HIS MAJESTIES MOST GRACIOUS MESSAGE: Sent to both Houses of Parliament, by Captain Henry Heron, the Thirteenth of this Month of April, MDCXLIII.
TO shew to the world how earnestly His Majesty longs for Peace, and that no successe shall make him desire the continuance of His Army to any other end, or for any longer time then that and untill things may be so setled, as the Law may have a full, free, and uninterrupted course for the defence and preservation of the rights of His Majesty, both Houses, and his good subjects.
1. As soone as His Majesty is satisfied in His first Proposition concerning His own Revenue, Magazines, Ships, Forts, in which he desires nothing but that the just knowne Legall Rights of His Majestie (devolved unto Him from His Progenitors) and of the persons trusted by Him, which have violently beene taken from both, be restored unto Him, and them, unlesse any just and legall exceptions against any of the persons trusted by Him (which are yet unknown to His Majesty) can be made appeare to Him.
2. As soone as all the Members of both Houses shall be restored to the same capacity of sitting and voting in Parliament, as they had upon the first of January 1642. the same belonging unto them by their birthrights, and the free election of those that sent them, and having been voted from them for adhering to His Majesty in these times of distractions, His Majesty not intending that this should extend either to the Bishops, whose votes have been taken away by Bill, or to such in whose places upon new Writs, new election have been made.
3. As soone as His Majesty and both Houses may be secured from such tumultuous assemblies, as to the great breach of the Priviledges, and the high dishonour of Parliaments, have formerly assembled about both Houses, and awed the Members of the same, and occasioned two severall complaints from the Lords House, and two severall desires of that House to the House of Commons to give in a Declaration against them, the complying with which desire might have prevented all these miserable distractions which have ensued, which security His Majesty conceives, can be onely setled by adjourning the Parliament to some other place, at least twenty miles from London, the choice of which, His Majesty leaves to both Houses: His Majesty will most cheerfully and readily consent that Armies be immediately disbanded, and give a present meeting to both His Houses of Parliament at the same time and place at, and to which the Parliament shall be agreed to be adjourned.
His Majesty being most confident that the Law will then recover the due credit and estimation, and that upon a free debate in a full and peaceable convention of Parliament, such provisions will be made against seditious preaching and printing against His Majesty, and the established Lawes, which have been one of the chiefe causes of the present distractions, and such care will be taken concerning the legall and knowne Rights of His Majestie, and the Property and Liberty of His Subjects, that whatsoever hath been published or done in or by colour of any illegall Declaration, Ordinance or Order, of one or both Houses, or any Committee of either of them, and particularly to raise Armes without His Majesties consent, will be in such manner recalled, disclaimed, and provided against, that no Seed will remaine for the like to spring out of for the future, to disturb the Peace of the Kingdome, and to endanger the very being of it.
And in such convention His Majesty is resolved by His readinesse to consent to whatsoever shall bee proposed to Him by Bill for the reall good of His Subjects (and particularly for the better discovery and speedy conviction of Recusants, for the edification of the children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion, for the prevention of practices of Papists against the State, and the due execution of the Lawes, and true levying of the penalties against them) to make knowne to all the world how causlesse those feares and jealousies have been raised against Him, and by that so distracted this miserable Kingdome.
And if this offer of His Majestie be not consented to (in which He askes nothing for which there is not apparent Justice on His side) and in which He defers many things highly concerning both Himselfe and People, till a full and peaceable convention of Parliament (which in Justice He might now require) His Majesty is confident that it will then appeare to all the world, not only who is most desirous of Peace, and whose fault it is that both Armies are not disbanded, but who have been the true and first cause that this Peace was ever interrupted, or those Armies raised, and the beginning or continuance of the Warre, and the destruction and desolation of this poore Kingdome (which is too likely to ensue) will not by the most interessed passionate or prejudicate person be imputed to His Majesty.