Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	high_a	king_n	parliament_n	6,880	5	6.6843	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25601	An Answer to the Lord George Digbies apology for himself published Jan 4, Anno Dom. 1642 put in the great court of equity otherwise called the court of conscience, upon the 28th of the same moneth / by Theophilus Philanax Gerusiphilus Philalethes Decius.	Decius, Theophilus Philanax Gerusiphilus Philalethes.; Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677. Lord George Digbie's apology for himself.; Bristol, George Digby, Earl of, 1612-1677. Two letters, the one from the Lord Digby, to the Queens Majestie ; the other from Mr. Thomas Elliot.; Elliot, Thomas.	1642 (1642)	Wing A3421; ESTC R8961	70,751	74

waited on their Majesties and leaving them at Hampton Court provided their own accommodations at Kingston the next place of r●c●ipt and still so used for the over pl●● of company which the Court it self could not entertaine To these Gentlemen● of whom few or none were of my acquaintance and to this place was I sent by His Majesty with some expressions of his Majesties good acceptance of their service and returning the same night to Hampton Court continued my attendance to Windsor whither their Majesties then repaired I had not been there one day when I heard that both Houses of Parliament were informed that I and Colonell Luns●ord a person with whom I never exchanged twenty words in my life had appeared in a warlike manner at Kingston to the terror of the Kings liege people and thereupon had ordered that the Sheriff of Surrey and as I conceive that all other Sheriffes throughout England should raise the power of their severall Counties to suppresse the forces that be and I had levyed When first this news was brought me I could not but s●ight it as a ridiculous rumour for being most certain that I had never been at Kingston but only upon that message of the Kings to forty or fifty Gentlemen totally strangers to me with whom I stayed not the space of half an hour at most and in no other equipage then a Coach and six hired horses with one single man in the Coach with me and one servant riding by I thought it utterly impossible for the most remancy it self at so neer a distance to raise out of that any scri●●● matter of scandall or prejudice upon me But when soon after I received from some of my friendz not only a confirmation of that seeming impossibility but a particular accompt of the manner of it How some information concerning me at King●ton had been referred to the examination of a Committee of my sharpest enemies how the six Coach horses I appeared with there were turned by them into six score horses and that mistake I know not by what prevalence of my unhappinesse or of my enemies credit not suffered to be rectified by other witnesses there who affirmed the truth Finding my selfe in this sad condition but twenty miles off and not knowing how the people in other places might be terrified if reports concerning me should spread but in a proportionable rare to remoter distances they being now derivablo from such considerable Authors I must confesse I then began to look upon my felfe as a person of the rare misfortune that my reputation would not weigh down the most improbable or impossible accusation but fit to receive any imputation of guilt the most mischievous or malitious instrument of calumny could invent And in this condition with no other discontent then not believing my self much indebted to the world for good usage I procured● his● Majesties licence to transport a person of so great inconvenience and danger out of his Dominions into another Countrey and with all possible speed removed my self into Holland never suspecting that my guilt would increase with my absence in the retired private life which I had resolved on and did according to that resolution lead beyond Sea having the vanity of some hope that a little time discovering the falsehood of some things believed of me would take away the inconvenience of other things that were but unworthily suspected Some weeks I rested there without any hurt till the falshood of a person to whose trust I committed a Packet brought it to a hand well contented with any occasion to satisfie his own particular private malice and revenge upon me and so my Letters one to the Queens Majesty and the other to my brother Sir Lewis Dives were publiquely brought to be read in both Houses of Parliament from thence new arguments of guilt are so far enforced against me and the former displeasure revived and heightned to such a pitch that at the same time I heard of the interception of my Letters I found my self accused of high Treason too and that for levying War against the King a crime certainly that of all other I could least suspect my self guilty of And to say the truth it came into my charge but by accident for being in generall charged of high Treason and the impeachment in particular bearing onely that I had appeared in warlike manner to the terror of the Kings Subjects a question was raised by a Lord or two learned in the Law whether that accusation would amount to Treason or no and so leave was desired to amend the charge which being granted to make sure work by the Statute of 25 Edw. 3. it was put in that I had levyed War against the King If I were guilty or suspected of so lowd a crime how it came to sleep so long or if not how these Letters wherein upon an unpartiall survey there will not be found so much as an opinion as unto peace or war could minister occasion for a charge of my levying War against the King I leave to equall consideration I am farre from censuring or disputing the resolution or opinion of both or either House of Parliament no man r●●eives a stroke from thence with more submission and humility and the great reverence I bear to it hath made such an impression in me that the weight of their displeasure hath added many years to me but in so neer a concernment of my life and my honour that grave Assembly may give me leave without presuming to think their judgements unjust to say their evidence may be untrue and the persons trusted by them not so full of honour ingenuity or integrity so free from passion malice interest or affection as they are thought It will be no presumption or dis●respect to that great Councell to say that I have many enemies who have used all the ill arts their wit or malice could suggest to bring this affliction upon me and have not in whispers or in the dark published their resolution to destroy me witnesse the known tampering with very many persons both by threats and promises to accuse me their creating and cherishing such monstrous untruths of my treating with the Danes and other forreign power of a great treason of mine plotted and discovered at Sherburn with mighty warlike preparations there of my being at the head of the Rebells in Ireland and the like to make me odio● to the people to whose rage and violence they have of●●●●● de●voured to give me up a sacrifice the deep sense I have of my affliction● and injuries shall never transport me to heighten the repres●n●a●ion of them to the least degree beyond truth but whoever shall consider the penalty of Treason the ruine and desolation it brings to families the brand and infamy it fixes on our memories and shall remember that this portion was designed to me for going on my Masters errant in a Coach and six horses will believe that a mixture of sorrow

should it might much aggravate your fault no way excuse your declining their judiciall sentence it being notoriously knowne that some time after your Lordship went out of England the resolution of the House of Peers was not wholly guided by that of the House of Commons witnesse the two offers at the Militia before that Ordinance passed in both Houses and His Mai●sties owne Testimony in his Declaration of the twelfth of August That the House of Peers could not yet be prevailed with to joyne with the House of Commons in their extravagances But your Lordship is now resolved that by the grace of God it shall never be sayd that either the Parliament hath brought you or his Majestie exposed you to a tryall your own uprightnesse shall constantly sollicite it and without recourse in this to either of their favours I would to God you had been of the same mind when you procured His Maiesties licence to go into Holland and that in stead thereof you had been an humble suitor to his Mai●stie to have distinguished the crimes he hath since layd to the charge of the accused Members of both Houses in his often cited Declaration of the twelfth of August into done out of Parliament and done in Parliament And to have preferred inditements against them for the one but have left the other to the determination of Parliament For of the third sort wch is done by authority or command of Parliament I presume there were few if any amounting to treason to be pretended much lesse prov'd at the time of their first accusation By this meanes possibly Justice might have proceeded against your Lordship and them and the Kingdome might have continued in peace Whereas now through your Lordships absenting your selfe and the unhappy misunderstanding between his Maiesty the Parliament touching the Priviledge of the accused Members thereof in the case of Treason the whole Kingdom not excepting the Members of both Houses of Parliament are so divided that all that take part with the one are by the other declared to be Traitors and while it so remainath what pobissility is there of such a fair regular imparriall triall for any man either in Parliament or at Common Law as your Lordship intendeth For your Lordship as it appeareth by your Apologie is not resolved to stand as a iustified man to the world or to fall as an ●nnocent till it please God to blesse this Nation with ●uch a composure of the present distractions as that Government and Law may have their rightfull course And yet you are resolved not to accept a pardon from the King and Parliament for treason or for any voluntary crime either against your Soveraign or your Countrey For ought can be perceived the accused Members are as fully resolved of this but in the meane time the poor simple honest Country man is plundered on both sides and while your Lordship and those noble and worthy Members of both Houses stand so highly upon your innocence he beares all the punishment which I would they and your Lordship would lay to heart lest that (a) Romane rise up one day in iudgement against you and them who chose rather to go into a voluntary banishment then to be the subject matter of a civill war and was so rewarded for that piety towards his Countrey that he returned in a more glorious triumph then by the Laws of that State he might have done if all his enemies which were also the enemies thereof had been defeated by him And yet I would not be iudged so partiall either to my selfe or to my Countrey Neighbours as once to let such a thought much lesse a word escape me that my hands and theirs have not been deep in the bloud hath beene shed His Mai●sties Declaration to all his loving Subjects published with the advise of his Privie Counsell in Answer to the Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom set forth by the House of Commons the fifteenth of De●ember 1641. before the beginning of the troubles of this last yeer hath an Oraculous conclusion We shall now coniure all our good Subiects of what degree soever by all the bonds of love duty or obedience that are pretious to good men to ioyne with us for the recovery of the peace of that Kingdom Ireland and for the preservation of the peace of this to remove all their doubts and fears which may interrupt their affections to Us and all their iealousies and apprehensions which may lessen their charity to each other and then if the sins of this Nation have not prepared an inevitable judgement for us all ● God will yet make Us a great and a glorious King over a free and happy people It was true most gracious Soveraign it was true Your high wisdom elevated by that of your godly and prudent Senators did well foresee and foretell how your Maiesty and your People might still have been happy if our sins had not so far provoked our ●od to iealousie that there was no remedy but his wrath must needs break forth against us to consume us as it doth this day For else it had not bin possible that his Maiestie and his great Counsell the Parliament should ever have entertained such a reciprocall iealousie and mutuall diffidence of one another as soon after this appeared and hath since more fully bin discovered to the whole world to the great scandall of his Maiesty and of the Parliament and to no advantage of the Subiect or of the Nation else it had not been possible that through the same iealousie His Maiestie and his high Court of Parliament should ever have differed shall I say so much or so little about the formality of proceeding against persons upon information whether true or false accused of high Treason that although his Maiestie ommitted nothing that could have been done on his part either for the rectifying of the mistake which had already happened upon this occasion or for the repairing and asserting of an involuntary breach of priviledge or for pr●venting of more by his desire to be directed by them in the course he was to take And though the Parliament on their part did not let to shew his Majestie the originall ground of that misprision in that no Accuser appeared against the accused and the House of Commons apart in a Committee thereof Declared that they were so far from any endeavour to protect any of their Members that shall be in due manner prosecuted according to the Laws of the Kingdom and the rights and priviledges of Parliament for Treason or any other misdemeanour That none shall be more ready and willing than they themselves to bring them to a speedy and due Triall yet this misunderstanding brought thus neer to a right understanding that nothing remained in difference but whether his Majestie were to produce the Suggestor before the accused persons were put into safe custody could never be reconciled by the helpe of divers Presidents since alledged in the

dele I. p. 13. l. 11 12. read as all other kingdoms and States in Europe have also p. 18. l. 5. for if that read that if p. 20. l. 14. for the Law read our Law p. cad. l. 16. for retraction read retractation p. 21. l. 2. after you did adde or at least was done p. 24. l. pen after written adde and cousenting thereunto p. 27. l. 21. for minde read mine p. 32. l. 2. for were read was p. cad. l. 20. for tare read care Lesser faults may be amended by every Reader (a) And truly though much may be said in praise of Her magnanimity and dexterity to comply with Her Parliaments and for all that come off at last with honor and profit yet wee must ascribe some part of the commendation to the wisdom o● the times and the choice of Parliament men For I finde not that they were at any time given to any violent or pertinacious dispute elections being made of grave and discr●et persons not factious and ambitious of fame such as c●me not to the House with a mal●volent spirit of contention but with a preparation to consult on the publike good and rather to comply then to contest with Her Majesty Neither do I finde that the House was at any time weakned and● pestered with the admission of too many yong heads as it hath been of later times which remembers me of Recorder Marti●s Speech about the tenth of our late Soveraign Lord K. Iames when there were accounts taken of forty Gentlemen not above twenty and some not exceeding sixteen which moved Him to say that it was the ancient custome for old men to make Laws for yong ones but that then he s●● the case altered and that there were children elected unto the great Councell of the Kingdom which came to invade and invert Nature and to enact Laws to govern their Fathe●s Vide r●liqu● Sir Robert Naunton his Fragm. R●gal p. 9. There is a like passage in Sir Henry ●ootens paralel between the late Duke of Buckingham and the late Lord of Ess●x (a) I wish this Kingdom all the prosperity and happinesse in the world I did it living and now dying it is my wish I do now professe it from my heart and do most humbly recommend it unto every man here and wish every man to lay his hand upon his heart and consider seriously whether the beginning of the happinesse of a Kingdome should be written in letters of blood I fear you are in a wrong way and I desire Almighty God that no one drop of my blood may rise in judgement against you viz. Lord of Straffords Speech at his death (b) My Lords what I have yet sayd unto you hath bin chiefly grounded upon the apprehensions and feares of our future dangers I shall say something of the unhappinesses of our present estate wich certainly standeth in as much need of relief and remedy as our fears doe of prevention for although the King and People were fully united that all men that now draw severall wayes should unanimously set their hand to the work yet they would finde it no easie task to restore this kingdom to a prosperous and comfortable ●ondition If we take into our consideration the deplorable estate of Ireland likely to drain this kingdom of men and treasure if we consider the debts and necessities of the Crown the ingagements of the kingdom the great and unusuall Contributions of the people the which although they be not so much to their discontent for that they have been legally raised yet the burthen hath not been much eased Let us likewise consider the distractions I may almost call them confusions in point of Religion which of all other distemp●rs are most dangerous and destructive to the peace of a State Besides the publique calamities let every particular man consider the distracted and discomfortable estate of his own condition for mine own part I must ingenuously prof●sse unto your Lordship That I cannot finde out under the different Commands of the King and the Parliament any such course of caution or warinesse by which I may promise to my self security or safety I could give your Lordship many instances of the inconsistencie and impossibility of obeying these Commands But I shall trouble you onely with one or two The Ordinance of Parliament concerning the Militia now in so great agitation commandeth all persons in Authority to put it in execution and all others to obey it according to the Fundamentall Laws of the land The King declareth it to be contrary to the Fundamentall Laws against the Liberty of the Subject and Rights of Parliament And commandeth all His Subjects of what degree soever upon their Allegiance not to obey the said Ordinance as they will answer the contrary at their perills So likewise in point of the Kings commanding the attendance of divers of us upon His person whereunto we are obliged by severall relations of our services and oaths In case we comply not with His Commands we are liable to His displeasure and the losse of those places of honour and trust we hold under Him If we obey His Commands without the leave of the Parliament which hath not alwayes been granted we are liable to the censure of Parliament and of both these we want not fresh Examples So that certainly this cannot but be acknowledged to be an unhappy and uncomfortable condition I am sure I bring with me a ready and obedient heart to pay unto the King all those duties of loyalty allegiance and obedience which I owe unto Him And I shall never be wanting towards the Parliament to pay unto it all those due Rights and that obedience which we all owe unto it But in contrary Commands a conformity of obedience to both is hardly to be lighted on The Reconciliation must be in the Commanders and the Commands not in the obedience or the person that is to obey And therefore untill it please God to blesse us with a right understanding betwixt the King and Parliament and a conformity in their Commands neither the Kingdom in publique nor particular men in private can be reduced to a safe or comfortable condition Earl of Bristolle Speech May 20. 1642. Vide reliqua (a) Let every man purge his heart clear of al passions I know this great and wise body politicke can have none but I speak to individuals frō the weaknesse which I find in my selfe Away with al personal animosities Away with all flatteries to the people in being the sharper against him because he is odious to them Away with all fears lest by the sparing of his bloud they may be incenst away with all such considerations as that it is not fit for a Parliament that one accused by it of Treason should escape with life Let not former vehemence of any against him nor fear from thence that he cannot be safe while that man lives be an ingredient in the sentence of any one of us Of all these

much passion I desire to save a noble young Lord of such eminent abilities as may be of great use to the King and Kingdom from sincking in his reputation which will make them altogether uselesse to the publick I will adventure to take your Lordship by the hand and to try whether I can raise you out of this puddle also when I have first opened my selfe to be the same man that made the larger Answer to your Lps Speech to the Bil of Attainder of the sayd unhappy Lord which was intended to have been sent to you so timely that if your Lordship had thereby received satisfaction in your Scruples you might have acknowledged as much in the House of Commons whereof you were then a Member and so have escaped their censure in a fayrer way then you did by climbing up into the House of Peers at that time For so that is understood But the throng of lesser Pamphlets was so great that before this could passe the Presse which I am made believe it could not in a month and more your Lordships Speech ranne the fortune you know and another briefer Answer thereunto got through Of which misadventure I was much more sorry for your Lordships sake than mine own though by this meanes I also may possibly have been censured either for insulting upon a noble person cast down which I should hate my self for if it were true or for having taken the advantage of such a time to publish my Answer when it was not safe for your Lordship to make any Reply But since your Lordship hath adventured on other actions and writings more dangerous then your defence need to be as your Lordship may mannage it I humbly beseech your Lordship to take it into your consideration whether you may not do well to make a Replication thereunto for the reasons I shall now give your Lordship and which I am perswaded ought to have the same force with you which they have with me They are if that your Lordship do yet persist in your opinion that you had sufficient grounds to alter your first judgement of the Lord Straffords cause you ought to make a further clear deduction of them to the world partly for that unfortunate Lords sake partly for your owne a little for your servants and a great deale for your Countryes sake For to begin with the last as being of greatest concernment in it self and I beleeve in your Lordships esteem also If your Lordship who have now had good leisure and great cause to revolve all your late words and actions in your most serious thoughts and to bring all the stirrings of your conscience upon every one of them to a strict examination be still of the same mind you were when you so solemnly washed your hands from the blood of the Lord of Strafford which he at his death charged home upon this Kingdome (a) then it cannot be but you must needs fear that it lyes upon this Land and in your apprehension may be one cause of the present unhappy condition thereof which hath beene so well foreseen and expressed by my Lord your father (b) And may you then or can you in such a time as this keep the reason of your fears to your self which for ought you can know may have the same operation in the hearts of those to whom you then so lively represented the hainousnesse of the sin of committing murther with the sword of justice if you think you can convince them thereof I need not tell your Lordship the force of naked truth not to bee told when it comes armed with so compleat an eloquence as ●od hath given your Lordship And if you could thereby worke the like change in the rest of my Lord of Straffords Judges which was wrought in you have they not power to review their owne proceedings and to repeal the Bill of Attainder they passed in this cause your Lordship knowes this is usuall in the Republick of Venice and if there be no president in our State of any man restored to his blood by the same Parliament which attainted him which I am not learnd enough to know I conceive such a new president were well made as many other have been by the wisdom of this Parliament by 〈◊〉 and not by the examples of former every Parliament ought to be guided For me if your Lordship shall prove to me that your grouuds remain firm after all my endeavours to shake them and withall if with the helpe of the many great Lawyers were of your Lordships opinion you can make a satisfactory Answer to the learned argument of Mr. Solicitor by which I was much cleared and confirmed in the judgement unto which I was lead by meer reason without having the light of the Law I here professe that I shall hold my selfe much obliged to your Lordp. for disabusing me and bound in conscience to make a retraction of my Answer in Print since I gave way to the printing thereof And I believe Master Saint-Iohn will be of the same mind the fame I have heard of his Religion being no lesse then that of his Law and the alteration of his opinion may prove a principall verb in the● construction of the Parliament concerning that case Your Lordp hath therefore no want of forreign inducements to imploy your best thoughts in this disquisition By the same labour your Lordp. may rectifie your own reputation in this matter which ought to be more tender to you now then ever as I see it is And if you can make it appear that you were in the right you shall wrong the Parliament more then yet you have done by entertaining the least doubt that you may thereby hinder your repatriation with them which I wish you had not done by other courses It is ever better for the wisest Counsells and States as well as men to retract an error then to maintain it But if on the other side your Lordship doth now perceive that you might have condemned the Earl os Strafford with as free a heart as you accused or prosecuted him for a Traytor then my Lord a good conscience will need no prompter to tell you that you owe the King and Kingdom a publique confession of your judgement as now informed in reparation of that high wrong you did His Majestie and the Parliament by publishing your Protestation in print when you were of another minde nor that you have much worke to do at home which can be done by no other and which it doth infinitely concern you not to slubber over I need not tell you my reason yet because the most watchfull conscience may need jogging sometimes I most humbly beseech your Lordship to give me leave without offence to entreat you first to take a re-view of your Speech by the light you now have from Master Solicitor and then to set before your eyes that part of the preface wherin you wished peace of conscience to your selfe and the

and innocence with so much passion as may keep them company may well be allowed to breath it self with so much freedom as to present to the world with a true and sensible life my sufferings upon whomsoever the injustice and inhumanity may light of having opprest and bowed down to the earth a young man and all his hopes by such undeserved calamities ANSWER The next misfortune your Lordship insisteth on is your having been charged in generalll with High-Treason the impeachment in particular bearing onely that you had appeared in a warlike manner to the terror of the Kings Subjects at Kingstone upon Thames and the amendment of that charge by putting in that you had levyed War against the King upon a question raysed by a Lord or two learned in the Law whether that former accusation would amount to Treason or no To this I need to say little because I may well presume that the two Houses of Parliament in some sort interessed in this your Lordships complaint though not of them yet of the persons trusted by them will not faile to give convenient satisfaction unto your Lordship and the world at the sollicitation of those persons to me unknowne concerning whom your Lordship thinketh you may as you doe put a question whether they be so full of Honour ingenuitie or integritie or so free from passion malice interest or affection as they are thought without offence of both or either House of Parliament or any reflection upon the opinion or resolution of either of them All I will or indeed can say as to the matter above recited is but this That whether your Lordp. appeared there with six Coach-horses or six score horses whether your Lordships businesse to that place where those many Souldiers and Commanders who waited on their Majesties to Hampton Court and from thence went to Kingston upon Tham●s for lodging were only upon a message of the Kings to 40 or 50 Gentlemen among them expressing his Majesties good acceptance of their service Whether those forty or fifty were totally strangers to your Lordp. to which point also the Intelligencer telleth an unhappy tale and by name whether Colonell Lunsford were till then so great a stranger to your Lordp. that you had never exchanged twenty words with him in all your life are all matters of fact and the truth of them must remain upon proof For if there can be no more proved against your Lordship then you write then admitting it to be true which I find in the Remonstrance of the Lords and Commons prepared long before but ordered to be published upon the second of November last That there were at Kingston at that time waggons loaden with Pistolls Carbines and Ammunition great horses armed with Pistolls And though the Officers to whom it seemeth your Lordship was sent together with the Souldiers and Cavaliers were some hundreds your Lordp. in this Apology avoweth they were many And though they were listed and taken into pay and an invitation made to such Gentlemen as would mount and maintain themselves for a month by a promise that afterwards they should be taken into pay and be his Majesties Guard for their lives And though the unr●ly company assembled there discharged their Pistolls and threatned the Inhabitants that they would have the heads of some of them within four dayes to the great terror and amazement of the poor people And though all this put together may amount to a warlike appearance and preparation which that Remonstrance leaveth every man to judge yet how it should concerne your Lordp if you had no further hand in all this or in any part thereof then you have confessed under the favour and correction of both Houses of Parliament I must here prosesse as yet informed I am not able to comprehend And if your Lordship have misinsormed me and the world therein I think you have done your self as ill a turn as the worst of your supposed enemies could have done you But whereas your Lordship complayneth that the examination of these things were referred to a Committee of your sharpest enemies and that the great mistake of six Coach horses turned into six score horses was not suffered to be rectified by other witnesses there who affirmed the truth to these two parts of your Lordships complaint I have one Answer to make which is that if in them both your Lordp. had any wrong it ought not to be imputed either to any prevalence of your particular unhappinesse or to the credit of your enemies but to be reputed among the common calamities which may befall any subject of this Kingdom by reason of the ancient customes thereof which seem exceeding strange to all strangers that hear of them among whom I have often had much a do to maintain their fitnesse and equity and yet the wisdom of this State hath not hitherto found sufficient cause to alter so ancient constitutions The one of them is the manner of naming Committees in Parliament in which all men see there is exceeding great inequality and too much left to the care of the Clearke who hath more power by much therein then any Member of the House of Commons But how to remedy this without running the hazard of other as great or greater inconveniencies it may be is not so easie to devise Which notwithstanding I have often heretofore and upon this occasion do now wish that honourable House to whom nothing that can be better ordered by humane prudence is impossible would take into mature deliberation The other is that ancient Maxime of our Law Non accipitur juramentum contra Regem by reason whereof if it be rigorously observed as for ought I know it is ever in all tryalls upon life and death in inferiour Courts the honour life and estate of the greatest subject how innocent soever may be in danger if two of the meanest men in the whole Kingdom shall combine so secretly to take it away that there can be no discovery of their conspiracy whereat strangers use to hold up their hands and blesse themselves For it seemeth the Committee above mentioned had the equity of that rule of Law in their eye for their direction and that your Lordship had not all the favour shewed you to the Earl of Strafford who was allowed to produce witnesses and crosse examine such as were produced against him and in troth I believe had as much favour as was ever shewed to any subject in his case which is and will ever be one great justification of the proceedings against him whatsoever may break forth in time to shew his innocence But my Lord lesse favour may be shewed to divers persons accused of the same crime without any ingredient of private malice or revenge to the one of them And yet he that feeleth the hurt of the difference is under a strong temptation to apprehend those to be his private enemies whom he observeth to be keen in pursuing him although their consciences may bear them

be preserved from this undoing by the Queens interposing By these two Notes may be observed that at the time whilest so many Declarations were published in His Majesties Name with solemne Protestations of His Majesties intentions of raising onely a Guard for His own Person all sorts of Provision for an Army were made beyond the seas and this poore Kingdom designed to the misery and confusion of war and under the disguise of defending the Protestant profession an Army to be raised in the intention of these wicked Counsellors for the suppressing and destruction of the Protestant Religion A Note of the Arms sent for by the KING from Amsterdam C. R. Two hundred fire-locks 4 peeces of Cannon for battery viz. 1 Cannon 1 Demi-Cannon 2 whole Culverin 2 Mortars 4 Petards 10 field-peeces of 6 pound bullet mounted One hundred Barrels of powder Round shot and case proportioned to the severall Pieces Two thousand pair of Pistolls One thousand Carbines Three thousand Saddles Three thousand Musquets One thousand Pikes C. R. Iran de gerre a Amsterdam Bartholetti Agent de la langravine de Hen. Wickford Die Lunae 1. Augusti 1642. Ordered that the Letters from the Lord Digby and M. Thomas Elliot and the Note of arms sent for by the King from Amsterdam be printed And that it be referred to the Committee for the Defence of the Kingdom to prepare a Pre●mble and to make some Observations upon these Letters H. Elsynge Cler. Parl. D. Com. Postscript TO give my self the honor of becoming your Lordships Gentleman-Vsher in the way of retractation I shall not blush freely here to confesse that when I made that mine Answer to your Lordships Speech to the Bill of Attainder I had not observed that the breach of the Sabbath among the Iews was punishable by death by any Command of God before that which was given upon the occasion of the gatherer of sticks which was a manifest ignorance in me For Exod. 31. 14. we find these words Ye shall keepe the Sabbath for it is holy unto you every one that defiles it shall surely be put to death for whosoever doth any worke therein that soul shal be cut off from among his People Whereby it seemeth that the question about the stick-gatherer was in the regard of the lightnesse of the work he had done or of some other occasion now unknown to us but that makes no difference in the case in respect of the use I made of the example And upon this occasion I cannot forbear to observe that the gross● breaches of all the Commandements of the first Table were made Capitall by God which is a matter worthy of much consideration by them that have the Legislative power in all Christian States There is yet another greater slipp in that Answer of min● Where having that in my thoughts which your Lordship hath so well expressed as I have recited it in the beginning of that page There is in Parliament a double power of life and death by Bill a judiciall power and a Legislative power● the measure of the one is what is legally just of the other what is prudentially and pollitickly fit for the good and preservation of the whole I ●n my Answer thereunto expressed my selfe too short in these words But in either of those cases to deny unto that Represent●tive body the High Court of the Kingdome a liberty to do any thing not unjust in it self though not as yet legally declared to be just for the preservation of that gre●●er body it represents when according to the sincere judgement of prudence and pollicy it cannot be suffciently secured by Laws already made is neither agreed ●e to the Law of nature ●or of the Land n●r of God nor to a rule of your Lordships own Whereas I should have s●yd to do any thing by Bill For so it was propounded by your Lordship and intended by me having your words in my phancy and such was the case of the Lord Straffords Attainder● which I was to maintain against whom the House of Commons thought better to proceed by Bill even after a judiciall hearing to av●yd the inconven●●nce of affirming or seeming to affirme an arbitrary power in the House of Peers in their proceedings by way of judi●●ture in the c●se of Treason The use whereof their Lordships themselves have I think allwayes ●s carefully declined ever since the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. whatsoever power by that Statute may be thought to remain in them The Printer made many faults which being none of mine I will not trouble my selfe to ●mend nor those he may have made in this my Answer to your Lordships Apology But for my own if in the h●st it was written any may have escaped me which may give the le●st off●nce either to the King my most gracious Soveraign or to the Parliament or to eith●r H●use thereof or to your Lordship or to any man dead or l●ving I do here humbly crave their pardon who may take the offence and retract ●● as having happened be●ide my intention and against my will To the READER I Should do ill to print a half truth whereof I pretend to be an intire lover I must therefore here give notice that the three former parts of this Answer were in his hands to whom I r●commended the care of the printing according to the date in the Title which he can testifie but I could not resolve to let the fourth go after them so soon for reasons concerning others and not my s●lf And in the mean time I made many great alterations in this last part and it hath still grown under my hand at length to the bulk it now bears which I will not excuse because I could not mend Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis Sed tu Cosconi Disticha longa facis This passage hath reference to the Marginall note in fol. 6. at the latter end When my Lord of Essex stood in favour the Parliaments were calm Nay I finde it a true observation that there was no impeachment of any Nobleman by the Commons from the Raign of King Henry the sixth untill the eighteenth of King Iames nor any intervenient president of that nature not that something or other could be wanting to be said while men are men For not to go higher we are taught easily so much by the very Ballads and Libels of Leicestrian time But about the aforesaid yeer many yong ones being chosen into the House of Commons more then had been usuall in great Councells who though of the weakest Wings are the highest Flyers there arose a certain unfortunate and unfruitfull Spirit in some places not sowing but picking at every stone in the Field rather then tending to the generall Harvest And thus far the consideration of the Nature of the Time hath transported me and the occasion of the subject FINIS ERRATA PAge 9. line 19. for it an read it as an hyperbolicall p. 12. l. 26.