A PETITION Of the Gentry, Ministers, and Freeholders of the County of FLINT, Presented to His Majesty at YORK, AUGUST the fourth, 1642.  
With His Majesty's most gracious answer thereunto.  
ALSO His Majesty's Speech to the Gentlemen of York, on Thursday the fourth of AUGUST.  
LONDON, Printed A. Norton. 1642.  
August 12.   

To the Kings most Excellent Majesty. The humble Petition of the Gentry, Ministers, and Freeholders', of the County of Flint.  
Presented to His Majesty at York, the fourth of August, 1642.  
Shows,  
THat your Petitioners do with all due submission thankfulness, and joy of Heart acknowledge the happiness they have enjoyed of a long peace under your Gracious Government, and your goodness in yielding to a ready Redress of such grievances as have grown in that time of ease and security, and in enacting such Laws in this Parliament as your Petitioners hope will prevent the like for the future.  
They are further tenderly apprehensive of Your Majesty's transcendent goodness, in Your free condescending to give your People so full & clear an account of your Actions and intentions, and rest throughly persuaded of the sincerity, and constancy of Your Majesty's Resolution to Maintain the true Protestant Religion in its Primitive purity, the Laws of the Land in their genuine sense, The just Privileges, Freedom, and frequency of Parliaments, with the property and liberty of the Subject thereupon depending, and Your Majesty's willingness to join with Your great Council, in granting or enacting any other good Laws, that may be for the public Weal of Your people; Who, as they have ever flourished and been most happy, and secure in all Acts and Ordinances, passed by the three Estates; And most peaceably governed, under the known Laws of the Land.  
So it is the humble prayer of us, Your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects (prostrating at your Majesty's feet, our persons, and estates) For protection, (according to your Oath) From those dangers we should be driven into, by being bound by any Rule, Order, or Ordinance; Whereunto Your Majesty, together with both Houses of Parliament shall not assent.  
We also further Supplicate Your Majesty so to maintain us in that ancient & necessary privilege, as not to suffer us to be governed, but by the known and established Laws of the Land.  
And Your Petitioners as in duty, and by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy they conceive themselves bound, shall not only pray for the preservation of Your Majesty's Sacred Person, Honour, Estate, and Lawful Prerogative, But shall be always ready to hazard their Lives and Fortunes, for the maintenance and defence of the same, against all powers and persons whatsoever.  
Subscribed by the Hands, of the Knights, Gentry, Justices of the peace, Ministers and Freeholders, of the County of Flint.   

His Majesty's Answer to the Petition of the County of Flint.  
HIs Majesty hath commanded me to return this Answer to this Petition, That His Majesty is much pleased with the duty and affection expressed by the petitioners, and with so evident a testimony, that the grievances he hath redressed, the Laws he hath passed, and the Declarations he hath made, have produced the effects for which they were intended, The satisfaction, gratitude, and confidence of his good Subjects, which he doubts not, but the whole course of his Government Will daily increase, That His Majesty is no less pleased to see them, so sensible of what hath and ever will best preserve their happiness and security, and that therefore they desire only to be governed by, that rule, which He is resolved only to govern by the known and established Laws of the Land, assuring them that according to his Oath, he will always protect them from the invasion of any other assumed Arbitrary power whatsoever, as long as he shall be able to protect himself, being resolved of nothing more, then to stand and fall together with the Law. And that he will not expect they should be any longer ready to express their duties to him by the hazard of themselves and fortunes for the preservation of his Person, Honour, Estate, and lawful Prerogative, against all powers and persons whatsoever, than his Majesty shall ever be mutually ready to discharge his duty towards them by the hazard of himself and fortune for the preservation and defence of the Religion and Laws established, of the just privileges and Freedom of parliament, and of the liberty and property of his Subjects, against whomsoever they shall endeavour either to destroy or oppose them.  
Falkland. At the Court at York, Aug. the fourth 1642.   

His Majesty's speech, to the Gentlemen of Yorkshire, on Thursday the fourth of August.  
Gentlemen,  
WHen I directed that Summons should be sent out for your meeting here this day my principal end was, That I might give you thanks for the great forwardness and expressions you have made of your affections to me since I came into this Country, and to assure you▪ That as the whole Kingdom hath great reason to value you exceedingly for it, so I shall be very unsatified with myself; till I have found some way to fix a mark of favour, and estimation upon this County, and this people, which may tell Posterity how good Subjects you have been, and how much Gentlemen; and I am confident the memory of it will grow up with my Sons too, in a just acknowledgement. This was the most I intended to say to you but there is an unquiet Spirit abroad, which every day throws in new accidents to disturb, and confound the public Peace. How I was driven from London, when I chose this place for my safety, is so notorious, that all men know it, who know any thing; with what strange violence, and indignities I have been pursued, since I came hither, needs no other Evidence, than Sir john Hothams' behaviour at Hull, who now arrived at that insolence, That he will not suffer his treason to be longer confined within those Walls, but makes fallyes out of the Town, upon his fellow Subjects, drowns their Land, burns and plunders their houses, murders, and with unheard of cruelty torments their persons; And this with so much delight, That he would not have the patience to wait, what Answer should be sent to my just demands, though in that respect I engaged myself to forbear to use any force, and kept my word; but chose the night before that came, (as if he well knew what Answer I was to receive) to act those outrages.  
You see the sad effects of Fears and Jealousies, the miseries they have produced; No man can tell you the least good they have brought forth or the least evil they have prevented: What inconvenience and burden my presence hath been here, what disturbance it hath brought upon the public, or grievance upon any private person, yourselves are the best Judges; And what ever scandal some men have pleased to cast upon the Cavaliers (which they intent should reach all my Retinue, & by degrees shall involve all Gentlemen) I am confident, there hath not been any eminent disorder or damage befallen any man, by any person of my Train, or under my protection,  
I am sure my directions have been very strict in that point, and if they had not been observed, think I should have heard of it by nearer complaints, then from London; I pray God the same care may be taken there: I am sure it hath not been. And to give you the fullest testimony of my affection to you, and to the peace of this County, and to show you that no provocation shall provoke me to make this place to be the seat of the war, I have for your sakes, passed over the Considerations of Honour; and notwithstanding the reproaches every day laid on me, laid ho siege to that place, that they may not have the least pretence of doing you mischief, but resolve, by God's help to recover Hull some other way, for that I will ever sit down under so bold and unexcusable a Treason no honest man can imagine. But it seems other men are not of my mind, but resolve to make a War at your own doors, whatsoever you do, or I suffer. To what purpose else is their new General armed with an authority to kill and destroy all my good subjects; their levies of Horse and Foot, some 〈…〉 and the sending so many new soldiers into Hull, when there is no approach made towards it, but to sally out, and to commit Rapine, and by degrees to pour out an Army upon you: In this I must ask your advice, what you would do for yourselves, what you would have me do for you, you see how I am stripped of my Navy at Sea, which is employed against me, of my Forts and Towns at Land, which are filled with armed men to destroy me; my money and provisions of my house taken from me, and all my subjects forbidden and threatened if they come near me, that may by famine or solitariness be compelled to yield to the most dishonourable Propositions, and to put myself and Children into the hands of a few Malignant persons, who have entered into a Combination to destroy us: And all this done under pretence of a trust reposed by the people. How fare you are from committing any such trust, most of the persons trusted by you, and your own expressions of duty to me, hath manifested to all the World; and how far the whole Kingdom is from avowing such a trust, hath already, in a great measure, and I doubt not will more every day appear, by the professions of every County: for I am wholly cast upon the affections of my people, and have no hope but in the blessing and assistance of God, the justness of my cause and the love of my Subjects, to recover what is taken from me and them, for I may justly say they are equal losers with me.  
Gentlemen, I desire you to consider what course is to be taken for your own security from the excursions from Hull, and the violence which threattens you from thence: I will assist you any way you propose. Next, I desire you, out of the public Provision, or your private Store to furnish me with such a number of Arms (Muskets and Corslets) as you may conveniently spare, which I do promise to see fully repaid to you: These Arms I desire may be speedily delivered to the custody of my Lord Major of York, for my use, principally from those parts, which by reason of their distance from Hull are least subject to the fear of violence from thence.  
And whosoever shall so furnish me shall be excused from their attendance and service at Musters, till their Arms shall be restored; which may well be sooner than I can promise, or you expect. I desire nothing of you but what is necessary to be done for the preservation of God's true Religion, the Laws of the Land, the Liberty of the Subject, and the very being of this Kingdom of England: for 'tis too evident all these are at stake. For the completing my Son's Regiment for the guard of my Person under the command of my Lord Cumberland, I refer it wholly to yourselves, who have expressed such forwardness in it.  
FINIS.