THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE county OF ESSEX to His MAJESTY.  
WITH HIS majesties gracious Answer thereunto.  
ALSO The Petition presented by the Inhabitants of the afore said County to both Houses of PARLIAMENT.  
Printed, by His MAJESTIES Command, AT OXFORD, january 11.  
By LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the university. 1642.   

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,  
The humble Petition of Your MAJESTIES most loyal and Obedient Subjects, Inhabitants within the County of ESSEX, whose names are hereunto Subscribed and Affixed.  
Most gracious sovereign,  
amid those royal virtues wherewith it hath pleased the divine MAJESTY to fill Your Heart, none hath with greater Lustre shined, then Your gracious Clemency and compassionate tenderness of the present Calamities afflicting Your distressed Subjects in this, and Your other much lamented kingdom of Ireland, The gracious expresions whereof, so often by Your royal Commands published, have given us, Your Maties most loyal and Obedient Subjects, boldness, lowly to present the desires and prayers of a most distressed People. We use not sad Clamours with loud Outcries to awake Your Majesty to take notice of our sufferings; We are assured they have made deep impressions in Your pious soul, and called for, yea, and obtained Your Pitty.  
The deep sense of these Miseries have prevailed with us to present Our Humble desires unto Your Honourable Houses of Parliament, that they would be pleased to address themselves to Your Majesty, with such Propositions as may conduce to an happy Accommodation, and preservation of the true Protestant Religion, as may be for Your Majesties safety and Honour, and the Peace and Prosperity of Your Majesties most humble Subjects. Be pleased then, we humbly beg, favourably to incline Your ears to Propositions of that nature when presented.  
And we shall( as in duty bound) pray &c.   

HIS MAJESTY HATH expressly Commanded me to signify this His Answer to this PETITION.  
THAT His majesty is not more pleased with the Affection and Loyalty of the Petitioners,( so considerable in their quality, and so many in number) then tat there is yet so grateful a Sense of His Majesties Compassion of His People, and so just a Sense of the miseries and calamities of the Kingdom, in a County so subject to the power of some of the great Incendiaries of the Common-wealth, and from whence the Authors of the present distractions have promised themselves such Aid and Assistance to continue the same. What great pains and Patience His Majesty hath taken and used to prevent and to remove those sad and horrid pressures, cannot be unknown to many of the Petitioners, and must be to them all, if the extraordinary diligence to suppress all His Majesties Messages, Answers, and Declarations, and to publish the bitter libels and Invectives against His Majesty and the Peace of the kingdom, hath not kept them ignorant in things it concerns them so much to know,  
His Majesty commends the wisdom, and discretion of the Petitioners, in addressing themselves in such a manner to His two Houses of Parliament, who are called together by His Majesties Writ, to consult and counsel Him for the Peace and happiness of the kingdom, and are entrusted by the Petitioners & the whole kingdom to no other purpose. And if they shall receive the Petitioners as willingly, and take the Expressions in their Petition as much to heart as His Majesty doth; If they shall discover and punish passed Faults by the Rule of those laws which are established, and prevent future mischiefs by preparing new laws for His Majesties Consent; If they shall satisfy the Petitioners by making such Propositions to His Majesty, as may conduce to a happy Accommodation and preservation of the true Protestant Religion, as may be for His Majesties Safety and Honour, and for the Peace and Prosperity of His Subjects, His Majesty promises the Petitioners, that He will not only incline to such Propositions, but meet and embrace them with His soul, as the greatest Blessing God Almighty can bestow on Him.  
But if the Petitioners shall find, that any Faction( for it must be a Faction which opposes such just reasonable desires) shall be so prevalent, that the good known laws of the Land are peremptorily confounded by an arbitrary unlimited Power, in which confusion the Petitioners, and all His other good Subjects, must loose the protection & security of those laws; That whilst the Protestant Religion is spoken of and pretended, the memory of the blessed Reformers is slighted and vilified, and the present eminent Professors of it( whose learning and virtue can only stand in the gap against the Papists, and other adversaries to it) are disregarded, scorned and censured; And shall discover the great absence of Charity, Modesty and humility in the chief factors for a Reformation; If no Propositions shall be made to His Majesty, or such as His Majesty for His own Honour and Safety, and for the security and Peace of His Subjects, must not, cannot consent to, His Majesty hopes that the Petitioners and all His Subjects of Essex will look upon the pressures themselves undergo, as proceeding from the same Persons who endeavour to oppress His Majesty, and will with some indignation remember, how unhappily many of them have been made instruments unskilfully to contribute to that Torrent which is now ready to overwhelm them, and will consider that no prevailing or success of these ill men( who now disturb the public Peace) can bring ease and quiet to the Kingdom, but that His Majesty and His Posterity must always endeavour to vindicate themselves from that violence: And then the Petitioners by declaring themselves and joining with their Neighbours, will be able so far to assist His Majesty, that in short time both King and People, by enjoying what belongs to them, will be happy one in the other. And the Petitioners shall not find His Majesty more solicitous for His own Rights and Safety, then for their Interest and Protection.  
FALKLAND.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE the LORDS and COMMONS now assembled in this present PARLIAMENT,  
The humble Petition of the Inhabitants in the County of ESSEX, The number of whose Names is hereunto subscribed & annexed.  

SHEWETH:  
THat we your Petitioners, true members of this Church and State, being sensible of the present distractions & bloody Miseries wherein this Nation is most unhappily involved, whereby the ruin of our Religion, Estates, Lives and Liberties, is inevitably threatened, in a most unnatural and unchristian manner; the nearest and dearest relations Plotting and Acting Destruction each to other: Neither is this our so great Misery bounded within ourselves, but it extendeth itself to our poor Brethren of bleeding Ireland, not only to the ruin of their Persons and Estates, but even to the utter extirpation of the Protestant Religion itself in that miserable Kingdom, by disabling us to afford them that timely aid and assistance which in truth were due unto thē. The tender consideration of the Premises doth enforce us humbly to address ourselves to the favour and wisdom of this Honourable Court for relief; not doubting, but that the Blessing of GOD meeting with your grave and timely endeavours, may yet put a period to these our miserable distractions. And to that end, we have addressed ourselves by Petition to His sacred MAJESTY.  
And therefore do in all humility beg, you would be pleased seriously to consider of our present and approaching Calamities; and before any more blood be  shed, to tender( with all possible convenient speed) unto our gracious sovereign, such Propositions for Accommodation, as may be for the preservation of the true protestant Religion, His Majesties Safety and Honour, the peace and prosperity of all His Subjects.  
And we shall pray, &c.   
To this Petition were subscribed the names of 

Baronets and Knights— 0020.  
Doctors in Divinity— 0012.  
Esquires— 0057.  
Gentlemen and Clergy-men, at th● least 0300  
Yeomen and other Inhabitants— 6230.  
Sum. Total.— 6619.    
The aforesaid Petition was delivered on Wednesday, Ian. 4. 1642.