subject can leavy War within the Realm without authority from the King for to him it only belongeth Preparation by some overt act to depose the King or to take the King by force and strong hand and to imprison Him untill he hath yeilded to certain demands this is a sufficient overt act to prove the compassing and imagination of the death of the King for this is upon the matter to make the King a Subject and to disspoyle Him of His Kingly Office of Royall government as is concluded by the same reverend Authour and likewise that to rise to alter Religion established within the Kingdome or Lawes is Treason These Declarers cannot name one person proclaimed a Rebell or Traytor by the King who was not confessedly guilty of at least one of these particulars and being so the King did no more then by the Law He ought to doe and Mr. St. Johns acknowledged in his Argument against the Earle of Strafford that he that leavies War against the Person of the King doth necessarily compasse His death and likewise that it is a War against the King when intended for the alteration of the Lawes or Government in any part of them or to destroy any of the great Officers of the Kingdome For the setting up the Standard it was not till those persons who bearing an inward hatred and malice against his Majesties Person and Government had raised an Army and were then trayterously and rebelliously marching in battle-array against his Majesty their Liege Lord and Soveraigne as appears by his Majesties Proclamation of the 12 of August 1642. in which He declared His purpose to erect His royall Standard and after they had with an Army besieged his Majesties antient standing Garrison of Portsmouth and required the same in which the King's Governour was to be delivered to the Parliament and after they had sent an Army of Horse Foot and Cannon under the command of the Earle of Bedford into the West to apprehend the Marquesse of Hertford who was there in a peaceable manner without any Force till he was compelled to raise the same for his defence and to preserve the peace of those Counties invaded by an Army and then when his Majesty was compelled for those reasons to erect his Standard with what tendernesse He did it towards the two Houses of Parliament cannot better appear then by His owne words in his Declaration published the same day on which that Proclamation issued out which are these What Our opinion and resolution is concerning Parliaments We have fully expressed in our Declarations We have said and will still say they are so essentiall a part of the constitution of this Kingdome that We can attaine to no happinesse without them nor will We ever make the least attempt in Our thought against them We well know that Our self and Our two Houses make up the Parliament and that We are like Hipocrates Twins We must laugh and cry live and die together that no man can be a friend to the one and an enemy to the other the injustice injury and violence offered to Parliaments is that which We principally complaine of and We again assure all Our good Subjects in the presence of Almighty God that all the Acts passed by Us this Parliament shall be equally observed by Us as We desire those to be which do most concern Our Rights Our quarrell is not against the Parliament but against particular men who first made the wounds and will not suffer them to be healed but make them deeper and wider by contriving fostering and fomenting mistakes and jealousies betwixt body and head Us and the two Houses whom We name and are ready to prove them guilty of High Treason c. And then his Majesty names the persons This was the King's carriage towards and mention of the Parliament very different from theirs who are now possessed of the Soveraigne power the Army who in their Remonstrance of the 23 of June last use these words We are in this case forced to our great grief of heart thus plainly to assert the present evill and mischief together with the future worse consequences of the things lately done even in the Parliament it self which are too evident and visible to all and so in their proper colours to lay the same at the Parliament Dores untill the Parliament shall be pleased either of themselves to take notice and rid the House of those who have any way mis-informed deluded surprized or otherwise abused the Parliament to the passing such foule things there or shall open to us and others some way how we may c. which would not have been mentioned here if they had been onely the extravagant act and words of the Army but they are since justified and made the words of the two Houses by their declaring in their late Declaration of the 4 of March in Answer to the Papers of the Scots Commissioners That if there be any unsound principles in relation to Religion or the State in some of the Army as in such a body there usually are some extravagant humours they are very injuriously charged upon the whole Army whereof the governing part hath been very carefull to suppresse and keep down all such peccant humours and have hitherto alwaies approved themselves very constant and faithfull to the true interest of both Kingdomes and the cause wherein they have engaged and the persons that have engaged therein so that this Remonstrance being the Act of the Generall Lieutenant-Generall and the whole Councell of War which is sure the governing part it is by this Declaration fully vindicated to be the Sense of the two Houses 22. The setting up a mock Parliament at Oxford to oppose and protest against the Parliament of England which his Majesty and both Houses had continued by Act of Parliament is in the
they were brought to that great exigent that they were ready to rob and spoile one another that their wants began to make them desperate That if the Lords Justices and Councell there did not find a speedy way for their preservation they did desire that they might have leave to go away that if that were not granted they must have recourse to the law of nature which teacheth all men to preserve themselves The two Houses who had undertaken to carry on that War and received all the Mony raised for that Service neglecting still to send supplies thither the Lords Justices and Councell by their Letters about the middle of May advertised the King That they had no Victuall Cloths or other provisions no Mony to provide them of any thing they want no Armes not above forty Barrels of Powder no strength of serviceable Horse no visible means by Sea or Land of being able to preserve that Kingdome And by others of the 4 of Iuly that his Armies would be forced through wants to disband or depart the Kingdome and that there would be nothing to be expected there but the instant losse of the Kingdome and the destruction of the remnant of his good Subjects yet left there This was the sad condition of that miserable Kingdome to whose assistance his Majesty was in no degree of Himself able to contribute and His recommendation and interposition to the two Houses whom He had trusted was so much contemned that when upon their Order to issue out at one time one hundred thousand pounds of the Monies paid for Ireland to the supply of the Forces under the Earl of Essex albeit it was enacted by the Law upon which those Monies were raised that no part of it should be imployed to any other purpose then the reducing the Rebels of Ireland His Majesty by a speciall Message advised and required them to retract that Order and to dispose the Monies the right way the necessities of Ireland being then passionately represented by those upon the place they returned no other satisfaction or Answer to his Majesty but a Declaration That those directions given His Majesty for the retracting of that Order was a high breach of priviledge of Parliament When His Majesty perceived that no assistance was or was like to be applied to them and that the Enemy still increased in strength power He referred the consideration and provision for themselves to those whose safeties and livelyhoods were most immediately concerned and who were the nearest witnesses of the distresses and the best Judges how they could be borne or how they were like to be relieved and so with the full advice and approbation of the Lords Justices and Councell there and concurrent opinion of all the chief Officers of the Army that Cessation was made by which onely the Protestants in that Kingdome and His Majesties interest there could at that time have been preserved Of this Cessation neither His Majesties good Subjects in that or this Kingdom have reason to complain Examine now the peace which they say was afterwards made on such odious shamefull and unworthy conditions that His Majesty Himself blushed to owne or impart to His owne Lieutenant the Earle of Ormond but a private Commission was made to the Lord Herbert to manage it Whilst the King had any hope of a tolerable peace in this or a probable way of carrying on the War in that Kingdome He never gave a Commission to conclude a peace there and it plainly appears by the relation of the Treaty at Uxbridge to the truth of which there hath not been the least objection the Acts of the Commissioners of both sides being extant that there was no expedient proposed though desired often on the King's party for the proceeding in that War but that His Majesty would quit absolutely all His Regall power in that Kingdome and so put all His Subjects there English and Irish out of His protection into that of the two Houses of Parliament here who at the same time were fighting for the same Supremacy in this and who had at the same time disposed a greater power thereof to the Scots then they reserved to themselves it concerned the King then in piety and policy in His duty to God and man to endevour to preserve that Kingdom by a peace which He could not reduce by a war and to draw from thence such a body and number of His own Subjects as might render Him more considerable to those who having put off all naturall allegiance and reverence to his Majesty looked only what power and strength and not what right He had left The peace that was concluded was upon such tearms and conditions as were in that conjuncture of time just and honourable and when it could not be continued without yeilding to more shamefull and lesse worthy conditions the Marquesse of Ormond his Majesties Lieutenant of that Kingdome who had the sole and intire authority from his Majesty to conclude a peace and against whom all their envy and all their malice hath not been able to make the least objection best knowing his Masters mind chose rather to make no peace and to trust providence with his Majesties Rights then to consent to such Propositions nor had the Lord Herbert ever any Commission to make a peace there but being a person whose loyalty and affection to his service the King had no reason to suspect and being of the same Religion with the Enemy might have some influence upon them was qualified with such a testimony as might give him the more credit amongst them to perswade them to reason His restraint and commitment was very reall by the whole Councell board there though when it appeared that his errors had proceeded from unskilfulnesse and unadvisednesse and not from malice he was afterwards inlarged by the same power The unnaturall conclusions and inferences these men make from what the King hath said or done applying actions done lately to words spoken seven years before cannot cast any blemish upon the Kings Religion which shines with the same lustre in Him as it did in the primitive Martyrs and even those Letters taken at Nazeby which no wise Rebel or gallant Enemy would have published will to posterity appear as great Monuments of His zeale to the true Protestant Religion in those straits in which He was driven by those who professed that Religion as any Prince hath left or have been left by any Prince since Christianity was imbraced And if that Religion should prosper with lesse vigour then it hath done and the Christian and Pagan world have lesse reverence towards it then they have had these Reformers may justly challenge to themselves the honour and glory of that declension and triumph in the reproaches they have brought upon the most Orthodox Church that hath flourished in any age since the Apostles time These Charges and reproaches upon the King which have been now particularly examined and answered and of which
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
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
which might get credit amongst some desired that they might have twenty Proclamations sent over signed by the King's signe Manuall to the end that besides the printed Copies which they would disperse according to custome they might be able to send an Originall with the King's hand to it to those considerable persons whom they might suspect to be misled by that false rumour who when they saw the King 's very hand would be without excuse if they persisted This Letter and desire from the Lords Justices and Councell was communicated at the Councel Board and the resolution there taken that they should have double the number they desired signed by the King and because the ingrossing so many Copies would take up more time directions were given for the printing forty Copies all which were signed by His Majesty and with all possible speed dispatched into Ireland and the caution that there should be no more printed then were sent away thither was very necessary left the Rebels by having notice of it should find some device to evade the end for which they were sent and be prepared to defend their old or raise some new scandall upon His Majesty besides that there was no imaginable reason why any more should at that time be printed in London What was written from Court to the Lord Muskery that His Majesty was well pleased with what He did cannot reflect upon His Majesty nor had the person who is supposed to have written such a Letter whom they have in former Declarations declared to be the Lord Dillon who expresly denied the ever writing any such Letter any place or relation at Court and the King had good reason long after to write to the Marquesse of Ormond to give particular thanks to Muskery and Punket They having bin both at Oxford imployed by the Irish to His Majesty during the Cessation and having made there such professions of their endeavours to reduce the other to reason as might merit His Majesties thank and acknowledgment which His Majesty hath been as forward to give to such of the Rebels here as have expressed any moderation or inclination to return to their obedience and yet He was never well pleased with what they have done nor can give them thanks for it For the delaying and detaining the Earle of Leicester beyond all pretence from going against the Rebels it is wel known how often his Majesty pressed the Houses that he might be dispatched and sent away and that it was one of the reasons which His Majesty gave in His Answer to the Petition of both Houses of the 28. of April of His resolution to go in Person into Ireland because the Lord Lieutenant on whom He relied principally for the Conduct and managing of affairs there was still in this Kingdome notwithstanding His earnestnesse expressed that He should repair to his Command after which it was neer three Months before any preparation was made for his journey and then about the end of July or beginning of August his Lordship came to the King at Yorke to receive his instructions pretending to have his dispatch so fully from the two Houses that he would return no more thither but as soon as he could have His Majesties Command he would immediately to Chester and imbarke This being about the time that the King was preparing Forces for His defence against the Earle of Essex the Earle was detained about a Month before he could receive his instructions and all those dispatches that were necessary and then he took his leave of His Majesty with profession of going directly to Chester but either by command or inclination that purpose was quickly altered and his Lordship returned to London where he was detained full two Months longer and then was Commanded expresly by the Houses to repair to Chester and not to wait on the King in his way though His Majesty being then at Oxford he could not avoid performing that duty but by avoiding the ordinary road when the King heard of his being at Chester where he expected the Ships that were to transport him above three Weeks and that there was no other force in readiness to be sent with him but his own retinue those Regiments of Foot and Troups of Horse which had been raised for that Service having been imployed against His Majesty at Edge-hill and being still kept as a part of the Earle of Essex his Army and that there were none of those provisions or mony to be now sent over which had been importunately desired by the Councell of that Kingdome His Majesty considered that the Rebels having been kept in some awe with the apprehension of the Lord Lieutenant's comming over with all such supplies as were necessary to carry on the War the assurance whereof had likewise kept up the spirits of the Protestants there if he should now arrive there in so private a manner without any addition of a strength or provision for the supply of that strength that was there it would bring at the same time the greatest affliction and dis-heartning to his Protestant Subjects that could be imagined and an equall incouragement to the Rebels and therefore His Majesty sent for him to Oxford till he might receive better satisfaction from the Houses concerning their preparations for that Kingdom So that by whom the Earle of Leicester was delaied and detained the world may judge The Kings refusall of a Commission for the Lord Brooke and Lord Wharton hath been long since Answered by His Majesty the truth of which Answer was never yet denied or replied to That the Forces to be under their Command were raised before His Majesties Commission was so much as desired And then the Commission that was desired should have been independent upon His Majesties Lieutenant of that Kingdome and therefore His Majesty had great reason not to consent to it And how reasonably those persons were to be trusted with such a Command may be judged by their bringing those very Forces which were raised for the relief of the poor Protestants of Ireland against the Rebels there to fight against the King at Edge-hill within a very short time after those Commissions were desired They say they have long since named divers Papists and persons of quality that by the Kings speciall Warrants after the Ports were shut by both Houses of Parliament passed hence and headed the Rebels when they wanted Commanders Examine the truth of this which all men who will take the pains may be judges of His Majesty taking notice of the effect of this Charge to be spoken by Master Pim at a Conference with the Lords about the beginning of February 1641. the Speech being printed by His Message of the 7. of that Month to the House of Commons required to know whether such a thing had been said and if so upon what ground His Majesty being sure He had used all caution in the granting of Passe-ports into Ireland The Commons answered that the Speech delivered
Propositions passed by the Lords for Peace which if allowed would be destructive to Religion Laws and Liberties and therefore desired an Ordinance according to the tenour of an Act of their Common Councell the night before Thanks were given by the Commons whilst the Lords complained of the Tumults and desired a concurrence to suppresse them and to prevent the like many of the people telling the Members of both Houses that if they had not a good Answer they would be there the next day with double the number by these threats and this violence the Propositions formerly received were rejected and all thoughts of Peace laid aside and then surely the freedome of Parliament was as much taken away as on the 26 of Iuly last In a word when the Members of both Houses were compelled to take that Protestation to live and die with the Earle of Essex and some imprisoned and expelled for refusing to take it when they were forced to take that sacred Vow and Covenant of the 6 of Iune 1643. by which they swore that they would to their power assist the Forces raised and continued by both Houses of Parliament against the Forces raised by the KING when they were compelled to take the last solemn League and Covenant that Oath Corban by which they conceive themselves absolved from all obligations divine and humane as their Predecessours the Jewes thought they were discharged by that though they had bound themselves not to help or relieve their Parents and lastly when the Army marched to London in the beginning of August last in favour of the Speakers and those Members who had resorted to them and brought them back to the Houses and drove away some and caused others of the Members of a contrary Faction to be imprisoned and expelled the Houses the liberty and freedome of Parliament was no lesse violated and invaded then it was on the 26 of Iuly last Upon these reasons and for want of the freedome so many severall waies taken from them those Lords and Commons who attended his Majesty at Oxford had withdrawne themselves from Westminster and might then as truly and more regularly have said what the Army since with approbation and thanks have said on the 22 of Iune last That the freedome of this Parliament is no better then that those Members who shall according to their consciences endeavour to prevent a War and act contrary to their waies who for their owne preservation intend it they must do it with the hazard of their lives which being a good reason for those lately to go to St. Albons or Hounslow heath cannot be thought lesse justifiable for the other to go to Oxford Since this objection of calling the Members of Parliament to Oxford is not of waight enough to give any advantage against his Majesty to His Enemies they endeavour to make their entertainment and usage there very reproachfull with His friends and would perswade them to believe themselves derided in that expression of the Kings in a Letter to the Queen where He calls them a Mungrell Parliament by which they infer what reward His own Party must expect when they have done their utmost to shipwrack their faith and conscience to his will and tyranny Indeed they who shipwrack their faith and conscience have no reason to expect reward from the King but those Lords and Gentlemen who attended his Majesty in that convention well know that never King received advice from His Parliament with more grace and candor then his Majesty did from them and their consciences are too good to think themselves concerned in that expression if his Majesty had not Himself taken the pains to declare to what party it related besides it is well known that some who appeared there with great professions of loyalty were but Spies and shortly after betrayed his Majesties service as Sir John Price and others in Wales and some since have alleaged in the House of Commons or before the Committee for their defence to the Charge of being at Oxford at that Assembly That they did the Parliament more service there then they could have done at Westminster So that the KING had great reason to think He had many Mungrels there 23. The last Charge is the making a Pacification in Ireland and since that a Peace and granting a Commission to bring over ten thousand Irish to subdue the Parliament and the rebellious City of London and the conditions of that peace That loud clamour against the Cessation in Ireland was so fully clearly answered by the King's Cōmissioners at the Treaty at Uxbridge that there can no scruple remain with any who have taken the pains to read the transactions in that Treaty it plainly appears that the King could not be induced to consent to that Cessation till it was evident that His Protestant Subjects in that Kingdome could not be any other way preserved The Lords Justices and Councell of that Kingdome signified to the Speaker of the House of Commons by their Letter of the 4 of April which was above six Months before the Cessation That his Majesties Army and good Subjects there were in danger to be devoured for want of needfull supplies out of England and that His Majesties Forces were of necessity sent abroad to try what might be done for sustaining them in the Country to keep them alive till supplies should get to them but that designe failing them those their hopes were converted into astonishment to behold the miseries of the Officers and Souldiers for want of all things and all those wants made insupportable in the want of food and divers Commanders and Officers declaring they had little hope to be supplied by the Parliament pressed with so great importunity to be permitted to depart the Kingdome as that it would be extreame difficult to keep them there and in another part of that Letter they expressed that they were expelling thence all Strangers and must instantly send away for England thousands of poor dispoyled English whose very eating was then insupportable to that place that their confusions would not admit the writing of many more Letters if any for they had written divers others expressing their great necessities And to the end His Majesty and the English Nation might not irrecoverably and unavoidably suffer they did desire that then though it were almost at the point to be too late Supplies of Victuall and Ammunition in present might be hastened thither to keep life untill the rest might follow there being no Victuall in the Store nor a hundred Barrels of Powder a small proportion to defend a Kingdome left in the Store when the out-Garrisons were supplied and that remainder according to the usuall necessary expence besides extraordinary accidents would not last above a Month and in that Letter they sent a Paper signed by sundry Officers of the Army delivered to them as they were ready to signe that dispatch and by them apprehended to threaten imminent danger which mentioned that
same time he brought a specious Message of renewing a Treaty was instructed how to manage that bloudy Massacre in London which was then designed by vertue of the Kings Commission since published Before any thing be said of that Plot it is known that Gentleman was imprisoned many daies before there was any mention of a Plot and the House of Peers solemnly expostulated the injury done to them in it and in vaine required his inlargement which they would not have done if there had been any other objection against him then the comming without a Passe from their Generall which was never understood to be requisite till the House of Commons very few daies before declared it to be so albeit themselves sent Messengers to the King without ever demanding a Passe Now to the Plot it self They have indeed published a Narration of that Plot which served their turn barbarously to put two very honest men to death and to undoe very many more and it is very probable they made that relation as full and clear as their evidence enabled them to do and yet who ever reads it cannot conclude reasonably that there was ever more in it then a communion between honest men of good reputation and fortunes and desirous of peace how they might be able to discountenance that disorderly rabble which upon all occasions protested against peace by appearing as strong and considerable in numbers as they and which certainly ought to have found as great countenance and encouragement from the Parliament as the other these discourses produced a disquisition of the generall affections of the City and that a more particular computation and estimate of the inclinations of particular men and so mention of severall things which in such and such cases would be necessary to be done and these discourses being by the treachery of a Servant discovered to those who could compound Plots and Conspiracies out of any Ingredients they joyned those and a Commission they had likewise met with together and so shaped a Conspiracy that they used as a Scar-crow to drive away any avowed and publique inclinations for peace the pressing whereof at that time was like to prove inconvenient to them but those discourses and that Commission had not the least relation to each other nor was there one man who was accused of or privy to those discourses whose name was in that Commission or indeed privy to it which had issued out a good time before and was to have been made use of being no other then a fair legall Commission of Array in English if the Kings motion with His Army towards those parts gave the people so much courage to appear for Him nor can there be a sober objection against the Kings granting such a Commission when they had their Ordinances ready upon all occasions to be executed in the Kings Quarters and had named Commissioners for that purpose in all the Counties of the Kingdome But to proceed in the Overtures for peace from the end of the Treaty at Oxford which was in April 1643. they never made one Overture or Addresse to his Majesty towards peace till the end of November 1644. in the mean time what approaches the King made towards it must be remembred After the taking of Bristol when his Majesties strength and power was visible and confessed in the West and in the North and the Enemies condition apparently low and in many of their opinions even desperate the King albeit His last Messenger was still in Prison and no Answer to his Messages by His Declaration of the 30 of June again renewed all the professions and offers He had before made and told them that revenge and bloud thirstinesse had never been imputed to His Majesty by those who had neither left His government or nature un-examined with the greatest boldnesse and malice and therefore besought them to return to their Allegiance what passed from his Majesty himself and from the Lords and Commons at Oxford in March following and with what importunity they desired there might be a Treaty by which some waies means might be found how a peace might be procured and how peremptorily and disdainfully they rejected that desire in their Answer to his Majesty of the 9 of March because the greatest and the greatest number of the Peers of the Kingdome and the greatest part of the House of Commons then with his Majesty at Oxford seemed by Him to be put in an equall condition with them at Westminster though they had been content since to put the Officers of the Army into at least an equall condition with them by treating with them is to be seen and read and needs no repetition In July following which was in the year 1644. after He had routed the best part of Sir William Waller's Army and taken his Cannon his Majesty sent from Evesham another Message to the two Houses to desire them that there might yet be a Cessation and that some persons might be sent to Him with any Propositions that might be for the good of His people and He would condescend to them to which they never returned Answer Two Months after on the 8 of September when He had totally defeated the Army of the Earl of Essex in Cornwall taken all their Cannon Armes and Baggage the King again sent to them that the extraordinary successe with which God had blessed Him in so eminent a manner brought Him no joy for any other consideration then for the hopes He had that it might be a means to make others lay to heart as He did the miseries brought and continued upon this Kingdome by this unnaturall war and that it might open their ears and dispose their minds to imbrace those offers of peace and reconciliation which had been so often and so earnestly made unto them by Him and from the constant and fervent endeavours of which He resolved never to desist and so conjured them to consider His last Message and to send Him an Answer To this Message likewise they never sent Answer and these were the tenders made by his Majesty which they say were never fit for them to receive we shall now proceed to those they thought fit to offer and accuse his Majesty for not accepting On the 23 of November 1644. the Committee from the two Houses brought the Propositions to the King which they say were agreed on by the Parliaments of both Kingdoms not only as just but necessary also for the very being of these Kingdoms in a setled peace and safety And which required his Majesty to resigne up all His Regall power in His three Kingdomes to those who sent those Propositions to take their Covenant and injoyne all others to take it and to sacrifice all His owne Party who had served Him honestly and faithfully to the fury and appetite of those who had cast off their Allegiance to Him and to leave Himself the meer empty name of a King How the twenty daies were afterwards
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