themselves as the Patrons of the peoples Liberties press'd the King to give way to the entrusting the Manage of the State in the hands of four and twenty twelve of them to be of their own Election and the rest to be chosen by himself who in all things else was left a meer Cypher Nay and even in this Case either through Fear or Negligence he fill'd up his number with Montford Glocester and Spencer which errour over and above the weakening of his own Party won to those his late Opposites an Opinion of having got a great Interest in his Favour This Parliament it should seem never dreamt of a Perpetuation for otherwise they might probably have had it for the asking But yet they got what served their Turn for by this one Act he parted with his Right of Electing either publick Officer or private Servant and brought himself under a necessity of dispoyling his Half-Brethren and their Followers banishing them the Realm by an Instrument under his own hand and of commanding his Writ pro Transportatione Fratrum suorum to be directed to the Earles of Hartford and Surry to prohibit their carrying on Board with them either Mony Arms or Ornaments other than in the manner prescribed After their departure he ordered the men of Bristol not to suffer any Strangers or Kinsmen of his to land in their Port but so to demean themselves in this particular as they would answer it to his Lords and him Thus we may see how easily mens Estates do change in an Instant and how difficult a thing it is to enjoy quietly what was gotten unjustly And now Richard Earl of Cornwal and King of the Romans King Henrie's own Brother being at this time beyond the Seas is by Letter tamper'd with underhand to make a shew of Ratifying by Oath and voluntary Consent those former Restrictions of Regal Power which though he submitted to yet would not the Lords suffer either the King or him to enter Dover Castle the Key of the Kingdom they having furnish'd it and most of the other Forts of Reputation and Strength in the Nation with Governours of their own Election and Sworn respectively to the State The like assurance did they also exact of all Sheriffs Coroners Bayliffs and other Publick Ministers examining the Behaviour of many by strict Commission upon Oath hereby to curry Favour with the Vulgar who groaned under their late Extortions But their Chief end in all this was no other as it afterwards appear'd than by displacing the faithful Servants of the King upon pretence of their being teinted with Malignancy to open a way for the introducing of their own Dependents Having thus changed the Sole Power into the Rule of many and those by popular Election too they perswaded themselves that by establishing this Form of limited Monarchy they had wholly supprest all thoughts of hankering afresh after the whimsical humours of licentious Soveraignty But it fell out quite otherwise for now every man began to value himself upon his own Abilities and to crack his Skull upon any Design that might probably enlarge the Boundarys of his Authority and Command The Grandees also fell to rending and lopping off from the Revenues and Segniories of the Crown all such Lands and Manours as bordered upon any of their own Seats pressing upon the Kings Subjects and Tenants to a most insupportable degree of Servitude Insomuch that by raising petite Annuities into great Honours and tearing asunder the Royal Prerogative they made themselves of Subjects whilst they kept within the bounds of Duty so many Tyrants upon the loss of their Loyalty involving the people in an extremity of Slavery and Oppression And yet they bore all with Patience for Custom being the only case of Excess of Misery men were contented to lay the foundation of Servitude by the length of Sufferance which found neither End nor Abatement until the quiet part of the Kings Reign Now Montford Glocester and Spencer the Heads of this Conspiracy having by the late Provisions drawn into the hands of the twenty four Tribunes of the People the entire management of all Affairs and finding this Power to be yet too much dispers'd to answer their Expectations compelled the King to call another Parliament where they got the authority of the Twenty four assigned over to themselves and erected a Triumvirate for their own ends only and not for reforming Abuses and settling the Nation as they at first gave out And thus by the Gratification of these Private Interests the Publick was staid for a time But yet all this Juggle and Artifice was only to make the way the smoother for one of them to become perpetual Dictator Ambition is never so high but that it still labours to advance a step further and that Station which lately seemed Inaccessible is now lookt upon but as a Cocks-Stride that which was Great in the Persute seeming Inconsiderable in the Possession These Three Elect nine Counsellours Three of them at least to make a Quorum who were to dispose of and fortifie Castles and transact other Affairs of the Realm But the Chief Justice Chancellour Treasurer and all other Officers greater or less they reserve the Choice of to themselves binding the King so very strictly to this hard Bargain that he submits to pass an Instrument to them under the Great Seal and Oath whereby he actually discharged them from their Allegiance when ever he should attempt to assume to himself the Royal Dignity declaring it to be lawful in such Case for the whole Nation to rise up as one man and having no Obligation to him by force to reduce him into Order And yet not long after this Prodigy of Fortune whom she had made a wretched Example of her Inconstancy finding no part of his Soveraignty left him but the bare Title and even that precarious too craves Aid of Pope Urbane the fourth against his disloyal Subjects who arm'd him with Excommunications against all that should not forthwith return to their Duty and Cancell'd his Oath and Contract in regard that it was made when he could not properly say that he was at Liberty Force having no power to create a just Interest But the Lords having now imp'd their wings with Eagles Feathers and liking no Game but what was rak'd out of the Ashes of Monarchy boldly make head against their Soveraign And that they might be the better able to cope with him call in the French to their Assistance Thus again did the Commonwealth turn her Sword against her own Breast and invite her antient Enemy to the Funeral of her Liberty so that it was a great Providence that she fell not at this time under a Forreign Yoke Now though these men were much more apprehensive of their own Disgrace than of others Miseries yet could they find no better Pretext for private Interest than that of the Publick Wherefore at the entry of this Rebellion they cryed out for Liberty though when it drew near
an end they never spoke word of it Well! at Lewis the Armies met and the King endeavours a Reconciliation but in vain for Arguments are ever unprofitable when Justice is inferiour to Force Wherefore the Sword decides the Controversie and makes the two Kings and their eldest Sons Prisoners The Person and the Power being now both of them in the hands of Montford and Glocester found no other means of Security or expectation of Liberty than what the emulous Competition of Greatness which began to break forth between these two mighty Rivals gave hope of For Leicester designing by engrossing from his Partner the Person of the King and securing to his Followers the best part of the Spoil to draw more fruit from this Advantage than in Fellowship it could yield dissolv'd the Knot of all their Amity Thus we may observe that equal Authority with the same Power is ever fatal to all great Actions for to reduce minds to so even a pitch that they should not have some strings of Disagreement is absolutely impossible Montford having thus broken all faith with his Confederates as well as Duty to his Sovereign left the Path of Moderation and Wisdom to approach the King by that of Haughtiness and Distrust plying him with pretences that his Arms and Ends were evermore directed to the good of the Publick and the ease of the People that in all this he entertain'd no private Passion in opposition to the sense of his Allegiance but was capable of regulating his Desires according to his just Power and consequently to his Majesties Satisfaction in case he would be rul'd that is to say as he explain'd himself command the Forts and Castles of his now Opposite Glocester and the rest to be deliver'd up into his hands It was no easie matter we may well imagine for the King thus to be tutor'd by his inferiour and Vassal But Necessity in such Cases commonly bears down before it all Formalities And therefore this poor Prince who lying at the Victors Discretion seem'd to have been rais'd only to shew the Inconstancy of Fortune and the Vanity of man suited himself with incomparable Wisdom according to the Exigences of the Times Neither could Humility injure Majesty when the only means to contein Spirits so insolent within due bounds was Dissimulation Wherefore he summons in Person the Forts of his faithfullest Friends to yield to his greatest Enemies entering them in shew as his Lodging but in effect as his Prison and sees himself forc'd to take Law from him to whom he lately thought to have given it Leicester is now become the Darling of the Rabble who easily crouch and change to every new Master but yet the Sober and considering part of the Nation durst not venture to sayl along with his Fortune by the Light of his Glory as knowing well that Crystal though it fairly glitters yet is soon broken and that as the Ascent of Usurpation is slippery so the Top is tottering and the Fall dreadful To account this man therefore at the very height of his false Felicity to be truly Happy was but to give the name of the Image to the Mettle that was not yet molten For by this time the imprison'd Prince had made an Escape and was fast assur'd of Glocester upon the ty of his great Mind and Discontent Wherefore they both of them united with the shattered Remnant of the Loyal Army and by a speedy march arriv'd unlookt for upon the banks of the unarmed Troops of the secure Rebels quartering about Evesham whom they instantly assayl'd as knowing it to be no fit season to give time when no time could assure so much as Expedition promis'd Spencer and other Lords of that Faction made toward the King for Mercy but could not get clear of the Press being hurry'd along the Stream and perished in the Confusion We are to consider that Publick Motion depends in a great measure upon the Conduct of Fortune Private on our own Carriage And we must take heed how we run down steep Hills with heavy Bodies which being once in motion are hurry'd on by their own weight and Stops are then no longer Voluntary Now Leicester being at that instant with the King and out of the Storm might have got away if his Hope and Courage had not encreas'd his Resolution with his Misfortune He could neither abandon his Followers nor his Ambition so that improving Adversity into an exercise of Virtue he came and fell The King being by this succesful Turn freed and obey'd began to enquire into the ground of his former Miscarriages and why that Virtue and Providence which had so long settled and supported the English Empire in the greatest Lustre and Reputation throughout the Reign of his Glorious Ancestors should now turn tail upon Him and Confederate with his Enemies to the almost absolute destruction of the State and as if her Genius had quite forsook her Upon due search he finds his squandering hand to have made too bold with the Substance and Estates of his People and that the rapacious Exorbitances of his Civil Ministers the Licentiousness of his Martial Followers his own harsh Demeanour and Inaccessibleness and his neglect of keeping his Word had lost him his Nobility at home And that his Necessities which forc'd him to make Merchandize of Peace and War as his last Refuge and to put himself into the power of Persons doubtful or injur'd together with his giving himself up to a sensual Security and entrusting with the management of the State base griping and unworthy Officers whose Counsels were ever more subtle than Substantial had wounded his Reputation abroad and thrown down those Pillars of Soveraignty Credit and Veneration Wherefore he enters upon his regain'd Authority with Gentleness and Clemency wholly passing over the faults of most of the Rebels A gracious kind of pardoning not so much as to take notice of the Offence and so forgot the Rest that they might live but to the Glory of his Goodness for the fewer kill'd the more remain to adorn the Trophy Tyrants indeed shed Blood for Pleasure but Kings out of Necessity And yet lest his Justice and Power might suffer too much by his Grace and Mercy some few he punish'd with easie Fines others by Exile as the two Guiltless yet unpity'd Sons of the Arch-Traytor Leicester So odious we see is Treason in the Head that it involveth the innocent Children in an everlasting Distrust and that which in others is but Suspicion in them is Guilt Then he proceeds to confer upon the constant adherers to his broken Fortunes the Forfeitures of his Enemies but with much more Wariness than before as having found by Experience immoderate Liberality to be but a weak means to win Love because it lost more in the Gathering than it gain'd in the Giving A Bounty plac'd without Respect is taken without Gratitude discredits the Receiver and detracts from the judgment of the Bestower blunting the Appetites of such as
draw their Hopes of Preferment from measures of Fidelity and Service Thus at last he learn'd that Reward and Reprehension discreetly temper'd do Ballance Government and that it much importeth a Prince to keep that Hand steady and equal that holds the Scale In the next place he appli'd himself to the correcting of his own natural Infirmities Wisely judging that though the Princes Manners are only a mute Law yet have they more of Life and Vigour in them than those of Letters So that though he might now and then touch upon the skirts of Vice yet was he ever after cautious of entering the Circle And whereas the Crimes and Enormities of the great Men of his Court were at this this time become so extravagantly numerous that they were drawn into Example and Imitation He purg'd this likewise with singular exactitude of Judgment and Severity knowing full well that it was it that gave life to the Moderation or Intemperance of the Commonwealth He reduc'd the Expences of his House to the just Rule of his proper Revenue and was often heard to say that his former excessive squanderings had torn open an Issue of his Subjects Blood The Fury and Insolence of the Soldiery now become Licentious by means of the Civil Wars he spent and corrected by forreign Expeditions which he was the rather induc'd to do upon finding that the peaceable only bore the Burthen of all the late Calamities and that the other were never satisfi'd but in the miseries of the Innocent being as ready as ever if they should find no Enemies abroad to seek out some at Home Neither did he forget to examine or redress by strict Commission the Rigour and Corruption of his Judicial Officers as apprehending that the sense of their Severity would raise a murmur of his own Cruelty He fill'd up the seats of Judgment and Councel with men of Noble Extraction For such do with less offence attract generous Spirits to respect and Veneration He no longer measureth their Abilities by Favour or private Recommendation as before but by publick Vogue For though every man in particular may deceive and be deceived yet is not possible for one man to deceive all or all one And the better to set off his own Capacity and to discover to the World what part he intended hereafter to bear in all deliberate Expeditions he sits himself in Councel daily disposing Affairs of most weight in his own Person for Councellers be they never so wise or worthy are only Accessaries yet not Principals in the support of the Government their business is Subjection not Fellowship in debates of moment and they must be allow'd a Privilege to advise but not authority to resolve For as a particular Soul is essentially requisite to the Life of a Prince so is a supreme and unaccountable Power of like necessity Without the one he cannot be truly a Man and without the other he can never be securely a Prince It doth also disturb both the Minister and the People to be forc'd to pay obedience to one that is Incompetent of his own Greatness and unworthy of his Royal Fortunes This wonderful Change in the General State which so far dispair'd erewhile of recovering her former Liberty that she sought for nothing but the easiest kind of Servitude brought over the People again with admiration to the Kings Devotion and their own Duty So that whoever designes to lay a Foundation of Greatness upon popular Love must be careful of securing to them Ease and Justice because they are ever prone to measure the band of their Obedience by the benefit that they daily receive Now this Calm attended ever after this Kings Age and Hearse and he liv'd to train up his Successor and make him a Participant of his own Experience and Authority His hard Education wean'd him from those Intemperances which makes Men Inferiour to Beasts and prompted him to affect Glory and Virtue which gave him a Superiority over Men. Insomuch that all the Actions of his Future Reign were Exact Rules of Discipline and Policy and worthy the Imitation of his best of Successors who as he was the first of his Name Edward after the Conquest so was he also the first that thoroughly reform'd the Abuses crept into the Law and settled the Commonwealth justly meriting the Title of Englands Justinian delivering the Nation out of the Thraldom of the Peers and by all his Actions afterward approving himself capable himself of Governing not this Single Realm only but the whole World Thus by the Injustice of our Enemies more than by our own Discretions do we many times become both Wise and Fortunate FINIS