To the Kings most Excellent Majesty.

The Humble Petition of many thousands of Your Majesties loyal Subjects, the poore sequestred Clergy of England and Wales,

THat whereas your Petitioners have a long time been desti­tute of all liveli-hood, by meanes of sequestration of their Estates and other losses, and are at present driven to extream necessities how to provide for themselves and their families, and the season now approching for the receiving the benefits of the Harvest before which time, if some charitable course be not ta­ken, they are like to starve or beg another yeare.

May it therefore please Your most Sacred Majesty to take our sad condition into Your Gracious consideration and care, that some course may be taken for our speedy reliefe, as may preserve us alive, and enable us to doe more service in Gods Church to Your Majesty and the Kingdome.

And as in duty bound, we shall ever pray for Your Maiesties happy establishment, and long and prosperous Reigne.

To His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax.

The Humble Petition of many thousands of the poore sequestred Clergy of England and Wales,

THat whereas the eyes of all the oppressed people of the Kingdome are fixed upon Your Excellency and the Army, as the great Instruments (under God) to restore them to their legal Rights and Liberties, which they doe justly ground upon Your severall Declarations published to the World.

And whereas your Petitioners (a considerable number of the free-born men of this Kingdome) have been for divers yeares outed of their lively-hood and free-holds, contrary to Magna Charta, and other fundamentall Laws of the Land, by the arbitrary power of Committees; whose proceedings usually have been by no Rule of any known Law, but by their own wills: of whose orders no Re­cord is kept, nor scarce any notes or memorials, whereby it may appeare when, by whom, or for what your Petitioners were removed, the Committee: for scandalous and for plundered Ministers (by whom the greatest part are turned out) being grounded not so much as upon any Ordinance of both Houses; the most of your Petitioners outed for refusing the Covenant, or ad­hering to the King and the Religion established according to their Judgements and Consciences; and, of those, diverse never called to answer, scarce one had any Articles proved by oath, or other legal processe, and some put out upon private information given to the Chair-man Mr. White: by which unheard of proceedings not to be paralleld in any age, Your Petitioners, who have lived heretofore in good esteem, according to their Calling, Degrees, Birth and E­ducation, are reduced to extream misery and want, with their Wives and chil­dren, that they must either starve or begge, if some speedy course be not taken for their reliefe. And whereas those, who are put into our places, labour by all meanes to stir up the people to involve this Kingdom in a new warre, and are generally men ignorant and unable to instruct the People, and many of them scan­dalous in their practices, if impartially examined, and divers of them bold three or foure of the best Benefices, whilest divers other Churches are void and without any constant Preacher: And Your Petitioners are ready to submit themselves for their Rights to tryall by the known Lawes of the Land, and if any appear guilty of any legall scandal (which we know to have been unjustly charged upon many, and is a great part of their present sufferings) we shall leave them to undergoe the severest punishment and censure, which by any known Law can be inflicted.

And forasmuch as the maine profits of our Benefices consist in the Harvest, which is now at hand; which many of the present possessors, if they could [Page 2] receive, would presently be gone, whereby the burden of the Cure will lye up­on Your Petitioners, having nothing to live upon all the next yeare.

Your Petitioners therefore Humbly pray, that Your Excellency would be pleased to make stay of the Profits of this Harvest, in such way as Your Excellency shall think fit, that such as are charged with any legal scandal, may come to a just tryal, and both they (if they be found in­nocent) and the rest, may enjoy their Rights, and have the benefit of Subjects, according to the known Law of the Land, and Your Petiti­oners shall ever pray, &c.

By the KING. ¶A Proclamation against the Oppression of the Clergy by the Intrusion of Factious and Schis­maticall Persons into their Cures, and inverting and detaining their Tithes and Possessions by Orders of one or both Houses of Parliament, contrary to all Law and Justice.

WHereas by the great Charter of the Liberties of England it is provided, that the Church should have all its Rights whole, and Liberties invio­lable; & amongst others the Church hath these priviledges, That regular­ly no Ecclesiasticall Possessions may be extended, seized or sequestred but by the Ordinary, And that Distresses may not be taken of Lands wherewith Churches have been anciently en­dowed: [Page 4] And that Churches presentative cannot be filled, and the lawfull Incumbents thereof removed but by the Ordinary, nor the Cure of the Incumbents served by Curats, Lecturers, or others, but by their owne appoint­ment, or in their default by the appointment of the Ordi­nary; neither are any of Our Subjects of the Laity by the Common Lawes of Our Realme capable to take or receive Tithes (which are the portion of the Clergy) un­lesse by demise from them, or such as are appropriate and made Lay-Fee: Neverthelesse by colour of Orders or pretended Ordinances of one or both Houses of Parlia­ment, the Estates Reall and Personall as well of Our Clergy as Laity have been and are daily seized, seque­stred and taken from them, & their Possessions distrained for illegall Taxes and Contributions for supporting the Rebellion against Vs: Which being clearly against law and unwarrantable, We did forbid by Our Proclamati­on of the seventh of April last, and doe hereby forbid the same, under the penalties in that Our Proclamation con­tained. And whereas divers of Our Clergy eminent for their Piety and Learning, because they publish Our law­full and just Commands and Declarations, and will not, against the knowne Lawes of the Land and their owne Consciences, submit to Contributions, nor publikely pray against Vs and Our Assistants, but conform themselves to the Book of Common Prayer established by Law, and preach Gods Word according to the purity thereof, and in their Sermons will not teach Sedition, nor will pub­lish illegall Commands and Orders for fomenting the unnaturall Warre levied against Vs, are some of them driven and forced from their Cures and Habitations, some others frienced and discharged from the exercise of their Cures, and persecuted; and their Curats, if Ortho­dox, or placed, and others, who are Factious and Schis­matical intruded and put in, to sow Sedition, and seduce Our good Subjects from their obedience, expresly con­trary to the Word of God, and the Lawes of the Land; and the Glebes, Tithes, and other emoluments of right [Page 5] belonging to such Incumbents as will not conforme to that Faction, are diverted in all Parishes where such Ar­bitrary power prevailes, and distributes, part to such la­cious Curates, and the rest to the maintenance of this War, against Law & the Liberties of the Church: Our Will and Pleasure therefore is, and We doe hereby straily charge and command all Our Subjects, as well Ecclesiasticall as Temporall, not to presume to inter­meddle in discharging or hindering any of Our said Cler­gie for the cause aforesaid, or any other the like pretences, or any of them from the exercise of their Cures and Fun­ctions, or in displacing the said Curats substituted by them: nor doe presume to intrude or cause any Curats, Lecturers or others, to be intruded or put into such Cures; or to take or dispose the Glebes, Tithes, Fruits or Emoluments belonging to any of Our said Clergy, who are so silenced, forced from their Cures, and perse­cuted as aforesaid. And We doe hereby require and com­mand all Our Subjects duly to set forth and pay their Tithes to their severall and respective lawfull Incum­bents of their Parishes, or to their Farmors, Assignes, or Deputies, without any guilt or fraud, and so as the same may be received and enjoyed by the same Incum­bents, without any diminution, substraction or diversion, notwithstanding any sequestration or pretended Orders or Ordinances, or other command whatsoever of one or both Houses of Parliament. And if any person or per­sons whatsoever shall presume to transgresse this Our Command, We doe hereby declare and signifie, That they doe not onely oppugne and infringe the good old Lawes of the Land, and the Liberties of the Church (which all Our Subjects, as well as Our Selfe, are bound to maintaine and observe) but doe also assist a Re­bellion against Vs, for which We shall proceed against them according to Law, as they shall be apprehended and brought to the hands of Iustice, and will give direction for taking their Lands and Goods into safe custody in the meane time.

And We doe hereby farther straitly command and re­quire all Church-Wardens, Sides-men & Parishioners whatsoever, to resist such persons as shall be so intruded or put in into any of the Cures aforesaid, by or upon pre­text of any such pretended Orders or Ordinances or com­mands as aforesaid, and to assist (as much as in them lyeth) the lawfull Incumbents, their Curats, Farmors, Assignes or Deputies, in the receiving, taking and en­joying the Glebe, Tithes, Fruits and Emoluments to them of right belonging. Willing and commanding all Sheriffes, Mayors, Bayliffes, Iustices of Peace, Con­stables, Head-boroughs, and other Our Officers and lo­ving Subjects whatsoever, upon their Allegiance, and the severest punishment that by the Law may be inflicted upon them, not onely to obey and observe carefully these Our commands, but to be aiding and assisting to the ut­most of their power to all such persons as shall require their assistance and protection in this behalfe, and to resist and repell, by force of Armes, all such as shall oppose this Our Legall command. And Our Will and Pleasure is, That this Our Proclamation be read in all Churches and Chappells in this Our Kingdome. Given at Our Court at Oxford, the fifteenth day of May, in the nine­teenth yeare of Our Reigne.

God save the King.