The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 06 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
After the King had accused the Lord Kimbolton, a member of the House of
Lords, and Hollis, Haslerigg, Hampden, Pym, and Stroud, five members of
the Lower House, of high-treason; and after the Parliament had voted out
the bishops from the House of Peers; they pursued especially two things
in their petitions to his Majesty. The one was, that the King would
declare who were the persons that advised him to go, as he did, to the
Parliament-house to apprehend them, and that he would leave them to the
Parliament to receive condign punishment; and this they did, to stick
upon his Majesty the dishonour of deserting his friends, and betraying
them to his enemies. The other was, that he would allow them a guard out
of the city of London, to be commanded by the Earl of Essex; for which
they pretended, they could not else sit in safety; which pretence was
nothing but an upbraiding of his Majesty for coming to Parliament better
accompanied than ordinary, to seize the said five seditious members.
_B._ I see no reason, in petitioning for a guard, they should determine
it to the city of London in particular, and the command by name to the
Earl of Essex, unless they meant the King should understand it for a
guard against himself.
_A._ Their meaning was, that the King should understand it so, and, as I
verily believe, they meant he should take it for an affront: and the
King himself understanding it so, denied to grant it; though he were
willing, if they could not otherwise be satisfied, to command such a
guard to wait upon them as he would be responsible for to God Almighty.
Besides this, the city of London petitioned the King (put upon it, no
doubt, by some members of the Lower House) to put the Tower of London
into the hands of persons of trust, meaning such as the Parliament
should approve of, and to appoint a guard for the safety of his Majesty
and the Parliament. This method of bringing petitions in a tumultuary
manner, by great multitudes of clamorous people, was ordinary with the
House of Commons, whose ambition could never have been served by way of
prayer and request, without extraordinary terror.
After the King had waived the prosecution of the five members, but
denied to make known who had advised him to come in person to the House
of Commons, they questioned the Attorney-General, who by the King’s
command had exhibited the articles against them, and voted him a breaker
of the privilege of Parliament; and no doubt had made him feel their
cruelty, if he had not speedily fled the land.