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
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
A FVLL ANSWER TO AN INFAMOUS AND TRAYTEROUS PAMPHLET ENTITULED A Declaration of the Commons of England in Parliament assembled expressing their Reasons and Grounds of passing the late Resolutions touching no further Addresse or Application to be made to the KING MICAH 3. 11. The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets thereof divine for mony yet will they leane upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord among us none evill can come upon us Printed for R. ROYSTON 1648. THE CONTENTS THe Authors Method pag. 2. Their severall Charges against the KING ib. 1. That His Majesty hath laid a fit foundation for all Tyranny by this Maxime or Principle 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 p. 3. 2. The private Articles agreed in order to the Match with Spaine and those other private Articles upon the French marriage c. p. 12 3. The Death of King James ib. 4. The businesse of Rochel p. 17. 5. The Designe of the German Horse Loanes Privy-Seales Coat and Conduct-mony Ship-mony and the many Monopolies p. 19. 6. The torture of our bodies by whipping cutting off eares pillories c. with close-imprisonment aggravated with the dominion exercised over our souls by Oaths Excommunications new Canons c. p. 24. 7. The long intermission of Parliaments and at the dissolution of some how Priviledges have been broken and some Members imprisoned p. 26. 8. The new Liturgy and Canons sent into Scotland And the cancelling and burning the Articles of Pacification p. 27. 9. The calling and dissolving the short Parliament and the Kings proceeding after the dissolution therof p. 28. 10. The King summoned the present Parliament to have assistance against the Scots And when He found that hope vaine He was so passionately affected to His Malignant Counsellours that He would rather desert His Parliament and Kingdome then deliver them to Law and Justice p. 29. 11. The Queens designe to advance Popery and Her observing a Popish Fast with Secretary Windebank's going beyond Sea by His Majesties Passe after he was questioned p. 30. 12. Commissions given to Popish Agents for private Leavies p. 31. 13. The bringing up the Northerne Army to over-awe the Parliament ib. 14. Offers made to the Scots of the plunder of London if they would advance or of 4 Northern Counties with three hundred thousand pounds but to stand Neuters p. 36. 15. The businesse of Ireland p. 38. 16. The unusuall preparation of Ammunition and Armes upon the Kings return from Scotland with new Guards within and about Whitehall 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 displacing Sir William Balfore and placing other Officers who were suspected by them and the whole City p. 58. 17. The Charge of Treason against some of both Houses and the Kings going so attended to the House of Commons p. 62. 18. A Parallel between the Kings proceedings against the 5 and the Armies against 11 Members p. 67. 19. Commissions granted to the E. of Newcastle and Colonel Legg for attempting Newcastle and Hull And their intelligence of forain Forces from Denmark p. 72. 20. The Queens going into Holland and her carrying away and pawning the anncient Iewels of the Crowne p. 76. 21. When they first took up Arms against the King ib. 22. Breach of Honour and faith in the King for making so many solemn Protestations against any thought of bringing up the Northerne Army or of Levying Forces to wage war with His Parliament or of bringing in forain Forces or Aids from beyond Sea p. 79. 23. They have not observed their Professions made to the King nor kept their promises to the People p. 95. 96. 24. That His Majesty proclaimed them Traytors and Rebels setting up His Standard against the Parliament which never any King of England did before Himself p. 97. 25. The setting up a Mock-Parliament at Oxford to oppose and protest against the Parliament of England p. 102. 26. A full Relation of the first Tumults p. 107. 27. The Pacification and peace in Ireland p. 113. The King 's severall Messages and their Propositions and Addresses for peace p. 118. Their 4 Bills presented to His Majesty at Carisbrook-Castle p. 132. The Commons Resolutions of making no more Addresses to the King p. 148. The Conclusion Demonstrating 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 p. 156. An ANSWER to an infamous and trayterous Pamphlet entituled A DECLARATION of the Commons of England in Parliament expressing their reasons and grounds of passing the late Resolutions touching no further addresse or application to be made to the KING IF the nature and minds of men were not more inclined to errour and vice then they are to truth and vertue and their memories more retentive of the Arguments and evidence which is administred to pervert then of those applied to reclaime them there would be little need of composing any Answer to this seditious and trayterous Declaration which consists onely of the severall infamous and scandalous imputations and reproaches except the odious and groundlesse discourse of the death of King James which though they have alwaies whisper'd they never thought fit to own till now which have been thrown and scattered against the King throughout their Declarations and Remonstrances and is but the same Calumny and Treason bound up in a lesser Volume to every particular whereof His Majesty whilst he was at liberty to speak for himself and to take the pains to undeceive and inform his people gave full and clear answers in His severall Declarations and Expresses so that from thence all men may gather the most naturall and proper Antidotes to expell this poyson the spirit and malignity whereof it is hoped is so near spent by the stalenesse and palpable unskilfulnesse as well as malice of the Composition that it will neither be received by or work upon any healthfull Constitutions yet it will not be amisse for the information of those who it may be have not taken the pains to read the KING 's former Answers and Declarations and refreshing the memory of others who have forgotten what they have read to collect the Answers formerly given to those particulars with which His Majesty is now charged and to adde to those Answers what the knowledge and observation of most men who have been faithfull inquirers into past Actions with that integrity and duty that becomes Subjects may supply them with For which there will need no great Apology since every honest man hath a more regular and legall qualification to vindicate His Majesty from those foule aspersions then any Combination
fact or to any purpose that may advance their Designes They intercept a Letter directed to the Queens Majesty from the Lord Digby before the War began and declare it would be dishonourable to His Majesty and dangerous for the Kingdome if it should not be opened and thereupon with unheard-of presumption they open and peruse the Letter Her Majesty being within a daies journey of them And when the King caused Sir John Hotham's Letters to be opened which were intercepted after he was in Rebellion They declare that it was a high breach of Priviledge which by the Laws of the Kingdome and by the Protestation we are bound to defend with our lives and fortune One Master Booth a Gentleman of quality of Lincolnshire delivered a Petition to the King at Yorke in which he complained of certaine Gentlemen who as Deputy-Lieutenants had put the Ordinance for the Militia in execution in that County and set forth in his Petition severall Actions done and words spoken by them at that time and both himself and one Master Scroope made affidavit before a Master of the Chancery that the Information in the Petition was punctually and precisely true which Petition and Oath being printed the House of Commons frankly declared That it was false Not to speak of their declaring that the Kings comming to the House of Commons was a trayterous design against the King and Parliament and that His Proclamation which He published for the apprehension of those Members was false So that this sole power of declaring would not stand in need of any other power to subvert the whole frame of Government and so dispose of the intire rights of Prince and People according to the variety of their appetites and humour For they say as some presidents of their Predecessours ought not to be rules for them to follow so none can be limits to bound their proceedings And in truth the inconstancy and contradiction in their rules and resolutions is no lesse observable then the other extravagancy In their Petition of the 14 of Decem. 1641. they declared that the King ought not to manifest or declare His consent or dissent approbation or dislike of any Bill in preparation or debate before it be presented to Him in due course of Parliament yet within few daies after in the Petition that accompanied the Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdome they desired His Majesty that He would concur with them for the depriving the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament the Bill for that purpose being still depending in the Lords House and then not like to passe By the Order of the 3 of January 1641. and many Declarations after they declared that if any Person whatsoever shall offer to Arrest or detain the Person of any Member without first acquainting the House that it is lawfull for him to stand upon his defence and make resistance and for any other Person to assist him in so doing but in their Declaration of the 2 of November following they deny that they had said so and acknowledged that a Member in the cases of Treason Felony or the Peace may be Arrested and detained in ordine to his appearance before the Parliament There would be no end of these instances not to speak of those where the House of Peers have declared the Law one way and the Commons an other as in the Order of the 9 of September 2. The next Charge is the private Articles agreed in order to the Match with Spaine and those other private Articles upon the French Marriage so prejudiciall to the Peace Safety Laws c. What those private Articles were or are is not expressed which doubtlesse would have been if a reasonable advantage might have been hoped from it all those Papers being seized and perused by those who have neither respect to the dignity of their Soveraigne or regard of the honour of their Country The Articles with both Kingdomes were transacted by the great wisdome of King James and cannot be imputed to His Majesty that now is neither is there in one or the other any one Article that was not in the Kings power to agree to in the manner in which he did agree and that neither of them were prejudiciall to the Peace Safety Laws and Religion here established is most evident for that Peace and Safety were never more visible nor the Laws and Religion established did ever flourish more in any age then from the time of those Articles to the beginning of this unhappy Parliament which no discourse of correspondence with Rome can hinder from being acknowledged 3. The third matter objected is a Discourse concerning the Death of King JAMES in which there is mention of a Clause in the Impeachment carried up against the Duke of Buckingham by the House of Commons in the 2 year of this King that the King came into the Lords House and took notice of that Charge and said He could be a Witnesse to clear him in every one of them and that shortly after the Parliament was dissolved and they conclude that they leave it to the world to judge where the guilt remaines During the life of King James and to the hour of his death there was no earthly thing He took equall joy and comfort in as in the obedience piety of His Son who was not more reputed and known to be Heire apparent to the Crown then to be the most dutifull and pious Son in the Kingdome and was never known to displease His Father in His life The King died in the 59 year of his age after many terrible fits of an Ague which turned to a quotidian Fever a disease usually mortall to persons of that age and corpulency of body which K. James was of After His death in the 1 year of His Majesties Reigne there was a Parliament called during which time there was never the least whisper or imagination of the King's death to be otherwise then naturall and yet the King had many great persons in His Councel and there were more afterwards in that Parliament who did not pretend any kindnesse to the Duke of Buckingham many of whom must necessarily have observed or at least have been informed of any Arguments for such a notorious and odious practice and would not have suffered any jealousie that could reflect on the Duke to be untaken notice of By that time the Parliament in the 2 year of the King began one George Eglisham an infamous Scotch-man and a Papist having an ambition to be taken notice of as an Enemy to the Duke transported himself into Flanders and from thence about the beginning of that Parliament sent over a small Pamphlet in the form of a Petition in his owne name to the Parliament accusing the Duke of Buckingham of having poysoned the Marquesse of Hamilton and King JAMES which Pamphlet was industriously scattered up and down the streets in the City of London and the House of Commons being
mention was made of bringing up the Army to London and making sure the Tower and as soon rejected as proposed and onely proposed as their evidence saies to shew the vanity and danger of other Propositions And that when the King was made acquainted with it He said those waies were vain and foolish and that they should think of them no more That the Petition it self which His Majesty approved was not above the size of Petitions and very much modester then any one Petition received by the Authors of this Declaration with approbation appears by the Petition it self to be read in the 563 pag. of the 1 vol. of the Collect. of Ord. published by themselves which being directed to the two Houses as well as to the King took notice of the seditious Tumults which they said had beset the Parliament and White-Hall it self not onely to the prejudice of that freedome which is necessary to great Councells and Judicatories but possibly to some personall danger of His sacred Majesty and Peers and therefore desired that the Ring-leaders of those Tumults might be punished and that His Majesty and the Parliament might be secured from such insolencies hereafter for the suppressing of which they offered themselves to wait on them if they pleased which hath not been since thought so unnaturall a security an Army being since called up and kept about them upon the same pretences to the same purpose of which more must be said anon And for the strangeness suggested that three Gentlemen should flee beyond Sea upon discovery of a modest Petition it is no wonder when men were every day imprisoned ruined and destroyed upon the most triviall discoveries and unreasonable conjectures and apprehensions that men desired to avoid their Judgment who had it in their power to put what interpretation they pleased upon any discovery and to inflict what punishment they thought fit upon such interpretation or that the King contributed His allowance to remove His Servants from such a Tribunall It is a wonderfull presumption these men have upon the credulity of the people that they will not examine the truth of any thing they alleage how easie soever it is to disprove them otherwise they would not affirme that at the meeting of Officers at Burrough-Bridge Propositions were made and private instructions brought from the King whereas it appears by their own evidence that Capt. Chudleigh who is supposed to have brought those Propositions thither and what they were appears not did not receive those Propositions from the King and that when he kissed the Kings hand His Majesty spake not a word to him of those Propositions which without doubt He would have done if He had been privy to or expected any thing from His agitation it being not alleaged that there was any other Officer of the Army at that time so immediatly imployed or trusted in that Agitation And as there hath not been the least colourable evidence in any of the Depositions then or since published which can reflect upon the King And as there is much in Master Goring's second Examination and other Depositions suppressed by them which if produced would manifest that there was never any such designe as is suggested and that to the very Communication concerning it the King was not any way privy and dis-liked it when he heard of it So it was observed then and not a little wondred at that Capt. Chudleigh who was the principall person imployed and who confesses in his Examination of the 10 of May that he used all his power to incense the Army against the Parliament and to kindle a zeale in them towards the King was so far from being in disfavour with them that he was immediately imployed by them into Ireland and afterwards re-called thence and trusted in the second if not the first Command in the West against the King which they would not have done if he had been in that manner first engaged by His Majesty For the discourse of the Prince his meeting the Army with the Earle of Newcastle and a body of Horse it is proved to be by a private Major in the Army who had not only any relation to the King but at that time had never spoken word with His Majesty in his life and had no more ground then the other of the designe for some French to seize on Portsmouth which is so ridiculous that it needs no other Answer then repeating it 14. The Offers made to the Scots of the plunder of London if they would advance or of four Northerne Counties with three hundred thousand pounds or Iewels of great value but to stand Newters in that designe is another impossible branch of this Charge for which there appears not the least pretence of proof in any thing published by them and they have not been tender of publishing all they know or imagined but that Master Oneale asked Sir Jacob Ashly what if the Scots could be made Newtrall It is not imaginable that the King knew not the temper of that time which he so grievously felt well enough to conclude that the Parliament and the Scots were too fast combined to be sever'd for any interest of his and the offer of four Northern Counties a thing so confessedly out of the King's power to give is so senslesse a calumny that no man out of the highest fit of madnesse can believe it and they to whom this Offer is supposed to be made would in all this time have accused the King of it if they had been able to justifie any thing like it However it is to be observed that though these men hold these imaginable overtures and designes to be very hainous crimes in the King they reckon the reducing such designes into reall and compleat execution no Offences in themselves and that though the King may not wish His Subjects of Scotland to stand newters in the differences between His Majesty and His English people yet it is no fault in them to engage that Nation to assist them in Armes against the Soveraigne of both Kingdomes and though a cursory discourse by other men of bringing up the Army to awe the Parliament be alleaged as a breach of trust against the King never to be forgotten yet the actuall bringing up an Army upon them and thereby awing it so far as the driving away many Members and making those who remained do any thing that Army directs is no offence in them either against the freedome or priviledge of Parliament To that clause His Majesty not being perswaded by their Petitions to defer His journey into Scotland in the year 1641. there needs no Answer then the remembring His Majesties owne words in His Declaration of the 12. of August which are these We gave them warning that if there were any more good Bills which they desired might passe for the benefit of Our Subjects We wished they might be made ready against such a time when We resolved according
of Reading whilst the Earl of Essex continued still at or about Warwicke on the 2 of November they resolved to send an Overture to his Majesty concerning Peace and though it must not be said they were forced to that Addresse yet truly who ever reads that Petition which was brought to his Majesty to Colebrooke will be of opinion by the stile of it that they were fuller of fear or of duty then they were when they rejected his Majesties offer from Notingham or then they were ten daies after or ever since That Petition was answered with all imaginable candor by his Majesty and Windsor chosen if they would remove their Garrison out of it for the place of Treaty But when the Messengers were returned who made not the least mention of a Cessation it appeared by sure intelligence that the Earl of Essex who had the night before brought his Army to or neer London after those Messengers were dispatched to his Majesty had drawn a great part of his Forces and the London Traine bands towards his Majesty and sent others to Acton on the one side and Kingston on the other so that there being likewise a Garrison at Windsor if the King had staid at Colebrooke He had been insensibly hemmed in and surrounded by the Enemy whereupon He took a sudden resolution to advance to Brainceford thereby to compell them to draw their Body together so making His way through that Towne with the defeat of a Regiment or two which made resistance there and thereby causing those at Kingston to remove the King went to His own House at Hampton Court and having there in vaine expected the Commissioners from the Houses to Treat retired to Reading where He staid till He found they had given over all thought of Treaty and they sent Him a new scornfull Petition to returne to His Parliament with His Royall not His Martiall attendance In January following the importunity of the City of London and generall clamour of the people forced them to pretend an inclination to peace and so they sent Propositions to his Majesty which though but 14 in number contained the whole matter of the former 19. with an addition of some Bils ready passed the two Houses to which His royall assent was demanded one of which was for the extirpation and eradication of the whole frame of Church-government and another for the confirming an Assembly of such Divines as they had chosen to devise a new Government which they were so much the fitter to be trusted with because in the whole number which consisted of above one hundred and might be increased as they thought fit there were not above a dozen who were not already declared Enemies to the old to the which notwithstanding there were few of them who had not subscribed and a promise required from his Majesty that He would give His assent to all such Bils which the two Houses should hereafter present to Him upon consultation with that Assembly How extravagant soever these Propositions were the King so much subdued and suppressed His Princely indignation that He drew them to a Treaty even upon those Propositions expecting as He expressed in His Answer when He proposed the Treaty that such of them as appeared derogatory from and destructive to His just Power and Prerogative should be waved and many other things that were darke and doubtfull in them might be cleared and explained upon debate and concluding that if they would consent to a Treaty they would likewise give such authority and power of reasoning to those whom they should trust that they might either give or take satisfaction upon those principles of piety honour and justice as both sides avowed their being governed by How that Treaty was managed how their Commissioners were limited and bound up by their Instructions that they had no power to recede from the least materiall tittle of the Propositions upon which they treated how they were not suffered to stay one houre beyond the time first assigned to them albeit his Majesty earnestly desired the Treaty might be continued till He had received an Answer to Propositions of His owne which He had sent to the Houses because the Committee had no power to answer them and how the same day their Commissioners left Oxford the Earl of Essex marched with his whole Army to besiege Reading is known to all men who may conclude thereupon that they never intended that Treaty should produce a peace On the other side the King proposed only That His Ships might be restored to Him and His Castles and Revenue which by the confession of all had been violently taken from Him and that His Majesty and the Members of both Houses who had been driven from Westminster might either return thither upon such a provision as might secure them against Tumults for the future or that the Parliament might be adjourned to some safe place and so all Armies presently to be disbanded To which Proposition from his Majesty they never vouchsafed to return Answer and the King after He had above a Month in vain expected it from them and in that time received a good supply of Ammunition which He was before thought to want sent another Message by Mr. Alexander Hambden on the 19 of May 1643. in which He told them That when He considered that the scene of all the calamity was in the bowels of His own Kingdome that all the bloud which was spilt was of His owne Subjects and that what victory it should please God to give Him must be over those who ought not to have lifted up their hands against Him when He considered that those desperate civill dissentions might encourage and invite a forain Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation That Ireland was in present danger to be lost That the heavy judgments of God Plague Pestilence and Famine would be the inevitable attendants of this unnaturall contention and that in a short time there would be so generall a habit of uncharitablenesse and cruelty contracted throughout the Kingdome that even peace itself would not restore His people to their old temper and security His Majesty could not suffer Himself to be discouraged though He had received no Answer to His former Message but by this did again with much earnestnesse desire them to consider what He had before offred which gave so fair a rise to end those unnaturall distractions This most gracious Message from the King met with so much worse entertainment and successe then the former as it was not only ever Answer'd but the Messenger likewise being a Gentleman of quality and singular integrity though he was civilly received by the House of Lords to whom he was directed was by the House of Commons apprehended and imprisoned and never after freed from his restraint till he ended his life after a long and consuming sicknesse This is the Messenger they mean who to excuse their inhumanity and cruelty towards him they say at the
divide and destroy the Parliament and the City of London under the notion of peace and by engaging them in a Treaty of peace without the advice and consent of their Brethren of Scotland which he said would be contrary to the late Articles solemnly agreed upon by both Kingdomes and to the perpetuall dishonour of this Nation by breach of their Publique Faith engaged therein to that Nation so that the two Houses having given their judgment in the point the King hath great reason if He had no other to have the whole well debated before Him and the severall interests weighed and agreed upon before He give His consent to any particulars which will else produce more mischief then His refusing all can possibly doe Nor will these and their other extravagant and licentious demands be better justified by their undervaluing the Kings present power in their insolent question in their late Declaration concerning the Scots Commissioners which in truth throughout is but a paraphrase upon that Speech of Demetrius to his Companions of the like occupation Sirs you know that by this craft we have our wealth what can the King give them but what they have already It is not out of their duty or good will to Him that they make any Application to Him and if they did indeed believe that His Majesty could give them nothing but what they have already He should hear no more from them but they very well know they have yet nothing except He give them more and that the man that is robbed and spoyled of all that He hath when He hath procured a pardon for and given a Release to the Thieves and Robbers He hath given them more then they had before and that which onely can make what they had before of benefit and advantage to them they know and will feel the judgment upon the wicked man in Job He hath swallowed down Riches and he shall vomit them up again God shall cast them out of his belly Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor Because he hath violently taken away a house which he builded not In the fulnesse of his sufficiency he shall be in straits That all their reproachings and revilings with which they have triumphed over the Lords Anointed must come into their Bowels like water and like Oyle into their bones And that nothing can restore and preserve them but the Antidotes and Cordials and Balme which the King only can Administer they know very well that even the most unfortunate Kings that ever have been in England could never be destroyed without their own consent and that all their power and strength and successe though for a time it may oppresse can never subdue the Crown without its owne being accessary to its own ruine and the King very well knows that what He yet suffers is not through His own default but by such a defection as may determine all the Empires of the world and that in the unspeakable miseries which all His good Subjects have undergone He is yet innocent the conscience whereof hath refreshed Him in all His sufferings and maketh Him superiour to their insolence contempt and Tyranny and keeps Him constant to His Princely and pious resolution but that if by any unhappy consent of His own such an establishment shall be made as shall expose Himself His Posterity and people to misery it will lie all upon His own account and rob Him of that peace of mind which He now enjoyes and values above all the considerations of the world well knowing that God requires the same and no more of Him then he did of his servant Joshuah Only be thou strong and very couragious that thou mayest observe to doe according to all the Law which Moses my servant commanded thee turne not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest Honest men and good Christians will be lesse moved with their bold and presumptuous conclusion which they have learned from their new Confederates the Turkes That God himself hath given his Verdict on their sides in their successes not unlike the Logick used by Dionysius who because he had a good gale of wind at Sea after he had sacked the Temple of Proserpine concluded That the immortall Gods favoured Sacriledge It is very true they have been the instruments of Gods heavy judgments upon a most sinfull people in very wonderfull successes yet if they would believe Solomon they would find There is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt and prosperity was never yet thought a good argument of mens piety or being in the right and yet if these men did enough think of God Almighty and seriously revolve the works of his owne hand throughout this Rebellion and since they had looked upon themselves as Conquerours they would be so far from thinking that he had given his Verdict on their side that they would conclude that he hath therefore onely suffered to prosper to this degree that his owne power and immediate hand might be more cleerly discerned and manifested in their destruction and that the cause might appear to be his own by his most miraculous vindication of it If Master Hambden had been lesse active and passionate in the businesse of the Militia which might have proceeded from naturall reason and reformation of his understanding the judgment and Verdict of God would not have been so visible as it was in the loosing his life in that very Field in which he first presumed to execute that Ordinance against the King If Sir John Hotham had never denied his Majesty entrance into and shut the Gates of Hull against Him from which naturall Allegiance and civill prudence might have restrained him the judgment and Verdict of God had been lesse evident then it was when after he had wished that God would destroy him and his posterity if he proved not faithfull to the King at the same time that he had planted his Cannon against him he and his Son were miserably executed by the judgment of those who but by his Treason could never have been enabled to have exercised that jurisdiction and that having it in his power he should perfidiously decline to serve his Majesty and afterwards loose his head for desiring to do it when he had no power to perform it They who remember the affected virulency of Sir Alexander Carew against the King and all those who adhered to him and how passionately he extolled and magnified the perjury and treachery of a Servant as if he had done his duty to the Kingdome by being false to his Master the King and that this man afterwards should by the treachery of his Servant be betrayed and lose his head by their judgments for whose sakes he had forfeited it to the King cannot but think the Verdict of God more visible then if he had contained himself within the due limits of his obedience and
Law is as well known neither did He deny His royall assent to any one Bill till after He was by force Tumults driven from White Hall and after he had indeed consented to whatsoever could be honestly asked of Him for the security and benefit of the Kingdome 11. The Queen is too near His Majesty not to bear a part and a share with Him in these calumnies and therefore Her designe to advance Popery is remembred and Her observing a Popish Fast with Secretary Windebanks going beyond Sea by His Majesties Passe after He was questioned by the House of Commons What that designe of Her Majesty was for the advancement of Popery is not particularly mentioned and therefore no Answer can be given to it and having expressed so much undutifulnes malice to Her Majesty throughout the whole course of their Rebellion it is not probable they have concealed any thing they could lay to Her charge For the Fast observed by Her it is well known that the time of it was when the King was in the Field and his Person liable to much danger which piety and devotion was very agreeable to Her goodnesse and exemplar affection towards her Husband And the Kingdome would think it self abundantly blessed if the Fasts since observed by these men had produced no worse effects then that did w ch was observed by her M ty For S. Windebanke the House of Cōmons had it in their power to have proceeded against him to have prevented his escape he being in the House and according to order withdrawn into the Committee Chamber after the report was made and after as much appeared against him as was ever objected or discovered afterwards but the House contrary to custome rose without proceeding upon it and therefore His Majesty might very well give him leave to dispose of himself And the truth is they by whom the House was then guided were best pleased with his absence and purposely declined the proceeding against him when he was in their hands thinking it easier to procure his place for one of their principall Members to whom they had designed it upon the advantage of his flight then if he had staid to abide his Triall which for many reasons they would not have thought fit to hasten or to proceed in 12. The Allegations of Commissions given to Popish Agents for private leavies except they intend the Collections made amongst the Papists of money for the Kings expedition into the North which was likewise amongst and no lesse liberally complied with by the Lords of the Privy Counsell and the other Protestants of the best quality throughout the Kingdom or that the Papists began to rise and arme themselves in the Northwest of England and Wales the raising Soldiers under pretence for Portugal and the seizing of the Tower are so stale vaine and ridiculous that though upon the first contrivance of them the fame served the turn of the Contrivers mens observation and knowledge having since informed them that there was nothing like either of them there needs no further Answer to them 13. The next Article is the great Caball for bringing up the Northerne Army to over-awe the Parliament the chief part of which they can prove they say to come from Himself to the maine Actors though the King did so often and solemnly dis-avow it as nothing but loose discourses of a modest Petition which also vanished two or three Months he saith before they knew of it They doe well to except against the Kings positive denying it when they have onely their owne confident and positive affirming it for proof but they had need suppresse and burn all His Majesties Declarations and Answers in which He hath abundantly satisfied the world in this particular as well as they restrain His Person and as they have concealed all those Depositions taken by themselves in this Argument which would manifest clearly that there was no such designe by His Majesty so they need recall all those they have already published if they desire to have that designe believed The King in His Answer to the Declaration presented to Him at Newmarket uses these words We cannot without great indignation suffer Our self to be reproached to have intended the least force or threatning to Our Parliament as the being privy to the bringing up the Army would imply whereas We call God to witnes We never had any such thought or knew of any such resolution concerning Our late Army And afterwards His Majesty in His Declaration of the 12 of August a Declaration that never was offered to be Answered at large set forth all He ever knew of that businesse or which upon exact inquiry He could imagine to be in it by which it plainly appears that some Officers of the Army of very good and confessed reputation for their affection to their Country observing the strange Petitions every day presented to the House of Commons against the established Laws and Government of the Kingdome and the unlawfull manner in the delivering those Petitions by thousands of disorderly persons in Tumults supposed that a Petition of a most modest and dutifull nature from the whole Army for the composing and setling all grievances in the Church and State by Law might for the reason of it prevaile with the whole House and coming from such a body might confirm those who might be shaken with any fears of power or force by the Tumults and His Majesty being made acquainted with this proposition gave his full approbation to it which He had great reason to do since as there was notable industry used to corrupt His Army and to make it applicable to the ill purposes then resolved on so pains was taken to perswade the people that it was in truth very indevoted to the King and ready to serve the Parliament any way it should direct And as His Majesty saies if in the managery of this debate any rash discourses hapned of bringing up the Army it is evident whether they were proposed in earnest or no that they were never entertained and the whole matter was laid aside above two Months before any discovery so that that danger was never prevented by the power or wisdome of Parliament It appears by the evidence and Depositions published by themselves by the Order of the 19 of May 1642. together with that Declaration that this dangerous Plot began without the least privity of the Kings upon some Officers taking offence dis-like that of fifty thousand pounds Ordred for payment of the Kings Army ten thousand pounds was taken by an after Order out of that summe to satisfie a new motion and importunity from the Scots and that those Officers upon that distast discoursed that they were disobliged by the Parliament and not by the King and thereupon concluded to tender their Services to His Ma ty in all things honourable and agreeable to the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome That in debates afterwards together
power yet they could not break through the Charge of the Army for invading infringing or endeavouring to overthrow the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects of this Nation in arbitrary violent and oppressing waies and for endeavouring by indirect and corrupt practises to delay and obstruct Justice to the great damage and prejudice of divers of the poor Commoners of England Though they were too mighty to be touched upon the Kings accusation of having endeavoured by many foule aspersions upon His Majesty and His Government to alienate the affections of His people and to make His Majesty odious to them yet they were not able to bear the burthen of an Accusation of having endeavoured by false informations mis-representations or scandalous suggestions against the Army to beget mis-understandings prejudices or jealousies in the Parliament against the Army and to put insufferable injuries abuses and provocations upon the Army whereby to provoke and put the Army into dis-temper Though they slighted the King's Charge of having trayterously invited and incouraged a forain power to invade His Majesties Kingdome of England yet they cannot throw off the Charge from the Army of having invited the Scots and other forain Forces to come into this Kingdome in a hostile manner to abet and assist them in the prosecution and effecting of their designes Lastly they may with their eyes hands and hearts lift up to Heaven remember how they contemned and despised the King when he charged them that they had endeavoured as far as in them lay by force and terrour to compell the Parliament to joyne with them in their trayterous designes and to that end had actually raised and countenanced Tumults against the King and Parliament And now their owne Army whereof very many then assisted them in those Tumults to drive away the King and the Members of both Houses accuses them of having invited incouraged abetted or countenanced divers Reformadoes and other Officers and Souldiers tumultuously and violently to gather together at Westminster to affright and assault the Members of Parliament in passing to and from the House to offer violence to the House it self and by such violence outrages and threats to awe and inforce the Parliament As the Charge allowed and countenanced now from their owne Army is upon the matter the same which was with so much noise and insolence rejected when it was presented from the King and is now objected against Him as a hainous crime so with reference to their Priviledges which like the Logitians line is divisibilis in semper divisibilia and serves their turne to inable them to aske any thing from the King they think fit to demand and to refuse any thing to Him He requires from them the progresse and proceedings thereupon hath been very different in stead of suspending and discountenancing them upon the King's accusation they are brought in triumph with an Army to the House the Army upon the bare exhibiting their generall Articles require that the persons impeached may be forthwith suspended from sitting in the House and will receive no deniall it must be consented to for they will not indure that the persons impeached by them shall continue in power and capacity to obstruct due proceedings against themselves and for their own escape from justice to threaten ruine to the whole Nation as by the Letter from the Army of the 21. of June appears The King was checked upon the matter of Priviledge and then imperiously required to send the evidence which He had against those He had accused to the House where they principally governed and could easily judge what was secure for themselves His Majesty desired that before His proofs were discovered against them and lest a new mistake should breed more delaies it might be resolved whether His Majesty were bound in respect of Priviledges to proceed against them by impeachment in Parliament or whether He were at liberty to prefer an Indictment against them at Common Law in the usuall way or had His choice to which they would give no other Answer then that they desired Him to give directions that the Parliament might be informed before Friday next what proof there was against them that accordingly they might be called to a legall triall it being the undoubted right and priviledge of Parliament that no Member of Parliament can be proceeded against without the consent of Parliament The Army tells them plainly by their Letter of the 25. of June That they wish the name of Priviledges may not lie in ballance with the Safety of a Kingdome and the reality of doing justice which as they had said too often they could not expect whilst the persons they had accused were the Kingdomes and their Judges And in the Remonstrance of the Army of the 23. of June that no priviledges ought to protect wicked men in doing wrong to particulars or mischief to the publick and that whoever most adores or tenders those priviledges will best expresse his Zeale towards them in taking care they be not abased or extended to private wrong and publique mischief for they say they clearly find and all wise men may see it that Parliament priviledges as well as Royall prerogative may be perverted abused to the destruction of those greater ends for whose protection and preservation they were admitted or intended viz. the Rights and Liberties of the people and safety of the whole and in case they be so the abuse evill or danger of them is no lesse to be contended against and a remedy thereof no lesse to be endeavoured then of the other And upon these grounds they conclude that they shall be inforced to take such courses extraordinary as God shall enable and direct them to unlesse by Thursday night next they receive assurance and security to themselves and the Kingdome for a more safe and hopefull proceeding in an ordinary way by having those things granted which before they insisted on These have been the proceedings of late in the point of accusing Members and in the case of Priviledge all which are so far justified by the Houses that the Army hath received publique thanks and approbation for all that they have done and their accusations have been received countenanced and promoted and their desires granted against the persons they accused so that as the King did nothing in the accusation of those Members but what was justifiable by the Law and former Presidents of Parliament so whatsoever He did is since justified by the later Presidents which themselves have consented to and approved And so we return to the place from whence this consideration carried us There is a mention of the Lord Digby's appearing in a War-like manner and afterwards his going beyond the Seas and from thence giving advice to the King to retire to some strong place c. which are all so well known have been so often answered and have so little reference to the King that time is not to
as any other part of the discourse there being said only by Captain Chudleigh who it seems believed it not by His engaging Himself to the Parliament from that time as the better Pay-masters and was highly valued by them 20. It seems they take it as granted that their frivolous and malitious allegations will serve turne in stead of proofs and therefore they take the boldnesse to tax His Majesty with breach of honour and faith and to reproach Him for calling God to witnesse and making so many solemn protestations against any thought of bringing up the Northern Army or of leavying Forces to wage war with His Parliament or of bringing in forain Forces or aids from beyond the Sea which they say Himself said would not only bury the Kingdom in sudden destruction and ruine but His own name and Posterity in perpetuall scorne and infamy If these Gentlemen would deale faithfully with the world and confesse what troubles them most they would acknowledge that their grief is that the King is so punctuall and severe in keeping His word and protestations not that He is apt to fall from them If He would have practised their arts of dissembling and descended to their vile licence of promising and protesting what He never meant to think of after He might have prevented them in many of their successes but the greatnesse of His mind alwaies disdained even to prosper or be secure by any deviations from truth and honour and what He hath promised He hath been religious in observing though to His own damage and inconvenience He hath made no protestation about bringing up the Northern Army or of leavying Forces against the Parliament or for the Rights of the Subject which was not exactly true and agreeable to the Princely thoughts and resolutions of His heart The occasion of His Majesties using that expression concerning forain Force which is here remembred by them was this In the Declaration delivered to His Majesty from the two Houses at Newmarket on the 9 of March 1641. they told Him that by the manifold advertisements which they had from Rome Venice Paris and other parts they expected that His Majesty had still some great designe in hand and that the Popes Nuntio had solicited the Kings of France and Spaine to lend His Majesty four thousand men apiece to help to maintain His Royalty against the Parliament were some of the grounds of their fears and jealousies To which His Majesty made answer in these words What your advertisements are from Rome Venice Paris and other parts or what the Pope's Nuntio solicited the Kings of France or Spaine to do or from what persons such informations come to you or how the credit and reputation of such persons have been sifted and examined We know not but are confident no sober honest man in Our Kingdomes can believe that We are so desperate or so senslesse to entertain such designes as would not only bury this Our Kingdome in sudden destruction and ruine but Our name and posterity in perpetuall scorn and infamy That this Answer was most prudently and justly applied to that extravagant and senslesse suggestion cannot be doubted but because the King at that time before the War or a declared purpose in them to raise a War against Him held it an odious and infamous thing to thinke of bringing in foraine Forces upon His owne Kingdome that He might not therefore think it afterwards necessary and find it just to call in forain Succours to defend Him from a Rebellion that besides mixtures of all Nations was assisted by an intire forain Army to oppresse Him and His posterity no reasonable man can suggest or suppose and yet how far He hath been from entertaining any such aide the event declares which it may be many wise men reckon amongst His greatest errours and oversights and which no question if He had not been full of as much tendernesse and compassion towards His people as these men want He would have found no difficulty to have practised They proceed to improve this most groundlesse and unreasonable scandall by another instance that when His Majesty Himself and the Lords made a Protestation at Yorke against leavying Forces He commanded His Subjects by Proclamation to resist the Orders of the Parliament and did many other Facts contrary to that Protestation the particulars whereof are mentioned and shall be examined and answered The Act which they call a Protestation by the King the Lords at Yorke passed on the 15 day of June 1642. being six and twenty daies after both Houses had declared that the King intended to leavy war against the Parliament and thereupon published their Propositions for bringing in Money or Plate for the raising and maintaining an Army The King conceiving so positive and monstrous an averment might make some impression upon and gain credit with his people called the Peers together who attended Him and taking notice of that wicked Declaration declared to them That He alwaies had and then did abhor all such designes and desired them to declare whether being upon the place they saw any colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such designe and whether they were not fully perswaded that His Majesty had no such intention whereupon seven and thirty Peers who then attended His Majesty being double the number that at that time or since remained in the House of Peers at Westminster unanimously declared under their hands which was published to the Kingdome that they saw not any colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such designe and did professe before God and testifie to all the world That they were fully perswaded that His Majesty had no such intention but that all His endeavours did tend to the firm and constant setlement of the true Protestant Religion the just Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Law Peace and prosperity of the Kingdome notwithstanding which clear evidence they made what haste they could to raise an Army and to engage the people against their Soveraigne Lord the King That His Majesty intended not by that profession on His part nor the Lords thought themselves obliged on their parts to give any countenance to or not to resist the Orders which then issued out every day from those at Westminster who called themselves the two Houses needs no other evidence then His Majesties Declaration published two daies before 13 of June in which amongst other particulars He declared to the Peers That He would not as was falsly pretended engage them or any of them in any War against the Parliament except it were for His owne necessary defence and safety against such as should insolently invade or attempt against His Majesty or such as should adhere to Him And that very day the very same Peers whereof the Earl of Salisbury was one engaged themselves to the King under their hands That they would defend
His Majesties Person Crowne and Dignity together with His Majesties just and legall Prerogative against all persons and power whatsoever and that they would not obey any rule Order or Ordinance whatsoever concerning any Militia that had not the Royall assent The first Commission of Array issued out some daies before this Profession and Protestation made by His Majesty and therefore cannot be said to be against it and above three Months after the passing the illegall and extravagant Ordinance for the Militia and after that Ordinance was executed in many parts of the Kingdome notwithstanding His Majesties Proclamation of the illegality and treason of it when He had desired them to produce or mention one Ordinance from the first beginning of Parliaments to this very Parliament which endeavoured to impose any thing upon the Subject without the King's consent of which to this day they never gave or can give one instance The Commission it self of Array is according to Law and so held to be at this time by most learned Lawyers and was so declared to be by Mr. Justice Hutton in his Argument in the Exchequer Chamber in the case of Mr. Hambden The Letter which they say they can produce under His Majesties owne hand to Sir John Heydon Lieutenant of the Ordnance of the 20 of June 1642. is no way contrary to His Majesties professions such as His Majesty in that ill time was necessarily to write being to a sworn Officer and Servant of His owne to send such of His own Goods to Him as were in His custody and which His Majesty so reasonably might have occasion to use and if He wished it might be done privately it is only an instance of the wickednes of that time that the King was forced to use art and privacy to get what belonged to Him lest He might be robbed by those who nine daies before the date of this Letter had published Orders to intercept whatsoever was going to Him His Majesty required not any subscription for Plate Horses or Armes till many daies after they had published their Propositions to that purpose received great sums of mony and vast quantities of plate upon those Propositions against which His Majesty writ His Princely Letter to the City of London on the 14 of June and two daies after published a Declaration with the testimony and evidence of all the Peers with Him in which He said That if notwithstanding so clear declaration and evidence of His intentions these men should think fit by those Alarums to awaken Him to a more necessary care of the defence of Himself and His people and should themselves in so unheard-of a manner provide and seduce others to do so too to offend His Majesty having given Him so lively testimony of their affections what they were willing to do when they should once make themselves able all His good Subjects would think it necessary for His Majesty to look to Himself and He did then excite all His wel-affected people according to their Oaths of Allegiance Supremacy according to their solemn Vow and Protestation whereby they were obliged to defend His Person Honour and Estate to contribute their best assistance to the preparations necessary for the opposing and suppressing of the trayterous attempts c. And then He would take it as an acceptable Service if any person upon so urgent and visible a necessity of His Majesty and such an apparent distraction of the Kingdome would bring in to Him or to His use Mony or Plate or would furnish Horse or Armes c. This was the time and the manner of His Majesties requiring subscription for Plate Horse and Armes which these men impute to Him They say the King raised a Guard of Horse and Foot about Him and by them did not only abuse their Committees sent to Him beat their publique Officers and Messengers protect notorious Papists Traytors or Felons such as Beckwith and others from the Posse Comitatus but also with those guards Cannon Arms from beyond Sea did attempt to force Hull in an hostile manner and that within few daies after that solemn Protestation at Yorke All which suggestions must be particularly examined The raising the King's Guard was on this occasion and in this manner The King residing with His Court at the City of Yorke and being pressed by both Houses of Parliament to consent that His Magazine at Hull might be removed from thence for the better supplies of the necessities for Ireland to the Tower of London which for many reasons He thought not convenient His Majesty resolved to go Himself in Person to His Town of Hull to view His Arms and Munition there that thereupon He might give directions what part thereof might be necessary to remaine there for the security and satisfaction of the Northerne parts the principall persons thereof having petitioned Him that it might not be all removed and what part might be spared for Ireland what for the arming the Scots who were to go thither and what to replenish His chiefest Magazine the Tower of London and going thither on the 23 day of April 1642. He found all the Gates shut against Him and the Bridges drawn up by the command of Sir John Hotham who flatly denied His Majesties entrance from the Walls which were strongly manned and the Cannon mounted thereon and planted against the King His Majesty having in vaine endeavoured to perswade Sir John Hotham and offered to go in with twenty Horse because he alleaged His retinue was too great was at last compelled to returne to Yorke after He had proclaimed Hotham Traytor which by all the knowne Lawes he was declared in that case to be The next day the King sent a Message to the Houses to require justice upon Sir John Hotham to which they returned no Answer till above a fortnight after in the mean time they sent down some of the choice Members to Hull to give Sir Iohn Hotham thanks for what he had done and to assure him that they would justifie him in it and others into Lincoln-shire with directions to their Deputy Lieutenants and all other Officers to assist him if he were in any distresse and then they sent some other Members as their Committee to Yorke with their Answer to the King in which they told Him That Sir John Hotham could not discharge the trust upon which nor make good the end for which he was placed in the Guard of that Towne and Magazine if he had let in His Majesty with such Counsellours and company as were then about Him and therefore upon full resolution of both Houses they had declared Sir John Hotham to be clear from that odious crime of Treason and had avowed that he had done nothing therein but in obedience to the commands of both Houses whereas in truth though they had presumed against law and right to send him thither and constitute him Governour for a time of that place there was
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
next place objected against his Majesty There was neither reall nor mock Parliament set up at Oxford but when the King found that most of the Members of either House were driven from Westminster by force as his Majesty had been and yet that the authority and reputation of Parliament was applied for the justification of all the rebellious Acts which were done even to the invitation of Forain power to invade the Kingdome as well for the satisfaction of His people that they might know how many of the true Members of Parliament abhorred the acts done by that pretended authority as for His owne information his Majesty by his Proclamation of the 22 of Decemb. in the year 1643. invited all the Members of both Houses who had been driven or being conscious of their want of freedome had withdrawn from Westminster to assemble at Oxford upon the 22 of January following when He said all His good Subjects should see how willing He was to receive advice for the Religion Laws and safety of the Kingdome from those whom they had trusted though He could not receive it in the place where He had appointed Upon which Summons and Invitation by his Majesty eight and forty Peers attended his Majesty there being at least twenty others imployed in his Armies and in the severall Counties whose attendance was dispenced with and nine others in the parts beyond the Seas with his Majesties leave and of the House of Commons above one hundred and forty there being likewise absent in the Armies neer thirty more who could not be conveniently present at Oxford When his Majesty found the appearance so great and so much superiour in number as well as quality to those at Westminster He hoped it would prove a good expedient to compose the minds of the other to a due consideration of the misery into which they had brought their Country and referred it to them to propose any advice which might produce so good an effect what addresses and overtures were then made by them and afterwards by His Majesty to perswade them to enter upon any Treaty of Peace and with what contempt and scorne the same was rejected will be too long to insert here and is sufficiently known to the world thereupon this body of Lords and Commons published a Declaration to the Kingdome at large setting forth the particular acts of violence by which they had been driven from Westminster and by which the freedome of Parliament was taken away and then declared how much they abhorred the undutifull and rebellious acts which were countenanced by those who staid there and declared their own submission and allegiance to his Majesty and in the end concluded That as at no time either or both Houses of Parliament can by any Orders or Ordinances impose upon the people without the King's consent so by reason of the want of Freedome and Security for all the Members of the Parliament to meet at Westminster and there to sit speak and vote with freedome and safety all the Actions Votes Orders Declarations and pretended Ordinances made by those Members who remaine still at Westminster were void and of none effect yet they said they were far from attempting the dissolution of the Parliament or the violation of any Act made and confirmed by his Majesty but that it was their grief in the behalf of the whole Kingdome that since the Parliament was not dissolved the power thereof should by the treason and violence of those men be so far suspended that the Kingdome should be without the fruit and benefit of a Parliament which could not be reduced to any action or authority till the liberty and freedome due to the Members should be restored and admitted which Declaration hath not onely ever received any Answer but with great care hath not been suffered to be printed in the last Collection of Orders and Declarations where the other proceedings at Oxford of that time are set forth that the people may lose that evidence against them which can never be answered or evaded This was that Assembly which these Declarers call the mock Parliament at Oxford and these the proceedings of it of the justice and regularity whereof if there could have been heretofore any doubt made the same is lately vindicated sufficiently by both Houses for if those Lords and Commons at Oxford might not justifiably absent themselves from Westminster where their safety and freedome was taken from them by what right or authority could a smaller number withdraw themselves in July last upon the same pretence and if that body of Lords and Commons regularly convened by his Majesties Authority to Oxford who had first called them together at Westminster might not declare the Acts made by those who remained at Westminster void and of none effect because they might not attend there and Vote with freedome and safety by what imaginable authority could the Speaker of the House of Commons who hath no more freedome or power to make any such Declaration then every single Member of the House declare that such and such Votes passed in the House were void and null and that the omission of a circumstance or some formality in the adjournment of the Houses could not be any prejudice to the future meetings and proceedings of Parliament when it might meet and sit again as a free Parliament as he did by his own single Declaration in July last whereupon that powerfull Umpire the Army very frankly declared That all such Members of either House of Parliament as were already with the Army for the security of their persons and were forced to absent themselves from Westminster that they should hold and esteem them as persons in whom the publique trust of the Kingdome was still remaining though they could not for the present sit as a Parliament with freedome and safety at Westminster and by whose advice and counsels they desired to governe themselves in the managing those weighty affairs and to that end invited them to make their repair to the Army and said they held themselves bound to own that honourable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons who had actually withdrawn himself and they engaged to use their utmost and speedy endevour that he and those Members of either House that were then inforced any way from Westminster might with freedome and security sit there and againe discharge their trust as a free and legall Parliament and in the meane time they did declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster as contrary to all right reason law and custome and professed themselves to be most cleerly satisfied in all their judgments and were confident the Kingdome would therein concur with them that as things then stood there was no free nor legall Parliament sitting being through the foresaid violence at present suspended and that the Orders Votes or resolutions forced from the Houses on Munday the 26 of July last as also all such as should
the world may judge are aggravated by the King 's so often refusing their addresses for peace the truth of which suggestions though for method sake the Order of their Declaration hath been inverted must be now considered and all of that kind which is scattered and dis-jointed in the Declaration shal for the same method sake be gathered together and resolved and in this Argument they seem to think they are so much upon the advantage ground that they are rather to make an Apology to the world for having so often made Addresses to their King then for resolving to doe so no more that is for enduring so long to be Subjects then for resolving hereafter to be so no more The truth is they never yet made any one addresse for peace onely somtime offered to receive his Crown if his Majesty would give it up to them without putting them to fight more for it for other sense or interpretation no Propositions yet ever sent to Him can bear and whereas they say they must not be so unthankfull to God as to forget they were never forced to any Treaty it is affirmed that there are not six Members who concur in this Declaration who ever gave their consent to any Treaty that hath yet been but when they were forced by the major part to consent to it they were so unthankfull to God for the opportunity of restoring a blessed peace to their Country that they framed such Propositions and clogged their Commissioners with such Instructions as made any Agreement impossible Though no Arithmetique but their own can reckon those Seven times in which they have made such applications to the King and tendred such Propositions that might occasion the world to judge they had not only yeilded up to their wills and affections but their reason also and judgment for obtaining a true peace and accommodation yet it will be no hard matter shortly to recollect the overtures which have bin made on both sides and thence it may best appear whether the King never yet offred any thing fit for them to receive or would accept of any tender fit for them to make What Propositions were made by them to prevent the War need not be remembred who ever reads the nineteen sent to Him to Yorke will scarce be able to name one Soveraigne power that was not there demanded from him nor can they now make Him lesse a King then He should have been if He had consented to those After His Standard was set up and by that his Majesty had shewed that He would not tamely be stripped of His Royall power without doing His best to defend it He sent a Message before bloud was yet drawn from Nottingham to desire that some fit persons might be inabled by them to treat with the like number to be authorized by His Majesty in such a manner and with such freedome of debate as might best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desired The peace of the Kingdome to which gracious overture from His Majesty the Answer was that untill the King called in His Proclamations and Declarations and took down His Standard they could give Him no Answer And at the same time published a Declar to the Kingdome That they would not lay down their Arms untill the King should withdraw His protection from all such persons as had been voted by both Houses to be Delinquents or should be voted to be such that their Estates might be disposed to the defraying of the charges the Common-wealth had been put to And who they meant by those Delinquents they had in a former Declaration to the Inhabitants of York-shire expressed that all persons should have reparation out of the Estates of all such persons in any part of the Kingdome whatsoever who had withdrawn themselves to Yorke and should persist to serve the King c. This was one of their Applications in which they had yeilded up their wills and affections and their reason and judgment for obtaining peace They say they have cause to remember that the King somtimes denied to receive their humble Petitions for peace the which they had rather should be believed in grosse then trouble themselves with setting down the time and manner when it was done but out of their former writings it is no hard matter to guesse what they meane When the KING was at Shrewsbury and the Earle of Essex at Worcester towards the end of September 1642. the two Houses sent a Petition to their Generall to be presented to His Majesty in some safe and honourable way In which Petition they most humbly besought his Majesty to withdraw His Person from His own Army and to leave them to be suppressed by that power which they had sent against them and that He would in peace and safety without His Forces return to His Parliament The Earl of Essex by Letter to the Earle of Dorset who then attended his Majesty intimated that He had a Petition from both Houses to be delivered to his Majesty and for that purpose desired a safe Conduct for those who should be sent with it The Earle of Dorset by his Majesties command returned Answer That as He had never refused to receive any Petition from His Houses of Parliament so He should be ready to give such a reception and Answer to this as should be fit and that the Bringers of it should come and go with safety onely He required that none of those persons whom He had particularly accused of High Treason which at that time were very few should by colour of that Petition be imployed to His Majesty This Answer was declared to be a breach of priviledge and so that Petition which as His Majesty saies in His Answer to the Declaration of the 22 of October was fitter to be delivered after a Battle and full Conquest of Him then in the head of His Army when it might seem somwhat in His power whether He would be deposed or no was never delivered to his Majesty and this is the Petition which they now say He somtimes denied to receive They say that when they desired Him to appoint a place for a Committee of both Houses to attend His Majesty with Propositions for Peace He named Windsor promising to abide thereabouts till they came to Him but presently marched forward so neer London that He had almost surprized it whilst He had so ingaged Himself for a Treaty This likewise refers to the Petition sent to his Majesty at Colebrooke and all the circumstances were fully answered by his Majesty in his Declaration upon that occasion when this aspertion was first unreasonably cast upon Him It is true after the Battle at Edge-hill when they could no longer perswade their friends of the City that the King's Forces were scattered and their Army in pursuit of Him but in stead thereof they had pregnant evidence that his Majesties Army was marching towards them and was possessed
spent at Uxbridge is published to the world in which the last observation made by the King's Commissioners must not be forgotten That after a War of neer foure years for which the defence of the Protestant Religion the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Priviledges of the Parliament were made the cause and grounds in a Treaty of Twenty daies nor indeed in the whole Propositions upon which the Treaty should be there hath been nothing offered to be treated concerning the breach of any Law or of the Liberty or Property of the Subject or Priviledge of Parliament but onely Propositions for the altering a Government established by Law and for the making new Laws by which almost all the old are or may be cancelled and there hath been nothing insisted on of the Kings part which is not Law or denied by the Kings Commissioners that the other required as due by Law For the Protestation which they say was entred about the time of this Treaty in the Councell-Book and of which his Majesty gave the Queen account it is known to be no other then a Declaration that by calling them a Parliament there could be no acknowledgment inferred that he esteemed them a free Parliament which few at that time did believe them to be and they have since upon as small reasons confessed themselves not to be They alleage as a wonderfull testimony of their meeknesse and good nature that after His Majesties Armies were all broken so that in disguise He fled from Oxford to the Scots at Newarke and from thence went to Newcastle they tendred to Him at Newcastle and afterwards when the Scots had left Him to the Commissioners of Parliament at Hampton-Court still the same Propositions in effect which had been presented before in the midst of all His strength and Forces which is rather an Argument that they had at first made them as bad as possibly they could then that they were good since and considering the natures of these Declarers there cannot be a more pregnant evidence of the ilnesse and vilenesse of those Propositions then that they have not made them worse nor is the condition in which they have now impiously put His Majesty for His refusall worse then it had been or would be His Personall liberty only excepted if He consented to them and in one consideration it is much better because it is now a confessed act of violence and treason upon Him which if He once consent to their Propositions they will when ever they find occasion appear legally qualified to do the same They have once again out of their desire of his Majesties concurrence descended to one other addresse to Him and they said they did so qualifie the said Propositions that where it might stand with the publique safety His wonted scruples and objections were prevented or removed and yeilded to a Personall Treaty on condition the King would signe but foure Bils which they judged not only just and honourable but necessary even for present peace and safety during such a Treaty and upon His deniall of these they are in despair of any good by addresses to the King neither must they be so injurious to the people in further delaying their setlement as any more to presse His consent to these or any other Propositions What the former Propositions and Addresses to His Majesty have been and how impossible it hath been for Him to consent to them with His Conscience Honour or Safety appears before and how inconvenient it would have been to the Kingdome if He had done it they themselves have declared by making such important alterations in respect of the English interest in those presented at Newcastle from the other treated on at Uxbridge it will be fit therefore to examine these foure Bils which were to be the condition of the Treaty One of these Bils is to devest His Majesty and His Posterity for ever of any power over the Militia and to transfer this right and more then ever was in the Crown to these men who keep Him Prisoner for it is in their power whether they will ever consent that it shall be in any other and to give them power to raise what Forces they please and what Mony they think fit upon His Subjects and by any waies or means they appoint and so frankly exclude Himself from any power in the making Laws There need no other Answer why it is not fit or possible for the King to consent to this then what the Commissioners from Scotland gave to the Houses when they declared their dissent If the Crownes have no power of the Militia how can they be able to resist their Enemies and the Enemies of the Kingdomes protect their Subjects or keep friendship or correspondence with their Allyes All Kings by their royall Office and Oath of Coronation are obliged to protect their Laws and Subjects it were strange then to seclude the Crown for ever from the power of doing that which by the Oath of Coronation they are obliged to perform and the obedience whereunto falleth within the Oath of Allegiance and certainly if the King and His Posterity shall have no power in making Laws nor in the Militia it roots up the strongest foundation of honour and safety which the Crown affords and will be interpreted in the eyes of the world to be a wresting of the Scepter and Sword out of their hands Nor can this just and honourable Assertion be answered and evaded by saying that the Militia was the principall immediate ground of their quarrell in order to the preservation of Religion and the just Rights and Liberties of the people and that the Scots Commissioners have often agreed with them in it and that the Kingdome of Scotland fought together with them for it and upon the ground thereof and that now they argue against their injoying it almost in the very same words as the King did at the beginning of the War in His Declarations It is no wonder that what these men have done and the horrid confusion they have made have evinced many truths which appeared not so manifest to all understandings by what the King said or that they have not so good an opinion of those who tell them that there is another and a more naturall way to peace and to the ending the war then by Agreement namely by Conquest As they had of them who with all imaginable solemnity swore that they would sincerely really and constantly endeavour with their estates and lives mutually to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdomes that the world may bear witnesse with their Consciences of their Loyalty and that they had no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesties Power and Greatnesse which Engagements might perswade many that their purposes were other then they now appear to be For that other power they
of any kind of peace and security to them and that as they have upon the matter dissolved the noblest structure and frame of government in Church and State that hath been at any time in the Christian world so that they are too much transported with passion and guilt and of too little interest experience and understanding to devise and settle a new form or to mend any defects in the old Besides that they plainly discern that they are not the Ministers of their Country for whom they were chosen and deputed but for the Army whose dictates they are obliged and forced to follow so that if their inclinations were good they have not power to execute accordingly And are like the Eagle in Esdras when the voice went not out of her head but from the midst of her body The mutuall confidence between them and their Army is totally dissolved it being not possible for the Houses ever to repose trust in any Army for they can never believe any Army to be more at their devotion then they had reason to think that under Sir Thomas Fairfax nor for the Army to pay a full submission to the Houses for admitting that Party which is most powerfull in the Army for the present is of the same mind and opinion with that Party which is most powerfull in the Houses yet being both still Rivals for the Soveraigne power they can never intirely trust or intirely submit to each other Though the Houses should consist of none but such who were glad at that time that the King was taken from Holmby and that the Army did not disband yet they will alwaies remember that the one was done without their Order or consent and that the Army may do the like again when they think fit and when it may not turn so much to their advantage And that they did not onely not disband at that time but have declared by their solemn Engagement of the Army 5 of June That they will not Disband nor divide nor suffer themselves to be divided or disbanded till they have first security and satisfaction in those things they have desired in such manner as shall be agreed upon by a Councell to consist of those generall Officers of the Army who have concurred with the Army in what they have done and what they have demanded with two Commission Officers and two Soldiers to be chosen for each Regiment who have concurred and shall concur with them in the premises and in this Agreement so that it is evident that the Army will be governed and disposed of only by themselves for which they have very great reason and without which indeed they can have no security for how complying soever the Houses are for the present the Souldiers cannot forget that they were once declared Traytors but for preparing a Petition and they wisely observe that what was done may be done again and by the demurs which have been made concerning the safety and immunity of the Speakers and those faithfull Members who were driven away by violence and the immunity of the Army in advancing to London notwithstanding the publick acknowledgment and thanksgiving to God for it They discern that they are only safe by the want of power in the Houses of what party soever they consist the ambition injustice and tyranny of both being equall The Army have already fully declared against their late Votes and resolutions and therefore it must be presumed they will never concur or contribute to the supporting them The Generall himself in his Letter of the 6 of June from Cambridge to the Speaker tells him That as it is his most earnest and humble desire so he found it to be the unanimous desire and study of the Army that a firm peace in this Kingdome may be setled and the Liberties of the people cleared and secured according to the many Declarations by which they were invited and induced to ingage in the late War And in the Declaration and representation from the Generall and the whole Army of the 14 of June to the Parliament they tell them plainly and honestly That they were not a meer mercenary Army hired to serve any Arbitrary power of State but called forth and conjured by the severall Declarations of Parliament to the defence of their owne and the peoples just Rights and Liberties and so they take up Armes in judgment and Conscience to those ends and have so continued them and are resolved according to the first just desires in their Declarations and such principles as they had received from their frequent Informations and their own Common sense concerning those fundamentall Rights and Liberties and to assent and vindicate the just power and rights of this Kingdome in Parliament for those common ends premised against all Arbitrary power violence and oppression and against all particular parties or interests whatsoever And in their Remonstrance of the 23 of June from S. Albons they say That the Kingdom calls upon them not to disband till they see the Rights Liberties and Peace of the Kingdome setled according to the many Declarations by which they were first called forth and invited to ingage in the late War Now what those ends desires and principles were in their Declarations are set forth before and known to all men who have or will read their Declar to be no other then the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the King 's just Prerogative the Lawes and Liberties of the Land and the Priviledges of Parliament in which endeavours they said they would still persist though they should perish in the work And they were so far from avowing that they would not send to or hear from the King or not suffer His Majesty to come to them that they declare that as they never gave Him any just cause of withdrawing Himself from His great Councell so it had ever been and should ever be far from them to give any impediment to His return And in their Declaration in Answer to the Kings after the Battle at Edghill concerning the allegations that the Army raised by the Parliament was to murther and depose the King they say They hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that professed but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandall especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the presence of Almighty God to defend His Majesties Person And by that Protestation of the 22 of October 1642. remembred before they declare in the presence of Almighty God to this Kingdome and Nation and to the whole world That no private passion or respect no evill intention to His Majesties Person no designe to the prejudice of His just Honour and Authority engaged them to raise Forces and to take up Armes So that these being the desires ends and principles in their Declarations by which the
Houses and industriously published in print importing as if His Majesty were kept as a Prisoner amongst them and barbarously and uncivilly used they said they could not but declare that the same and all other suggestions of that sort were most false and scandalous and absolutely contrary not only to their declared desires but also to their principles which are most clearly for a generall right and just freedome to all men and therefore upon this occasion they say they cannot but declare particularly that they desire the same for the King and others of His Party and they further cleerly professed that they did not see how there could be any peace to this Kingdome firm or lasting without a due consideration of and provision for the rights quiet and immunity of His Majesties Royall Family and His late partakers And their Generall by his Letter of the 8 of Iuly to the Speaker which was as soon printed as sent freely acquainted them that their Army had made many Addresses to the King to desire His Majesties free concurrence with the Parliament for establishing and securing the common Rights and Liberties and setling the peace of the Kingdome And to assure Him that the publique being so provided for with such His Majesties concurrence it was fully agreeable to all their principles and should be their desires and endeavour That with and in such setling of the Publique the Rights of His Majesties Royall Family should be also provided for so as a lasting peace and agreement might be setled in this Kingdome And that as they have formerly declared for the same in generall termes so if things came to a way of setlement they should not be wanting in their sphears to own that generall desire in any particulars of naturall or civill right to His Majesties Person or Family which might not prejudice or again indanger the Publique By which gawdy professions together with the admission of such Servants and Chaplains to attend His Majesty whom He desired and which had been barbarously denied by the Houses who were by this time so sensible of their error as they desired His Majesties presence amongst them upon His own Conditions they raised themselves to that credit with the Kings party with the City of London and universally with the people that by this Stratagem onely they grew able and powerfull enough to confine Him to Carisbrooke-Castle and to proceed since as they have done And surely when the Army hath throughly weighed and considered the huge advantages they have gotten by those professions and protestations and how far they have been from making the same good to the King they will not suffer themselves to be made a stalking Horse to the vile ends of particular persons nor let their Morall Righteousnesse in which they so much triumph to grow into a Proverb for the highest and most unworthy Craft Hypocrisie and Treachery It remains now since by any endeavours of these men sever'd from the return to their duty and Allegiance it is not possible for them to establish any peace or happinesse to the Kingdome or security to themselves to perswade them that by doing at last the duty of Christians they may not only preserve their Country which no body can doubt but they may be superiour to any difficulties and hazard their guilt suggests they shall be liable to It is yet in their power so absolutely to make the Kings restoration their own work that His Majesty may be obliged even in point of gratitude to acknowledge it and to remember only by whose fidelity He hath recovered what He had lost and not by whose fault He lost it and His party who for Conscience sake have lost all know that charity is so fundamentall a duty of a Christian that there is no excuse for the least degree of animosity and revenge let the injuries they have received be never so great and the Kings owne experience of men hath sufficiently informed Him that as many of good inclinations have by inadvertency credulity been cozened into a combination against Him and it may be the worst of them grown by degrees worse then they intended to be so all who have seemed to follow a good cause are not good men but had ends as ill as they whom they opposed and therefore all mention and memory of former Errors being blotted out it may be presumed He will trust and imploy all His good Subjects according to their severall faculties and abilities without remembring how they have been at any time disposed against Him and they have reason to believe that whatsoever His Majesty shall freely consent to He will most religiously observe and cause all others to observe it Let them therefore seasonably enter into a Treaty with His Majesty attended with such of His Counsell as He shall chuse and let the fullest Articles be agreed upon which may give a mutuall assurance of security to all persons and interests to which His Majesty having given His Assent in such manner as shall be desired all His Counsell and all Ministers of Justice throughout the Kingdome may be solemnly sworn to those Articles the which being done and the same confirmed by such an Act and in that manner passed as they shall conclude may be valid Let this unhappy Parliament be dissolved an intermission of Parliament being at this time more necessary for the vindication of the justice and Lawes of the Kingdome and restoring a happy peace then ever a convention of Parliament was for the reformation and removing of grievances To conclude unreasonable and unjust Propositions may continue the War and the distractions never make a peace which is nothing but the liberty to injoy what in justice and right is our due and as long as the world lasts that Answer of the Ambassadour from Privernum to the Senate of Rome will be found to be reason who when he was asked what peace the Romans might depend upon with them because they had been guilty of some defection answered Si bonam dederitis fidam perpetuam si malam haud diuturnam which that wise Senate confessed to be an honest Answer and that it was madnesse to believe any people or private person in eâ conditione cujus eum poeniteat diutiùs quà m necesse sit mansurum Let us then like English men make up the breach our selves have made and let not our Country and Posterity owe their redemption to any forain power but let us prostrate our selves at the feet of our abused Soveraigne with that hearty acknowledgment and testimony which the King of Tyre sent to Solomon Because the Lord hath loved his people he hath made thee King over them To a profane dissolute and licentious people he hath given the most pious and temperate King to recover reform them by his example and to a wicked and rebellious people the most gentle and mercifull King to preserve them by his goodnesse But if they sin wilfully after that they
upon so dangerous a Precedent to their owne Crownes and Monarchies without contributing to suppresse this so pernicious a designe begun in this Kingdome God forgive those Princes who suffered His Majesty to be deceived in so just and Princely an expectation It is here likewise to be remembred that the two Houses had dispatched their Agent Strickland to the States of the united Provinces to invite them to their amity and assistance and to decline their League with His Majesty before Colonel Cockram was sent for Denmarke their Declaration to those Provinces bearing date the 8 of Occtober which was before the time that Cockram went towards Denmarke 19. The Queens going into Holland is next objected to the King and that contrary to His trust He sent the ancient Jewels of the Crowne of England to be pawned or sold for Ammunition and Armes of which they say they had certain knowledge before they took up Armes and that they had not so much as once asked the Militia till the Queen was going for Holland and that Her going beyond Sea was stayed many Months before Her going into Holland by their motions to the King because amongst other reasons they had heard that She had packed up the Crowne Jewels by which they might see what was then intended by that Iourney had not they prevented it till the Winter They are very unwilling to agree upon the time when they first took up Armes and would have their seizing upon the King's Forts possessing themselves of the Militia of the Kingdome of the Royall Navy to be thought only an exercise of their Soveraigne power and no taking up of Armes but though they could perswade the world that their countenancing and bringing downe the Tumults by which they first drove away many Members from the Houses and then the King Himself from Whitehall was not taking up Armes because there was no avowed Act of both Houses to bring downe those Tumults yet sure they cannot deny their marching out of the City with all the Trained bands of London in a hostile manner to Westminster where both Houses gave the chief Officers thanks approved what they had done undertook to save them harmlesse and appointed a new Officer of their own to Command those Traine bands which was on the 11 of Ianuary 1641. to be taking up Armes When they appointed the next day their own new Officer Skippon to besiege the Tower of London with the City Forces by land and water and not suffer any provision to be carried thither when the King's Lieutenant was in it and declared that whosoever should trouble him for so doing was an Enemy to the Common-wealth which was accordingly executed by him they must confesse undoubtedly that they took up Armes and both these high actions which by the expresse Statute of the 25 year of King Edw. 3. are High Treason were before any one Iewell belonging to the Crowne or the King was carried out of the Kingdome For the time of asking the Militia though no circumstance of time could make it justifiable not to speak of the Bill preferred to that purpose many Months before the House of Commons by their Petition of the 26 of Ianuary after the House of Peers had refused to concur with them in so dis-loyall a suit desired His Majesty to put the Tower of London and the principall Forts of the Kingdome and the whole Militia into such hands as they thought fit and the Queen went not into Holland till the 23 of February neither was her journy resolved on till the beginning of that Month so that their assertion of not having so much as asked the Militia till the Queen was going into Holland is utterly untrue and when they were made acquainted of such Her Majesties purpose they never in the least degree disswaded it But what was the Queens going into Holland and the King 's sending with Her the Iewels of the Crown to their taking Armes The Queen might very well go to any place the King thought fit She should go the Princess Mary being at that time to go into Holland to her Husband His Maj. thought it fit that the Queens Maj. should accompany Her Daughter thither And for the Jewels of the Crowne though most of the Jewels carried over by the Queen were Her owne proper goods let them shew any Law that the King may not dispose of those Jewels for the safety of His life and to buy Arms Ammunition to defend Himself against Rebels who have seized all His Revenue and have left Him nothing to live upon but those Jewels which He had only in His power to convey out of theirs or to leave them to be seized on and sold by them who applied all that He had else and His own Revenue to hasten His destruction In their mention of the Queens former purpose of going beyond Seas stayed as they say upon their motion because they had then heard She had packed up the Crown Jewels and Plate they use their old and accustomed licence If they will examine their own Journall they will not find amongst all those reasons which were carried up by Master Pim to the Lords at a Conference on the 14 of Iuly and the next day presented to the King to disswade Her Majesties Journy the least mention of Her having packed up the Crown Jewels and Plate but that they had received information of great quantity of treasure in Iewels Plate and ready Mony packed up to be conveyed away with the Queen and that divers Papists and others under pretence of Her Majesties Goods were like to convey great sums of Money and other treasure beyond the Seas which would not only impoverish the State but might be imployed to the fomenting some mischievous attempts to the trouble of the publike peace And they might remember that the chief reasons they gave to disswade Her Majesty was their profession and Declaration since they heard that the chief cause of Her Majesties sicknesse proceeded from dis-content of Her mind that if any thing which in the power of Parliament might give Her Majesty contentment they were so tender of Her health both in due respect to His most excellent Majesty and Her self that they would be ready to further Her satisfaction in all things and that it would be some dis-honour to this Nation if Her Majesty should at this unseasonable time go out of the Kingdome upon any grief or discontent received here and therefore they would labour by all good means to take away and prevent all just occasions of Her Majesties trouble in such manner as might further Her content and therein Her health which would be a very great comfort and joy to themselves and the rest of His Majesties loving Subjects These obligations they should have remembred and left the world to remember how punctuall they were in the performance The discourse at Burrough Bridge that the King would pawne His Iewels for the Army is as materiall