The humble PETITION Of the city OF bristol, FOR An Accommodation of Peace between His majesty, and the Honourable the High Court of PARLIAMENT.  
As it was presented to the Kings Most Excellent majesty, at the Court at OXFORD, by four of the Aldermen of the said city; on Saturday the seventh of january, with His Majesties gracious Answer thereunto.  
Printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield. 1643.   

The Humble Petition of the city of bristol to his MAjESTY for an Accommodation of Peace betwixt himself and PARLIAMENT.  
May it please your sacred Majesty,  
The lingering calamities of this present 〈◇〉 having with its hideous and tumultuous noise awakened the sleeping tongues of your Majesties loyal subj cts especially those of the greatest and wealthiest city of your Dominions, the honourable the City of London, to invoke your royal assistance and suffrage for the establishing an unanimous tranquillity throughout this realm, by which example excited( though we should have willingly been the foremost suitors for the effecting so holy and just a purpose) wee the Inhabitants of your Majesties City of bristol, uninferiour( in loyalty to your sacred Person) to no City in this kingdom, and equal to any, except London, in this the realm of England, for importance of trade, and number of Inhabitants, esteemed ourselves in our duty to God, and abounden allegiance to your Majesty enjoined, not to be the last who should present your Highnesse with the humble intimation of our grievances and zealous desires for the good of your majesty, and the peace of your Dominions. May it therefore please your sacred clemency and goodness, seriously to ponder with what diamond felicity and daily blessings of the Almighty, all your Majesties good subjects, and wee the Inhabitants of this City have been filled full even with plenty, during the peaceful reign of your royal Father, of blessed and famous memory, nay, during divers yeeres of your Majesties reign( which God long continue over us) and then but with the eyes of your royal clemency and pity be pleased to take a strict survey of the face of things in this your kingdom of England at this instant, and surely your Majesty will find it as full of horror and wrath as any object which can encounter human eye-sight, appearing merely the Ghost of that England which it was so lately; in stead of the continual and gainful trade and commerce which all the maritime towns, in especial this City of bristol had into foreign parts; our Ships lye now rotting in the harbour without any Mariners or fraught, or trade into foreign parts, by reason of our home-bred distractions, being grown so contemptible and despised there, that our credits are of no value, wee being( through the misfortune of our nation) reputed abroad as men merely undone at home; and what detriment this discontinuance of traffic with foreign nations may beget and bring forth, both to your Majesties particular revenue, by decay of the emolument of customs, and to the Subject in general by the want of exportment and importment of commodities, cannot to your sacred wisdom be unknown: but this as the least of all the ills which your Majesty may behold encumbering and oppressing us and all your Subjects; no man enjoys his life, his wife, children, family or estate in safety this day, producing effects of ruin in those places, and on those persons who in the foregoing night were rich and happy; so that unspeakable is our misery, unutterable our grievances, fathers being engaged enemies against sons, and sons against fathers; every good town and City, as this your City of bristol, being enforced to their great and infinite expense, to maintain garrisons and courts of guards for their security, which takes away all sense of our formmer happiness, our sleeps being disturbed by the surley noise of Drums, we overwhelmed with an increasing perpetuity of cares and troubles, such as no time nor history hath scarce mentioned in this kingdom, neither in the Barons nor any other civill warres: Your Majesty being, at it were, divorced from those husbands of the Common-wealth, the honourable the high Court of Parliament who have made so frequent and so real expresses of their duty and zeal to the service and advancement of your Majesties affairs, onely desiring that your gracious Majesty would please to desert and give off the councells of such notorious Malignants, as for their own sinister and unworthy ends aim at the ruin of the Commonwealth, and destruction of the essences of Parliament, to which are conterminated and confined the liberty and right of the English Subject. Furthermore, may it please to take into consideration of your sacred Majesty, what strange and uncouth distractions that have lately broken forth into the Church of England, sometimes the glory of all the reformed Churches, the too much power of the prelacy in forcing new Canons and unheard of doctrines upon us, such as have corrosives to the hearts, and goads in the sides of most of the religious and well-affected persons to Church and Commonwealth in these your Majsties Dominions, which have been the immediate and efficient causes of the many dissensions and troubles now reigning in this realm, no oppression being so forcible or oppressive to mens consciences, as that which is intruded on them concerning their belief and the worship of God.  
In consideration of all which troubles and unhappy dissensions, wee your Majesties most faithful and humble Subjects the Inhabitants of your good and loyal City of bristol, in all duty to your sacred crown and Dignity, implore and beseech, that taking these grievances aforesaid into your royal thoughts, you would vouchsafe us the speediest means that may conclude the differences both in Church and Common-wealth, to device some speedy way for a reconciliation and perfect Accommodation of peace between your gracious self and your high Court of Parliament, which hath always been the happiest council of your famous Ancestors, and still prompt in all obedience to serve the intentions and purposes of your Majesty, and so to rectify all abuses in the Church, and finish all the bleeding dissensions of the kingdom, that peace and happiness may flourish in the rest of your Majesties reign, and the blessings of peace fall upon us your people, and we your humble Petitioners and obedient Subjects, shall as wee are engaged in all duty, ever pray for your gracious Majesties increase of temporal felicity in this life, and eternal happiness in the world to come.   

His Majesties gracious Answer to the Petition of the city of bristol, delivered to them by my Lord Faulkland, principal secretary of State.  
HIs majesty hath received your Petition, and is very well pleased with this early demonstration of your duty, and accepts in very good part your hearty advices to Him; which His majesty( as far forth, as for the present can be correspondent to his occasions) is resolved to harken unto, and put in practise. The many distractions that are now immergent in these his Majesties Dominions, He commanded me to let you know, that He hath as tender a sense and compassion of the afflictions of his good Subjects, as they possibly can have themselves, that he hath neither fought the continuation of these dissensions, nor will ever cherish them; but use and employ his best possibility and endeavours, for the establishing and reconsuming peace and quietness among all His Majesties Subjects, that every man may follow his vocation to his best profit, that traffic and commerce with foreign Nations may be continued and promoted, and all the fruits of peace may bee multiplied amongst you.  
For the abuses and innovations that have lately happened in the Church of England( to the grievance of many mens consciences) His majesty declares, that as he is ignorant of the said innovations, so he will be always ready to expurge and take away all such innovations, being resolute, as He is Defender of the Faith, to propugne, and maintain no other religion, but the Orthodox established Doctrine of the Church of England, which hath so flourished under the reigns of his glorious predecessors. That for the insolency and pride of the prelacy, His royal majesty never intended to patronise, or protect the vices of the men; but what their deserts are, or have been, according to the nature of their crimes, they shall suffer the justice of the Law, of which himself being the fountain and protector, will never be either the Diminisher or Infringer. For his difference between himself and His High Court of Parliament, His majesty protests with all integririe, that there is nothing in the world more coveted by Him, than a speedy and faire atonement with that Honourable Assembly: nor any thing that has or does more afflict, or disturb his royal temper, than that He hath been enforced to absent himself so long from their Association and councils, to which he always hath given much honour, and esteemed them as the principal and securest advice, both for His own good, and the benefit of His People. And therefore, as a final resolution and determinate answer. His majesty by me declares to you, that He will ever make it his uttermost endeavour, to preserve the liberties and fortunes of all His good Subjects; and that He will bestow as provident and pious an eye upon your city of bristol, as upon any city or town in this kingdom. And for a reconciliation with His High Court of Parliamet, His majesty gives you His royal thanks, for that loyal and faithful advice, which His Highnesse resolves to put in practise, with all the celerity his occasions will permit, not doubting but ere many dayes pass, to reduce His affairs to that conformable condition, as to finish all jars and contentions betwixt himself and Parliament, by an happy union, that you and all his good Subjects may have their desires, by the establishment of a constant peace in these His Dominions.  
FINIS.