The humble petition of the inhabitants of the county of Hertford to his Majesty. With his Maiesties gracious answer thereunto. Also, the humble petition of the inhabitants of the county of Bedford, to the Kings most excellent Majesty. With his Maiesties gracious answer thereunto.

His Majesty hath expresly commanded me to give this His Answer to this Petition.

HIs Majesty graciously accepts the acknowledgement of the Petition••rs, and is very glad, that in a County, so neer the violence which hath soug••t to oppress•• His Majesty, and where so great industry hath been used to cor∣rupt his good Subjects, and to infuse into them thoughts and resolutions of disloyalty against Him there is yet so gratefull a sence of His Majesties justice, and so true a sense of the calami∣ties of the Kingdom. And His Majesty assures the Petitioners, that He so far concurs with them in all their requests, that they do not more desire to receive, then His Majesty doth to grant all they aske of him.

Of the present distractions and dis••empers, in w^ch the Petitio∣ners expresse an honest and loyal care of the safety of His Ma∣jesties Person, (a thing so far from being of late regarded, that God onely hath preserved Him from being destroyed by the bloody hands of rebels,) His Majesty doubts not but the Peti∣tioners know from what fountain they have sprung, and by the grievances and pressures exercised upon their own County, in which His Majesty cannot be suspected to have the least hand, so much as by accident, wil quickly discern, that when that part of the Law which should defend His Majesty is so easily maste∣red,

& trodden drown, the other part which should secure His Subjects wil insensibly moulder away, and give them up to the same violence; And that when they shal too inconsiderately looke upon the publique sufferings, they doe but invite prosperous ill instruments to bring the misery home to their own doores.

That al•• Hostility may cease, cease for ever, and a blessed and happy Accomodation and Peace be made, that Gods honour, and the Protestant Religion may be maintained, that the just Priviledges of Parliament, and the Laws of the Land may be upheld and put in execution, that so His good people may be freed from their feares, and secured in their estates, is not, cannot be more the wish and prayer of the Petitioners, then it is the earnest and incessant endeavour of His Majesty. And when the Petitioners remember, that His M••jest••es com∣passion of the miseries of a civil War, kept him so long from endeavouring to raise an Army, that He was almost swallowed up by a desperate rebellion, and nothing but the immediate hand of God could have supplied Him with men, armes, or money for His defence; and when they consider the strange licence given or countenanced in the exercise of religion, the scorn and contempt the very Protestant Religion it self suffers by Brownists, Anabaptists and Sectaries, (who in truth have de∣stroyed the civil Peace too;) when they look upon the strange Invasion upon the freedom and priviledge of Parliament, by the violence and faction of such men, and see the Lawes of the Land with a lowd voyce vilified and trampled upon, they must confesse, 'tis no more in His Majesties power to satisfie the Petitioners in their most just desires, then to preserve His Own person, Honour, and Estate from that fury which threa∣tens that, and all the rest, and that what the Petitioners now aske, is the only Argument of His Majesties taking up just, ne∣cessary, and desensive armes.

But if the Petitioners shal joyn with His Majesty, and assist Him to assist them; if they shal resolve to defend the known Laws of the Land (as the onely excellent rule) and not to sub∣mit to any extravagant, arbitrary power whatsoever; If they shal set a true prize upon their religion, (sealed with the blood of so many glorious ma……) and on the behalfe of it, protest against all the distempers o•• Brownists, Anabaptists, and Secta∣ries; If they shal help His Majesty to reduce the whole Fabrick of Church and State according to the modell of Qu. Elizabeths time, (solong and seriously proposed by His Majesty) in which the foundations were laid of all that happines and glory, which the whole Nation injoyed so many yeeres after, and to which His Majesty hath made so great an Addition of excellent Laws; His Majesty doubts not that any Faction shall prevaile against them, but that other Counties, following the example of the Petitioners, in short time his Majesty, the Petitioners, and the whole Kingdome, will finde the accomplishment of all that is desired by this Petition.

FALKLAND.