THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE PROTESTANT INHABITANTS OF the Counties of Antrim, Downe, Tyrone, etc. part of the Province of Ulster in the Kingdom of Ireland concerning Bishops.  
Expressed in thirty one heads of Grievances, by reason of their overruling Lordly power.  
As it was Presented to the Right Honourable Assembly, the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, of the House of Commons in this present Parliament.  
And accepted of that Honourable House.  
LONDON, Printed 1641.   

The Humble Petition of the Protestant Inhabitants of the Counties of Antrim Down, Tyrone, etc. part of the Province of Ulster, in the Kingdom of Ireland. As it was humbly Presented to the Right Honourable Assembly of Knights, Citizens, and Burgestes in this present Parliament. And accepted of that Honourable House.  
Your Petitioners,  
HUmbly representeth unto your grave wisdoms, and judicious considerations, that your Petitioners having translated themselves out of several parts of his Majesty's kingdoms of England and Scotland, to promote the infant Plantation of Ireland, wherein your Petitioners by their great labour and industry, so much contribute to the settlement of that Kingdom: As they were in a most hopeful way of a comfortable abode, and when they expected to reap the fruit of their great and long labour, partly by the cruel severity and arbitrary proceed, of the civil Magistrate, but principally through the unblessed way of the Prelacy with their faction, our souls are starved, our estates undone, our familles improverished, and many lives among us, cut off and destroyed;  
The Prelates, (whose pretended authority, though by some published to be by divine right, as we humbly conceive is directly against the same) have by their Canons of late, their Fines, fees, and Imprisonments at their pleasure; their Silencing, Suspending, Banishing, and Excommunicating of our learned and conscionable Ministers, their obtruding upon us, ignorant, erroneous, and profane persons to be our Teachers, their censuring of many hundreds even to Excommunication, for matters acknowledged by all to be indifferent and not necessary, their favouring Popery (in this Kingdom a double fault) their persecuting purity, and endeavouring to bring all to a liveless formalities, divers of them being notorious incendiaries of the unquietness and unsettled estate between these Kingdoms, with many the like; too tedious to relate, as more fully in our ensuing Grievances doth appear. These our cruel Taskmasters have made of us, who were once a people, to become (as it were) no people, an astonishment to ourselves, the object of pity and amazement to others, and hopeless of remedy, unless he with whom are bowels of compassion work in you an heart to interpose for Your Petitioners relief.  
They therefore most humbly pray, that this unlawful hierarchical government with all their appendices may be utterly extirpate, such course laid down, as to your great wisdoms shall seem meet, for reparation in some measure of our unutterable damages sustained by the parties thus injuriously grieved; your Petitioners settled in a way, whereby their persecuted Ministers may have leave to return from exile, and be freed from the unjust censure imposed on them, and an open door continued unto us for provision of a powerful and able Ministry, the only best way to promote Plantation, and settle the kingdom in the profession and practice of true religion; which as it is the earnest expectation, so it shall be the daily prayer of many thousands your Petitioners, who will ever entreat the Lord for your direction herein, and in all other your weighty and important affairs, as becometh your poor Petitioners, etc.  

A particular of manifold Evils, and heavy pressures caused, and occasioned by the Prelacy, and their dependants.  
1 BEfore they had so much as a pretended Canon, for their warrant the Prelates urged their Ceremonies with such vehemency, that divers of our most learned and painful Ministers for not obeying them were Silenced, and many of us for the like oppressed in their Courts.  
2 In the year 1634. they made such Canons and constitutions Ecclesiastical, as enjoined many corruptions in the worship of God, and government of the Church, which exceedingly retarded the work of reformation to the true Protestant Religion, animated Papists, and made way for divers popish superstitions.  
3 Our most painful, godly, and learned Ministers were by the Bishops and their Commistaries silenced and deprived for not Subscribing and Conforming to the said unlawful Canons, yea, through the hotness of their persecution forced to flee the Land, and afterwards Excommunicated, to the danger of all, and loss of some of their lives.  
4 In their places others were obtruded, not only ignorant, lazy, and lukewarm, but many of them unfound in doctrine, profane in life, and cruel in persecution.  
5 Many, though sufficiently furnished, were not admitted to the ministry, only for not swallowing down their groundless innovations, yea some, though conform, yet for strictness in life, were likewise kept out.  
6 Good and painful Ministers are not suffered to exercise that function which God hath called them unto, nor suffered to enjoy any living, many live, besides those proper to their Bishoprics; and do confer livings upon their children and retainers, studendi gratiâ (as is pretended) and divers Benefices, as four, five, six, or more upon their favourites; Hence  
7 The cure of souls are committed to hirelings, who receive 5.6, 8. or 10. pounds by the year for their cures; Divers of which are put together to the charge of some illiterate curate, by which means, the people perish for want of food, though the Parson or Vicar, through connivance of the Bishop is utterly non resident, and by each one of the many Benefices he enjoyeth, hath a competent allowance for a moderately minded man, to maintain himself and family upon.  
8 Whereas the Bishops should give all good example, by painful preaching and holy conversation, they preach very rarely themselves; and like these in the Gospel, who will neither enter themselves, nor suffer others to enter, they have suppressed divers others from preaching, both on the afternoon on the Lord's day, and in many places where weekly Lectures were maintained, either by the freewill of the Minister, or cost of the people, they have utterly forbidden the same, and shown all manner of discountenance to those who were forward therein, so that a Lecturing Minister appeared before them, under more prejudice than a popish Priest, or undermining jesuite;  
9 Jest those who could not be admitted into the ministry, undertaking to teach School, should there lay impressions of piety and good learning, they urge on the very School masters a subscription beyond what is enjoined by their own Canon, and punish by Excommunication, and otherwise the refusers thereof; So as the Schools formerly much frequented, are now utterly desolate, to the spoil of youth and promoting of profaneness and ignorance.  
10 Thus whiles they proceed so severely and unjustly in punishing the refusers to their unlawful commands, though otherwise never so honest and able men, they favour popery to the continuance, and great increase thereof, Hence,  
11 Popish titulary Bishops are by them winked at in the exercise of jurisdiction from Foreign power; Mass priests are frequent, and pretend a title to every parish in the Kingdom, Masses publicly celebrated without controlment, to the great grief of God's people, and increase of idolatry and superstition.  
12 They permit Friaries and Nunneries to be within their Dioceses, whereby they continue and increase of late in many places, yea divers of them suffered to remain in the very places where some of the Bishops have their special residence.  
13 In many places of the Land where Protestants are forbidden and restrained, Papists are permitted to keep Schools; unto some whereof such multitudes of children and young men do resort, that they may be esteemed rather Universities, teaching therein not only the tongues, but likewise the liberal Arts and Sciences.  
14 They set forth and suffer to be published wicked Libels and ungodly Pamphlets, tending to sedition, faction, and disunion of the British Inhabitants, such as Examen conjurationis Scoticae, Lysimachus, Nicanor, etc. And in their Sermons, Prayers, and ordinary Tabletalk, divers of the Bishops in matters quite besides their Calling, have not desisted to rail, curse, and most bitterly inveigh against the Kingdom of Scotland, and all their proceed labouring to make them odious, thereby proving themselves firebrands of sedition between the two Nations; yea, proclaiming their profaneness by drinking healths to to the confusion of that Nation.  
15 The most learned and seemingly moderate and pious of the prelate's, publicly in Sermons at Dublin, exclaimed against, and condemned the Scottish Covenant and Religion professed in that Kingdom with most invective terms; And in the Star-chamber in Dublin, at the censure of Henry Stewart Esquire, his Wife and two Daughters, and james Grace, for refusing to take an oath, for which there was no other ground then the Earl of strafford's command, which was against the Covenant of Scotland, uttered these words; These people with Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, do withstand the ordinance of God, and therefore I leave them to the judgement of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram.  
16 They have frequently made Symonicall pactions and bargains in the conferring of Benefices, and ordinarily permit Ministers to exchange their live, thereby to nullify Leases of tithes, which the former incumbent Ministers have let at certain rates.  
17 The Prelates have usually appointed such men to be their Commissaries, Officials, and Registers, who altogether neglecting the punishment of vices cognizable in their Courts look only to their own gain; Hence  
18 Though they pretend themselves the advancers of virtue, and punishers of vice, yet they usually without further satisfaction absolve the most scandalous persons for a sum of money, and often question not all such from whom they privately before hand receive such a sum, which is a cause that many wickednesses do more and more abound.  
20 If any be presented by their Apparitors (who are usually Papists) if it be but for non-paiment of the Clerk's groat, or not observing some one of their most frivolous injunctions; yea, though the party presented be not found culpable, yet they require most excessive and unjust fees; And if their demands be not satisfied, (though never so great poverty might plead for mercy) they presently proceed to the censure of excommunication, thus vainly and blasphemously abusing the high-ordinance of God, so many hundreds of us remain under that censure, and multitudes constrained to run out of the Land, to the undoing of them and theirs.  
21 The Prelates that they might manage Peter's sword aswell as his keys have some of them procured that most unlawful Writ of assistance, whereby his Majesty's Officers and Ministers are required to yield assistance unto the Bishop his Official, or any deputed by him; which Writ is by their Officers most notoriously abused, and many times put into the hands of their Apparitours, who under colour thereof apprehend honest men and women, casting them into prison, until they be forced to free themselves by an heavy composition.  
21 They charge Churchwardens with Articles fare beyond their understanding; to every particular whereof, if they refuse to answer or present, then are they bound to answer for it at Council table, or high Commission court, or both, and though there acquitted, yet no remedy left them for their great damages.  
22 They force Churchwardens to attend all their visitation and circular Court; And there, for their Articles, Oaths, Admissions, and Discharges, they make them pay most excessive and undue fees, never before practised or required.  
23 The communications for penance, which either should not be at all, or if exacted, then set apart for the poor, and other pious uses cometh either to the Prelate's kitchen, and Commissaries purse, or both;  
24 The Prelates and their faction, as they inherit then superstition of the Payacy, so of late they exact with all severity the absolute customs of S. Marry gallows, Mortuaries, Portions, etc. which as they were given by superstition and used to Idolatry, so now they are taken by oppression and applied to riotousness.  
25 They have also constantly practised and suffered, the buying and selling of the Sacraments, which is an heavy burden; And where the poor have not to pay the Minister and Clerks fees, they will not marry them, nor suffer their dead to be buried.  
26 In the high Commission court against all law and equity, they sit as ludges in their own cause, and take Cognizance of the highest and smallest matters, going therein without control; Hence  
27 In the said Court they usurp with an high hand the judicature of civil causes, impose Fines, beyond all bounds, and imprison at their pleasure, whereby many have been utterly undone.  
28 They proceed in the said Court, by way of most cruel and lawless inquisition, not only into men's actions and words, but reaching even to their very thoughts, in imposing that most unlawful oath Ex officio, to force to accuse, not only others, but likewise their own selves, contrary to law, and the very maximees of nature; And if any refuse to take this oath, then are they imprisoned, and fined beyond measure, to the ruin of all that fall under the weight of there indignation.  
29 Divers of the Prelates did jointly frame and wickedly contrive with the Earl of Strafford, that most lawless and scandalous oath imposed upon the Scottish-Brittish among us, who were Protestants, for receiving all commands indefinitely; And some of the Prelates were the occasion, that women and maids should be forced thereunto; Hence Commissions issuing to all places for the exacting of it, they were persecuted with so much rigour, that very many as if they had been traitors in the highest degree, were searched for, apprehended, examined, reviled, threatened, imprisoned, fettered together by three and foures in Iron yokes, some in chains carried up to Dublin, in Star-chamber fine in thousands beyond ability, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment; Divers poor women but two days before delivery of children were apprehended, threatened, and terrified; others of them two or three days after childbirth, so narrowly searched for, that they were feign to flee out of all harbour, into woods, mountains, caves, and corne-fields, and many days and nights together absent themselves, to the impairing of the health of very many, the death of divers, and loss of their goods, which the enemy at their pleasure made havoc of. These, with many more unexpressible, have been the woeful effects of the Oath drawn up by advice of the Prelates, and so unjustly pressed by authority of the Earl of Strafford.  
30 The Prelates with their faction have been injurious, not only to the spiritual, but also to the temporal estates of most men; for under colour of Church lands they have injuriously seized into their hands, much of the best lands in every County, so that there is scarce a Gentleman of any worth, whom they have not bereft of some part of his inheritance, few daring to oppose their unjust demands; and if any did, yet none able to maintain their just titles, against their power and oppression.  
31 By their ways have they enivated and undone many families, destroyed and cast away thousands of souls, and moreover in their own persons have been a scandal to the Gospel, and a stumbling block even to the common enemy, by their swearing, cursing, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, etc. having such servants usually in their Families, as are most profane in the Kingdom, few others countenanced by them, but such, and if any seem to be of an holy life, he is scorned and persecuted by them.  
Thus they publishing and proclaiming themselves the children of Ishmael and E●au, we most humbly beseech you as the true sons of Israel to take order with them as God shall direct, whom we shall ever pray to be aiding, and assistant unto you in this great and glorious work of reformation.   
FINIS.