Chapter IX (4)

They put forth a declaration, signed by all their hands, on the 15th of June 1642, professing before God their full persuasion that the king had no design to make war on the parliament, and that they saw no colour of preparations or counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such designs; but that all his endeavours tended to the settlement of the protestant religion, the just privileges of parliament, the liberty of the subject, etc. This was an ill-judged, and even absurd piece of hypocrisy, calculated to degrade the subscribers; since the design of raising troops was hardly concealed, and every part of the king's conduct since his arrival at York manifested it. The commission of array, authorising certain persons in each county to raise troops, was in fact issued immediately after this declaration. It is rather mortifying to find Lord Falkland's name, not to mention others, in this list; but he probably felt it impossible to refuse his signature, without throwing discredit on the king; and no man engaged in a party ever did, or ever can, act with absolute sincerity; or at least he can be of no use to his friends, if he does adhere to this uncompromising principle.

The commission of array was ill-received by many of the king's friends, as not being conformable to law. Clarendon, iii. 91. Certainly it was not so; but it was justifiable as the means of opposing the parliament's ordinance for the militia, at least equally illegal. This, however, shows very strongly the cautious and constitutional temper of many of the royalists, who could demur about the legality of a measure of necessity, since no other method of raising an army would have been free from similar exception. The same reluctance to enter on the war was displayed in the propositions for peace, which the king, in consequence of his council's importunity, sent to the two houses through the Earl of Southampton, just before he raised his standard at Nottingham.

[243] According to a list made by the House of Lords, May 25, 1642, the peers with the king at York were thirty-two; those who remained at Westminster, forty-two. But of the latter, more than ten joined the others before the commencement of the war, and five or six afterwards; two or three of those at York returned. During the war there were at the outside thirty peers who sat in the parliament.

[244] _Life of Clarendon_, p. 56.