Item NLW MS 24045F, ff. 17-18. - Petition to King James I

A manuscript copy, [1610x1650], of a petition by the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire seeking to be removed from the jurisdiction of the Council of Wales and the Marches; it formed part of a petition of grievances presented by a deputation of Members of Parliament to King James I at Whitehall on 7 July 1610, during negotiations concerning the Great Contract (f. 17 recto-verso).
It is probable that the original petition is now in Kew, The National Archives SP 14/56/part 2; a number of other manuscript copies are also known (see Proceedings in Parliament 1610, ed. by Elizabeth Read Foster, 2 vols (New Haven and London, 1966), II: The House of Commons, pp. 253-254). The text of the petition is printed in William Petyt, Jus Parliamentarium (London, 1739), pp. 330-331, and Foster, pp. 261-263. In the different sources the number of MPs attending the audience is variously given as twenty, seventeen and twelve (see Foster, p. 254); the preamble to the present manuscript states that the grievances were presented 'by Sir Francis Bacon and Twelve more of the lower house of Parliament' (f. 17).