C R  
Dieu ET MON DROIT  
HONI SOIT x MAL Y PENSE   royal blazon or coat of arms  
A Letter from his Maty. King Charles IId.  
To his Peers the Lords in ENGLAND. DIRECTED To our Right Trusty and Right Well beloved Cosens the Peerage of our Kingdom of ENGLAND.  
RIght Trusty and Right well-beloved Cousins We greet you well;  
After such amazements and assaults upon Our Patience, as no times of malice or cruelty can parallel (not excluding those of Pharaoh and Herod, holding the comparison to our human condition;) After we have circumspectly measured the madness of Our People with the raging of the Seas and noise of the waves, (the extent of which comparisons none can reach but He who holds the waters in His Fist, and weighs the winds in a balance;) We are led to contemplate the Chaos from whence God raised the goodly structure which we continunually behold.  
And finding the Light to be the begnning of the Creation, We thought fit to separate you from the present confusion fallen upon Our people, even you whom Our Ancestors have clarified from the common sort, and therefore dignified, that by your prudence the misguidings and wanderings of Our meaner Subjects may be undeceived and reduced, who do now. (after the rash rejection of Our glorified Fathers prophetic Admonitions) feel the fruits of their follies to become their own ruin, beyond their wisdom and power to redeem.  
How often We have visited them with meekness and Clemency in our Messages and Invitations from the Courts of Princes, whom, (for their only sakes, Our Predecessors have made their enemies) even when their offered powers would have enabled Us to correct Our most rigid Rebels, cannot by Us (without regret for such enforcements) be remembered; Nor are Our Subjects themselves without a sad sense of this, who, following their ambitious and avaritions blind Conductors, are fallen into Laberinths of enmities with those Princes, whereout their deepest subtleties cannot bring them.  
Happily by your instructions they may learn the Truth of this from their inconstant similitude the Seas, which for many hundred of years, have by the Wisdom of our Ancestors their Princes, embraced them as their dearest Friends, as well conveying them with their merchandise to the utmost parts of the World, as also returning them with such freights, as have made their warehouses the Magazines of other Countries, whereas at present (though they be the chief Proprietors of the world's Food and clothing, and Navigation) even those Seas, for want of a lawful sovereignty, deny them further Tutelage; The Ports of their ancient allies refuse them Trade or Harbourage; And England which sat as a Virgin Queen upon the Waters, is Deflored, Ravished, and carried Captive into their Ports who formerly thought no Wealth too precious to woo her.  
We say we look upon your Lordships shining as tapers to our blinded Subjects, and as Light-houses to their Unpiloted Rovings, which Office we consider to be to you also a Dignity, formerly belonging to the Lamps of the Church, though now they are under a Bushel; As for the giddy multitude we pity them with that Christian Proverb, Eheu quam honest miserii erant, for by imitateing their Superiors they think they do well.  
When we behold the Robes of some men's Consciences, who visit us in Corporal Rags (the best Purchases their Loyalty can make) we rest assured, that you who have this world's Wealth and not the privilege to use it, cannot enchain your Noble Souls to such slavery; Nor is it our desire to invite you to violence, but the Peace which we wish to your Bodies and Souls, we equally present in our daily Prayers for you, together with the meanest of our Subjects, and seeing your Christianity commands your Brotherly Love even to your most inferior Nighbours, you cannot better testify the same, then by your example to bring them into the Way of Truth, which they shall never find in the Paths of Rebellion.  
Again we call upon you our Peers, who cannot be unsensible that the Streams of your own Honour must necessarily fail, when the Fountain which should feed them is diverted; We advise you to learn of the Hebrews, who after that absence of their King David (more than seven times doubled by Our sufferings) grew to contention for bringing home their persecuted Prince.  
Nor are the opportunities difficult to your performance, there having been, in these many years of Our pilgrimage, divers assemblings of Our Subjects, which still continuing, you may, if you please, impart unto them such provident Instructions, as may return them to their ancient Duty and future welfare, the after fruits whereof none of you need to doubt; if you reflect upon the Felicities which all your Ancestors have enjoyed under the reigns of Our Predecessors; The inferior sort having always before them that formidable affrightment of present beggary and continued want of Trade, so long as they ●hall persist in disobedience to theirs and your injured and oppressed sovereign.  
March. 20. 1659. C. R.   

Printed for Charles Gustavus, in the year, 1660.