Captain Watt reports a seditious conversation in a puritan alehouse in 1640, regarding the justification for the current Scottish War.

Watt: I told them I met his Majesty upon the road near and the report was that the Scottish Army was marching in England; and I believed his Majesty's care was for theirs and all his other English subjects' safety.

Cole and Crosse 'pished and gearingly said' among 'many more disloyal and disaffecting words of his Majesty': What need the King trouble himself so much, the Scots are honest people and will do us no harm but rather good.

Watt answered: I told them they were base fellows to speak so much against their own souvereign, and applaud the Scots which had been so disobedient against their native King; and said I believed they were of that Puritan faction which would rather side with the Scots than with their own Kin~, if they were near them.

Cole and Crosse responded: Sirrah, it is no matter if you were hanged. The other called me rascall, continuing their censorious and abusive speeches of the King's acts in his proceedings against the Scots. And said they were honest men as any that spake against them.

(On 11 September 1640 the Privy Council ordered that Cole and Crosse 'who were formerly committed to the Gatehouse upon the complaint of Captain Watt shall not be released until they under their hands have acknowledged their offence'.)