THE

HISTORY OF THE REBELLION

AND

CIVIL WARS IN ENGLAND

BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1641,

BY

EDWARD, EARL OF CLARENDON.

RE-EDITED FROM

A FRESH COLLATION OF THE ORIGINAL MS. IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY,

WITH MARGINAL DATES AND OCCASIONAL NOTES,

BY

W. DUNN MACRAY, M.A., F.S.A.

In Six Volumes.

VOL. II.

(Books V and VI.)

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

M DCCC LXXXVIII

A TRUE HISTORICAL NARRATION

OF THE

REBELLION AND CIVIL WARS IN

ENGLAND.

BOOK V1.

3

12. As soon as the King came to York, which was about the 1642 March 19. end of the year 1641, and found his reception there to be equal to his expectation, the gentry and men of ability of that great and populous county, some very few excepted, expressing great alacrity for his majesty's being with them, and no less sense of the insolent proceedings of the Parliament, he3 resolved to treat with the two Houses in another manner than he had done, and to let them clearly know that as he would deny them nothing that was fit for them to ask, so he would yield to nothing that was unreasonable for him to grant, and that he would have nothing extorted from him that he was not very well inclined to consent to. So, within few days after his coming thither, he sent a Declaration (which he caused to be printed, and, in the frontispiece, recommended to the consideration of all his loving subjects) to them, in answer to that presented to him at Newmarket some days before. He told them that

2. Though that Declaration presented to him at Newmarket from both

1 [Called 'Lib. 4th' in the MS., p. 143, and dated 'Jersy, 5th October,' (1646).]

2 [§§ 1-30 are from the Hist., pp. 143-149.]

['whereupon he,' MS.]

March 9,

1642 Houses of Parliament were of so strange a nature in respect of what he expected, (after so many acts of grace and favour to his people,) and some expressions in it so different from the usual language to princes, that he might well take a very long time to consider it, yet the clearness and uprightness of his conscience to God and love to his subjects had supplied him with a speedy answer, and his unalterable affection to his people prevailed with him to suppress that passion which might well enough become him upon such an invitation.' He said, 'he had considered his answer of the first of that month at Theobald's which was said to have given just cause of sorrow to his subjects: but,' he said, 'whoever looked over that message, (which was in effect to tell him that if he would not join with them in an act which he conceived might prove prejudicial and dangerous to him and the whole kingdom they would make a law without him and impose it upon his people,) would not think that sudden answer could be excepted to.' He said, 'he had little encouragement to replies of that nature, when he was told of how little value his words were like to be with them, though they came accompanied with all the actions of love and justice, (where there was room for actions to accompany them ;) yet he could not but disavow the having any such evil counsel or counsellors about him, to his knowledge, as were mentioned by them; and if any such should be discovered he would leave them to the censure and judgment of his Parliament. In the mean time he could wish that his own immediate actions, which he did avow, and his own honour, might not be so roughly censured and wounded under that common style of evil counsellors. For his faithful and zealous affection to the true Protestant profession, and his resolution to concur with his Parliament in any possible course for the propagation of it and the suppression of Popery,' he said he could say no more than he had already expressed in his Declaration to all his loving subjects published in January last by the advice of his Privy Council; in which he endeavoured to make as lively a confession of himself in that point as he was able, being most assured that the constant practice of his life had been answerable thereunto: and therefore he did rather expect a testimony and acknowledgment of such his zeal and piety than those expressions he met with in that Declaration, of any design of altering religion in this kingdom. And,' he said, 'he did, out of the innocency of his soul, wish that the judgments of Heaven might be manifested upon those who have or had any such design.

3. As for the Scots' troubles,' he told them 'he had thought that those unhappy differences had been wrapped up in perpetual silence by the Act of Oblivion, which, being solemnly passed in the Parliaments of both kingdoms, stopped his own mouth from any other reply than to shew his great dislike for reviving the memory thereof.' He said, 'if the rebellion in Ireland, (so odious to all Christians,) seemed to have been framed and maintained in England, or to have any countenance from hence, he conjured both his Houses of Parliament and all his loving subjects whatsoever to use all possible means to discover and find such out, that he might join in the most exemplary vengeance upon them that could be imagined. But,' he told them, 'he must think himself highly and causelessly injured in his reputation, if any Declaration, action, or expression of the Irish rebels, any letter from the count Rosetti to the Papists for fasting and praying, or from Tris

tram Whetcombe1 of strange speeches uttered in Ireland, should beget any 1642 jealousy or misapprehension in his subjects of his justice, piety, and affection: it being evident to all understandings that those mischievous and wicked rebels are not so capable of great advantage as by having their false discourses so far believed as to raise fears and jealousies to the distraction of this kingdom, the only way to their security.' He said,' he could not express a deeper sense of the sufferings of his poor Protestant subjects in that kingdom than he had done in his often messages to both Houses, by which he had offered, and was still ready, to venture his royal person for their redemption, well knowing that, as he was in his own interests more concerned in them, so he was to make a strict account to Almighty God for any neglect of his duty or their preservation.

4. For the manifold attempts to provoke his late army and the army of the Scots, and to raise a faction in the city of London and other parts of the kingdom, if it were said as relating to him, he could not without great indignation suffer himself to be reproached to have intended the least force or threatening to his Parliament, as the being privy to the bringing up of the army would imply. Whereas he called God to witness he never had any such thought, or knew of any such resolution concerning his late army. For the petition shewed to him by captain Legg,' he said 'he well remembered the same, and the occasion of that conference. Captain Legg being lately come out of the north and repairing to him at Whitehall, his majesty asked him of the state of his army; and, after some relation of it, he told his majesty that the commanders and officers of the army had a mind to petition the Parliament, as others of his people had done, and shewed him the copy of a petition; which he read, and finding it to be very humble, desiring the Parliament might receive no interruption in the reformation of the Church and State to the model of Queen Elizabeth's days, his majesty told him that he saw no harm in it; whereupon captain Legg replied that he believed all the officers of the army would like it, only he thought sir Jacob Ashly would be unwilling to sign it out of fear that it might displease him. His majesty then read the petition over again, and observing nothing in matter or form he conceived could possibly give just cause of offence, he delivered it to him again, bidding him give it to sir Jacob Ashly, for whose satisfaction he writ C. R. upon it, to testify his approbation; and he wished that the petition might be seen and published, and then he believed it would appear no dangerous one, nor a just ground for the least jealousy or misapprehension.

5. For Mr. Jermin,' he said, 'it was well known that he was gone from Whitehall before he received the desire of both Houses for the restraint of his servants, neither returned he thither, or passed over by any warrant granted by him after that time. For the breach of privilege in the accusation of the lord Kimbolton and the five members of the House of Commons,' he told them he thought he had given so ample satisfaction in his several messages to that purpose that it should have been no more pressed against him, being confident, if the breach of privilege had been greater than ever

1 [' Whitcombe,' in the Declaration as printed by the King's printer, Rob. Barker.]