modesty of your Predecessors never thought fit to offer to any of Our Progenitors, nor We in honour or regard to Our Regall Authoritie (which God hath intrusted Us with for the good of Our people) could receive without just indignation, (and such many of your present Propositions are) their hopes would soon have been blasted, and those persons to whom Offices, Honours, Power and Commands were designed, by such ill-timing of their Businesse, would have failed of their expectation, not without a brand upon the attempt. Therefore, before any of this nature should appear, they have (certainly with great wisdom in the conduct of it) thought fit to remove a troublesome rub in their way, the Law. To this end (that they might undermine the very foundations of it) a new Power hath been assumed to interpret and declare Laws without Us, by extemporary Votes, without any case judicially before either house, (which is in effect the same thing as to make Laws without Us) Orders and Ordinances made only by both houses (tending to a pure Arbitrary power) were pressed upon the people, as Laws, and their obedience required to them.
Their next step was to erect an upstart Authority without Us (in whom, and only in whom, the Laws of this Realm have placed that power) to command the Militia; (very considerable to this their designe). In further Order to it, they have wrested from Us Our Magazine and Town of Hull, and bestird Sir John Hotham in his boldfaced Treason.9 They have prepared and directed to the people, unprecedented Invectives against Our Government, thereby (as much as lay in their power) to weaken Our just Authoritie and due esteem amongst them. They have as injuriously, as presumptuously (though we conceive by this time Impudence itself is ashamed of it) attempted to cast upon Us Aspersions of an unheard of nature, as if We had favoured a Rebellion in Our own bowels. They have likewise broached new Doctrine, That we are obliged to passe all Laws that shall be offered to Us by both Houses (howsoever Our own Judgement and Conscience shall be unsatisfied with them) a point of policie, as proper for their present businesse, as destructive to all Our Rights of Parliament. And so with strange shamelesnesse will forget a clause in a Law still in force, made in the second yeer of King Henry the fifth, wherein both Houses of Parliament do acknowledge, That it is of the King’s Regalitie to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself. They have interpreted Our necessary Guard, legally assembled for the defence of Us and Our Children’s Persons, against a Traitor in open Rebellion against Us, to be with intent to levie war against Our Parliament (the thought whereof Our very soul abhorreth) thereby to render Us odious to Our people. They have so awed Our good Subjects with Pursuivants,10 long chargeable Attendance, heavie Censures, & illegal Imprisonments, that few of them durst offer to present their tendernesse of Our sufferings, their own just grievances, and their sense of those violations of the Law (the birthright of every Subject of this Kingdom) though in an humble Petition directed to both Houses; and if any did, it was stifled in the birth, called Sedition, and burnt by the common Hangman. They have restrained the attendance of Our ordinary and necessary houshold servants, and seized upon those small sums of Money which Our credit had provided to buy Us Bread; with Injunctions, That none shall be suffered to be conveyed or returned to Us to York, or any of Our Peers or Servants with Us; so that (in effect) they have blocked Us up in that County. They have filled the ears of the people with the noise of Fears and Jealousies (though taken up upon trust) tales of Skippers, Salt Fleets, and such like, by which alarms they might prepare them to receive such impressions as might best advance this Designe, when it should be ripe. And now, it seems, they think We are sufficiently prepared for these bitter Pills. We are in a handsome posture to receive these humble desires (which probably are intended to make way for a superfetation or a (yet) higher nature (if we had not made this discovery to you) for they doe not tell Us this is all). In them We must observe, That these Contrivers (the better to advance their true ends) disguised, as much as they could their intents, with a mixture of some things really to be approved by every honest man; others, specious and popular and some which are already granted by Us. All which are cunningly twisted and mixed with those other things of their main designe of ambition and private Interest, in hope that at the first view, every eye may not so cleerly discern them in their proper colours.
We would not be understood, That We intend to fix this Designe upon both, or either House of Parliament, We utterly professe against it, being most confidenct of the Loyaltie, good Affections, and Integritie of the Intentions of that great Bodie; and knowing well, That very many of both Houses were absent, and many dissented from all those particulars We complain of. But we do beleeve, and accordingly professe to all the world, That the malignity of this Designe (as dangerous to the Laws of this Kingdom, the Peace of the same, and Liberties of all Our good Subjects, as to Ourself and Our just Prerogative) hath proceeded from the subtill Informations, mischievous Practises, and evill Counsels, of ambitious, turbulent Spirits, disaffected to God’s true Religion, and the unity of the Professors thereof, Our Honour and Safety, and the publike Peace and Prosperitie of Our people, not without a strong Influence upon the very Actions of both Houses. But how faultie soever others are, We shall (with God’s assistance) endeavour to discharge Our dutie with uprightnesse of heart. And therefore since these Propositions come to Us in the name of both Houses of Parliament, We shall take a more particular notice of every of them.
If the 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 9. 10. 15. 16. 19. Demands had been writ and printed in a tongue unknown to Us and Our people, it might have been possible We and they might have charitably beleeved the Propositions to be such, as might have been in Order to the ends pretended in the Petition, (to wit) The establishing of Our Honour and Safetie, the welfare and securitie of Our Subjects and Dominions, & the removing those Jealousies and Differences, which are said to have unhappily fallen betwixt Us and Our people, and procuring both Us and them a constant course of Honour, Peace, and Happinesse. But being read and understood by all, We cannot but assure Ourself, that this Profession joined to these Propositions, will rather appear a Mockery and a Scorn. The Demands being such, as we were unworthy of the trust reposed in Us by the Law, and of Our dessent, from so many great and famous Ancestors, if We could be brought to abandon that power which only can inable Us to perform what We are sworn to, in protecting Our people and the Laws, and so assume others into it, as to devest Ourself of it; although not only Our present condition (which it can hardly be) were more necessitous than it is, and We were both vanquisht, and a Prisoner, and in a worse condition than ever the most unfortunate of Our Predecessors have been reduced to, by the most criminall of their Subjects. And though the Bait laid to draw Us to it, and to keep Our Subjects from Indignation at the mention of it, The promises of a plentifull and unparalleled Revenue, were reduced from generalls (which signifie nothing) to clear and certain particulars, since such a Bargain would have but too great a resemblance of that of Esau’s, if we should part with such Flowers of Our Crown as are worth all the rest of the Garland, and have been transmitted to Us from so many Ancestors, and have been found so usefull and necessary for the welfare and security of Our Subjects, for any present necessitie, or for any low and sordid considerations of wealth and gain. And therefore all Men knowing that those accommodations are most easily made and most exactly observed, that are grounded upon reasonable and equall Conditions; We have great cause to beleeve, That the Contrivers of these had no intention of setling any firm Accommodation; but to increase those Jealousies, and widen that division, which (not by Our fault) is now unhappily fallen between Us and both Houses.
It is asked, That all the Lords, and others of Our Privy Councell, and such (We know now what you mean by such, but We have cause to think you mean all) great Officers and Ministers of State, either at home, or beyond the Seas, (for Care is taken to leave out no person or place, that Our dishonour may be sure not to be bounded within this Kingdom, though no subtill Insinuations at such a distance can probably be beleeved to have been the cause of Our distractions and Dangers) should be put from Our Privie Councell, and from those Offices and Imployments, unlesse they be approved by both Houses of Parliament, how faithfull soever We have found them to Us and the Publike, and how far soever they have been from offending against any Law, the only Rule they had, or any others ought to have to walk by. We therefore, to this part of this Demand, return you this Answer, That We are willing to grant that they shall take a larger Oath than you yourselves desire in your eleventh Demand, for maintaining not of any part but of the whole Law; and We have and do assure you, that We will be carefull to make election of such persons in those places of Trust, as shall have given good Testimonies of their abilities and integreities,
