other Treasons are transient, as being confined within those particular actions and proportions wherein they did consist, and those being past, the Treason ceaseth.
The Powder Treason9 was full of horror and malignity, yet it is past many years since. The murder of that Magnanimous and glorious King, Henry the fourth of France, was a great and horrid Treason. And so were those manifold attempts against Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory; but they are long since past, the Detestation of them only remains in Histories, and in the minds of men; and will ever remain. But this Treason, if it had taken effect, was to be a standing, perpetuall Treason, which would have been in continuall act, not determined within one time or age, but transmitted to Posterity, even from generation to generation.
The tenth Consideration is this, That as it is a Crime odious in the nature of it, so it is odious in the judgement and estimation of the Law. To alter the setled frame and constitution of Government, is Treason in any estate. The Laws whereby all other parts of a Kingdome are preserved, should be very vain and defective, if they had not a power to secure and preserve themselves.
The forfeitures inflicted for Treason by our Law, are of Life, Honour, and Estate, even all that can be forfeited, and this Prisoner having committed so many Treasons, although he should pay all these forfeitures, will be still a Debtor to the Common-wealth. Nothing can be more equall than that he should perish by the Justice of that Law which he would have subverted. Neither will this be a new way of bloud. There are marks enough to trace this Law to the very originall of this Kingdome. And if it hath not been put in execution, as he alledgeth, this 240 years, it was not for want of Law, but that all that time hath not bred a man bold enough to commit such Crimes as these; which is a circumstance much aggravating his offence, and making him no whit lesse liable to punishment, because he is the only man that in so long a time hath ventured upon such a Treason as this.
It belongs to the charge of another to make it appear to your Lordships, that the Crimes and Offences proved against the Earle of Strafford, are High Treason by the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm, whose learning and other abilities are much better for that service. But for the time and manner of performing this, we are to resort to the Direction of the House of Commons, having in this which is already done, dispatched all those instructions which wee have received; and concerning further proceedings, for clearing all Questions and Objections in Law, your Lordships will hear from the House of Commons in convenient time.
FINIS.
After Charles abandoned London in January 1642 for what he hoped would be the more loyal North, the two houses of Parliament at Westminster attempted to negotiate with him through a series of published declarations, remonstrances, answers, and open letters. These reached a constitutional climax in June with Parliament’s publication on 1 June of the Nineteen Propositions, proposals that would have sharply and permanently circumscribed the king’s powers, and Charles’s response on 18 June.
Charles’s “Answer to the Nineteen Propositions” has become even more famous than the propositions themselves. This answer has been heralded for its endorsement of England’s mixed and balanced constitution and for its reliance upon law for support. Of chief significance, however, is the king’s acceptance of the concept that he is not above the three estates assembled in Parliament but in fact is one of the three estates. The Answer was written for Charles by two of his moderate advisers, Sir John Colepeper and Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland—men who had worked in the Long Parliament the previous year to rein in the expanded royal prerogative. The passage in which the king endorses the idea of being one of three estates in Parliament—thus excluding the bishops from membership and reducing the position of the Crown to coordinate membership—was penned by Colepeper. It is unclear whether Falkland fully endorsed the Answer’s concession that the king was one of the three estates. He later pleaded inadvertence, claimed Colepeper had been misled by some lawyers, and that clergymen had misunderstood. Sir Edward Hyde, the best known of Charles’s moderate advisers, was unhappy with the concession and tried to delay publication. It is even unclear whether the king actually read the crucial passage, although he assuredly glanced at, and gave his approval to, the lengthy reply. In important respects it does not reflect views Charles espoused before or afterward.
Whatever confusion reigned among the king’s advisers, however willingly, reluctantly, or unknowingly the king complied, the Answer publicly altered the basis of royal defense and argument.
There is much of interest in the entire reply. Because historians have focused almost exclusively upon its crucial constitutional concessions, however, the answer has seldom been reprinted in its entirety. As a result its tone has been misread. The reply reprinted here was published by royal order at York and is unusual in providing the text of both the Nineteen Propositions and the king’s Answer. In earnest of the king’s desire that the Answer be widely published and read in churches throughout England and Wales, six further editions were printed in 1642. It is notable that two editions published in 1643 either omitted the reference to the three estates of Parliament or the entire section on the English constitution.
XIX. Propositions made by both Houses of Parliament, to the Kings most excellent Majestie, touching the differences between His Majestie and the said Houses.
Your Majestie’s most humble and faithfull Subjects, the Lords and Commons in Parliament, having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem (next to the Honour and immediate Service of God) than the just and faithfull performance of their Dutie to your Majestie and this Kingdom, and being very sensible of the great distractions and distempers, and of the imminent Dangers and Calamities which those Distractions and Distempers are like to bring upon your Majestie and your Subjects: All which have proceeded from the subtill Insinuations, mischievous Practises, and evill Counsels of Men disaffected to God’s true Religion, your Majestie’s Honor and Safetie, and the publike Peace and Prosperitie of your people: After a serious observation of the Causes of those Mischiefs, do in all Humilitie and Sinceritie present to your Majestie their most dutifull Petition and Advice; That out of your Princely Wisdom, for the establishing your own Honour and Safetie, and gracious tendernesse of the welfare and securitie of your Subjects and Dominions, You will be pleased to Grant and Accept these their humble Desires and Propositions, as the most necessarie effectuall means, through God’s blessing, of removing those Jealousies and Differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt You and your People, and procuring both your Majestie and them a constant course of Honour, Peace, and Happinesse.
I. That the Lords, and others of your Majestie’s Privie Councell, and such great Officers and Ministers of State, either at home or beyond the Seas, may be put from your Privie Councell, and from those Offices and Imployments, excepting such as shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament; And that the Persons put into the Places and Imployments of those that are removed, may be approved of by both Houses of Parliament; And that all Privie Councellors shall take an Oath for the due execution of their Places, in such forme as shall be agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament.
II. That the great Affairs of the Kingdom may not be Concluded or Transacted by the Advise of private men, or by any unknown or unsworn Councellors; but that such Matters as concern the Publike, and are proper for the high Court of Parliament, which is your Majestie’s great and supreme Councell, may be Debated, Resolved, and Transacted only in Parliament, and not elsewhere. And such as shall presume to do anything to the contrary, shall be reserved to the Censure and Judgement of Parliament: And such other matters of State as are proper for your Majestie’s Privie Councell, shall be debated and concluded by such of the Nobility and Others, as shall from time to time be chosen for that place by approbation of both Houses of Parliament. That no publicke Act concerning the Affairs of the Kingdom, which