consisting of about 220. their colors sky f inged with silver Another of gray Liveries 6. Trumpets colors sky and silver of about 105. Gentlemen Another Troop of 70. Gentlemen 5. Trumpets colors sky and silver Another Troop led by the Lord Cleveland of about 300. Noblemen and Gentlemen colors blew fringed with gold Then another Troop of about 100. having black colors fringed with gold After them another Troop of about 300. After these came two Trumpets with His Majesties Armes the Sheriffs men in red cloakes and silver lace with half pikes 79. in number then followed the several Companies of London with their several Streamers all in black velvet coats with gold chains every Company having their footmen of their several Liveries some red and white some pink and white some blew and yellow c. Three Trumpets in Liveries richly laced and cloth of silversleeves went before the Company of the Mercers After all these came a kettle-drum 5. Trumpets and 3. streamers having very rich red Liveries with silver lace The number of the Citizens were about 600. After these 12. ministers another kettle-drum 4. Trumpets then His Majesties Life-guard led by the Lord Gerard another party led by Sir Gilbert Gerard and Major Rosecarron and the third division by Colonel Pragurs Then 3. Trumpets in rich coats and sattin doublets The City Marshall with 8. footmen in French-green trimed with crimson and white the City waites the City Officers in order Then Dr. Warmstry the two Sheriffs and all the Aldermen of London in their scarlet gowns and rich trappings with footmen in Liveries red coats laced with silver and cloth of gold The Heralds and Maces in their rich coats The Lord Mayor bare carrying the sword his Excellency and the Duke of Buckingham bare Then the glory of all His Sacred Majesty rode between the Dukes of York and Glocester afterwards followed a Troop bare with white colors then the Generalls Life-guard after which another company of Gentry having sky colors fringed with gold after which 5. Regiments of the Army-Horse led by Col. Knight viz. His Excellencies Regiment Col. Knights Col. Cloberrâ—â—s Lord Fauconbergs Lord Howards Last of all came two Troops of Nobility and Gentlemen with red colors fringed with gold Never did Hiperion the worlds bright eye behold a more gallant sight of Nobility and Gentlemen then marched then brandishing their swords all along Soon after His Majesty was passed all the musquetires that had lined the streets gave many volleys of shot Thus was His Majesty conducted to his Royal Pallace at White-hall where after the Lord Mayor had taken his leave His Majesty went unto the Lords to whom the Earl of Manchester their Speaker addressed himself in these words That this day may prove happy to Your Majesty is the hope and Expectation and the earnest desire of my Lords the Peeres whose Commands are upon me to make this humble tender to Your Majesty of their Loyall joy for Your Majesties safe Return to Your Native Kingdome and for this happy Restoration of Your Majesty to Your Crown and Dignity after so long and so severe a suppression of Your just Right and Title I shall not reflect upon Your Majesties sufferings which have been Your peoples miseries yet I cannot omit to say That as the Nation in generall so the Peeres with a more personall and particular sense have felt the stroke that cut the Gordian knot which fastned Your Majesty to Your kingdome and Your kingdome to Your Majesty For since those strange and various fluctuations and Discomposures in Government since those horrid and unparallel'd Violations of all Order and Justice Strangers have ruled over us even with a Rod of Iron But now with satisfaction of Heart we own and see Your Majesty our Native King a son of the wise a son of the ancient kings whose hands hold forth a golden Scepter Great King Give me leave to speake the Confidence as well as the desires of the Peers of England Be you the powerfull defender of the true Protestant faith the just assertor and maintainer of the Laws and Liberties of Your Subjects so shall Judgement run down like a River and Justice like a mighty streame and God the God of Your Mercy who hath so miraculously preserved You will establish Your Throne in Righteousness and in Peace Dread Soveraign I offer no flattering Titles but speak the words of truth you are the desire of Three kingdomes the strength and the stay of the Tribes of the people for the moderating of Extremities the reconciling of Differences the satisfying of all Interests and for the Restoring of the collapsed Honour of these Nations Their Eyes are toward Your Majesty their Tongues with loud Acclamations of Joy speak the thoughts and Loyall intentions of their Hearts their Hands are lift up to Heaven with Prayers and Praises and what Oral Triumph can equall this Your Pomp and Glory Long may Your Majesty live and raign a support to Your Friends a terror to Enemies and Honour to the Nation and an Example to Kings of Piety Justice Prudence and Power that this Prophetick Expression may be verified in Your Majesty King CHARLES the second shall be greater then ever was the greatest of that name His Majesty having returned a gracious answer to the Lords went from thence unto the Banqueting House where Sir Harbotle Grimston Speaker to the House of Commons delivered himself in this speech to His Majesty the Members of that House being there present Most gracious and dread Soveraign If all the Reason and Eloquence that is dispersed in so many severall heads and tongues as are in the whole world were conveyed into my Braine and united in my tongue yet I should want sufficiency to discharge that great task I am now enjoyned The restitution of Your Majesty to the exercise of Your just and most indubitable Native Right of Soveraignty and the deliverance of Your people from bondage and slavery hath been wrought out and brought to passe by a miraculous way of Divine Providence beyond and above the reach and comprehension of our understandings and therefore to be admired impossible to be expressed God hath been pleased to train Your Majesty up in the School of affliction where You have learned that excellent lesson of patience so well and improved it so much for the good of the people that we have all just cause for ever to Bless God for it and we doubt not but Your Name is Registred in the Records of Heaven to have a place in the highest from amongst those glorious Martyrs of whom it is reported that through faith in Christ and patience in their sufferings they converted their very Tormentors and conquered those Barbarous bloody Tyrants under whom they then suffered insomuch as they themselves were many times inforced to confesse and cry out Sat est vicisti Galilaeus they had their vicisti and that deservedly but Your Majesty must have a treble vicisti for with the same weapon Faith
because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced severall opinions in Religion by which men are engaged in parties and animosities against each other which when they shall hereafter unite in a freedome of Conversation will be compossed or better understood We doe Declare a liberty to tender Consciences and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matter of Religion which do not disturbe the Peace of the Kingdome And that We shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as upon Mature Deliberation shall be offered to Us for the full granting that Indulgence And because in the continued distractions of so many years and so many and great Revolutions many Grants and Purchases of Estates have been made to and by many Officers Souldiers and others who are now possessed of the same and who may be liable to Actions at Law uâ—on severall Titles We are likewise willing that all such differences and all things relating to such Grants Sales and Purchases shall be determined in Parliament which can best provide for the just satisfaction of all men who are concerned And We do further declare that We will be ready to consent to any Act or Acts of Parliament to the purposes aforesaid and for the full satisfaction of all Arrears due to the Officers and Souldiers of the Army under the Command of Generall Monck and that they shall be received into Our service upon as good Pay and Condions as they now injoy Given under Our sign Manual and privy Sgnet At Our Court at Breda this 4 14 day of April 1660. In the twelfth year of Our Reign Never was Letter from absent Lover received with more unfeigned affection then these never was message entertain'd with a more generall consent nor did the House ever more truely appear the peoples full Representatives then at this present The Letters being read with that accustomed Ceremony and Reverence due to Majesty produced these Resolves Nemine contradicente Resolved by the House of Lords That they doe own and declare that according to the Ancient and Fundamentall Laws of this Kingdome the Government is and ought to be by King Lords and Commons Resolved that a Committee of eight Lords do joyn with a Committee of the House of Commons to consider of an answer to His Majesties Gracious Letter and Declaration Resolved by the House of Commons That a Committee be appointed to prepare an answer to His Majesties Letter expressing the great and joyfull sence of this House of His gracious offers and their Humble and Hearty Thanks to His Majesty for the same and with professions of their Loyalty and Duty to His Majesty and that this House will give a speedy answer to His Majesties gracious Proposalls Resolved that the summe of 50000 l. be presented to His Majesty from this House Ordered that the Letter from His Majesty to the House and His Declcration be entred at large in the Journall Book as also that to the Generall to be kept amongst the Records of this House for His Honour This compliance of the Parliament with His Sacred Majesty surcharged the Citizens hearts with joy those beams of Majesty which enliven Trading having been long absent from the City the presence of the Prince being one principall cause of a Cities greatness The Bells and Bonfires made outward expression of those indelible Characters of Loyalty written in their hearts the great guns from the Tower thundred forth Vive le Roys whilst each County in England strived to out-vie one another in expressions of Loyalty The Souldiery who had hitherto made Clubs trump resolve now to enthrone the King of Hearts in their affection expressing their Loyalty to His Sacred Majesty in this following addresse presented to his Excellency the Lord Generall Monck Although we cannot doubt of your Excellencies confidence in our affections and our faithfulness to your Excellency and that discipline which by your good and prudent conduct hath been exercised over us whereby we are instructed to an entire obedience to your Excellency and that Authority which the Lord shall place over us which we hope we have manifested in our last actings under your Excellency against all persons whatsoever in any ways disturbing the peace and settlement of the Nation although some of thom have been our Brethren formerly engaged in the same cause with us as also in our last Remonstrance and addresse to your Excellency wherein as it becomes us in daty we have solemnly declar'd to acquiesce in what the Lord shall bring forth from the consultations of this present Parliament Yet in regard your Excellency hath been pleased to communicate a Letter and a Leclaration from the Kings Majesty full of Gracious expressions we cannot but acknowledge that the matter of it gives a great measure of quiet to our minds and more then ordinary expectations of the enjoyment of much tranquility and happiness under His Majesties government The free and generall Indemnity offered by His Majesty with a liberty to tender Consciences satisfaction of Arrears and his readiness to consent to a confirmation of Sales and other Grants and Purchases of Estates to all persons now in possession of the same is that of which as we cannot doubt of the reall performance being left by His Majesty to the Parliaments determination so we be-believe it is the most probable way to bring the Nations to their desired settlement And we hope to evince to His Majesty and all the world that we and all those that have been engaged in the Parliaments cause are His Majesties best and most reall Subjects and that your Excellency and the Armies under your Command have comply'd with the obligations for which they were first raised for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion the Honour and Dignity of the King the priviledges of Parliament the liberty and property of the Subject and the fundamentall Laws of the Land Sir John Greenvile who brought His Majesties Letters had the thanks of both Houses given him for the same and 500 l. given him as a testimony of their respects to him the Speaker of the House of Commons delivering himself in these pathericall expressions Sir John Greenvile I need not tell you with what gratefull and thankfull hearts the Commons now assembled in Parliament have received His Majesties Gracious Letter Res ipsa loquitur you your self have been Auricularis ocularis testis de rei veritaâ—e Our Bells and our Bonfires have already begun the Proclamation of His Majesties goodnesse and of our joys We have told the people that our King the glory of England is coming home again and they have resounded it back again in our ears that they are ready and their hearts are open to receive him both Parliament and people have cryed aâ—oud in their prayers to the King of Kings Long live King CHARLES the second I am likewise to tell you that the House doth not think fit that you
deprived him of all command in the Army onely making him a member of his pageant house of Lords during whose Protectorship he lived as 't were retired knowing it in vain to struggle against one who had got so setled a power but he being dead and an opportunity given him to present himself again upon the Theatre his ambitious spirit would not let him lie still but attempts to make himself Commander of these three kingdomes as Oliver by his means had done before which design of his in the sequell ruined him and discovered those grand cheates and abuses which that party had put upon the Nation endeavouring to enslave them to their own Arbitrary power whilest they pretended to weare those glorious yet strangely wrested names of Religion and Liberty But to proceed having pulled down one Government they are inforc'd to set up another well knowing the people would not be contented to be ruled by the sword of all Governments the most unjust and arbitrary and since they must have one they resolve to have one like themselves even those men that murthered the King and had for some years enslaved their Native Country This Rump or fag end of a Parliament do they pitch upon So these Tyrants cement and knit together again like a Snakes tail and for colour called themselves the Revivers of the good old case and were as busy as if they had another King and three kingdomes to destroy Thus by Gods permission that old rotten Government which was the fâ—râ—t cause of Englands ruine is new vampt and set up again to bring the people into a far worse then Egyptian bondage and slavery Two things are to be wondered at in this transaction First how the Rump durst credit or give any trust to the army having formerly turned them out of doores and likewise so lately deserted their young Protector And secondly how the Army durst trust them whom they had so grossely abused with a full power over them to place and displace whom they pleased Certainly the Rumpes intention was no lesse then to serve the Army as they had formerly served them but the Army were as cunning as they were crafty and having knowledge of their design inhibited their usurped sitting as you shall hear anon Upon notice of the sitting of the Rump those members who had been secluded by the Army in 1648. for refusing to dip their hands in the bloud of their Prince now demand an equall interest with the others to sit and Vote but as they had formerly been violently thrust out so are they now forcibly kept out by the Officers of the Army This affront is highly resented by them Mr. Pryn one of those secluded members writing strongly against them proving them by several reasons to be no Parliament but onely a tyrannicall and illegall authority they being first dissolved by the death of the King who summoned them he being Principium causa finis Parliamenti Secondly they not being the fourth part of that number which ought to constitute a Parliament the rest of their fellow-members being at severall times turned out of the house according to the pleasure of the factious army so that most Shires and Corporations in England being unjustly deprived of their Burgesses had no power nor interest in the government of the Nation Thirdly their power being again devolved into the people who having by their Votes chosen another did disannul the autherity of this Representative But it was in vain to talk of Law to those who would be ruled by none However for the security of themselves they proceed vigorously to change the Officers of the Army causing them to take commissions from Lenthall whom they made Generall making all the hast they can to settle themselves under the notion of the Good old cause In the mean time the secluded party of the House joyning with the Presbyterian party who were now kept under by the predominant faction of Anabaptists and Independents they combine together and seek to gain by force what by fair means they could not attain and this their design they make almost generall over England that as the ruine threatned the whole Nation so was the whole Nation concerned in the redresse August the first the day appointed by the Rump for the banishing the Cavaliers out of London was the time set for them to rise But by the treachery of some of the Confederates most places of their randevous were discovered and so the design for the most part disappointed Yet Sir George Booth with divers other Gentlemen in Cheshire and Lancashire raised a considerable force and having secured Westchester and some other places declared for a free Parliament and to maintain the rights and priviledges of the people the whole Nation saving onely the Sectaries and such who had raised themselves by the ruines both of Church and State praying for their successe but few or none stirring to their assistance It is a thing to be taken notice of even to admiration that those very people who made their lawfull Soveraignes raising a little ship-money which nevertheless was expended for the benefit and security of the Nation without authority of Parliament one of the chief pleas for their raising wars against him yet could now be contented with such unparalleld impositions and tyrannies as no History can acquaint us with the like The Sicilian Tyrants being but meer shadows to these whom we may justly call the very quintessence of all tyranny and oppression But to return to our purpose the Rump had soon notice of this rising and immediately send out forces to oppose them making Lambert head of the party which gave him as fair an opportunity to put in execution his ambitious designes as possibly could be He in ten dayes marches to them faces fights and overcomes them re-takes those holds which they had possest and so returns again victorious Sir George Booth soon after was taken in a womans apparell at Newport Pagnel and committed prisoner to the Tower of London The Rump in token of their gratitude to Lambert for his good service order him a Thousand pound to buy him a Jewell which he as frankly bestows amongst his Souldiers intending they should require him at a dead lift this lesson he had cond of his Master Oliver to lay an Obligation upon the Souldiery who now were grown altogether mercenary This act of his disâ—leased the Rump who now began to find out his design but were not able to hinder it Whilest Lambert was thus acting in the North the Rump were as busy in consulting all ways for their own secuâ—ity as well from being supplanted by the Army as to suppress the peoples insurrection to this purpose they setle the Trained Bands in London with six Troops of Horse and began to raise the Militia in the Counties appointing such Commanders over them as were fanaticall yet assertors of their interest Those Governours of Garrisons who held for the Army they put out placing others in