To the chosen and betrusted Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, Assembled in Parliament at Westminster. The humble Petition of Alice Rolph, wife to Major Edmond Rolph, close prisoner at the Gatehouse Westminster, etc.  
Presented to the Honourable House of Commons, july 10. 1648.  
Shows,  
THat you are chosen and betrusted by the people to provide for their Weal, but not for their Woe; and to maintain their Laws and Liberties, which you have often promised, sworn and declared to do, and for the preservation of which you have engaged the Kingdom in a most desperate and bloody War: In which service, by your Command and Authority, your Petitioners Husband hath, for almost six years together, in judgement and conscience, adventured his life, and hath always, to this day, continued faithful and unspotted, and therefore may justly, in the largest extent, expect and challenge from you the utmost benefits and privileges, the Laws and Liberties of England can afford; it being not only his undoubted inheritance and birthright, but also the purchase which he hath earned with the hazard of his l●fe, and price of his blood.  
Yet notwithstanding, your Petitioners said Husband, upon the false and lying information of one Osbourne, and one Dowcet, who being conscious of their own guilt and baseness, in perfidiously betraying the trust reposed in them by this Honourable House, in combining maliciously and wickedly, and plotting of their own heads, (without, nay contrary to all Authority) to convey away the person of the King, in these dangerous and tumultuous times, from the place of his present abode and residence by the Authority of this Honourable House, to the apparent hazard of the more desperate engaging this poor bleeding Kingdom anew in a bloody War, and to the hazard of the utter ruin and destruction thereof: For which perfidious treachery the said Dowcet was imprisoned, and the said Osbourne, conscious of his own guilt, fled as a Delinquent: And now taking advantage of the troublesomeness of the times, and to increase the fury and rage of the people, that so in a giddy and distempered Crowd they may the better escape their deserved punishment for their desperate and dangerous treachery, have most lyingly and maliciously invented and informed, that your Petitioners Husband declared to him the said Osbourne that the Governor had received several Letters from the Army, intimating they desired the King might be removed out of the way, either by poison or otherwise, etc. which they would persuade the world to be the ground of their endeavouring his escape; which yet (notwithstanding all their own averments) they kept secret in their own breasts almost a month after they had entered into a confederacy for the King's escape, without revealing it to any visible Magistrate in the Kingdom; neither did they ever make use of such an allegation to any of the three Soldiers that they drew into their Confederacy, though they had been long treating with them: All which, according to their own principles, doth (as your Petitioner is groundedly informed) by the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom, render them liable, as Traitors, to lose their lives, for their so long concealing a Treason of such dangerous consequence.  
But may it please your Honours, your Petitioners Husband no sooner heard of the said lying information, but instantly and voluntarily (though he had been extreme sick for some days before) without so much as a summons, came from the Isle of Wight to evidence his innocency to this Honourable House, at whose open Bar he declared the truth in each particular, according to his knowledge, without either diminution or evasion: And after that, being exceeding ill, with his distempers, retired to his Lodging in London, leaving Notes with divers of his acquaintance at Westminster, of the place of his Lodging, in case any belonging to this Honourable House, did inquire for him.  
And, as a further demonstration of his innocency, although he knew of the order for his Commitment, made by the Lords june 27. 1648. several days before it was executed, yet he never removed or left his Lodging, but contrariwise sent a Letter, bearing date june 30. 1648. unto the House of Lords, to certify them both of his abode, condition, and ready desire to clear himself of all those heinous crimes laid to his charge: All which are clear demonstrations, that the justifying peace of an innocent and good conscience did free him from any inward guilt in that particular.  
Yet so it hath been, may it please your Honours, That the said illegal Warrant, for your Petitioners Husbands Commitment, from the Lords (who by Law have no power over him, as hath lately been sufficiently proved in the case of Sir john Maynard Knight of the Bath, and an Honourable Member of this House, and the four Aldermen of London, and Lieutenant Col. john Lilburn, etc.) hath been executed upon your Petitioners sick Husband with more cruelty than ever was used against any of the Kingdoms greatest declared enemies, having suffered many incivilities & unchristianlike deal by the appointment, or at least countenance of Mr Fane Gentleman Usher of the House of Lords, who would take no cognizance of your Petitioners Husbands sick estate, notwithstanding his Surgeons then declared & since by Affidavit before the Lords affirmed, that your Petitioners Husband could not be removed without apparent danger: Yet, almost to the hazard of his life, both in respect of his bodily distempers and the fury of the multitude, he was violently hurried to the Gatehouse Prison at Westminster, being never so much as examined, or carried before a legal Magistrate, as by Law he ought; It being an Act abhorred even by Paul's heathen Judges, viz. To condemn any man before he is heard, and he and his accuser be brought face to face. And to heighten their cruelty, the Lords have since passed a sentence of close imprisonment upon your Petitioners Husband, denying him the benefit and assistance of his friends; which your Petitioner conceiveth to be contrary to all Law or Reason, and the very height of tyranny, That a man shall stand accused (nay without, and contrary to Law, condemned) for such a heinous crime as Treason: And being sick of body, almost to death, should be locked up and threatened to be laid in irons, and debarred all ways either to know what is in particular laid to his charge, or to make his lawful defence.  
The Premises considered:  
May it please your Honours, To take your Petitioners Husbands Condition into timely consideration, (before his blood be added (by your neglect) to that flood which hath and doth overflow this Nation, and still cryeth for vengeance) & by your timely interposition give a stop unto these unparaleld, tyrannous, and unjust proceed of the Lords, who one day after another usurp a jurisdiction over Commoners in criminal cases, and trample under feet the Laws and Liberties of England, seeing by Law it is provided and ordained, That Treasons shall be tryable only at Common Law, in the ordinary Courts of justice, and not otherwise. And that your Petitioners Husband may forthwith by your Justice be freed from his unjust and illegal Imprisonment by virtue of the Lords illegal Warrant. And forasmuch as if any person or persons shall make a suggestion to the King or his Council, he or they ought to find sufficient Surety to prosecute and make good the said suggestion, as appears by the Statute of the 37, and 38. of Ed. 3. by yourselves cited in the case of the Lord Kimbolton and the five impeachea Members; first part book Declar. pag. 77. That therefore if any person or persons have any Crime in Law to lay unto your Petitioners Husbands charge; That he or they may be enforced to prosecute the same legally by way of Indictment and due process of Law in an ordinary Court of justice, and give sufficient security so to do; That so by a Legal judge sworn to proceed according to Law, and a jury of his Peers or Equals sworn to judge according to evidence, according to the merit of his Cause he may receive either justification or condemnation, to which competent judges he appeals, and wholly refers himself. And lastly, forasmuch as by the confession of the said Osbourne, Dowcet, etc. they have acknowledged themselves privy to the Design and Plot, with which they charge your Petitioners innocent Husband, and yet have concealed the same for the space of three weeks and upwards, which by the Law is Treason; That therefore The said Osbourne and Dowcet, etc. may be forthwith attached and imprisoned in order to a legal Trial, and not suffered to continue free, and made use of only to accuse and destroy the innocent.  
And Your Petitioner shall pray, etc.