MY long absence from this honourable Board, of which by Your Majesties favour I am a member, may privi­ledge me to beg licence for a few words: wherein I shall freely deli­ver to Your Majestie and these Lords, my opinion concerning the present affaires of this Your distra­cted and dis-jointed Kingdome; which is so far out of frame & order, by the occasion of these long continued civill wars, that it hath need (and very ur­gent need too it is) of all the means that can be used to re­ctifie and bring it into its old state and condition. Your Ma­jestie and these Lords all know, with what integritie I have engaged my selfe and fortunes in Your Majesties service, and in it I did discharge the duty I was bound in to Your royall Majestie: But as much as I can with my best judgement gather in all my progresse about severall parts of this King­dome, during the processe of these wars, it had been far bet­ter [Page 4]they had never been begun at all; or since heaven for the sins of this land hath suffered them to be begun, it were (in my poore opinion) extremely requisite, for the safety and tranquillity of Your Majesty, and of all us Your Subjects, that they were speedily ended; they being justly to be resembled to a violent disease, which if it be in the beginning of it resi­sted with wholesome medicines, may be overcome; if per­mitted to run too long, is hardly or not at all curable. For first, if we respect the conditions and affections of the peo­ple, especially those whom I have conversed with in Wales and elsewhere, we shall finde them very difficult to under­take Your Majesties quarrell against the high Court of Par­liament, the very name whereof is so firmly and with that reverence rooted in the brests of the English Nation, nay in the hearts of the very mountainers of Wales, that with a de­termined faith they beleeve and so far, as they dare affirme that the Parliament is in the right, that Your Majesty is mis­led and ill counselled against the Parliaments proceedings, which have alwayes been so happy to the Kings of this Realme Your ancestors: and with an infallible confidence they protest they can never be drawn willingly to take up armes against those honourable and faithfull men, that were by their owne choice elected and appointed to look after the affairs of the Kingdome, to treat in Councell for the amendment of the disorders of the Common-wealth, which before this present Session of Parliament were grown up to a formidable and oppressive number, to the great prejudice of the liberty and property of the Subject. So that those few men which I have been able to draw in those parts to your Majesties service are for the most part men of mean for­tunes, and such too in whom we may or can repose no great confidence, since they may be imagined to come to these wars rather for feare then affection, and where men come to employ their hands against their hearts there can be expe­cted no great expression of courage, much lesse of fidelitie. For moneys (so please Your Majesty) I must really informe [Page 5]You, that in all those parts where I have been conversant there is little or none at all to be procured, at least for Your Majesties assistance: The Gentry and people of fashi­on cry out, they cannot possibly part with that which they have not, their stores being quite exhausted by former pay­ments: and if some of them for feare (whom we were sure had money) were won to part with some small pittance out of it, they as soon as their backes were turned from us, with much murmur exclaimed, that their money was extorted and borrowed from them by force; that to prevent taking away the whole they were glad to forgoe part of their estates. So that by these expressions your Majesty and these Lords may plainly perceive which way the game will goe, when Your necessities shall compell Your Highnesse to stand in most need of assistance or supply from their boun­ties. Besides, an exceeding murmur is rife in every mans mouth in Wales and the borders thereof, that Your Majesty (contrary to Your expressions and Declararations) doth en­tertain daily great store of convicted Popish Recusants into Your service, as they instance in my Lord Herbert, son to the Earle of Worcester, whose Forces are compounded almost altogether of such publicke Delinquents, enemies to the true Protestant Religion: And the name of Papist is so execrably odious to the People in generall, for their former treacherous practices against the State and Re­ligion, that they doe confidently now believe, since such men are permitted to fight under your Majesties Ensignes, that they are displayed merely for the ruine and subver­sion of their liberties; that those malevolents to Gods true Religion, must needs be drawne together, to overthrow the true and sincere profession of it in your Majesties Dominions, and so possessed with these feares, which (considering the persons) are not altogether vaine or cause­lesse, they suggest to themselves a thousand strange chi­meraes of dangers, all which, their imagination leads them to believe, are derivative from your Majesty and [Page 6]your Counsellors, that permit the publike foes to Religi­on and the Common-wealth to be armed, pay, put swords into their desperate and ill governed hands.

Nor are these all the inconveniences or disadvantages that my observation hath assured me must wait upon your Majesty in the continuance of these warres (if we should be so unhappy as to see them continue) your Majesties for­ces are daily impaired and diminished, without any hopes of supplies, unlesse it were possible the arteries of your slaughtered souldiers could againe take life, and rise up to your Majesties service; the Parliaments armie on the contrary side being certain to be reinforced with fresh men whensoever any of the old ones fall, either by the hand of warre or sicknesse, the whole Kingdome being, as it were, at their devotion, all the able men thereof run­ning with willing hearts and couragious hands, to sacri­fice their lives in the Parliaments quarrell, which they conceive to be the common quarrell of the Kingdome, the quarrell for their wives and children, estates and li­berties.

In such a variety and labyrinth of disadvantages, walks the army now waiting on your Majesty; and so secure­ly the other, that by the view of their strength, we may easily survey our owne urgent infirmities. And which is of all the accidents of this war the most to be lamented, is, that wee are ingaged brothers against brothers, friends against friends, nay, parents against their dearely beloved children, and sonnes against their fathers, the whole land fraught with nothing but the horrors of warre and blood­shed: true Religion in the meane time is neglected and trampled upon; the Lawes (which are the Subjects best property, and the Soveraignes largest prerogative) being despised and villified, and every thing changed from the calmnesse of its owne genuine condition into distracti­on and fury: the Parliament, which had wont to be the ablest bulwarke of the Kingdome, the Subjects security, [Page 7]and the Kings constant ayder and supplement in all his necessities, rent from your Majesty, and your Majesty se­parated from them; so that that supreme Councell (con­vocated to settle the distempers of the Common-wealth, to enact good and wholesome Lawes for the defence and advancement of the Subjects liberty) is inforced to spend all that precious time which might and should have been imployed as aforesaid, upon the composure of these dif­ferences, and in agitating meanes for the Lawes and the Kingdomes defence.

Wee our selves, who were Peers and fellowes in that honourable society, being voted out of our places and ho­nours; and, so please your Majesty, if your royall selfe and these Lords will but seriously consider the nature and proportion of their gaines and losses in these warres, your sacred selfe, and all of them shall easily finde the losse to be the onely thing that can be gotten by these warres. Losse your Majesty is sure to have of your sub­jects, losse in your revenue, losse in your magnificence, and the extent of your regality being, as it were, cir­cumscribed to this City of Oxford, and deprived of the possession of your royall Palaces, in and about your City of London, which would to God your Majestie had never left, and then these fatall mischiefes had either not hap­pened at all, or at leastwise not beene of this lasting and lamentable continuance. For my part, and so I may af­firme of all these Lords, wee lose as much as wee have by these warres. First, we lose our repute with the Par­liament, and consequently with the Common-wealth; wee lose the injoyment of our estates, which are pub­lished by the Parliament forfeits to the use of the Com­mon-wealth; which is dearest of all to mortall men, we lose the affection and society of all our brethren, friends and allies, divers of which in this quarrell are our utter enemies. But I shall transgresse my duty, and tire your Ma­jesty with too tedious amplification of the inconveniences [Page 8]of these present wars, the zeale I have to your Majesties service, and the good of the Common-wealth, renders me beyond my owne nature, conscious of this prolixity, whose onely aime is to beseech your Majesty, for the honour you beare to Gods cause▪ and for the love you carry in your royall thoughts to us your dutifull servants, and to all your Subjects in generall, to thinke of some meanes for a sudden Accommodation of peace betwixt your selfe and your high Court of Parliament: nothing can be more acceptable to God then the bringing this peace to passe, nor more fortunate and prosperous to your people. So have I freely, with your Majesties licence, delivered my faithfull opinion and counsell, which I shall hourely pray may suite to as good an effect as I intended it.