The Remonstrance and Protestation of the Gentry & Commonalty of the Counties of Buckingham, Bedford, Hartford, and Cambridge, shewing the reasons why they take up Armes, and their resolutions thereupon.
IT is notoriously knowne to all men how great the violence, oppressions, plunderings, and insolencies are that those wicked men, Forreiners, Malignants, Papists and Traitors, who call themselves the Kings Army, have and doe daily exercise [Page 2]upon the people of this Kingdome, borne to the liberty and fruition of their owne lawes; and that Commissions for raising of more Forces are daily issued to known Papists, whereby not only our Religion is in imminent danger to be altered to Popery, and all our iust priviledges overthrowne, but our wives ravished, our children murdered, and our estates absolutely ruined; and His Majesty, who ought in his duty to God and his Country to be the Father of his people, is now made the protector of the blasphemous and impious Crew, and of all their bloody and horrid actions, witnesse that cruell slaughter of his owne subjects at Braintford, even during a Treaty.
We therefore (out of a true sense of [Page 4]the Kingdoms and our own dangers) have associated our selves, and taken up Armes, with full resolution to prosecute the enemies of our Religion and Country, and do hereby solemnly protest and covenant before God, and one with another, that we will willingly and resolutely sacrifice our lives in this religious and just quarrell, and that wee will never lay downe these Armes, till this which is called the Kings Army be dissolved, and till the principall advisers, actors and fomenters in these our heavie calamities, such as are that blasphemous and plundering Prince Rupert be banished, and the Earle of Bristol, the Lord Digby, Master Piercie, Wilmot, Oneale, and Master Endymion Porter the illegall [Page 4]Keeper of the great Seale, and Culpeper, and those notorious Papists commanding in that Army bee brought or left to a due course of justice, unlesse we shall be commanded by both Houses of Parliament to the contrary, which wee hope wee never shall.
And whereas there are divers of the Scottish Nation, who beare office in that Army, against whom wee ought to expect justice; wee (out of that brotherly affection wee beare to that Nation) doe leave them to their just summons and censure, conceiving that Kingdome bound thereunto by that neere tye of Religion and Friendship with us, and by the Treaty lately so happily concluded betwixt us.
Lastly, we doe invite all our fellow Subjects of this Kingdome, as having an equall share with us in the happinesse or calamities thereof, to take Armes upon the same necessary grounds, and to enter with us into the same Covenant, conjuring them by their zeale to the glory of God, their affection to the honour and prosperitie of their native Country, by their loves to their wives, children, estates and liberties, to continue with us upon our just defence, till these calamities bee redressed, whereby we may all expect the blessing of God upon us and our posterity.