Early in November, 1641, the king being in Scotland, and news of the insurrection in Ireland having just reached London, the party of Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell "resolved on a great pitched battle between them and the opposition, which should try their relative strengths before the king's return; and they chose to fight this battle over a vast document, which they entitled 'A Declaration and Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom,' but which has come to be known since as The Grand Remonstrance. ... The notion of a great general document which, under the name of 'A Remonstrance,' should present to the king in one view a survey of the principal evils that had crept into the kingdom in his own and preceding reigns, with a detection of their causes, and a specification of the remedies, had more than once been before the Commons. It had been first mooted by Lord Digby while the Parliament was not a week old. Again and again set aside for more immediate work, it had recurred to the leaders of the Movement party, just before the king's departure for Scotland, as likely to afford the broad battle-ground with the opposition then becoming desirable. 'A Remonstrance to be made, how we found the Kingdom and the Church, and how the state of it now stands,' such was the description of the then intended document (August 7). The document had doubtless been in rehearsal through the Recess, for on the 8th of November the rough draft of it was presented to the House and read at the clerk's table. When we say that the document in its final form occupies thirteen folio pages of rather close print in Rushworth, and consists of a preamble followed by 206 articles or paragraphs duly numbered, one can conceive what a task the reading of even the first draft of it must have been, and through what a storm of successive debates over proposed amendments and additions it reached completeness. There had been no such debates yet in the Parliament." _D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 2, book 2, chapter 6._ "It [The Grand Remonstrance] embodies the case of the Parliament against the Ministers of the king. It is the most authentic statement ever put forth of the wrongs endured by all classes of the English people, during the first fifteen years of the reign of Charles I.; and, for that reason, the most complete justification upon record of the Great Rebellion." The debates on The Grand Remonstrance were begun November 9 and ended November 22, when the vote was taken: Ayes, 159.--Noes, 148.--So evenly were the parties in the great struggle then divided. _J. Forster, History and Biographical Essays, volume 1: Debates on the Grand Remonstrance._ The following is the text of "The Grand Remonstrance," with that of the Petition preceding it: