The Petition of the LORDS Spiritual and Temporal For the Calling of a Free PARLIAMENT: Together, With His Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships.  

To the KING's most Excellent Majesty, The Humble Petition of the LORDS Spiritual and Temporal; Whose Names are Subscribed.  
May it please Your Majesty,  
WE your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects, in a deep Sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom, and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be Exposed, and also of the Distractions of your People, by reason of their present Grievances, do think ourselves bound in Conscience of the Duty we owe to God, and our Holy Religion, to your Majesty, and our Country, most humbly to offer to your Majesty, That in our Opinion, the only visible way to preserve your Majesty, and this your Kingdom, would be the Calling of a Parliament, Regular and Free in all its Circumstances.  
We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty, That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to Call such a Parliament, wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State, as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety, and to the quieting the Minds of your People.  
We do likewise humbly beseech your Majesty, in the mean time, to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood, as to your Majesty shall seem most meet.  
And your Petitioners shall ever Pray, &c. 

W. Cant.  
Grafton.  
Ormond.  
Dorset.  
clear.  
Clarendon.  
Burlington.  
Anglesey.  
Rochester.  
Newport.  
Nom. Ebor.  
W. Asaph.  
Fran. Ely.  
Tho. Roffen.  
Tho. Petriburg.  
Tho. Oxon.  
Paget.  
Chandois.  
Osulston.   Presented by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, the Arch-Bishop of York Elect, the Bishop of Ely, and the Bishop of Rochester, the 17th. of November. 1688.   

His Majesty's most Gracious Answer.  
MY LORDS,  
WHAT You ask of Me, I most passionately desire: And I promise You, UPON THE FAITH OF A KING, That I will have a Parliament, and such an One as You ask for, as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has Quitted this Realm: For, How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances, as You Petition for, whilst an Enemy is in the Kingdom, and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices?  

The Lords Petition, with the Kings Answer, may be Printed,  
Novemb. 20th. 1688.     

LONDON, Printed for Thomas pike in Pall-Mall. 1688.