Parliament has rejected an embassy of peace from King Charles and refused to treat further with the monarch until he revokes his declaration of war and accusations of treason.

“Our very soul is in anguish,” the Edinburgh-born Charles wrote in a letter delivered on August 27 to the Lords by the Earl of Southampton and the Commons by Sir John Culpepper. The King, who raised his standard against Parliament on August 22 in Nottingham with a promise to “smite the Roundheads and traitors,” vowed to advance the true Protestant religion, oppose Popery and superstition, secure the law of the land “upon which is built as well our just prerogative.”

“Words. Noble words, but only words,” said John Hampden, MP for Wendover, who is raising a regiment in his Buckinghamshire. “Unfortunately, experience has taught us words such as ‘law’ and ‘religion’ mean different things for this King than they do for Englishmen. Charles believes that what of law and religion are not contained within his prerogative are trumped by it.”

Parliament, noting it “with much grief resents the sad and distracted state of this kingdom,” said that it will not answer King Charles until the monarch “shall recall those proclamations” whereby both Houses, and those that have followed its orders including the Earl of Essex, commander of Parliament’s army, are declared traitors, and until his standard, “set up in pursuance of the said proclamations,” be taken down.

Charles in a proclamation issued August 12 blamed the Kingdom's present discontents on "coachmen, felt-makers, and such mechanic persons" and promised to don his “long-loved robe of peace” after Parliamentary leaders including Hampden and Fleet commander the Earl of Warwick are tried for High Treason.

Charles’ letter arrives in London as he wrestles with anguish and more in his efforts to  raise and outfit an army. Observers in Nottingham say Charles has somewhere around 300 foot, while his cavalry, under the command of his nephew Prince Rupert, are less than one thousand. The Earl of Essex’s army, forming in London and supported by the financial might of the City, already numbers at least 20,000 soldiers. This count does not include the London Trained Bands, under the generalship of Sir Philip Skippon, nor locally-raised regiments such as Hampden’s.

“I can give no assurance against Your Majesty’s being taken out of bed, if the rebels make a brisk attempt to that purpose,” Sir Jacob Astley, Major-General, was heard to tell the King after an inspection of His Majesty’s forces.

Some suspect Charles’ letter was but an attempt to swamp Parliament in debate over the relative merits of negotiation,throwing its war plans into as much disarray as the monarch’s own.

Others posit more Jesuitical reasoning on the part of the King and his advisors.

It was expected, according to an observer close to the King, that Parliament would, “with pride and contempt,” refuse Charles’ offer.

This “would be so unpopular a thing that, as His Majesty would highly oblige his people by making the offer, so the Parliament would lose the hears of them by rejecting it; which alone would raise an army for His Majesty,” the observer told Anglia Rediviva in Nottingham.