HIS majesties LAST REMONSTRANCE to the whole kingdom OF ENGLAND, In vindication of His royal integrity from the calumnious aspersions of some, who report that He doth only pretend Peace, but not intend it, with His high Court of Parliament.  

Printed by His Majesties special command,  
at OXFORD, Jan. 23.   
By LEONARD LICHFIELD, Printer to the university.   

His Majesties last Remonstrance to the whole kingdom of ENGLAND.  
WEe cannot but with great grief of heart Remonstrate and resent the misunderstandings of Our good Subjects, who although We have with divers serious and considerate Declarations of Our royal intentions, intimated to them Our desires and purposes for a speedy reconciliation between ourself and Our high Court of Parliament, yet they cannot be persuaded to give Us credit, divers( as We are credibly informed) suspecting the integrity of Our intentions. But it is no great wonder if they will not believe Our Protestations and Declarations in that kind, when by their incredulity of them they question and repugn the Declaration of God himself, who tells them that the hearts of Princes are in his hand; and nevertheless they will needs be so familiar with Ours, as to know Our very thoughts: nay will be better acquainted with them( by revelation it seems) then We ourself, and force Us to intend that which Wee never did, nay, to declare that which We never meant; as if We should go about to persuade Our Subjects, that Wee onely pretended Treaties for an Accommodation with Our Parliament, but never meant them; nay rather the clean contrary.  
But to the satisfaction of all Our loving Subjects, who will be disdeceived and disabused from all such suspicions and jealousies of Our integrity; We thought ourself engaged in Our Princely care to all Our People, and for the expression of Our love and respect to Our high Court of Parliament,( with whom We desire more then any earthly thing to be at unity) to remonstrate by this Our Declaration Our true and righteous intentions.  
First, We would desire all Our good Subjects to take into their serious consideration the miseries and calamities which wait upon all wars, especially such as Ours are, nationally civill; and but to ponder, whether they can believe a father can delight in the destruction of his children; a King in the ruin of his Subjects, or desolation of his kingdom. Whether they can conjecture, in the justice of their consciences, that We who have been these eighteen yeares of Our passed reign enriched with all the blessings that could attend a sovereign from the obedience and loyalty of His Subjects, can joy and take felicity, to behold himself( even in an unlooked for moment) devested of the chiefest attribute of His royalty. His peoples hearts and affections; nay, and that He should still desire to keep them off from Him with specious and unreall pretensions of a reconcilement, and by that means to aggravate them by those delusions into a more irreconcilable disaffection; We would have them know, that We are sensible of the many decrescions and diminutions which have been inflicted on Our royalty, by reason of this fatal difference between ourself and Our high Court of Parliament: Wee are not( as they may, at lest should imagine) so stupid, as not to know that Our Parliament is the master-nerve, that knits the body of the kingdom to the King himself; that all Our royal Ancestors, from the beginning of Parliaments to Our own very reign, have had in all their necessities their best relief from their Parliaments; that by the industry and care of Parliaments all those excellent and wholesome laws( which have so long sustained the state of this kingdom in good temper and condition at home, and reputation with foreign Nations) have been constituted and enacted; that the English Parliaments have ever been the ready cure for all diseases in the Subject, the upholder and maintainer of their Liberties, which certainly ourself have as much endeavoured to maintain and increase as any of Our Predecessors: Finally, We are alured that Parliament is and must be the rectifier of all infirmities, which can be contingent to Our Person or posterity: And therefore very simplo must those persons be, who can conjecture We should have no reluctancy at these dissensions, but rather seek their continuation: and most maliciously bent they must needs be against Our integrity and truth, that after so many Declarations and Protestations of Ours to that purpose, will not believe that We mean truly that pacification between ourself and Parliament, which hath been so often in agitation between Us. For who can be so unsensible as to imagine, much less report, that We labour the subversion of the essence of Parliaments, in which We are confident the greatest strength of Our regal authority consists: as well they may believe that Wee should, to leave a successor to Our crown of Our own blood, destroy all Our Princely issue; or turn Apostate to the Christian Faith, so to be accounted the better Christian; as much incongruity there is in the one as in the other. For sure We can never take pleasure to see ourself and all that have dependence on Us wretched and undone, as they must necessary be, if a sudden period be not affixed to the difference betwixt. ourself and Our high Court of Parliament. And to descend to particularise Our discommodities arising to ourself by these unnatural dissensions: First, Wee behold ourself driven, as it were, from Our Palace at Whitehall, and Our other royal Mansions near about Our regal City of London, Our Revenues sequestered, Our Fleet with-held, Our royal Consort the Queen from Our society beyond Sea; and which is most to be grieved at, the laws of the Land so wisely and judiciously founded for the good of Our people despised and trodden on, whilst rapine, theft, and injustice riot over the face of Our Dominions, depressing all equity, and violating all the property and right of the Subject, whilst the insolence and unbrideled fury of the soldier runs over all the realm, in despite of all the Edicts and Ordinances to the contrary of ourself and Parliament, the unlimited hand of war inflicting its terrors and punishments upon all, with the same impartial licence; many of Our good Subjects having lost their lives in these lamentable quarrels, and many more likely to forfeit theirs, should these warres continue: Religion in the mean time wandering up and down our Dominions unreguarded; every man making to himself what form of worship he pleaseth, and this confusion by no power of Our authority or Our Parliaments endeavours being to be remedied. And surely very ignorant must he be of all reason and discourse, that will in spite of Our teeths, believe that We affect and pursue the continuation of these woeful distempers, that will not be persuaded but We take delight to see ourselves robbed of all the benefits and blessings of peace by the rigour and cruelty of this present civill war; in which, who ever gains We are sure to be the greatest loser, losing Our Subjects lives, Our own tranquillity, nay, the hearts of Our people, the greatest and most excellent royalty of Kings. If the immensity of a misery be to be gathered out of the vastness of a precedent happiness, and he most wretched that hath been formerly most fortunate; surely no King can groan under a more hideous pressure of affliction then We do at this present, being deprived of the greatest of Our earthly comforts, which Wee have so long and in so large a measure enjoyed and possessed, and given over to discontents and distractions, and therefore they must be very repugnant to reason, and arrant enemies to all possibility of truth, that will not credit that Wee really intend peace and agreement with Our Court of Parliament: Wee behold those of Our Nobility and Gentry, that out of the duty of their fidelity, give their attendance in person upon Us, walk with discontented hearts and down-cast countenances for the continuation of these warres, because they are for the most part engaged in them against their kindred, friends and allies; their estates being as well as their lives in jeopardy, and they rendered odious to the people for their adhering to Our service: We behold also divers of Our good towns, Cities, and Counties, especially Our capital City of London, out of an implicit and descendent belief they have in the integrity of the Parliament, deserting Us daily, and with all willingness offering their lives, estates and fortunes to the dispose of the Parliament, who for the defence of their liberties, which they suspect We intend, or have intended to violate, by reason of Our so long absence from Our high Court of Parliament, most of Our followers, being accounted guilty of that advice, being esteemed and declared Malignants to the Common-wealth; and certainly these are manifest and urgent afflictions to any man, much more to Us, and no means can Wee think of to give a timely end to this groaning brood of mischiefs, but a sudden and so long desired peace. Wee do hereby remonstrate and declare to all Our loving Subjects, That though they, or divers of them may be misled by faction or ill advice, to believe that Wee onely pretend an Accommodation between ourself and Parliament; That Wee do, as Wee expect God should bless and prosper Us, seriously, and with integrity intend to settle an agreement between ourself and Our Parliament, upon such equal conditions, as shall be both agreeable to Our own honour, and without the least infringement to the liberty of the Subjects, or the essence or privileges of Parliament, which some maliciously report Wee go about to overthrow and diminish; further, declaring Our royal pleasure herein, That We shall take it as an act of duty and good conscience toward God and Us, in any of Our Subjects, that shall any way endeavour to promote and advance peace between ourself and Parliament, and believe them not to be well affencted to the State, that shall hinder or oppose it, peace being the immediate means under the providence of the Almighty, that must settle this kingdom in its pristine state and happiness.  
FINIS.