XIV. From OXFORD, Dec. 15. MDCXLV. In pursuance of the former.
CHARLES R.
HIS Majesty cannot but extremely wonder, that after so many expressions on your part of a deep and seeming sense of the Miseries of this afflicted King∣dom, and of the dangers incident to His Person during the continuance of this unna∣tural War, your many great and so often repeated Protestations, that the raising of these Arms hath been only for the necessary defence of God's true Religion, His Ma∣jesty's Honour, Safety and Prosperity, the Peace, Comfort and Security of His Peo∣ple, you should delay a safe Conduct to the persons mentioned in His Majesty's Mes∣sage of the fifth of this instant December, which are to be sent unto you with Propositi∣ons for a well-grounded Peace: A thing so far from having been denied at any time by His Majesty, whensoever you have desired the same, that He believes it hath been seldom (if ever) practised among the most avowed and professed Enemies, much less from Subjects to their King. But His Majesty is resolved that no discouragements whatsoever shall make Him fail on His part in doing His uttermost endeavours to put an end to these Calamities, which if not in time prevented, must prove the ruine of this unhappy Nation: and therefore doth once again desire, that a safe Conduct may be forthwith sent for those Persons expressed in His former Message; and doth there∣fore conjure you, as you will answer to Almighty God, in that day when He shall make inquisition for all the blood that hath and may yet be spilt in this unnatural War, as you tender the preservation and establishment of the true Religion, by all the bonds of Duty and Allegiance to your King, or compassion to your bleeding and unhappy Countrey, and of charity to your selves, that you dispose your hearts to a true sense,