Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom, together with my own just Right; then for any thing I can see the higher house is totally excluded. And for the House of Commons, it is too well known that the major part of them are detained or deterr'd from sitting, so as if I had no other, this were sufficient for me to protest against the lawfulnesse of your pretended Court. Besides all this, the peace of the Kingdom is not the least in my thoughts; and what hopes of settlement is there so long as power raignes without rule of Law, changing the whole frame of that government under which this Kingdom hath flourished for many hundred years, (nor will I say what will fall out in case this lawlesse unjust proceeding against me do go on) & beleeve it the Commons of England will not thanke you for this change, for they will remember how happy they have been of late years under the raign of Q. _Elizabeth_, the King my Father and my self, untill the beginning of these unhappy troubles, and wil have cause to doubt that they shall never be so happy under any new. And by this time it will be too sensibly evident, that the Armes I took up were only to defend the fundamentall Laws of this Kingdom, against those who have supposed my power hath totally changed the ancient Government. Thus having shewed you briefly the Reasons, why I cannot submit to your pretended authority without violating the trust which I have from God, for the welfare and liberty of my people; I expect from you either clear Reasons to convince my Judgment, shewing me that I am in an error (and then truly I will readily answer) or that you will withdraw your proceedings. _This I intended to speake in Westminster-Hall on Monday 22. January, but against reason was hindered to shew my Reasons._ * * * * * FINIS. * * * * * Transcriber's note. Inconsistencies in spelling, grammar, capitalisation and punctuation have generally been retained, unless the inconsistency is obviously an error. e.g. Iustice and Justice (etc.) are both used; wickednss (page 53) may be a printer's error, or the author's contraction. There are a few instances of 'wickednesse', and only one of 'wickedness'; there are a few instances of 'yeild', and 'yeeld', but none of 'yield'; 'then' is used throughout the book as modern writers would use 'than'; and apostrophes are notable by their absence. The prefix 'un' is used where a modern writer would use 'in'. Many other words have more than one spelling. Phonetic spellings have been retained. 'proreption' (p. 66) means 'slow advance' (Google Books). The long 's', prevalent at the time, has been updated to the modern 's', which even in 1649 was used at the ends of words. There are some instances of what seem to be genuine errata:-- Sundry missing, damaged or extraneous punctuation has been repaired. Explanation of the Emblem: 'deprrss'd' corrected to 'depress'd': "_Palm_-like _depress'd_, I higher rise"