An Humble PETITION Of the University and City of Oxford; lately presented to His Majesty, for a speedy accommodation of Peace, between Himself and His High Court of Parliament.  
Together with His Majesty's gracious Answer to the said Petition.   printer's device: English royal blazon, surmounted by a crown and flanked by the English lion and the Scottish unicorn 
C R  DIEV ET MON DROIT. HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE 
Printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield, and now reprinted at London for Thomas Vincent.   

DOCTRINA PARIT VIRTUTEM  a device consisting of an open book with a sword, scepter, and surrounding motto  
THE Humble Petition of the University and City of Oxford, to His Majesty, for a speedy accommodation of Peace, with His High Court of Parliament.  
MAy it please your most sacred Majesty, we your humble Petitioners, in all duty show, that seeing the whole kingdom so many years under the reigns of your Royal predecessors, blessed with a constant and continual peace, is now overwhelmed in a most lamentable civil War, which always is destructive to that Kingdom where it rages, the honour of God being thereby declined, the study of good literature, for so many ages famously extant in this ancient University, neglected, the safety of your Majesty's person divers times hazarded, the Common-wealth lamentably impoverished by the cessation o● Trade within our own Kingdom, and commerce with foreign Nations. Finally, by that want, the noble Cities of this Land, as London itself, and this our City of Oxford, reduced to great distresses, and near approaching with the rest of the Kingdom to inevitable ruin, unless some speedy redress be put in practice; which we your humble Petitioners 〈…〉 from the care 〈…〉 of your sacred Majestic whom we in all humility best ●e fi● to take into your Royal and serious consideration the aforementioned miseries surrounding the Kingdom, to 〈…〉 with a gracious eye upon the grievous distempers, which (like Hydra's heads, increase even by cutting off) both in the Church and Commonwealth, to survey the strange and horrid effects produced in civil Wars, where, not only Christians destroy Christians, and Countrymen their fellow countrymen, but brother's sight against brothers, and fathers against their dearly beloved children, the sword running still through the bowels of your Majesty's Subjects, whom as you are the father of the Country, your Majesty must needs tender with a paternal love, to behold strictly the increasing famines, devastations, depopulations, and sicknesses, which as fast as clouds pursue clouds, trace the steps of an intestine war, making hideous way by their merciless effects, to the ruin and desolation of Kingdoms. To ponder the afflictions and miserable estate of many thousand good Protestant subjects in your Kingdom of Ireland, exposed to all the barbarism and cruelly of the pertinacious, and bloody-minded Irish Rebels who emboldened by the still emergent distractions here, like uncontrolled torrents, run on without any considerable resistance there in their audacious and unchristian villames. And lastly, we in all humility request your sacred Majesty to weigh the long and much lamented separation betwixt your royal self and your High Court of Parliament, the supreme Council of this Kingdom, which in all ages hath been the glory and security of your famous and redoubted ancestors: and all these considerations reduced into one contract, we doubt not but they will be with the help of the Almighty, most efficacious inducements to invite and incline your gracious mind to a sudden and so much desired peace and union betwixt your Majesty and your high Court of Parliament.  
For the speedy accomplishing whereof, we most humbly beseech, that without any more attention to the lewd and unchristian counsels of those illaffected Malignants, who for their own seditious and sinister ends, do all that in them lies to augment and continue the present distempers; or without further misconceits or jealousies of the integrity and well-meaning of the honourable your high Court of Parliament, that your sacred Majesty would graciously please to think on some speedy course for the settling all differences between your Majesty and your high Court of Parliament, which way in your wisdom shall be accounted most fit and commodious for the bringing peace once more into our dwellings; that the increase of honour, wealth, prosperity and plenty may be redoubled in all your Majesty's dominions; that trade and commerce both at home amongst ourselves, and abroad with our confederate neighbour-nations, may be renewed and augmented: that all schism and distraction may be taken away in the Church and Gods holy worship (as it ought to be) performed: that the Schools of good learning in this Kingdom, especially this famous University, may again flourish and bring forth painful Labourers, and pious Instructors into the Lord's Vineyard: that our Brethren in Ireland may be relieved from their calamities, and that kingdom settled in its pristine obedience to your Majesty. And finally, that your sacred person being by this peace secured from the dangers ' attendant on war, you may be beloved and feared both at home and abroad, and outshine the glory of your Imperial Progenitors. And we, as in all duty bound, shall ever pray for your Majesty's prosperity and eternal felicity.   

His MAJESTY'S gracious Answer to the Petition of the University and City of OXFORD.  
I Have received your Petition with much joy and alacrity of mind, to understand that so signal a City as this is, one of the Eyes of Our Kingdom, should with so unanimous and general consent, desire the re-establishment of peace in Our so much distracted and distempered Dominions: For which your request, We render you Our royal thanks, and do intimate to you, that there is no earthly blessing We so much covet, as the fruits of peace in Our Kingdoms, which have groaned so long under the oppressions and alarms of civil war, for hundreds of years not heard of, until these last of our reign, in this fertile Kingdom. And to let you have a full sense of Our intentions concerning the Accommodation of Peace which you so earnestly desire between Ourself and Our Parliament; you shall know, that We esteem nothing more dear or relative to the royal Prerogative devol'vd upon Us from Our Ancestors, than the peace and tranquillity of Our subjects; that blessed and happy peace which is the immediate bounty of the Almighty, the darling and delight of humanity, which by rendering the subject rich and wealthy, renders the Sovereign powerful and mighty; that peace which is the nurse of plenty and mother of prosperity, which is now unfortunately fled from Us, leaving war upon Our borders; which certainly shall no longer continue there then We can have means to expel it thence. We have a true and equal feeling of the sufferings of Our subjects, of the neglect of God's true worship, the decay of good literature, the afflictions of Our Kingdom of Ireland, grown almost desolate by the rapine and tyranny of the bloody minded Rebels: And if you dare give Us credit, your so humble and loyal Remonstrance of these grievances is not more prevalent to incite Us to an Accommodation of Peace, and conjunction with Our high Court of Parliament, than Our own natural inclination to the good of Our subjects, and real commiseration of their daily afflictions and grievances.  
We are not unacquainted that the power of Our Progenitors has been much augmented by the diligent care and vigilant assistance of the High Court of Parliament, and do unfeignedly wish that there never had been any difference betwixt Us and Our present supreme Council of the Kingdom, Our High Court of Parliament; or at least, that it had not thus long continued, nor grown up to this fearful height, this fatal and prodigious Civil war: Which certainly, We have no way neglected with Our utmost endeavours to appease, nor shall hereafter (though We are not diffident of Our strength) cease to labour as much as We may with Our Honour and safety, to bring to a sudden period. Commerce and traffic We well know are the nerves & sinews that knit together the Body of Commonwealths, especially this of Ours, which has arrived to all its wealth and fortune by exporting its native commodities, and importing foreign: And how careful We have ever been to preserve it, the Kingdom can bear Us righteous witness, and how industrious Our studies shall be to settle and reconfirme it, Our after endeavours shall give an ample testimony for Us. We bleed in the wounds of Our subjects; we suffer in their losses, and are afflicted in their sufferings. Not a man thus slain on any side but we esteem as a son taken from Us. And that which as much as any thing else troubles Our thoughts, is the apparent detriment to this famous University, in the decrease of its Students, out of which has flourished so many eminent Patriots and learned Champions of God's Gospel: And to see this City, which has been so loyal to Us, and so ready to give Us entertainment, should be impoverished by that decrease; but God will provide better for you hereafter, and surely Our part shall never be wanting to gratify you with the testimony of Our favour, for the loyalty and readiness We have found in you to do Us service. And so to conclude, we hope, none amongst you, nor any of Our good subjects but will believe that, since these miseries and mischiefs which have overwhelmed Our Provinces fall equally on Us; (but that the head is fensible of any paint in the rest of the members) but that We will with Our best abilities labour to take away the cause off these distractions here▪ that We may be better enabled to suppress the lamented and bloody Rebellion in Ireland; and give speedy relief to our distressed subjects there, who, though further of● are as near as the Natives of this Kingdom to Our affections: For malignant Counsels which may deter or impeach the proceed of a happy union betwixt Us and Our high Court of Parliament, We shall neither entertain nor hearken to any such advices, but seriously and suddenly study out some fitting means that may atone these civil differences. What it shall be we are not yet determined of, a case of so much consequence requiring mature deliberation; but whatsoever the conditions of the peace be, they shall be no way disadvantageous to the liberty of the subject or the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom. And so requiring your prayers to Almighty God for the prosperity of Our intentions doubt not but you shall see a sudden and fair accommodation of Peace between Us and Our High Court of Parliament.  
FINIS.