to be performed this day; and the last must follow as soon as conveniently may be.

I promised to these noblemen and gentlemen of the recusant party of parliament, justice with favour; let them see whether I have performed my promise: sure I am, but for performance of that promise, I should not have given such patient hearing, nor made such a curious search into the causes of their complaints, neither should I make such a conclusion as I am now like to make of this business.

In the search (though I doubted not of the honour and justice of the lord deputy's government) yet I dealt not with him as with my servant, not as with one the most unreprovable governor, that ever was in that kingdom (as some of yourselves have acknowledged him to be to myself) but as with a party: but after the commissioners had heard all that could be alleged, I found him indeed a faithful servant by their certificate, which was Conclusio in Causa.

The gentlemen I sent were such as no exception could be taken against them, some were never there before; some, so long sithence, that rerum facies fuit mutata, since they lived in that kingdom.

It rests me now to set down my conclusion; but before I declare my judgment, I will speak of some things offered by you the recusant half-body, which are called parliament-recusants. I have heard of church-recusants, but not of parliament-recusants; this difference was never before heard of.

First, the letter you sent unto me the beginning of the parlia ment was full of pride and arrogance, wanting much of the respects, which subjects owe their sovereign.

Now if I should do you justice, I should take you at your word, lay together your offer in your letters, and the articles, which my attorney laid open unto you, then shall you see your case.

For you made offer, that if you failed to prove any one point of that, which was contained in your complaint, you would renounce my favour in all; yet have you scarce proved a word true; but, on the other side, almost every point hath been proved contrary.

Of fourteen returns whereof you complain, but two have been proved false, and in the government nothing hath been proved faulty, except you would have the kingdom of Ireland like the kingdom of Heaven.

But commonly offenders are most bold to make offers of their innocency; for they (being in a passion) begin in heat, and continue in heat, but when they see themselves in the glass of their own vanity, they find their error. And this I have found in my own experience in Scotland, and since my coming hither.

Now I will divide my speech in two parts, touching the offences done by you, and your complaints against the state and government.

To the first, an unusual favour was offered you by my deputy, for he sent for you, and advised you to consider what laws were fit to be propounded for that commonwealth, and offered to concur with you. Your answer should have been humble thanks on your knees, but you neglected that favour, and answered by your agent in the name of the rest, that you would first be made acquainted with such bills as the deputy and council there had resolved to

transmit.

Before the parliament, there was sent to me by a few men a letter, rash and insolent, that nothing should be pursued in parliament, but you should be acquainted with it, and withal threatening me with rebellion in a strange fashion, with similitudes unsavoury and unmannerly, and unfit to be presented to any monarch; and after that, you did nothing but heap complaint upon complaint, till the parliament was sat down.

The parliament being sat, you went on with a greater contempt: there were in the lower house two bodies, and but one head, a greater monster than two heads upon one body. And whereas you should have made an humble and dutiful answer to the commendation, which I made of a speaker, you the recusant-party (being the fewer) when the greater number went out to be numbered, shut the door, and thrust one into the chair as a speaker manu forti. After this, the recusants of both houses depart from the parliament. The like was never heard of in France, Spain, or any other kingdom of Christendom.

Then came petitions to the deputy of a body without a head, a headless body: you would be afraid to meet such a body in the streets a body without a head to speak, nay, half a body; what a monster were this, a very bug-bear! Methinks you, that would have a visible body head of the church over all the earth, and acknowledge a temporal head under Christ, ye may likewise ac knowledge my viceroy or deputy of Ireland.

Then did the deputy give you warning to come to the parlia ment, to pass the bill of Recognition, but that you put it off with tricks and shifts, which thing I will urge no farther; but why should the lords refuse to come? They had no colour of absenting themselves, having nothing to do with the orders or disorders of the lower house; the lords here, and the lower house, are as great strangers in these matters, as the parliament houses of Spain and France; neither had the recusants of the lower house any just cause of defection, since an indifferent committee was offered to them.

This was such an ill example, and such a crime, to refuse to appear at the king's summons, as if you should advise with lawyers upon it, I know not what it may impart: after this, hither you came, and only your appeal to me hath inclined me to mer cy, yet I speak not this to encourage your complaints to be brought hither, when the deputy and state may determine them, though this being a matter of parliament, was fit for the king's hearing, and your appeal hath been heard and heard usq; ad nauseam.

And whereas it should have wrought humility and thanks, the fruit hath been, that (I will not say in a preposterous, but) in a rebellious manner, you have heaped complaints upon complaints, and petitions upon petitions, not warranted with any truth, to make the more noise, whereas you should have looked back to your own miscarriages.

Then I sent commissioners to examine, as well the by as the main business, which you first presented to be the cause of your appealing to me, but, instead of thanks for that favour, there came yet more new complaints, which, because the council here have already answered, I will not speak of.-Now if you look back to your own miscarriages, and my lenity, you shall find, that your carriage hath been most undutiful and unreasonable, and in the next degree to treason, and that you have nothing to fly to but my grace.

The lower house here in England doth stand upon its privileges as much as any council in Christendom, yet, if such a difference had risen there, they would have gone on with my service notwithstanding, and not have broken up their assembly upon it. You complain of fourteen false returns. Are there not many more complained of in this parliament, yet they do not forsake the house for it? Now, for your complaint's touching parliament matters, I find no more amiss in that parliament, than in the best parliament in the world; escapes and faults of sheriffs there may be, yet not proved; or if it had been proved, no cause to stay the parliament, all might have been set right by an ordinary course or trial, to which I must refer them. But you complain of the new boroughs, therein I would fain feel your pulse, for yet I find not where the shoe wrings. For, first, you question the power of the king, whether he may lawfully make them? And then you question the wisdom of the king and his council; in that you say, that there are too many made. It was never before heard, that any good subjects did dispute the king's power in this point. What is it to you, whether I make many or few boroughs; my council may consider the fitness, if I require it; but what if I had made forty noblemen, and four hundred boroughs, the more the merrier, the fewer the better cheer. But this complaint, as

you made it, was preposterous, for in contending for a committee, before you agreed of a speaker, did put the plough before the horse, so as it went on untowardly like your frish ploughs; but because the eye of the master maketh the horse fat, I have used my own eyes in taking a view of those boroughs, and have seen a list of them all. God is my judge, I find the new boroughs, except one or two, to be as good as the old, comparing Irish boroughs new with Irish boroughs old (for I will not speak of the boroughs of other countries ;) and yet, besides the necessity of making them, like to increase and grow better daily; besides, I find but few erected in each county, and in many counties but one borough only, and those erected in fit places near forts or passages for the safety of the country; methinks you, that seek the good of the kingdom, should be glad of it.

I have caused London also to erect boroughs there, and when they are throughly planted, will be a great security to that part of the kingdom; therefore you quarrel with that, which may bring peace to the countrey, for the persons, returned out of those boroughs, you complain they have no residence, if you had said they had no interest, it had been somewhat; but most of them have interest in the kingdom, and qui habent interesse, are like to be as careful as you for the weal thereof.

I seek not emendicata suffragia, such boroughs as have been made since the summons are wiped away at one word for this time, I have tried that, and done you fair play, but you that are of a contrary religion, must not look to be the only Law-makers; you are but half subjects, should have but half privilege; you that have an eye to me one way, and to the Pope another way, the Pope is your father in spiritualibus, and I in temporalibus only, and so have your bodies torn one way, and your souls drawn another; you that send your children to the seminaries of treason, strive henceforth to become full subjects, that you may have cor unum and viam unam, and then I shall respect you all alike; but your Irish priests teach you such grounds of doctrine, as you cannot follow them with a safe conscience, but you must cast off your loyalty to your king.

Touching the grievances whereof you have complained, I am loath to spend breath in them; if you charge the inferior ministers of the country, all countries are subject to such grievances; if you charge the deputy and state, nihil probatur. Indeed I hear (not from you, but from others) there is one thing grievous to the country; that notwithstanding the composition established in the province, the governours there do send out their purveyors, who take up their achates, and other provision upon the country: if this had been complained of to the deputy, or to me, it had been

reformed, the deputy himself at Dublin doth not grieve the country with any such burden.

Another thing there is, that grieveth the people, which is that in the country, where there is half peace and half war, the sheriffs and soldiers in their passage do commit many extortions.

For these grievances, I myself will call the deputy unto me, and set down such orders in this time of vacation, as these abuses shall be redressed and clear taken away; and if any such disorder be suffered hereafter, it shall be only be for fault of complaining; and because the meaner sort will perhaps fear to complain, I would have such gentlemen of the country, as are of best credit, to present complaints, which they may do in such manner as the parties who prefer the complaints may not be known.

There is a double cause, why I should be careful of the welfare of that people: first as King of England, by reason of the long possession the crown of England hath had of that land; and also as King of Scotland, for the ancient kings of Scotland are descended of the Kings of Ireland, so as I have an old title as King of Scotland, therefore you shall not doubt to be relieved when you complain, so as you will proceed without clamour. Moreover my care hath been, that no acts should be preferred that should be grievous to the people; and to that end I perused them all except one, that I saw not till of late, that is now out of door, for I protest I have been more careful for the bills to be passed in that parliament, than in the parliament of England.

Lastly, for imputations that may seem to touch the deputy, I have found nothing done by him, but what is fit for an honourable gentleman to do in his place, which he hath discharged as well as any deputy did, and divers of you have confessed so to me, and I find your complaints against him, and the state, to be causeless expostulations.

To conclude, my sentence is that in the matter in parliament, you have carried yourselves tumultuarily and undutifully, and that your proceedings hath been rude, disorderly, and inexcusable, and worthy of severe punishment; which by reason of your submission I do forbear, but not remit, till I see your dutiful carriage in this parliament; where by your obedience to the deputy and state, and your future good behaviour, you may redeem your bypast miscarriage, and then you may deserve not only pardon, but fayour and cherishing.