An Humble PETITION FOR Accommodation; Presented to the Kings most Excellent MAJESTY, AT OXFORD, ON Sunday the eleventh of this instant December, From the Gentry and Commonalty of the county of york, and other adjoining Counties.  
Declaring their earnest desire to have Peace concluded, and a happy agreement, between the King and Parliament.  
Decemb. 17. Printed by T. F. for J. B. 1642.   

An Humble PETITION for Accommodation; Presented to the Kings most Excellent Majesty, from the Gentry, and Commonalty, of the County of york  
May it please your majesty,  
TO accept the sympathising sense and feeling, from the immediate issues of the souls of your distracted Subjects, whose particular Estate can hardly afford an object for Your eye, yet if it pleased You to behold Us altogether, and to view the circumference of our united Bounds, our fortunes will be largely considerable, and our livelihoods of the highest and chiefest consequence, in the great burdens of this Common-wealth, upon whom the disasters of these many long and evil yeares have played their prise, and acted the sad Tragedy of our lingering misery, and that we as far as in us lyerh, may prevent our utter ruin and destruction, we do humbly supplicate your Majesty, clearly to behold our present desperate distractions, for we, nay onely wee, have born the burden of the day, we have been driven from our rest by night, our Lands laid waste, our goods forced from us, nay which is more, we have spun a supply for many grievous Taxes, out of the brinish sweat of our dropping brows, and woven our Rents out of the very bowels of our mere necessaries, nay which is worse, if we may touch our household abuses, and villainies, they would leniate an Adamantine heart, but we forbear to cry out, they are not utterable, nay modesty itself petitions for silence herein, and although these be but like lightning, in comparison of deadly thunderclaps, and like a gentle shower, in respect of our overwhelming tempests, yet by these we may adumbrate the dismal effects of civill broils, as the source and spring of all ensuing misery, the burnt child we say dreads the fire, and can these marks, these brands, already impressed, which are obvious to all our sences, be ever so forgotten, as that we shall go along with the destructive incendia●ies of this age, to redouble our grievous sufferings again. If the smart of some strokes be past already, yet some are bleeding, as whet stones for our memory, to tell us from whence, they came, some imminent, if God prevent them not, some at hand, if we may presage by threatening foretokens, and prodigious signs, to exasperate all the rest by an incurable divorce of all our welfare forever,: Good God into what amaze are we now brought,! do not laws divine enjoin us, human encourage us, and nature itself engage us to provide for a well being, the weakest things by instinct, rely upon the stronger for support the meanest creatures have often the firmest holds, and these by nature, and shall man in reason be taxed for apprehending means of preservation, which is granted by nature to worthless abjects;( God forbid) be pleased then O serene Prince, to give us licence to implore your concurrence with your great council, the Parliament, it is our shelter, our support, the onely refuge the common Sanctuary of this whole kingdom, pointed at as legal by divine Oracles, confirmed daily by heavenly Miracles, approved by experience, the grand teacher of us all to be the onely means under the cope of heaven, to bring the chained labours to a kindly perfection: and can we wave the vigilant and laborious Members of this House, without attentering of our unthankefulnes, and hightning the guilty degrees of our ingratitude, whose choice was ours, whose charge and pains their own, whose endeavours are such, that our weak tongues may wrong, but are not able to right, in the full dimensions of their deservings, and yet the shameless vassals of these times, would not onely bury them in silence, if it were tolerable, but heap upon their Urnes, bundles of infamous libels, and false aspersions, to incense your majesty against them, and to degree out of us that intimate trust and confidence, which we have so firmly in our election reposed in them, but these we leave to the change of these dissembling times, and come again to your sacred Majesty, in the bitterness of our souls, and unfeigned sorrows of our hearts, to beseech you to open your cares to these Peace-Makers of Israell, who are set in the highest corner Tower, that they may see the farthest, and prevent more early the Machinations of Jerusalems Enemies: accept the Olive branch they bring, embrace their loyal approachers of love, and union, entertain their deliberate agitations, with their primitive intercourse, which hath so of old adorned the mutual proceedings both of Prince and People: they pretend, next to the glory of God, the advancement of your Dominions, can Your kingdom flourish, and you not reap the best fruits? And can it be blasted, and their, and our hopes not be worm-eaten also? Wee all have our proportions, we all have our peculiar interests.  
But here is a mystery which wee must refer to times, if the work be from GOD, it is in vain to resist, if it be from Men it will come to nought, reserve therefore yourself, O Sacred Prince, for the Oracles of God, wait upon the Vision, who though it tarry yet it shall speak the truth, and let you see those things that belong to your Peace at last, if the Lord hath beholded no iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel, then the Lord their God will be with them, and a shout of a King( O grant with speed) shall be among them, surely no enchantment can prevail against jacob, nor divination have Israell can Bal●cam curse, whom God hath not cursed; or can he defy whom God hath not defied; we yet further entreaty you take notice of the Catalines of this age, who by stand or treachery, invent a thousand mean ●s of dissension and ch●ting asunder the conditions of peace, who father then they would fall one day from their greedy designe●, would devour the whole kingdom at one repast, consuming with the worms the substance that bread them, and with the vipers rending the bowels that conceived them, by their perverse practices you may know them, for this day have they set our being, the life of this famous kingdom, and the honour and glory of our great God at stake, fomenting: and adding fuel without ceasing to fire them all by their fierce and inhuman combustions; with drawn swords: arms stretch d out; & thirsting desires: so they gape to glut themselves with our dearest blood: and is there no comfort left: but the common calamity; yes there is yet time for safer thoughts: so long as we have merciful God to trust in: and a gracious Prince ready more we hope, then Assuerus was to Hester to hold out his golden sceptre, that we may touch the top thereof, not to embolden us to claim half of your Kingdom, but to beg, that our lives and the lives of all your Liege-poeple may be secured, that Mordecay may enter into the Gates of your palace, that truth may stand upon its own bottom, and shine in its proper lustre, which will discover the veiled Hamans of this age, that they may be catched in their own plots▪ and so receive their unexpected doom. To conclude so, though sick are our minds, and pensive are our hearts, that we can breath out nothing but supplications, we humbly beseech your transcendent excellence, to give an end to these, take the the Mourning garments from us, which unsuits us for your royal attendance, wipe those brackish tears from our cheeks, as too sad spectacles for a Princes eyes, and root out of our hearts, the doleful matter of our uncessant groaning, as over-harsh music for a monarchs ears, these distances being removed, how freely shall we come upon your gracious summons, with promising countenances sincere hearts, to rack our estates and sacrifice our lives for the glory of God, the safety and honour of your Majesty, and the general welfare of the kingdom, for all which your Petitioners will most humbly pray.  
FINIS.