THE PETITION AND PROtestation of twelve Bishops for which they were accused of High Treason by the House of Commons and Committed by the Lords to the Blacke Rod.

THat whereas the Petitioners are called upon by severall, and respective writs, under great penalties to attend in Parliament, and have a cleare and indubitable right to vote in Billes, and all other matters whatsoever debated in Parliament, by the ancient customes, lawes and Statutes of this Realme, and are to be protected by your Majesty quietly to attend that great service.

They humbly remonstrate and protest before God, your Maiesty and the noble Peeres now assembled in Parliament, that as they have an indubitable right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, so they, if they may be protected from force & violence, are most ready & wil­ling to performe that duty accordingly, & that they do abhominate all actions and opinions tending to Popery, or any inclination to the Malignant party, or any other side and party whatsoever, to the which their own reasons & consciences shall not adhere. But whereas they have been at severall times violently menaced, afronted, & assaulted by multitudes of people, in coming to performe their service to that Honourable House, and lately chased away and put in danger of their lives, and can find no redresse or protection upon sundry complalnts made to both Houses in that particular. They likewise protest before y [...]ur Maiesty and that noble House of Peeres, and saving to themselves all their rights and interests of sit­ting and voting in your house at other times, they dare not sit to vote in the House of Peeres unlesse your Maiesty shall further them from all affronts, indignities and danger in the premises.

Lastly, whereas their feares are not built upon fancies and conceipts, but upon such grounds & obiects as may well terrifie men of great resolution and much constancy, they doe in all humillity and duty pro­test before your Maiesty and the Peeres of this most honourable House of Parliament, against all votes, resolutions and determinations, and that they are in themselves nul, and of no effect, which in their ab­since the twenty seven of December 1641. have already passed, and likewise against all such as shall here­after passe in that most Honourable assembly, during such time of their forced and violented absence from the said most honourable House.

Not denying, but if their absenting of themselves were willfull and voluntary, that most noble House might proceed in all these premises, theire absence and Protestation notwithstanding.

And humbly beseecheth your most excellent Maiesty to Command the Lords of the House of Peeres to enter this their Petition and protestation in their Records.

They will ever pray God to blesse and preserve &c.

Printed for T. Bankes 1641.

FJNIS.

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