1642 had been before offered, his acknowledgment and retractation had been greater than ever king had given: besides the not examining how many of his privileges had been invaded in defence and vindication of the other. And therefore he hoped his true and earnest protestation in his answer to their order concerning the militia would so far have satisfied them of his intentions then, that they would no more have entertained any imagination of any other design than he there expressed. But why the listing so many officers and entertaining them at Whitehall should be misconstrued,' he said, 'he much marvelled, when it was notoriously known the tumults about Westminster were so great, and their demeanour so scandalous and seditious, that he had good cause to suppose his own person and those of his wife and children to be in apparent danger; and therefore he had great reason to appoint a guard about him, and to accept the dutiful tender of the services of any of his loving subjects, which was all he did to the gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

6. For the lord Digby, he assured them, in the word of a king, that he had his warrant to pass the seas and had left his Court before ever he heard of the vote of the House of Commons, or had any cause to imagine that his absence would have been excepted against. What their advertisements were from Rome, Venice, Paris, and other parts, or what the Pope's nuncio solicits the Kings of France and Spain to do, or from what persons such informations come to them, or how the credit and reputation of such persons had been sifted and examined,' he said, he knew not; but was confident no sober honest man in his kingdoms could believe that he was so desperate or so senseless to entertain such designs as would not only bury this his kingdom in sudden distraction and ruin but his own name and posterity in perpetual scorn and infamy. And therefore,' he said, he could have wished in matters of so high and tender a nature, wherewith the minds of his good subjects must needs be startled, all the expressions had been so plain and easy that nothing might stick with them that reflected upon his majesty, since they thought fit to publish it at all.

7. And having now dealt thus plainly and freely with them, by way of answer to the particular grounds of their fears,' he said, 'he hoped upon a due consideration and weighing of both together they would not find the grounds to be of that moment to beget, or longer to continue, a misunderstanding between them, or force them to apply themselves to the use of any other power than what the law had given them; the which he always intended should be the measure of his own power, and expected it should be the rule of his subjects' obedience.

8. 'Concerning his own fears and jealousies, as he had no intention of accusing them, so,' he said, 'he was sure no words spoken by him on the sudden at Theobald's would bear that interpretation. He had said, for his residence near them, he wished it might be so safe and honourable that he had no cause to absent himself from Whitehall; and how that could be a breach of privilege of Parliament he could not understand.' He said 'he had explained his meaning in his answer at Newmarket, at the presentation of that Declaration, concerning the printed seditious pamphlets and sermons and the great tumults at Westminster; and,' he said, 'he must appeal to them and all the world whether he might not justly suppose himself in danger of either. And if he were now at Whitehall,' he asked them 'what

6

security he had that the like should not be again? especially, if any delin. 1642 quents of that nature had been apprehended by the ministers of justice, and had been rescued by the people, and so as yet had escaped unpunished?' He told them if they had not yet been informed of the seditious words used in, and the circumstances of, those tumults, and would appoint some way for the examination of them, he would require some of his learned counsel to attend with such evidence as might satisfy them; and till that were done, or some other course should be taken for his security,' he said 'they could not with reason wonder that he intended not to be where he most desired to be.'

9. He asked them whether there could yet want evidence of his hearty and importunate desire to join with his Parliament and all his faithful subjects in defence of the religion and public good of the kingdom? Whether he had given them no other earnest but words to secure them of those desires?' He told them the very Remonstrance of the House of Commons (published in November last) of the state of the kingdom allowed him a more real testimony of his good affections than words; that Remonstrance valued his acts of grace and justice at so high a rate that it declared the kingdom to be then a gainer, though it had charged itself by bills of subsidies and poll-money with the levy of six hundred thousand pounds, besides the contracting a debt of two hundred and twenty thousand pounds more to his subjects of Scotland. He asked them whether the bills for the triennial parliament, for relinquishing his title of imposing upon merchandise and power of pressing of soldiers, for the taking away the Star-chamber and High Commission courts, for the regulating the Council-table, were but words? whether the bills for the forests, the stannary courts, the clerk of the market, and the taking away the votes of bishops out of the Lords' house, were but words? Lastly, what greater earnest of his trust and reliance on his Parliament he could give than the passing the bill for the continuance of this present Parliament? the length of which,' he said, 'he hoped would never alter the nature of parliaments and the constitution of this kingdom, or invite his subjects so much to abuse his confidence as to esteem any thing fit for this Parliament to do which were not fit if it were in his power to dissolve it to-morrow. And after all these and many other acts of grace on his part, that he might be sure of a perfect reconciliation between him and all his subjects, he had offered, and was still ready to grant, a free and general pardon, as ample as themselves should think fit. Now if those were not real expressions of the affections of his soul for the public good of his kingdom,' he said he must confess that he wanted skill to manifest them. 10. To conclude: (although he thought his answer already full to that point) concerning his return to London,' he told them that he was willing to declare that he looked upon it as a matter of so great weight, as with reference to the affairs of this kingdom and to his own inclinations and desires, that if all he could say or do could raise a mutual confidence, (the only way, with God's blessing, to make them all happy,) and, by their encouragement, the laws of the land and the government of the city of London might recover some life for his security, he would overtake their desires, and be as soon with them as they could wish. And, in the mean time, he would be sure that neither the business of Ireland, or any other advantage for this

1642 kingdom, should suffer through his default or by his absence; he being so far from repenting the acts of his justice and grace which he had already performed to his people, that,' he said, ' he should with the same alacrity be still ready to add such new ones as might best advance the peace, honour, and prosperity of this nation.'

11. They who now read this Declaration, and remember only the insolent and undutiful expressions in that Declaration to which this was an answer, and the more insolent and seditious actions which preceded, accompanied, and attended it, may think that the style was not answerable to the provocation, nor princely enough for such a contest; and may believe that if his majesty had then expressed himself with more indignation for what he had suffered, and more resolution that he would no more endure those sufferings, they who were not yet grown to the hardiness of avowing the contempt of the King (and most of them having designs to be great with and by him whom they provoked) would sooner have been checked, and recovered their loyalty and obedience. But they, again, who consider and remember that conjuncture of time, the incredible disadvantage his majesty suffered by the misunderstanding of his going to the House of Commons, and by the popular mistake of privilege of Parliament and consequently of the breach of those privileges; and, on the contrary, the great height and reputation the factious party had arrived to, the stratagems they used, and the infusions they made into the people of the King's disinclination to the laws of the land, and, especially, that he had consented to all those excellent laws made this Parliament (of which the people were possessed) very unwillingly, and meant to avoid them; that the Queen had an irreconcileable hatred to the religion professed and to the whole nation, and that her power was unquestionable; that there was a design to send the Prince beyond the seas, and to marry him to some Papist; above all, (which the principal of them with wonderful confidence in all places avowed to be true,) that the rebellion in' Ireland was fomented, and countenanced at least, by the Queen, that good terms might be got for the Catholics in England: I say, whoever remembers this, and that, though it might be presumed that the exorbitancy of the Parliament might be very offensive

to some sober and discerning men, yet his majesty had no reason 1642 to presume of their eminent and vehement zeal on his behalf, since he saw all those (two or three only excepted) from whom he might challenge the duty and faith of servants usque ad aras, and for whose sake he had undergone many difficulties, either totally aliened from his service and engaged against him, or, like men in a trance, unapplicable to it; he will conclude that it concerned his majesty by all gentleness and condescension to undeceive and recover men to their sobriety and understanding before he could hope to make them apprehensive of their own duty or the reverence that was due to him; and therefore, that he was to descend to all possible arts and means to that purpose, it being very evident that men would no sooner discern his princely justice and clemency than they must be sensible of the indignities which were offered to him, and incensed against those who were the authors of them.

12. And the truth is, (which I speak knowingly,) at that time the King's resolution was to shelter himself wholly under the law, to grant any thing that by the law he was obliged to grant, and to deny what by the law was in his own power and which he found inconvenient to consent to, and to oppose and punish any extravagant attempt by the force and power of the law; presuming that the King and the law together would have been strong enough for any encounter that could happen; and that the law was so sensible a thing that the people would easily perceive who endeavoured to preserve and who to suppress it, and dispose themselves accordingly.

13. The day before this answer of his majesty came to them, March 22. though they knew they should speedily receive it, lest somewhat in it might answer, and so prevent, some other scandals they had a mind to lay to his majesty's charge, they sent a petition to him, in the name of the Lords and Commons, upon occasion of the short cursory speech he made to their committee, (which is before mentioned,) at the delivery of their Declaration at Newmarket; in which they told him that

14. The Lords and Commons in Parliament could not conceive that that Declaration which he received from them at Newmarket was such as did

1642 deserve that censure his majesty was pleased to lay upon them, in that speech which his majesty made to their committee; their address therein, being accompanied with plainness, humility, and faithfulness, they thought more proper for the removing the distraction of the kingdom than if they had then proceeded according to his message of the 20th of January, by which he was pleased to desire that they would declare what they intended to do for his majesty, and what they expected to be done for themselves; in both which' they said,' they had been very much hindered by his majesty's denial to secure them, and the whole kingdom, by disposing the militia as they had divers times most humbly petitioned. And yet,' they said, 'they had not been altogether negligent of either, having lately made good proceedings in preparing a book of rates, to be passed in a bill of tunnage and poundage, and likewise the most material heads of those humble desires which they intended to make to his majesty for the good and contentment of his majesty and his people; but none of these could be perfected before the kingdom be put in safety by settling the militia. And until his majesty should be pleased to concur with his Parliament in those necessary things, they held it impossible for his majesty to give the world or his people such satisfaction concerning the fears and jealousies which they had expressed, as they hoped his majesty had already received touching that exception which he was pleased to take to Mr. Pimm's speech. As for his majesty's fears and doubts, the ground whereof was from seditious pamphlets and sermons,' they said, 'they should be as careful to endeavour the removal, as soon as they should understand what pamphlets and sermons were by his majesty intended, as they had been to prevent all dangerous tumults. And if any extraordinary concourse of people out of the city to Westminster had the face and show of tumult and danger in his majesty's apprehension, it would appear to be caused by his majesty's denial of such a guard to his Parliament as they might have cause to confide in, and by taking into Whitehall such a guard for himself as gave just cause of jealousy to the Parliament and of terror and offence to his people.' They told him, they sought nothing but his majesty's honour and the peace and prosperity of his kingdoms; and that they were heartily sorry they had such plentiful matter of an answer to that question, Whether his majesty had violated their laws? They besought his majesty to remember that the government of this kingdom, as it was in a great part managed by his ministers before the beginning of this Parliament, consisted of many continued and multiplied acts of violation of laws; the wounds whereof were scarcely healed when the extremity of all those violations was far exceeded by the late strange and unheard of breach of their laws in the accusation of the lord Kimbolton and the five members of the Commons' House, and in the proceedings thereupon; for which they had yet received no full satisfaction.

15. To his majesty's next question, Whether he had denied any bill for the ease and security of his subjects? they wished they could stop in the midst of their answer, that with much thankfulness they acknowledged that his majesty had passed many good bills full of contentment and advantage to his people but truth and necessity enforced them to add this, that even in or about the time of passing those bills some design or other had been on foot, which, if it had taken effect, would not only have deprived them of the