onely for conveniency but even for Ostentation and Luxury Trade increasing dayly both in compass and profit had already enlarged it self to both the Indies onely unhappy in this that with the Wealth of Strangers foreign Vices were also imported Arts of all sorts never look'd gayer in Colledges Courts and Shops nor were the wealthy Inhabitants ever prouder Justice was administred according to Law nor was any man deprived of Life or Goods but by the lawful Verdict of a Jury of his Country-men to whom these things ought to be of highest value all the parts of Government were so administred that they seemed to conspire together for the publick good save onely in this that they could not repress the insolency and wantonness that sprung from so great prosperity and which is not to be dissembled being long unaccustomed to War we had been unfortunate in some foreign expeditions and the people were incensed at some impositions at home which though very moderate and countenanced by publick necessity and good reason in Law yet gave occasion to the people to pretend that the Right and Property of the Subject was opprest and to outcries of Injustice and also the imprisonment and lopping off the ears of four or five seditious persons sentenced by the Judges of the Star-Chamber seemed to be punishments too severe for those halcyon days of Peace and Tranquillity To this may be added that the Jurisdiction and Censures of Spiritual Courts wrought pity in some and indignation in others Besides the muster of Malecontents was made greater by some scrupulous Puritans who interpreted the enjoyning of Ceremonies and things indifferent in the Worship of God in the Canons of the Church to be the Fore-runners of Popery We may also take along with us the Zeal of the Archbishop in exempting the Clergie from the Suits and Injuries of Laicks and preferring them to civil employments which drew a great deal of envy and ill will not onely upon himself but upon all the Church-men also as also his endeavouring to bring into the Church of Scotland the use of the Service-book of England which though his designe was laudable that these three neighbouring Nations being under the government of one and the same King might also be joyned in an uniform manner of Worship was yet unseasonable and ill timed as we shall a little more fully relate Matters in Scotland were then ripe for a Rebellion for many took it ill that the King denied them the Honours and Titles to which they aspired others were vexed that they were forced to part with some portion of the Tythes though but moderate which they had upon the dissolution of the Monasteries in the minority of King James obtained from the Crown for making a competent Stipend for Ministers who then served the Cures at what easie rates the Patrons were pleased to allow them but most could not digest that the absolute Authority which they had for a long time usurped over their Vassals and Tenants should be taken from them and annexed to the Crown These chusing rather to shake the State than quit their hold those again rather to get Titles of Honour by the seditious Acclamations of the Mobile than to want them took occasion of the Liturgie and Ceremonies to buz the people in the ear that the reformed Religion was to be overturned to make way for Popery so that having taken up Arms and born down all that were of a contrary opinion they new model Church and State according to their own humour The King resolving to reduce those by Arms whom he could not reclaim by the milder causes of admonition being accompanied by the Flower of the Youth and Nobility of England who voluntarily and at their own charge set out upon the expedition marches to the borders but having by clemency and concessions brought them over to obedience which he preferred before Hostility and Arms he condescended to Articles of Peace and disbanded his Army The Scots afterward insisting upon Articles different from those that were agreed upon occasion new Broils and Dissensions which when neither Commissioners Messengers nor mutual Letters could compose both sides prepare afresh for a new War On the Kings side the Earl of Strafford then Deputy of Ireland raised an Army of eight thousand men with the assistance of the Parliament of Ireland being to be paid by them and being come over again into England bestirs himself in raising another Army here A Parliament is called wherein a certain Courtier making bad use of his instructions did purposely as most believed that he might confound affairs and increase Animosities betwixt the King and Parliament somewhat haughtily demand twelve Subsidies when the House of Commons had offered six in lieu of the Ship-money and this raised new discontents and grievances for putting a stop to which in those troublesome times the Parliament was sooner dissolved than many could have wished In the mean time the Scots whose Forces were not so dispersed but that they might be speedily drawn together into a body nicking the opportunity and by Agents entring into a Combination with the factious of England under pretext of petitioning the King came in a hostile manner into England and having beat some Troops that guarded the passage of the River Tine put all into fear and consternation took Newcastle and other Towns unprovided for defence and fortified them And though Strafford with the new-raised Army under his command had undertaken to drive them out of the Kingdom yet the most merciful King chose rather to refer the matter to a Parliament than without publick consent to pollute the Kingdom with bloud and slaughter A Truce was therefore made whereby the Scots were allowed a free Trade and Commerce with liberty to raise Contributions in the Counties where they lay and so a Parliament was called by whose prudence and Loyalty it was hoped all roots and Fibres of Animosities might be extirpated The Parliament being met the Factious who in great numbers had got into the House of Commons trusting now to the Patronage of the Scots and the Disorders of the times set about their business manfully they represent Grievances both publick and private accuse Courtiers and Magistrates and dart obliquely reproaches against the King himself exaggerating all with the highest strains of their Rhetorick Under pretext of reforming these Abuses they labour to overturn both Church and State and in imitation of the Scots to new-model the Government and that by these steps If in the first place they could deprive the King of the Counsels and Assistance of his most faithful Subjects and by loading him with Reproaches and false Crimes render him odious to the People and strip him of all Power and Authority they would next screw themselves into publick Offices and the power of the Militia and then with absolute dominion give Laws both to the King and People The Earl of Strafford and
67 infra Strafford Earl 21 23. His Tryal 24. T. Tryal of his Sacred Majesty K. Charles I. 144 Tumults and Riots 25 Tunnage and Poundage 18 V. Vote of Non-Addresses 95. Is rescinded 102. W. War its beginning 42 Wight Isle the Treaty there 102. inf The Kings Concessions there voted satisfactory 136. Writs of Summons to Parliament the form 7 ERRATA'S To the First Part. PAge 1. line 8. for to read of p. 66. l. 3. r. honour p. 67. l. 33. for shewing r. shew p. 74. l. 9. adde from p. 82. l. 2. r. muttering p. 102. l. 10. r. levitie p. 137. l. 23. adde who p. 159. l. 9. r. reported ibid. l. 11. r. harmonious p. 162. l. 2. r. bounds ibid. l. 11. r. Rectitude p. 163. l. 3. r. Charge To the Second Part. PAge 22. line 7. read Rathmeenes p. 27. l. 3. r. Arts p. 30. l. 21. r. Butler p. 48. l. 15. r. envied p. 58. l. 7. adde most p. 66. l. 31. adde for p. 67. l. 12. r. Execute p. 74. l. 26. r. Nor p. 87. l. penult dele are p. 96. l. 14. r. make p. 104. l. 35. r. hand p. 108. l. 28. r. Dirlton p. 121. l. 35. r. Massey p. 124. l. 1. r. Coming presently to blows at the Town of Wigan p. 125. l. 23. r. Keith p. 204. l. 35. r. obey To the Third Part. PAge 15. line 2. read retained p. 41. l. 1. r. farce p. 44 l. 14. r. Leicester Vicount Hereford p. 53. l. 29. r. Sollicitor-General p. 63. l. 23. r. Sir Richard Baker's p. 66. l. 16. r. Mounson p. 82. l. 29. r. Falmouth p. 86. l. 20. dele was p. 90. l. 2. r. fight A short HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE Rise and Progress OF THE Late Troubles in England ENgland as all the Records of our Antiquity tell us never was governed but by the authority of a King and though it hath been divided into several Kingdoms or rather Camps yet it never had rest from intestine Commotions nor foreign Invasions till it came under the Obedience and Protection to one sole Monarch Since that it is now above a thousand years that Kings in a continued succession have reigned with supreme Authority in England And so great all along hath been the Love and Reverence that the People have had towards a Prince that he was always judged the fittest and most worthy of the Government who was next in Bloud to the King so that no factious Election but lawful Birthright could ever warrant a Title to the Crown The Royal Heir of the last King though an Infant is immediately carried to the Throne even in the Cradle And in this kind of immortality in reigning the Laws glory That the King of England never dies Nay and by the ancient common Law all Subjects above twelve years of age are bound by Oath to bear a peculiar Faith by the Laws called Allegiance to the lawful Prince to him alone and for ever even before he be crowned and that their Obedience may be confirmed upon a double account a religious Oath that of Supremacy is likewise to be taken to the King I must here beg the Readers pardon if in the very beginning I speak of the Kings Prerogative the Priviledges of Parliament and Liberties of the People which to our Country-men who have studied the point perhaps may be tedious though to the Work we now undertake it be absolutely necessary seeing thereby it will appear who have been the Violators and who the Observers of the Laws In the first place what great power the King has over the lives and fortunes of his Subjects is hereby made manifest that mediately or immediately they all hold their Estates of the King that is to say that whatever Lands and Possessions they enjoy in fee or feudal rights they owe them more to the bounty of the King than to Fortune And therefore all Estates failing of lawful Heirs or when the Owners forfeit them by Felony or Treason flow back to the Kings Exchequer as to the Ocean from whence they have been derived The King as Father of the Country has the care of the persons of Pupils and Lunaticks and enjoys their Rents and Revenues Nay by the ancient Laws it is not lawful for them to contract Marriage without his consent and if they do they are to be severely censured And that what is to be given to Caesar may be known by the publick Money the matter form manner and value of Coyn is varied according to the will and pleasure of the King All Honours Titles and Priviledges all publick Corporations and Societies flow from and are constituted by the Crown the Admiral Chancellor Treasurer Judges Sheriffs Justices of Peace are onely made by the King in whose name alone their Writs Warrants and Sentences pass nor does any of them enter into Office before he hath taken an Oath of Fidelity to the King and of faithful administration None but the King has power of Peace and War who orders Military Discipline according to his will and pleasure and not by the forms or prescripts of Laws and as he himself thinks fit disposes of the Forces both by Sea and Land it being necessary that he who watches for the safety of the Common-wealth should be invested with sufficient Power to repress intestine Seditions and repel foreign Invasions Upon that account it belongs onely to him to appoint Musters and Levies of Souldiers secure the Castles and Garisons with which maritim Fortifications England even in the profoundest time of Peace is no less secured than by the Seas as often as there is need also to fit out a Fleet and to set Governours and Commanders over both Nor is the Sword neither to be weilded by any other hand but that which sways the Scepter so that if any one without the Kings command take up Arms for the defence of the Kings Person and Rights he is by so doing guilty of High-Treason and liable to the punishment of a Traytor without a special Pardon from the King Nor is his Power more limited in Ecclesiastical than Civil affairs for since the authority of the Pope being shaken off the Church was made part of the Kingdom and the Clergy after long reluctancy began to be contented with the common priviledges of Subjects the King became at length Custos utriusque tabulae and as he ever was in right before so was he then acknowledged and confirmed by Law to be supreme Head and Governour in spiritual as well as temporal affairs and owned to be in a manner the Bishop of the Kingdom wherein in the promotion of Bishops conferring of Dignities appointing Fasts enjoyning Rites and Ceremonies in the Church he hath with the advice of the Fathers and Rulers of the Church always exercised a supreme and sacred Power and Authority He hath also so great power over the Laws themselves though he obliges himself to govern
the assistance of the King The Lord Inchiqueen with the English under his command joyns him Some Irish commanded by Preston and Taaff not forgetting their former Truce make no scruple to joyn with them others being still in doubt what to do The Scots forbear hostility against the Kings Party and march against the Rebels but give hopes that at length they may unite with the Marquess And now Jones Governour of Dublin and the Parliament-forces there the very same who with so bitter and vehement Reproaches inveighed against the Truce and Peace made by Ormond with the Papists as the utter ruining of their Religion was caught in the same embraces of the Whore of Babylon for without either conscience or shame they at length make a strict League and unite their Forces with Owen Ro the General of the Rebels a man infamous for the bloud and slaughter of the English against the Kings Army and the Protestants But now from foreign miseries though indeed they be not altogether foreign which though happening in very distant times yet for avoiding frequent digressions we thought fit to present to the Reader under one view Let us now return to our own which were carried on with far greater and more pitched Battels though with less slaughter and treachery the fire burning but slowly because to our sorrow the fuel was the longer to last Many Battels with various success and in several places were fought betwixt the Kings Forces and the Parliament-Rebels till at length Fortune breathing favourably upon the Kings Banners the Rebels began to lose courage and many that had been Sticklers in the Faction to desert and fall off from their Party The Parliament being reduced to streights invite the Scots to their assistance and that they might revive the expiring and almost extinct opinion of the people which formerly they had enjoyed and the admiration they were had in for wonderful zeal for the Publick Good and purity of Religion and at the same time time drain the peoples Purses of their money they have recourse to their often-practised tricks They forge new Calumnies against the King and those of his Party and spread abroad every-where amongst the people As if the King affected an absolute tyrannical Power and that he would forfeit the Estates of all those who had been against him that he would make Slaves of their persons and leave no place for pardon nor the least footstep of their ancient Liberty nay and that renouncing the reformed Religion he was about to bring in Popery whereby all would be forced to go to Mass And that the silly ignorant people might not want Pretexts for their obstinacy they perswade the Rabble That the Kings Souldiers being accustomed to eat mens flesh would feed and feast upon them nay and that their Dogs and Horses bred up to the same dishes were already gaping for their carcasses They appoint some remarkable Sacrifices to be offered to Publick Justice for so was that barbarous practice of pleasing the Rabble with bloudy Spectacles and gratifying their own cruel revenge at that time called amongst the ignorant people Amongst these were Sir John Hotham and his Son Carey and especially that the friendship of the Scots might be cemented with Episcopal bloud William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury he being condemned of High-Treason by a partial and factious sentence of the House of Peers who according to the ancient Laws of the Kingdom cannot without the Kings consent adjudge the meanest person to death and they by a Council of War They appoint days of Fasting and publick Prayers and of Thanksgiving also for inconsiderable Victories publickly and with great solemnity burn the Pictures of our Saviour the Virgin and Saints and so renew their Martyrdom and with no ordinary devotion pull down Crosses and Standards bearing the Images of Saints though they were not onely ornamental but useful in the chief streets of London They also vote the abrogation of Episcopacy and Service-book and commit it to the care of the Assembly to frame a new Church-government and manner of Divine Worship instead of them of which the Reader I hope will pardon me if contrary to my custom I discourse a little more largely To this Assembly two Ministers of the most zealous Enemies of the Bishops and Liturgie are called and come by authority of the House of Commons some of the Episcopal Clergy being also invited who having no command from the King refuse to come and give place to some of the more eminent Scottish Ministers to mingle with them These having long hatched at length bring forth a Confession of Faith a Catechism containing the heads of the Christian Religion and a Directory or Scheme of publick Worship wherein no Set-forms were prescribed but a certain Rule whereby according to general heads appointed for all occasions the Levites of the new Law were instructed to pour out their extemporary and conceived Prayers The Presbyterian Government and Worship were likewise established to be administred by Pastors Teachers Lay-Elders and Deacons in four Courts to wit the Parochial Classical Provincial and National The Parochial Court consisted of one or two Lay-Elders at least and one or two Pastors or Ministers according to the nature of the place These had power to rule over the Parishoners and weekly to meet to call before them the Parishoners and to take inspection into their lives and manners admitting those whom they thought worthy to the Communion of the Lords Supper reproving and publickly censuring others nay and for some time debaring them from the Sacrament if they were guilty of any offence that might give scandal to the Congregation and to excommunicate those that would not submit The Classical Court or Presbytery was to meet once a month or oftener and was made up of the Deputies of twelve Parishes at least two out of each the one a Church-man and the other a Laick or sometimes more To these it belonged to take cognizance of the aforementioned matters especially if any difficulty or Appeal intervened to correct the Ministers themselves give orders to the Expectants pronounce sentence of Excommunication and to determine Cases of Conscience and Controversies in Doctrine The Provincial Court or Assembly consisting of Deputies from the several Classes or Presbyteries of the whole Province both of the Church and Laity had an authority superiour to the former Over all was the National Assembly the supreme Judicature in Ecclesiastical affairs which had power to make or rescind the Canons or Laws of the Church inflict severer punishments and to determine all points concerning Manners Church-discipline and Government From the lowest to the highest of these Courts it was lawful to appeal This assembly endeavoured to have no Sect allowed the liberty of Worship but all to be extirpated But when they could not obtain this from the Parliament in which were many Independents Erastians Anabaptists and Atheists the Rabble
contains this clause I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity and make known unto his Majesty his Heirs and Successors all Treasons and traiterous Conspiracies which I shall know and hoar of to be against him or any of them c. But lest any one being advanced to the high Honour and Dignity of consulting with the King and sharing in some part of the Government should forget that he is still a Subject the better to keep him within the bounds of duty he is to take another Oath of Supremacy in these words I A. B. do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the Kings Highness is the onely Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highness's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and that no foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise from henceforth I shall hear Faith and true Allegiance to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Pre-eminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the contents of this Book Being thus obliged to their duty upon their entry into this auspicious Honour by the Votes of the Lower House according to the Kings designation or nomination a Speaker is chosen whom they accompany to the King beseeching his Majesty to approve their election which the King readily grants This being done the Speaker in the name of himself and of all the Commons thanks the King and begs of his Majesty that they may enjoy their Priviledges and have the freedom of debating and that if any one in the heat of discourse should speak too warmly his Majesty would not take it ill nor be offended and that they may have free access to his Majesty and the Upper House so often as occasion shall require Which being granted they are dismissed All men heretofore were admitted to petition this August Assembly provided their Petitions were preferred within six days after the opening of the Parliament and by the hands of some appointed by the Upper House it belonging to them to judge what were fitting to be presented in Parliament and to reject such as were trivial or seditious Each House has power to consult debate and form Bills about the matters proposed by the King or concerning the making or abrogating of Laws so that what is agreed upon in the one House is by Messengers to be sent to the other and if both concur in judgment after the matter hath been debated the Assent is marked over the head of the Bill if it be in the Lords House in this form of words Les Seigneurs out assentes The Lords have consented And in the House of Commons thus Les Communes out assentes The Commons have consented But if they disagree many times both Houses or Committees chosen by them meet in conference in a convenient place which is called the Painted Chamber where the Lords covered and sitting in solemn manner receive the Commons standing uncovered and both argue the matter in debate If in such Conferences opinions disagree as it happens sometimes the thing is laid aside but if they concurr the Bill is carried to the King which if he approve of it is written upon Le Roy le veut The King wills it whereby as by a Soul infused into the body it receives life and passes into a perfect Law to be afterwards promulgated to the people If on the contrary the King approve not the Bills brought to him he uses to write over head Le Roy s'avisera The King will consider of it sometimes he utterly rejects them and then they are wholly laid aside But matters of Religion which require the Kings more especial care are not so intirely committed by him to the Parliament but to the Convocation of the Clergy to be handled unless for the sanction of Parliament to give them the authority of a Law which otherwise they could not sufficiently have The Deans Archdeacons two Prebendaries commissionated by the several Chapters and as many Priests out of every Diocess meet in an appointed place to consult about affairs of that nature where having first chosen a Prolocutor they settle points of Religion Ceremonies and other matters belonging to the Church and the imposition of Subsidies also in name of the Clergy yet in these latter times their Acts bind not the People until as we said before they be passed into a Law by the King with consent of both Houses of Parliament And so cautious have our Kings been that Laymen should not meddle in such affairs that as it is recorded in History Queen Elizabeth severely checked the Parliament for having appointed a Fast without â—sking her leave nor would she be satisfied till they begg'd her Majesties pardon for it That we may return to the Authority of Parliament each House hath its several and distinct Priviledges The House of Lords not onely concurs in Council and making of Laws but hath also power of Judicature and giving Judgment and so of administring an Oath especially in weightier Causes as in the corruption of Judges and Magistrates and in highest Appeals which yet the Lawyers say cannot lawfully be brought to a tryal without the consent and warrant of the King and is never done unless the Judges of the Law do assist The House of Commons claims to it self the priviledge of petitioning and proposing Laws or of prosecuting but never of judging unless within its own walls and over the Members of their own House nor that neither beyond a Fine and Imprisonment By ancient custom that House was so far from pronouncing any Sentence much less in cases of Life and Death in the name of the People against the meanest Servant in England that it never took to it self the power of administring an Oath It is also extant in the Rolls to this purpose Vpon the humble supplication of the House of Commons that whereas all Parliamentary Judgment belongs to the King and the Peers and not to the Commons unless by a Grant and Permission from the King it would please the Kings Majesty that they be not contrary to custom obliged to give Judgment whereupon the King for the future excused them from that trouble reserving the Parliamentary power of Judging for the time to come to the King and
interposeth and very often whilst the Presbyterians were at the helm disturb the religious meetings of the other Sectarians by hurling of Stones amongst them The liberty of a great many being contrary to expectation restrained the Parliament settle the Presbyterian government onely for three years that in that time they might have a tryal how it would fadge This Novelty set mens humours wonderfully a working The Politicians and Lawyers were highly offended that there were as many Judicatures established as there were Parishes in England and these almost arbitrary putting the Rule into the hands of unskilful men and for the most part incapable of government and began to foresee at a distance I know not what calamities ready to spring from thence in Families Parishes Counties nay and in the whole Kingdom also Most part of the people grumble to be put again to School and to be taught the Rudiments and Principles of their Religion wherein they thought themselves already very well instructed Those that were zealous for Episcopal government and the Service-book bite the bit But none repined more than the Independants Anabaptists and the other Sects who saw their beloved liberty of Conscience in danger for which they had at first taken up Arms against the King hazarded their lives in so many battels and suffered so much labour cost watchings and danger Nevertheless the Government went bravely on in London but so and so in the other Cities and populous Towns and but very coldly in the Country so that the triennial Essay being over and no new Act made to confirm it it had much ado to keep life And thus far concerning Church-affairs which we thought fit to relate together though they happened not all at the same time Let us now return to the other arts whereby they wheadled the Scots Amongst which it was of greatest moment no less for endearing the Scots to them than for raising their power and authority amongst the Natives to sell the Bishops Lands at very easie rates so that Purchasers flocked in from all quarters who with the materials of demolished Palaces and the Timber they cut down having paid for their Purchases got large and entire Mannors almost for nothing And that once for all I may tell it they lay Excise Customs and such heavy and continual Taxes and Impositions upon the people as none of all the Kings that ever sat upon the Throne of England durst ever before that time impose and such as were not onely sufficient to defray all publick expenses but in some measure also the insatiable avarice and voraciousness of their Factors and Agents besides what they got by plundering sequestration and other ways The Scots being allured by these Morsels are tooth and nail for the interests of the Parliament The Scots the declared enemies of Episcopacy fearing the worst if the King should obtain the victory over the Parliament and being drawn in by the aforementioned baits enter into Articles of a Confederacy among which to give a colour of honesty and integrity to the rest the chief was That no hurt be attempted against his Majesties person nor prejudice done to the Rights or Heirs of the Crown an Oath being likewise taken by the Members of both Houses and all the Inhabitants of both Kingdoms being forced to do the same This they call the Solemn League and Covenant and in it promise That according to their Places and Callings they shall endeavour the preservation of the reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government The reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches and shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion c. That they shall also endeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness c. That they shall mutually endeavour to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with their Consciences of their Loyalty that they have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness That they shall endeavour to discover all Incendiaries and Malignants branding with those aspersions all that favoured the Kings Party that they may be brought to publick tryal and receive condign punishment That they shall endeavour that the Kingdoms may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Vnion to Posterity shall assist and defend all those that enter into that League and Covenant and shall zealously and constantly all the days of their lives continue therein No inconsiderable Authors of entering into this Covenant were the Independents Anabaptists and Republicans and the chief and most severe in forcing it upon others who were unwilling to take the same though many of themselves purposely refrained from swearing it lest upon that account they should oblige themselves to the defence of the Kings person It is also to be observed that the clause of defending the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms was by their artifices foisted in contrary to the sence and tenour of the Covenant under colour forsooth that the safety of his Majesties person was sufficiently secured by other Oaths that the repetition of the same promise would but harden the Kings mind against the Parliament and make the People scrupulous in obeying the same But in reality as appeared afterward that all obstacles being as much as might be removed they might make way for the murther of the King These things being contrived and carried on betwixt the factious Scots and English those who took that Covenant with an honest purpose as many good men did being won over by fear delusion or false hope called themselves Presbyterians other Factious of less note as Independents Anabaptists and other Fanaticks not disdaining to list themselves in the same Cause These cruelly persecute all Dissenters who will not engage in that holy Covenant though they had acted nothing before against the Parliamentary Faction though they had not refused to pay any Taxes and Impositions nay though they had freely contributed for the pay of the Parliament-forces The Parsons especially who enjoyed fat Benefices are sequestrated and deprived of their Houses Goods and Livings put into Prisons and Dungeons for many years together nay and put on board of Ships upon the Thames in the heat of Summer in order to transportation without being either accused or heard where they suffered all the incommodities of hunger watching and nastiness By the Religion of this Covenant Children were taught to persecute inform against and
rob their Parents Fathers their Children Servants their Masters Wives their Husbands so that the mutual Offices to which men are bound in society were denied to those that differed from them in opinion For these reasons many contrary to the Dictates of Conscience run into the noose of the Covenant and at length whether that they thought themselves obnoxious to the Kings Laws or really bound in conscience by their Oath they seriously espoused the Party of the Parliament Against this many learned and pious men took up the Cudgels and in several Treatises amongst which was the Judgment of the University of Oxford an unanswerable piece in Latin confuted it as contrary to the Laws both of God and man the Covenanters in the mean time making no answer but with force and the sharper Arguments of the Sword The Scots who faithfully promised the King to give him no trouble in his affairs in England having by those previous artifices cleared their way into that Kingdom with twenty thousand men come to the assistance of the Parliament But first for forms sake they send Commissioners to the King to perswade him being inclinable enough of himself to make peace with the Parliament and to offer themselves as Mediators of the Controversie but the King having rejected them as unjust and partial Judges and commanded them to mind their own affairs at home they call a Parliament against all Law in the Kings name and then declare War The King foreseeing the Storm that was like to fall upon himself and Party had provided against it as well as possibly he could The Lords and Members of the House of Commons who though they were excluded the Houses thought it their duty still to stand by the Publick came over to the Kings side and the former to the number of forty with the Lord Keeper of the great Seal and the latter above two hundred transfer the Parliament to Oxford where being called to Council before they were admitted to take Arms by the King they held a Session of Parliament by the Kings authority nothing being wanting to the power and dignity of a Parliament but Walls and the place appointed by the Kings Writ To these the King gave strictly in charge that they would do what lay in their power to avert the Storm or at least consult how they might be able to resist it This Parliament wrote to the Scots that they would not in an hostile manner invade the King and Kingdom of England nor violate the Pacification formerly made They declare it Treason to take up Arms against the King or without his consent to call a foreign Nation into the Kingdom and that therefore the Rump-Parliament sitting at Westminster were upon both accounts guilty of High-Treason They also pass an Act for raising as much money as could reasonably be expected from the exhausted Counties and Towns which still continued in obedience to the King for defraying the charges of a double War now approaching The King also by Letters earnestly dehorted the Scots from that unlawful attempt and prohibits them by Proclamation That being his Subjects and obliged by so many bonds they would not come to the assistance of Rebels But this being signed by the hands of nineteen Lords the prevailing Rebels of Scotland with matchless insolence in Subjects cause it publickly to be burnt by the common Hangman The Marquess of Hamilton is commanded to keep the Scots at home that they might not meddle in the affairs of another Kingdom who being discovered to have unfaithfully discharged that Office having under pretext of danger fled out of Scotland to the King was afterward committed to Prison The Marquess of Montross being made General and Commissioner of Scotland is dispatched thither that by giving them a diversion at home they might be kept from invading England This Commission was valiantly discharged by the Marquess having with a handful of men and those raw and undisciplined put whole Armies to flight and every-where wasted the Country However the Scots pursuing their point left not England before by the help of Fairfax they had routed no small part of the Kings Army which they had long diverted from quelling the Parliamentarians elsewhere taken Newcastle and other strong places and handed on the Victory into the more Southern parts Henceforward the Kings affairs do dayly decline and were at length totally ruin'd Victory everywhere smiling upon the Rebels The Republican Rebels having obtained many Victories began to vent their hatred and indignation against the Lords and especially after the last Newberry-Fight they grew sick of the Earl of Manchester For he in a Council of War giving his opinion and exhorting them to Peace which he judged more expedient to the State seemed not so thorough-paced and fierce upon the War as they could have desired and being therefore in a long Speech accused by Cromwel in the Lower House he defends himself in the Vpper retorting the accusation So that both Houses thought it more convenient to compose the difference betwixt them than to enter into the merits of the Cause The Kings Forces being at length scattered and broken by the Scots on the one hand and the Parliament-Rebels on the other Pay and Provisions being wanting and Factions arising betwixt the Commanders of the Army and the Lords that all things might conspire to draw down Judgments upon us His Majesty had in his mind first to come to London and trust himself in the hands of the Parliament next to cast himself into the arms of the English Army but being rejected by both and his affairs in a very doubtful condition he ventured to betake himself to the Scots the French Embassadour who then was in the Scottish Army and some Scottish Commanders having obtained from them promises of honour safety and freedom for his Majesties person This revived former Grudges betwixt the English and Scottish Rebels which had almost broken out into a War It was likewise given out that the Earl of Essex who from a General was now become a private person would joyn with the Lords and Commons that conspired for their ruine in new Articles and Resolutions with the Scots but his sudden death occasioned by lying on the ground when he was all in a sweat after hunting dissipated all those rumours Nevertheless the Rebels thought fit at publick cost to humour him with magnificent Funerals as being more for their interest to shew gratitude to a dead friend than to have him perhaps a living enemy Upon this they began to deny the Scots their Pay put a necessity upon them of exacting Money and free Quarters from the Counties where they lay expose them to hatred extenuate their merits undervalue the courage of the Nation call them mercenary Souldiers of fortune whilst they in the mean time paid them onely with Reproaches threaten to drive them out of the Kingdom by force of Arms publickly provoke
them and at length march Northward against their Brethren Nor durst the English Presbyterians who favoured the Scots say much to the contrary lest they should seem more concerned for the insolence of a foreign Nation than the honour of their Country-men At length after long Debates the Scots pretending that it was contrary to the Laws of Nations and Hospitality to deliver up the King who of his own accord put himself under their protection into the hands of the Parliamentarians our Republican Rebels on the other hand urging in the name of the Parliament That the Scots serving and receiving pay in England ought not to have received the King into their Army and much less keep him there against the will of the Parliament but after some formal previous Treaties that might serve to enhaunce the price it was resolved that the King should be delivered up to the Parliamentarian-Rebels And that they might have a specious colour for so horrid an action They urge the King to take the Covenant pretending that without that they could not lawfully take him with them into Scotland The King promises to take that Oath provided he were satisfied in some scruples of Conscience concerning Church-government which Province was committed to the Minister Heuderson the then Oracle of the Kirk who weakly and unsuccessfully attempted it for in their disputes the King in the judgment of all had the better on 't but money prevailed The Scots having received an hundred thousand pounds English in ready money and the promise of an hundred thousand more to be paid within a year draw out of England leaving the King to the mercy of the Parliament but with this condition That no injury should be offered to his Majesties person and that he might be received in one of his houses in or about London with honour safety and freedom that so he might be prevailed with by Arguments from both Nations to confirm and approve their Propositions The King being received at Newcastle by the Parliament-Commissioners four Lords and eight Commoners was with a guard of Souldiers conducted to Holmeby house in Northamptonshire where he suffered a splendid indeed but close imprisonment all who had either actually been or suspected to be of his Party being removed from him nay and his domestick Chaplains also whose assistance he had often desired of the Parliament The Conquerours now in striving for the Booty and Government did no longer dissemble their opinions but divide themselves into various Sects and Names which hitherto we called by the common name of Factious or Rebels but shall now divide them into their several Classes and Forms as likewise shewing by what cunning and degrees they who got into power advanced to the Supremacy Which that we may the more clearly do it will not be amiss to look into some past Ages It is not to be denied but that the seeds of Faction were sow'd in England from the very beginning of the Reformation Nor are the Roman Catholicks to be proud of this since they have given the examples to others by subjecting the Crowns and Scepters of Kings to the Mitre of the Pope and Keys of St. Peter and are no less dangerous to Kings whom they have pulled from their Thrones and exposed to the Daggers of Assassinates From that time some but in no great number are for shaking off Rome in every thing and not leaving the least monument of the ancient Church-government or Liturgie But the greater number and those the wiser thinking it enough to retrench what was superfluous and superstitious are for retaining Episcopal government and a publick reformed Liturgie the one because it suited well with Monarchical government and civil interest of the State and the other because it seemed pious and adapted to the publick Worship of God Both these as being consonant to primitive Constitutions Kings and Parliaments wisely to prevent the inconveniencies that happen from skipping from one extreme to another thought fit to establish by Laws and to inflict severe Penalties upon Dissenters This at first gave ground to heart-burnings afterwards to reasonings about the matter and the licentious humour of disputing prevailing to more bitter Controversies so that at length as it usually happens amongst Brethren who differ in points of Religion they fell to Contentions and invective Disputations the common enemy egging them on on both sides And thus the Quarrel being managed with mutual hatred and animosity the Anti-Episcopal Party or the Jesuits in their name defame the established Church with Reproaches and scandalous Libels which forced from the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts Suspensions Deprivations Imprisonments and Banishments But that severity though executed according to the prescript of Law drew hatred upon the Prelates and made the Anti-Episcoparians to be pitied and the rather that they seemed to suffer for Conscience-sake and the purity of Gospel-worship being otherwise in appearance men of strict lives and conversations zealous Preachers fervent in Prayer ready to do pious Offices and in a word in all things else very good men And this made many Towns Noblemen and Gentlemen take them into protection make very much of them and at length joyns with them in opinion and conspire together against the Hierarchy or Church-government Who despairing to procure the abolition of it from the Kings they hope to compass it by Parliament and therefore they endeavour to lessen the Royal Authority by magnifying a Parliamentary power wherein being assisted by all the other Sects of Fanaticks the seditious and turbulent off-scourings of Christians and Subjects they begin to make a distinction betwixt and divide the Royal Prerogative from the Liberty of the People two things that are very consistent together that laying hold on that pretext they might set up for publick-spirited men and be thought the Patriots of the Nation Having by this means at length raised their Authority amongst the common People so as to be chosen Members of Parliament they set all their Engines at work for accomplishing their intended Project there is nothing in their mouths but the Rights of the People Priviledges of Parliament and the publick Liberty they lay open to the quick the faults of the Magistrates and Courtiers in scandalous Pamphlets they inveigh against Episcopacy and the established government of the Church censure the Manners and Pluralities of Church-men they expose the administration of publick government and make it their care and study in all things to weaken the Kings Power and lessen his Reputation To these their cunning contrivances a commodious occasion happened Whilst in the Reign of King James Frederick Prince Palatine of the Rhyne the Kings Son-in-law having been engaged in the German War was with his whole Family by the Imperial Forces driven out of his Territories To defend the Cause of the Protestant Religion which seemed to be in danger and to restore this banished Prince so nearly allied to the King
be a sufficient Conviction of Popish Recuâ—ancy An Act or Acts of Parliament for Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion VIII An Act or Acts for the true Levie of the Penalties against them which Penalties to be levied and disposed in such manner as both Houses shall agree on wherein to be provided that his Majesty shall have no loss IX That an Act or Acts be passed in Parliament whereby the practices of Papists against the State may be prevented and the Laws against them duly executed and a stricter course taken to prevent the Saying or Hearing of Mass in the Court or any other part of this Kingdom or the Kingdom of Ireland The like for the Kingdom of Scotland concerning the four last preceding Propositions in such manner as the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit X. That the King do give his Royal assent to an Act for the due observation of the Lords Day XI And to the Bill for the suppression of Innovasions in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God XII And for the better advancement of the preaching of Gods holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom XIII And to the Bill against the enjoying the pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual Persons and Non-Residency XIV And to an Act to be framed and agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament for the reforming and regulating of both Universities of the Colledges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton XV. And to such Act or Acts for raising of Moneys for the payment and satisfying of the publick Debts and Damages of the Kingdom and other publick uses as shall hereafter be agreed on by both Houses of Parliament and that if the King do not give his Assent thereunto then it being done by both Houses of Parliament the same shall be as valid to all intents and purposes as if the Royal Assent had been given thereunto The like for the Kingdom of Scotland And that his Majesty give assurance of his consenting in the Parliament of Scotland to an Act acknowledging and ratifying the Acts of the Convention of Estates of Scotland called by the Council and Conservers of the Peace and the Commissioners for the common Burthens and assembled the two and twentieth day of June 1643. and several times continued since and of the Parliament of that Kingdom since convened XVI That the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England assembled shall during the space of twenty years from the first of July 1646. arm train and discipline or cause to be armed trained and disciplined all the Forces of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Guernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed already raised both for Sea and Land-service and shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years raise levy arm train and discipline or cause to be raised levied armed trained and disciplined any other Forces for Land and Sea-service in the Kingdoms Dominions and places aforesaid as in their Judgments they shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years think fit and appoint and that neither the the King his Heirs or Successors nor any other but such as shall act by the authority or approbation of the said Lords and Commons shall during the said space of twenty years exercise any of the Powers aforesaid And the like for the Kingdom of Scotland if the Estates of the Parliament there shall think fit That Moneys be raised and levied for the maintenance and use of the said Forces for Land-service and of the Navy and Forces for Sea-service in such sort and by such ways and means as the said Lords Commons shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years think fit and appoint and not otherwise That all the said Forces both for Land and Sea-service so raised or levied or to be raised or levied and also the Admiralty and Navy shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years be employed managed ordered and disposed by the said Lords and Commons in such sort and by such ways and means as they shall think fit and appoint and not otherwise And the said Lords and Commons during the said space of twenty years shall have power 1. To suppress all Forces raised or to be raised without authority and consent of the said Lords and Commons to the disturbance of the publick Peace of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Guernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them 2. To suppress any foreign Forces who shall invade or endeavour to invade the Kingdoms of England and Ireland Dominion of Wales the Isles of Guernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed or any of them 3. To conjoyn such Forces of the Kingdom of England with the Forces of the Kingdom of Scotland as the said Lords and Commons shall from time to time during the said space of twenty years judge fit and necessary To resist all foreign Invasions and to suppress any Forces raised or to be raised against or within either of the said Kingdoms to the disturbance of the publick Peace of the said Kingdoms or any of them by any authority under the Great Seal or other Warrant whatsoever without consent of the said Lords and Commons of the Parliament of England and the Parliament or the Estates of the Parliament of Scotland respectively And that no Forces of either Kingdom shall go into or continue in the other Kingdom without the advice and desire of the said Lords and Commons of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland or such as shall be by them appointed for that purpose And that after the expiration of the said twenty years neither the King his Heirs or Successors or any person or persons by colour or pretence of any Commission Power Deputation or Authority to be derived from the King his Heirs or Successors or any of them shall raise arm train discipline employ order mannage disband or dispose any of the Forces by Sea or Land of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland the Dominion of Wales Isles of Guernsey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick upon Tweed Nor exercise any of the said Powers or Authorities in the precedent Articles mentioned and expressed to be during the said space of twenty years in the said Lords and Commons Nor do any act or thing concerning the execution of the said Powers or Authorities or any of them without the consent of the said Lords and Commons first had and obtained That after the expiration of the said twenty years in all cases wherein the Lords and Commons shall declare the safety of the Kingdom to be concerned and shall thereupon pass any Bill or Bills for the raising arming training disciplining employing mannaging ordering or disposing of the Forces by Sea or Land of the Kingdoms
Treasurers at Wars of the Kingdom of Ireland be nominated by both Houses of the Parliament of England to continue Quam diu se bene gesserint and in the intervals of Parliament by the afore-mentioned Committees to be approved or disallowed by both Houses at their next sitting The like for the Kingdom of Scotland concerning the nomination of the Lords of the Privy-Council Lords of Session and Exchequer Officers of State and Justice-General in such manner as the Estates of Parliament there shall think fit That the Militia of the City of London and Liberties thereof may be in the ordering and government of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons in Common Council assembled or such as they shall from time to time appoint whereof the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs for the time being to be three to be employed and directed from time to time in such manner as shall be agreed on and appointed by both Houses of Parliament That no Citizen of the City of London nor any of the Forces of the said City shall be drawn forth or compelled to go out of the said City or Liberties thereof for Military service without their own free consent That an Act be passed for the granting and confirming of the Charters Customs Liberties and Franchises of the City of London notwithstanding any Nonuser Misuser or Abuser That the Tower of London may be in the government of the City of London and the chief Officer and Governour thereof from time to time be nominated and removeable by the Common Council And for prevention of inconveniencies which may happen by the long intermission of Common Councils it is desired that there may be an Act that all by-Laws and Ordinances already made or hereafter to be made by the Council assembled touching the calling continuing directing and regulating the same Common Councils shall be as effectual in the Law to all intents and purposes as if the same were particularly enacted by the Authority of Parliament And that the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons in Common Council may adde to or repeal the said Ordinances from time to time as they shall see cause That such other Propositions as shall be made for the City for their further safety welfare and government and shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament may be granted and confirmed by Act of Parliament That all Grants Commissions Presentations Writs Process proceedings and other things passed under the Great Seal of England in the custody of the Lords and other Commissioners appointed by both Houses of Parliament for the custody thereof be and by Act of Parliament with the Royal assent shall be declared and enacted to be of like full force and effect to all intents and purposes as the same or like Grants Commissions Presentations Writs Process Proceedings and other things under any Great Seal of England in any time heretofore were or have been And that for time to come the said Great Seal now remaining in custody of the said Commissioners continue and be used for the Great Seal of England And that all Grants Commissions Presentations Writs Process Proceedings and other things whatsoever passed under or by any authority of any other Great Seal since the 22th day of May Anno Dom. 1642. or hereafter to be passed be Invalid and of no effect to all intents and purposes Except such Writs Process and Commissions as being passed under any other Great Seal than the said Great Seal in the custody of the Commissioners aforesaid on or after the said 22th day of May and before the 28th day of November Anno Dom. 1643. were afterward proceeded upon returned into or put in ure in any the Kings Courts at Westminster And except the Grant to Mr. Justice Bacon to be one of the Justices of the Kings-Bench And except all Acts and proceedings by virtue of any such Commissions of Goal-delivery Assize and Nisi prius or Oyer and Terminer passed under any other Great Seal than the Seal aforesaid in custody of the said Commissioners before the first of October 1642. And that all Grants of Offices Lands Tenements or Hereditaments made or passed under the Great Seal of Ireland unto any person or persons Bodies politick or corporate since the Cessation made in Ireland the fifteenth day of September 1643. shall be null and void And that all Honours and Titles conferred upon any person or persons in the said Kingdom of Ireland since the said Cessation shall be null and void That the several Ordinances the one intituled An Ordinance of Parliament for abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales and for seâ—ing of their Lands and Possessions upon Trustees for the use of the Common-wealth the other intituled An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for appointing the sale of Bishops Lands for the use of the Commonwealth be confirmed by Acts of Parliament These were the Conditions of Peace proposed by the Parliament as the subject matter of that Conference which all passionately wished and a great many fought for They were the very same that had been heretofore sent to the King when he was at Hampton-Court and not onely rejected by his Majesty but by the Army also as being too unreasonable they onely differed in this that in those last there was no mention made of the Scots In the mean time the Pacificators are invested with no other authority but that of answering the Royal Arguments and of returning Reasons to induce the King to assent they had no power of softening any Proposition or altering the least word nay nor so much as of omitting the Preface Their Instructions likewise bear that they are to acquaint the Parliament with the Kings Concessions and the whole progress of the Negotiation to treat altogether in writing nay and to debate the Propositions as they lay in order not descending to a new Proposition until the former was adjusted Nor was it thought enough that the Conditions and Commissioners were so strictly limited they confine the Conference also to the Town of Newport in the Isle of Wight and the continuance of it to the space of forty days The King also who was to be present at the Conference was so far well treated as to be permitted to come out of his Prison and have that Island allowed him for a larger confinement but upon promise given that he would not depart out the Island within forty days after the conclusion of the Conference and the sly Oligarchick and Democratick Republicans who had a hand in the Councils were the Authors of those scruples and restrictions With great caution the Parliament permitted some of his Majesties necessary Servants by name some Lawyers Divines and a Secretary to be present but not to be admitted into the Conference onely to be without behind the Curtain in the Lobby So that the King alone was singly to sustain the person of a Politician and Divine against the
some time prevail with them to delay the execution of the Villany Nor was Bradshaw the bloudy President secure from violent hands for one Burghill armed with sword and pistol watched him one night behind Gray's Inn-gate when he was to come home late but missing of his designe that night because Bradshaw did not come home next day being betrayed by one Cooke to whom he had discovered the matter he was brought before the Parricides However his Guards being drunk finding an occasion of an escape he saved his own life having onely laid in wait for another mans But all was in vain for the Rebels slighting these things pretend Gods providence and the motions of the Holy Ghost for their warrant and security Peters a brazen-faced Hypocrite who being disgracefully whipt out of Cambridge ever after that clove close to the Schismaticks bids them from the Pulpit Go on and prosper that now was the time When the Saints should bind Princes in chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron so lewdly did that profane Knave interpret holy Scripture telling them That they need not question but this Prophecy was to be fulfilled by them and in the Sermon he addresses himself to the holy Judges the title he thought fit to give them and protests that he was certain there were in the Army five thousand men no less Saints than those that conversed with God himself in Heaven Then kneeling in the Pulpit with flouds of forced tears and lifted up hands he earnestly begs in the name of the People of England That they would do Justice against CHARLES and not suffer Benhadad the enemy to escape Nay he most insolently inveighed against Monarchy it self and straining his virulent wit he relates the History How the Trees chusing a King and the Vine and Olive-tree refusing the office they submitted themselves to the sharper government of the bramble and compared Kingly government to briars By such kind of Arguments he stirs up and confirms those new Judges who of their own nature were already but too much enraged and fiercely bent against the King There was another besides Peters the Preacher an Herald one Serjeant Dendy also employed who being environed with a Guard of Horse for fear of being stoned by sound of Trumpet cited all those to appear who had any crime to object against the King and this he did first in Westminster-hall and then in the most publick places of the City Before these Judges of the new Court the most August Charles already stript of three most flourishing Kingdoms by the Rebels and having now no more but Life to be deprived of is brought without the least signe in his countenance of any discomposure of mind His indictment is read wherein he is accused In the name of the People of England of Treason Tyranny Murders and of all Rapines that were occasioned by the War with the highest aggravations of the Crimes But the whole stress of the Indictment lay in this That he had made War against the Parliament which the Army under the Parliaments pay had long ago trampled under foot scarcely any shadow of it remaining Great was the company of Spectators who with groans sighs and tears lamented the condition of the best of Princes Nor without injustice can I pass over the brave action of the heroick Lady Fairfax Daughter to the Lord Vere who out of a Belcony that lookt into the Court cried out publickly That that was a lye that the tenth part of the People was not guilty of that Villany but that it was a contrivance of the Traytor Cromwel And this she did with great danger of her life The King having heard this Indictment with a majesty in his looks and words that cannot be exprest puts the question to those new Judges By what Authority they brought their King to the Bar contrary to the publick Faith which was very lately made to him when he entered into a Conference with the Members of both Houses By what lawful Authority said he emphatically He knew indeed there were many unlawful and powerful Combinations of men in the world as of Thieves and Robbers by the High-ways He desires they would tell him by what Authority they had taken that Power such as it was upon them and he would be willing to answer but if they could not he bids them think well upon it before they go farther from one sin to a greater That he had a Trust committed to him by God by an ancient and lawful Descent and that he would not betray it by answering to a new and unlawful Authority The President replying That he was brought to answer in the name of the People of England of which he was elected King The King made answer That England was never an Elective Kingdom but an Hereditary Kingdom for near these thousand years That he did stand more for the liberty of the People by rejecting their usurped Power than any of them that came to be his pretended Judges did by supporting it That he did not come there as submitting to the Court That he would stand as much for the Priviledge of the House of Commons as any man there whatsoever but that he saw no House of Lords there that might together with a King constitute a Parliament That if they would shew him a legal authority warranted by the Word of God the Scriptures or warranted by the Constitutions of the Kingdom he would answer for that he did avow that it was as great a sin to withstand lawful Authority as it is to submit to a tyrannical or any ways unlawful Authority The President in the mean time often interrupted him and at length commanding him to be carried back to Prison Yet was the good King a second and a third time brought before the Bar of the Common People where the President puts him in mind of his Indictment and commands him to answer to the Articles brought against him or otherways to listen to his sentence But the King still protested against the Authority of the Court affirming That his life was not so dear to him as his Honour Conscience the Laws and the Liberties of the People which that they might not perish all at once there were great reasons why he could not make his defence before those Judges nor acknowledge a new form of Judicature for what power had ever Subjects or by what Laws was it granted them to erect a Court against their King That it could not be warranted by Gods Laws which on the contrary command obedience to Princes not by the Laws of the Land since by them no Impeachment can lie against the King they all going in his name nor do they allow the House of Commons the power of judging the meanest Subject of England And that lastly that pretended Power could not flow from any Authority or Commission from the People since they had never asked the question of the
Peace But on the third day when it was Calm they began to thunder on both sides with their great Guns on the one hand from Threscoe and the other Islands and on the other from St. Mary's Grimsby Haven being betwixt them But the Governour Greenvill now Earl of Bath wanting supplies at length upon pretty good Conditions surrenders the Island Shortly after that continual Victories might drop into to the lap of the Rebels news was brought from the Caribbe Islands that Barbadoes the richest of them had delivered it self up into the power of Aisckew according to the example of which the rest would take their measures He with eighteen or twenty Sail of Men of War had steered his Course to the West Indies to reduce those Islands once more under the yoak of England and setting upon them unexpectedly he took twenty or thirty Dutch Ships who in contempt of two Acts drove a Trade with them cruising off and on in sight of the Island he blocked it up for the space of six Months and at length a Sedition arising amongst the Planters he forced the Lord Willoughby whom the King had made Governour of it to surrender Whilst these things are acting in the Indies they erect of new in England a High Court of Justice as they were pleased to call it not upon the account of a present Emergent but to continue for six Months which if it could pass without the envy of Tyranny and Oppression might be adjourned de die in diem Keeble is by the Rump-Parliament made President of this Court being assisted by others and fifty Assessors of the popular Faction Most of these being Souldiers were ready at the beck of the General to smite the Prisoner as an Enemy all the rest were Creatures of the new Common-wealth whose hopes and whole Estates depended upon the favour of the Parricides except perhaps one or two who had more Zeal than Judgment And this horrid Violence unheard of under the Government of our Kings past in all Ages is imposed upon the ignorant multitude under the specious name of Justice These Men had Power to bring before them try and punish without appeal any that had held Correspondence with the King Queen Duke of York the Royalists or Irish that had assisted them by Word or Deed or received them into their Houses or that had delivered up any Castle Town or Ship or had attempted any such Surrender besides many other Crimes of the same nature Now if you inquire into the constitution of the Court and whence it derived its Authority you must know that it was first appointed against the Kings Majesty by those who were so far from having any Power of administring Justice that by our Laws and Customs they had not the Power to condemn the meanest Slave then against the Nobles afterwards as occasion offered it was of ten made use of but now was turned into a custome If any man was suspected of plotting and contriving against the Publick he was presently dragged before this supreme Tribunal and exposed to the Calumnies of pettifogging Lawyers who for a little Reputation and Profit sold their Souls in pleading against him who having none to defend his Cause and being terrified or shamed out of Countenance without the Evidence of two Witnesses or the Verdict of a Jury of twelve men which has onely force in England he is Condemned and why should not I say Murdered It was indeed no small matter of terrour to see a drawn Sword hanging as by an Hair over all mens naked Heads at every minute ready to fall upon them About that time especially and afterward when Cromwell had got the chief administration of the Government whole swarms of informers wandered about in all places both publick and private sacred and prophane They listned in Churches sneaked into companies in Taverns and Alehouses and went to wrestling in the Rings Noblemen and Gentelmens Servants were corrupted that they might discover what their Masters talked at Table the chief Vintners or their Drawers at least were feed to hearken to the free discourses of their Customers over their Wine either in the room or skulking behind the Hangings or thin partition Walls Such kind of Spies and eave-droppers Hiero the Tyrant of Syracusa used to employ who were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a word Prisons were full of accusers that they might accuse so that there was no Village free from snarlings nor snares The Cities themselves were filled with solitude silence trembling and fear All flocked into the Countrey not for pleasure or the Society of their Neighbours but where they could find solitude and retreat where the Barrenness and desertness of the place might neither allure Soldiers nor secure Informers where they might neither be known nor have acquaintance and where avoiding the company of men they might have the satisfaction of being secure without the pleasure of the Countrey or company All Neighbourhood Society and intimacy were suspected Those who where naturally averse from ill things yet often deceived because they had been deceived before Into such confusion had the Rout the disturber of common Peace put all things With observant eyes do curious Spies run about and were not idle when they had nothing to do They tope it stoutly that by a gentle rack they may pump out the secrets of the heart They pry into words and actions but much more into mens looks the interpreters of the mind It is their business to hanker about for Rumors and spread reports to rouze the drooping hopes of the credulous and to foment them with strange stories which afterwards vanishing into smoak they might be cowed and rendered more pusillanimous for the future The Noblemen and Gentlemen who had been of the contrary side are pursued with secret whispers and calumnies wherever they could be pickt up onely to vex them the more moderate are obnoxious to Suspicions Those who were found any way to have assisted or corresponded with the King were either forced to bribe lustily or to stand a Tryal There were also a kind of Duckoys and Trapans of all men the most accursed whose chief study was to teaze the more hot-headed and cholerick and draw them thereby into Capital snares and when they had thus caught them inform against them that they might be brought to a Tryal or oppress them with secret Calumnies Colonel Andrews thus circumvented lost his Head Nor was the president Bradshaw ashamed openly to declare in Court that by counterfeit Letters he had corresponded with him in the name of the King Thus was the Estate of the Lord Craven confiscated though being no way obnoxious but for a large Estate which he possessed in England he lived beyond Seas in Holland Whither one Faulkner of that Gang a turn-coat to the Kings Party being sent but for what end I dare not affirm laid a snare for him One single
evidence and he infamous too was sufficient to the partial and mercenary Judges for the fellow was afterwards for the same deposition convicted of perjury who having given under his hand contrary to what he had sworn to the Judges eyes bely'd his venal Tongue These are the counterfeiters of Commissions of the King's Signet forgers of writings and hands and the Cony-catchers of Novices They of their own accord give men Authority to raise Soldiers and then turn that Authority to their ruine Deliver Letters which they venture to do though as they say upon the Peril of High Treason and then inform the Soldiers that they might seize the Parties with the Letters bring them before the new Court and point blank condemn them to Death In the mean time there was no accusing of the clandestine authors of the Villany and far less bringing them to Justice So that it clearly appeared that these were not the crimes of private men but publickly deliberated forged in the shop of the Politicians and committed to the Myrmidons who as Jackcalls to the Lyons might make it their business to hunt out for Crimes which the High Court of Justice might run down The Scots being long uncertain what to do and divided into divers Factions at length resolve upon Monarchical Government and proclaming CHARLES the Second King A few who relished a Republick being of the same mind with the Regicides concealed their rancour not daring to discover themselves nor resist But upon what Conditions he should be admitted to the Throne is seriously debated nor never well agreed upon Most of the Highlanders firmly maintain that no other Articles are to be demanded of his Majesty but the ancicient promises which the Laws injoyned at the inauguration of Kings Others to wit the Covenanters would have him first to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant give signs of sorrow and repentance for his Father and Mother's sins and all banished and turned out of Court who had carried Arms for his Father or had not as yet taken the Covenant I mention not the rest as being but a few whose minds were either corrupted by Bribes and Pensions from the Regicides or were infected with the contagion of their Friends the Democraticks and who urged severer terms that they might raise new scruples and cut off all way for the King's admission At length the middle party prevailing CHARLES the Second is by Heralds in all publick Place proclaimed King of Scotland England and Ireland In the mean while the debate growing long in the Convention of Estates and Committee of the Kirk who were to consider of the matter and to draw it up into Form they themselves at length resolve to send Windram Laird of Libberton to try the Kings mind who having delivered him Letters full of sorrow and regret for the horrid and unparallelled Murder of his Father assures him that the Scots were ready to obey him had proclaimed him King and Successour to the Crown and that upon the following Conditions they would admit him to the Supreme administration of the Government The Proposals were to this effect That the King should subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant and consent by act of Parliament that all his Subjects should take it confirming all that they had done for that purpose That he should confirm the acts of the two last Sessions of the Parliament which condemns Duke Hamilton's late engagement and irruption into England That he should recal his Commission to Montross whereby he had Power to raise Souldiers in Scotland or bring them into Scotland from abroad That he would renounce his right of Negative Vote That he would suffer no Papist about him and lastly that he would appoint a place in Holland where Commissioners might wait upon his Majesty for adjusting of these proposals and of other things that might be previous to his voyage These Proposals were made in the Isle of Jersey where the King with many of his Courtiers then was who having received the Letters made Windram very welcome and not long after sent Sir William Fleeming to the Scottish Nobility and Committee of the Kirk with Letters of reciprocal congratulation At length he writes to them by Windram That he was well pleased with their obedience and indignation against the Regicides exhorts them that they would seriously endeavour the restoring of Peace and Concord that for that end he should not be wanting in any thing and bids them for that purpose send Commissioners to Breda with whom he would treat about the re-establishing of Peace The King being willing to deliberate about these matters more seriously privately demands the Opinions of his Friends writing to those whose Affairs hindered them from waiting Personally upon him But so many Heads so many Minds yet the Opinions were divided chiefly into two Some perswade him not at all to listen to the Scots there being treachery hid under the specious Cloak of obedience They represent to him his Father as an Instance of it who had been long gull'd with fair promises until he was forced to be severe to his most faithful Subjects and then afterward was delivered up to the pleasure of the Faction That they would cloath him with the Name and Title of a King but keep all the Power and real Authority in their own hands And that if he offered for the future to resist and get his neck from under the Yoke they would deliver him up to the English Regicides or kill him with their own hands That he would do better to stick by Montross than by the united Forces of Scotland whom he had found to be faithful and brave in doubtful and difficult times and magnanimous and fortunate at a pinch that with his own and the Forces of his Friends succours from abroad and the aid of the English Irish and Scots he might mount his Throne in spight of all the attempts and endeavours of his Enemies Others again magnified the Authority of Parliament and the Power of the Covenanters giving it out that the English also who loved Presbytery secretly favoured the Scots though at present they discovered not themselves that it would procure him likewise reputation abroad to be owned King of Scotland That the Queen also exhorted him to make Peace with the Scots who though at first they proposed severe and grievous Conditions of Union yet his Majesty would in progress of time obtain more easie terms the Covenanters by long conversation and frequent Offices being won over to calmer and milder Dispositions that they consulted their own Interests under the Veil of Divine Worship and Cloak of Religion and that by complying with the Times he would at length find the Scots more tractable and submissive to his his Will and Pleasure Thus the King betwixt Scylla and Charybdis was for some time at a stand uncertain to what side to adhere but resolving to determine himself for
now at length sued for pardon But the hatred and animosities betwixt the Rump and the Soldiers the Seeds whereof had been long ago sown though during the common danger they appeared not began now to show themselves and after long and mutual grudges to break out into Flames and to devour one another So rare a thing it is for Thieves and Robbers to agree long together The Soldiers object that these men did for ever appropriate to themselves and their Friends all places of Honour and Command barring all others from any share with them and that under colour of the publick good they divided amongst themselves all profitable Offices without any regard to the Publick For what end had they taken Arms against the King exposed their lives to so many dangers ript up the bowels of their Country-men and friends Did they bring the King to the Block for in that execrable Villany they triumphed that they might only settle them in their Seats so as they might securely live at their ease for ever and right or wrong domineer over all without any distinction and Murder and Sacrifice to their own private Lust or Revenge as many Subjects as they pleased Away with it say they it were better to return to the old way of Government Raise King CHARLES from the Dead and submit to his Rule seeing it was known that he followed the Laws and accordingly squared the administration of his Government They therefore earnestly desire That at length an end might be put to the Parliament a new and fair Representative chosen by the good people and that the Laws might be reformed besides the many other things which had already so often cloyed them with Petitions The goodly Warriours made these specious demands not out of a pure zeal for the Publick good but that having baulked them by determining their Authority they themselves might have their turn in the Government hoping that by branding them with these reproachful Characters they would at length be fain to put the Power into their hands On the other hand the Rump-Members Magisterially grave by a long possession of Authority bid the Soldiers mind their own Affairs look to their Arms and obey Orders that they to whom the care of the Common-wealth was committed and the business of settling a new Government having long laboured in the Affair with no small Progress would at length by the help of God bring it to perfection They bid them have a care in the mean time that they make no Tumults seeing they who had pulled a King from his Throne wanted neither Resolution nor Force to reduce into order licentious Souldiers though milder courses were more pleasant to them But the Soldiers disdaining that they should be thought pragmatical and medlers in Affairs that did not belong unto them answer those State-Advisers That they were not Mercenary Soldiers nor had not taken up Arms only in Prospect of pay but for maintenance of the Publick Liberty neither would they lay them down till they found the common Fruit of their endeavours That they ought not to boast of putting the King to Death so they mutually gloried in that Horrid Villany since they onely stood by as in Disguise and Masquerade but that they by their Valour and at their own Peril accomplished the thing at the mention of which they would have started had they not been encouraged and set on by men of the Sword The Rump therefore being now more afraid of their Servants and idle Soldiers than formerly of the Royal Enemy endeavour by all ways to reduce them to Obedience or at least fairly to dismiss and disband them but still under another pretence alledging that the Commonwealth was not able to entertain so many idle and lazy Soldiers Wherefore under colour of lessening the Charges of the Publick they pass an Act for Disbanding part of the Army and the rest to have but half pay and to be divided and separated in several Countries that at once they might secure themselves against the attempts of the Cavaliers and take from their own Souldiers all opportunity of making Innovations The Soldiers smell out the design and it prickt them to the heart that they were now to be cast down from that height from whence they received plentiful incomes and almost shared in the Government They take it very ill to be cut short of their pay of their domineering after their accustomed manner in the Countries and of making their own advantages in suppressing the beginnings of Sedition Therefore the Officers refuse to be disbanded reciprocally pretending the Publick good They also frame a Petition such as they had formerly presented with proposals much to the same effect and desire a speedier answer nor would they lay down their Arms before the remnant of the old Parliament being abolish'd a Representative were lawfully chosen and that for the greater expedition some of the Officers of the Army as Commissioners should be admitted into the House or at least sit and debate about the Proposals with the Members of Parliament The Rump condescending to this twelve of each party meet and consult in common Where Oliver St Johns more skilful than the rest in the Common Law raising scruples and perplexing matters that were clear in themselves so confounded the Rude Soldiers that about one word they spent above two Months These Proposals were also debated in the Rump but since it would be tedious to mention all of them I shall briefly onely relate with what sharpness and quite opposite Opinions they clashed about the Representative Some were for shaping it after this manner some after another and some after none at all The Presbyterians who were but few in number are for having it conform to the Solemn League and Covenant a strict and previous Inquisition being made into the Manners and Religion of the men The Vtopians dreamt of I know not what Olygarchy made up of the Godlier Party winnowed and sifted to the highest Purity Others were for a kind of Circulation that every one successively and in course might have their turns in the Government Besides there was no less strife about the Time Some thought it very dangerous nay without doubt fatal to assign any day of dissolution and to introduce a new Representative Others would have no such change to be made but every third fourth or fifth year But those who were in Power think it safest that new Members should be chosen in place of those that died or were turned out And most Votes agreed in this which they forthwith enacted though the night before they had privately promised the contrary to the Officers to wit that they would model a new Representative So soon as Cromwell heard of that he hastens to the Parliament House ordering ten or twelve Soldiers to follow him and stay for him at the door He himself accompanied only with Fleetwood entring in To this
purpose spake to the Speaker You have sufficiently imposed upon the People and provided for your selves and Relations you have long cheated the Country by your sitting here under pretext of settling the Commonwealth reforming the Laws and procuring the Common Good whilst in the mean time you have onely invaded the Wealth of the State screwed your selves and Relations into all Places of Honour and Profit to feed your own Luxury and Impiety Then stamping with his Foot which was the Signal to the Soldiers without For shame said he get ye gone give place to honester Men and those that will more faithfully discharge their Trust But whilst all surprised by this sudden Consternation held their tongues one had the boldness to tell him It suits ill with your Excellencies Justice to brand us all promiscuously and in general without any Proof of a Crime At which being a little more heated taking hold of one by the Cloke Thou art a Whoremaster says he to another Thou art an Adulterer to a third Thou art a Drunkard and Glutton to a fourth Thou art an Extortioner And the Musquetiers rushing in he excludes them all and commands the Parliament to be dissolved whilst Harrison gently pulled the Speaker out of his Chair being unwilling to rise and sent him going So that that vast horrid and many-headed Monster whose Bellowing had made all Europe to shake is by one single Puff of Cromwell's Breath dispersed and scattered no body regretting but rather all the People rejoycing at it So Government basely got is basely lost Nay to compleat their Punishment they were ridiculed a Bill being set upon the Door with This House is to be Let. They were also Lampoon'd by the Ballad-singers about Town who cried publickly about the City Twelve Parliament-men for a Peny Next day the Council of State and Privy Council are in the same manner sent packing by Cromwell lest if any remained the Rooks might breed again By this so acceptable an Action he so blotted out the Memory of his past Villanies that for a time he was rather look'd upon as a Saviour the Shouts and Bonfires that were made sufficiently expressing the Joys of the People for being delivered from so cruel a Yoke They praise the Freedom the General took in not fearing to charge his Impotent Masters to their Faces with the Vices that were publickly talked of some few in the mean time observing that whilst he himself now accused those whom before he had commended he had then preferred such as he might afterwards most justly accuse For he had so purged the Parliament as casting away the Flower he had for his own purpose reserved the Bran to be likewise thrown away when he had a mind to it The Rump-Members loaded with publick Hatred and sad Hearts departed home as they were commanded for there was a Necessity that they must fall at the Pleasure of those at whose Pleasure they chose to stand and since they could not thrive in their Trade without obeying their Guardians the Injuries of the Soldiers were to be born with and onely whispered But they find no other Patron The Publick indeed grieved not at their Disaster as if the Office of the Laws had been shut but triumphantly insulted over them as a Den of Thieves now broken up and dispersed But the Commonwealth was still reserved to sadder Bondage Cromwell now as General of the Army arrogating to himself the Supreme Authority Yet that he might remove all suspicion of any such ambitious Design and render the same more secure and stable by gradual and crafty Insinuations as also that he might gull the Demotratical Republicans it is decreed in a Council of the Officers That the Supreme Power should be committed to Godly and Pious Men to the number of an hundred and forty four during the space of six Months who should have power to moderate and with such Prudence settle all things that all Sin and Vice being rooted out Peace and Concord might flourish in the Nations Therefore the Officers of the Army with Consent of Cromwell call out of every County and Corporation a proportionable number of the holiest Men whom either they knew or could find out the civiller or rather most pragmatical sort of the Private Soldiers being permitted to name some whom they place at the Helm of Government to consult about the difficult Affairs of Three Kingdoms Illiterate Men for the most part and the Off-scowrings of the People and these also Bigots Anabaptists Fifth-monarchy-men Democraticks Fanaticks and in a word the most villanous Incendiaries of all the Sects But with those were mingled Cromwell's cunninger Adherents whom being most obnoxious he had endeared to himself by Favour that as occasion offered they might sway the rest and check their mad Counsels These being met in the Parliament-house their first Care is to chuse one Rous a Smatterer in Letters for Speaker and then to give themselves a Title which after much Preliminary Dispute was at length concluded to be The Parliament of England This done they set to work But Good God! what strange Confusion presently arose Which Cromwell and the other cunning Rogues foreseeing would undoubtedly happen laughed in their Sleeve that they being hampered and entangled in Difficulties would with universal Applause and Gratulation deliver up to Cromwell alone the sole Administration of Government They resolved to make way for the Monarchy of Christ upon Earth prophesying his Personal Presence to be at hand Therefore they pronounce Priesthood to be Popery paying of Tythes Judaism the Laws of England the Remains of the Norman Yoke Schools and Colleges Heathenish Seminaries of curious and vain Learning Nobility lastly and Honours contray to the Law of Nature and Christianity all which they would have wholly abolished and pluck'd up by the Roots and without doubt had done so had not the few of Sense that were amongst them put a stop to it However in effect they abolish the Court of Chancery and all the Judicatures that were wont to be kept in Westminster-hall By one or two Acts was that prodigious Parliament renowned For Marriage which from the very Birth of the Church of England was never celebrated but by Church-men they commit to the Care of Justices of the Peace as if in an Affair of so great moment there were no need of Solemn Prayers nor of the Benediction of the Church They leave also the Publication of the Bans of Matrimony which used always thrice to be made in time of Divine Service to the choice of the Parties either to have it made in the Church or Market-place A Register also is appointed to be kept not of the Christnings but of the Birth of Children so that from hence you may guess what a kind of new Reformers these were But when Cromwell had suffered them to give the People sufficient Proofs of their Madness and to work Fear and Hatred also in their
Fellow-Subjects some of them who had more sense upon a day appointed went with their Speaker to attend him earnestly beseeching him to take upon himself the Supreme Authority now again fallen at his Feet Cromwell made a shew of wonder denying utterly and rejecting it but at length with much ado suffered himself to be prevailed upon but with this Condition That an Instrument or Form of the Thing under Hand and Seal should be given him This being done though the Inferiour Officers of the Army and the Republicans were against it who promised to themselves profitable Places under that Government and a Licencious Liberty of domineering or at least constant and standing Commands in the Army yet Lambert who at present promised himself the Second Place in the Government and afterterwards the First hiding a proud Ambition under a Cloke of Humility by Words and by his Example persuaded the other Officers not onely to comply with that Monarchy but also to stickle for and desire it So now the Name of a Commonwealth stinks and the Popular State which heretofore they gloried in is despised The Single Government of One Person onely pleases them and what heretofore they had cursed with so many private and publick Imprecations after a Consultation with the Officers is declared to be the Government of this Nation Yet Cromwell would not accept of it by the Title of KING though he was persuaded to it by many lest he might seem to make Shipwrack of all Modesty and too openly to prevaricate But joyning together a Common-wealth and Single Government which formerly were inconsistent under the Title of Protector he takes into his Hands the Reins of Government modelled according to the Conditions of an Instrument which here we shall insert THE Instrument of Government THat the Supreme Legislative Authority should be in a Single Person and the People in Parliament but the Administration thereof to be left to the Lord Protector and to his Council whereof the Number was not to be above Twenty and one That all Charters Patents Writs and Commissions should be passed by the Protector All Power of Magistracy Honours and Titles to be deriv'd from him Likewise the Pardon of all Offences excepting Treason and Murder He also to have the Administration of all things with the Advice of his Council and according to the Tenor of this Instrument That the Militia sitting the Parliament should be in the disposal of the Protector and the Parliament but in the Intervals in the Protector and his Council The Power also of making Peace and War with Foreign Princes to be in the Protector and his Council but he to have no Authority of Repealing or Making any Laws without the Consent of Parliament That the Parliament should be called before the end of Six Months then next ensuing and afterwards once in Three years or oftner if need require and that it should not be in the Protector 's Power to Dissolve the same for the first Five Months without the Consent of the House That the Number of Members for England should consist of full Four hundred Elected according to an equal Distribution for Scotland Thirty and for Ireland the like Number the Number for each County and City to be also assigned That the Calling of such Parliament should be under the Seal of the Commonwealth by Writs to the Sheriff in the Protector 's Name But if the Protector should not call the same within the times limited the Chancellor then to do it under the Penalty of High Treason and if he should fail therein then that the Sheriffs should peform it And after such Election should be made to be transmitted by the Chief Magistrate by Indenture to the Chancellor signed with his Hand Twenty days before the Sitting of the same Parliament Also if the Sheriff or Mayor should make a false Return that he be fined in Two thousand Marks That none should be capable to Elect who had ever born Arms against the Parliament or been Actors in the Irish Rebellion Nor that any Papist should ever be capable to give his Voice And that all Elections against these Rules should be void and the Transgressors fined at Two years Value of their Revenues and a third part of their Goods That no Person under the age of One and twenty years should be capable of being Elected nor any other than of known Credit fearing God and of good Behaviour No Man likewise to have Power of Electing whose Estate should not be worth 20 l. per An. Sterling That the Return of the Persons Elected should be transmitted by Prothonotary in Chancery unto the Council of State within two days after they should come to his Hands to the end that Judgment might be made of the Persons if any Question should arise touching the Lawfulness of the Choice That Sixty Members should be accounted a Parliament in case the rest be absent Nevertheless that it should be lawful to the Protector to call a Parliament when he shall see cause That the Bills agreed on in Parliament should be presented to the Protector for his Assent thereto and if he should not give his Assent to them within Twenty days that then they should have the force of Laws without it That if any Counsellor of State should die or be outed of his Place for Corruption in the Intervals of Parliament the Protector with the rest of the Council to substitute another in his stead That a certain Annual Tax should be made throughout the Three Commonwealths for the Maintenance of Ten thousand Horse and Fifteen thousand Foot which Tax should also supply the Charge of the Navy And that this Rate should not be lessened or altered by the Parliament without the Consent of the Protector and his Council But if it should not be thought necessary hereafter that any Army should be maintained then whatsoever Surplusage of this Tax should be to be kept in the Treasury for sudden Emergencies That if there might happen to be occasion of making extraordinary Choices and to raise new Forces it should not be done without Consent of Parliament but that in the Intervals of Parliament it should be lawful for the Protector and his said Council both to make new Laws and to raise Monies for the present Exigencies That all the Lands Forests and Jurisdictions not then sold by the Parliament whether they had belonged to the King Queen Prince Bishops or any Delinquents whatsoever should thenceforth remain to the Protector That the Office of Protector should thenceforth be Elective but that none of the King's Line should be ever capable thereof and that the Election should belong to the Council That for the present Oliver Cromwell should be Protector That the Great Offices of the Commonwealth viz. Chancellor Keeper of the Seal Governour of Ireland Admiral Treasurer in case they should become void in Parliament-time to be filled up by the approbation of Parliament and in the Intervals by the like approbation
this Honourable Assembly to remedy all these Disorders shewed That the Wars with Portugal France and the Dutch do and did eat up the Assessments That swarms of Jesuits are crept in to make Divisions which were grown so wide that nothing but his Government could remedy them And let Men say what they will he could speak it with comfort before a Greater than any of them Then he shewed what he had done during his Government First his Endeavours of reforming the Laws having joyned all Parties to assist in that great Work Next his filling the Benches with the Ablest Lawyers Then his Regulation of the Court of Chancery and his Darling Ordinance for the Approbation of Ministers which hindred all that list from invading the Ministry by Men of both Persuasions Presbyterians and Independents c. And lastly his being Instrumental to call a Free Parliament which he valued and would keep it so above his Life Then he shewed the Advantage of the Peace with the Dutch Dane and Suede and the Protestant Interest which he would have them improve and intend chiefly That they were now upon the Edge of Canaan That he spoke not as their Lord but their Fellow-servant And then bad them go and chuse their Speaker Cromwell having spoken to this effect the Members without returning him Thanks as is usual went to the House Lenthall being again chosen Speaker they fall first upon the New Instrument of Government all the Clauses and Articles whereof they thorowly sift and examine The Officers of the Army who were Privy-Counsellors and all who depended on Cromwell vigorusly oppose that saying That that Instrument was to be taken for the Basis and Foundation of the Government no ways to be called in question since by the Authority thereof the Parliament met and that it would be contrary to the Dictates of Natural Reason to bring it to a Trial. Nay many and particularly Lambert threaten That if the Parliament did not approve and confirm it they themselves would call another nay a third and a fourth till it should be at length established by Publick Consent But the Republicans stood stiff to the contrary making answer That the Government was usurped by Craft and Force not procured by Right nor confirmed by the Free Votes of the People that it laid Snares for the Liberty of the Commonwealth and made way for a most grievous Tyranny One amongst the rest in the heat of the Debate was so bold as to say That since they were approaching so near to Monarchy it were better to call one of the Royal Family to the Government than that Cromwell should usurp the Scepter and Crown Cromwell being informed of these Debates comes in great rage to the Parliament and tells them to this effect That they were not called together that they might confound and turn all things again into the former Chaos but that they should build upon the Foundation and Ground-work already laid down and not to be altered That his Authority could not be called in question unless at the same time they invalidated their own Power since the present Parliament was called by him and by him had liberty to consult That he alone had the Right of setling Fundamentals upon which they had power to raise and beautifie Superstructures That he was resolved to maintain the Government and Supreme Power in a Single Person to call a Parliament once in Three years not to sit above Five months without his Consent c. That to violate or innovate these things should neither be in the Power of the Protector nor Parliament That in other things they might consult and enact as they pleased for the Publick Good But because Admonition might not be sufficient he thinks fit to apply Force Next day a Guard of Soldiers being set before the Door of the House no Man was suffered to enter unless he signed the following Recognition I shall be faithful to the Lord Protector and shall not endeavour to change the Government of a Single Person Many who could not swallow that Bit are debarred from the Privilege of Sitting Nevertheless so many Republicans took the Recognition as made the Cromwellian Faction and Republican almost equal some who underhand favoured the King joyning themselves to each Side enflaming Animosities and as much as might be setting the Parties who seriously treated these Affairs at greater variance Insomuch that after five Months continual jangling and debate Cromwell was not able to bring his Affairs to any good issue in this Parliament Nor do the Republican Spirits onely prevail in the Parliament but also in the Army For these consult and plot together how they might apprehend Cromwell and bring him before the Parliament to be accused and condemned of Treason thinking with themselves that if they could lay Hands upon him and make him Prisoner there would be a sudden change of Affairs and that his Favourers and Adherents being thereby baulked would sculk and shift for themselves The truth is the Officers of Three thousand Horse and of no inconsiderable number of Foot frequently met in Somerset-house and elsewhere about the contriving and carrying on of that Design But before the Matter came to maturity by the Treachery of Pride it came to Cromwell's Ears who by a hasty Dissolution of the Parliament prevented all those Machinations and disbanded those Officers In the mean time Cromwell having received a splendid Embassie from Sueden with equal Magnificence he concluded a Peace with that Crown and dismissed the Embassadors with hopes of a nearer Alliance He makes Peace also with France and promises to send over Assistance thither if the Affairs of England would permit him But all this while the specious Pretext of Supreme Authority was wanting to these Attempts The Parliament had denied their Collective Votes to make that up therefore it remains that the Distributive Votes of all the People be had and that the Officers break the Ice Wherefore Gratulatory Petitions or Addresses are sent by the Commanders of the several Regiments of the Army in Scotland whereby they thank the Lord Protector for having changed the Form of Publick Government to the better They pray him to go on in the discharge of that Province which by Providence he hath undertaken promising with their Lives and Fortunes to maintain and defend him in all difficulties But amongst the English Officers there was a necessity of a wheadling Pretext to wit That the Malignants and Enemies of the Country now triumphed as if the Army breaking into Discords and Divisions would presently renounce their General Cromwell That therefore a Petition of that nature must needs be framed wherein by applauding the Protector they would convince those that were of a contrary Opinion With much ado he obtained that amongst the Republicans but at length some refusing to sign it as venturing rather Cromwell's Displeasure and Revenge than by a sneaking Compliance to betray the
would produce a durable obedience The Colonels of Fleetwood's Army at London despising the Authority of the Rump more haughtily demanded the same thing But the cunninger Members smelt afar off these Camp-designes of the Officers well foreseeing what these Councils drove at at long run And this made them fret rage and threaten Haselrigg a hot-headed man and a great Stickler formerly in the War now no less concerned in the Faction of the Democraticks lays it out confidently That the Authority of the Parliament was a precacious thing that Lambert following Cromwel 's steps endeavoured alterations and that his modesty at long run would prove but a Decoy to easie Fleetwood or to this purpose In the mean time the Army was divided into two Factions The far greater part were for giving Laws to the Parliament though the rest submitted to their Authority And this so netled the Members that they could not endure the insolence of the Souldiers but come on 't what would they resolved to vindicate their supreme Authority and not to suffer any Power in the Army above their own Thus venturing upon a revenge whilst the Scales were as yet a turning if the Colonels intended to use force they resolved to leave the Traytors a poor Game to play and discharge the publick from paying any Taxations by passing a Vote That no money shall be raised without consent of the Parliament and that he who did to the contrary should be guilty of High-Treason against the Commonwealth And this seeing the Army wanted money was the neck-break of the Colonels Nor could any thing content the discontented Rump but the debarting of some of the boldest Colonels disbanded to wit Lambert Desborough Berry Kelsey Ashfield Cobbet Crede Packer and Barrow In the mean time the Rump appoints a Supreme Council of War over the Army without any name of a General consisting of Fleetwood Monk Haselrigg Ludlow Walton Morley and Overton the Souldiers in the mean time laughing in their sleeve at the vain and impotent anger of the Members For Lambert and the rest of the cashered Colonels upon mature deliberation resolved That seeing their interest and authority was still in force in the Army they would take the Field persist in their Resolutions and if it came to a push try the fidelity of the Souldiers And because they found by experience that Richard lost all by delaying they resolved to hasten their Undertaking The Rump in the mean time had intelligence of the violent designs of the Colonels and seeing hands were more necessary than heads Moss and Morley's Regiments are ordered next day to keep guard in Westminster The same morning Lambert with undaunted boldness and a strong body pickt out of the Forces that were best affected towards him hastens into the old Palace-yard and before the Members were come set Guards upon all the entries into the House Lambert stops the Speaker Lenthall coming out of his Coach and attended by a Troop of Guards and presently changing the Captain sends him back again into the City more like a Prisoner than a Speaker of the House and so with little ado he terrified and dispersed the rest of the Knaves And now Moss and Morley's Regiments guarding the silent and empty House are themselves beset by Lambert Both Parties looked big and seemed ready to come to blows but the night approaching they drew off without bloud whilst the Rump and Colonels full of anger and hatred mutually reproached each other and justly too with Treachery Villany and Tyranny But the Rump being now sent packing and the Parliament-doors shut the Officers of the Army became no less inconstant Masters and Ficklers in ruling than they had been in obeying Next morning a great confluence of Colonels met in Wallingford-house to consult about setling the Government and having first modelled the Army as being more considerable than the Commonwealth by unanimous consent they appoint Fleetwood to be General Lambert Lieutenant-General and Desborough heretofore a blunt Country-clown Major-General of the Horse The Supreme Power in Civil Affairs was committed to three and twenty Vane Fleetwood Ludlow and the rest of that odious Crew too long to be named whom they were pleased by a new and unheard-of Title to call the Committee of Safety Thus having erected a new Scheme of Government at London they disperse themselves into all places endeavouring to secure themselves by associated Villany Barrow they send to Ireland Cobbet to Scotland allure the Forces abroad into their Party but all in vain For the Army in Ireland whilst Ludlow was at London declared for the Rump Parliament Monk in the mean time writing to Fleetwood and Lambert sharply taxes the Army in England with Treachery and Ambition of governing and professes also that for the future he 'll stand by the Parliament refuses to admit of Cobbet as an Embassadour but commits him to custody as a Traytor Monk in the mean time being as yet uncertain what to do had many anxious thoughts He foresaw indeed greater security under the Rump but if the Army in England had the better on 't inevitable ruine having long ago had experience of the hatred of Lambert and Fleetwood though disguised in their looks And besides the usual competition in rule they were also looked upon as men of different humours and manners Monk was for a plain and modest Religion but they turbulent and violent in their pernicious Heresie Wherefore seriously weighing with himself the strength of the English Army on the one hand and on the other the weakness of his own Forces the perfidiousness of many of the Officers and the fickleness of the Souldiers he thought still that he might do better in War than in Peace and so having resolved against the worst he hastened his march into England When he had consulted about these things with his most intimate Friends at Delkeith he goes to Edinborough and there in a full Council of Colonels he represents the new Troubles of England How that the Parliament was turned out of doors by the Officers in England without any provocation but through levity and an ambition of governing That the London Colonels having attempted many bad things resolved not onely to bear rule over their own but the Forces abroad also That it would be disgraceful to them to submit to the Commands of another Army That he himself was a General neither inferiour to Fleetwood nor Lambert nor was the Army of Scotland that had outlived so many Battels less to be accounted than that of England That therefore he was firmly resolved to march into England to revenge the Right and Honour of the Parliament that the Authority might remain in their hands who gave them their Pay and Rewards When with much authority and greatness of mind which do better than eloquence in a Souldier he had spoken to this purpose the Souldiers were inflamed with Zeal and Resolution
for money and that the Souldiers might be paid by the spoils of the State Lambert's forces are imperiously commanded back to their Garrisons and forthwith to leave the Field upon pain of disobeying the Supreme Power and forfeiting their Duty And at the same time news was brought to Monk's Camp that the Committee of Safety was broken and the Rump again in power What could Lambert now between hawk and buzzard do he was forsaken by Fortune deluded by Fleetwood's confidence over-reached by Monk under a colour of Peace and despised by the Rump Should he return to London it was a long and difficult march and perhaps as late for the succour of his friends as dangerous to himself having such an Enemy in the rear Should he engage Monk in a Country improper for Horse the ground being covered over with Ice and Snow it would be very uncertain if not in vain since in the dead of Winter his Horse could do no feats What to do he could not tell Nor were Lambert's men truer to their Trust than Fleetwood's had been at London for so soon as they heard of the defection of the London-Regiments basely without consulting their General nay and slighting his authority they submit to the Rump Few now were to be seen at Lambert's door and fewer within nothing but silence and seldom any Guards He was no more General nor cause of the War but where he hoped for Laurel and Triumph he was fain to search a hiding place so that without any attendance he speedily and secretly betook himself to London So fallacious and uncertain a thing is Power when it is too great A certain kind of Triumviral Power now exerted it self in Britain under Monk Fleetwood and Lambert not much unlike to that Roman Triumvirat of Caesar Pompey and Crassus With almost the same gallantry Monk behaved himself in Scotland as Caesar heretofore governed in Gallia but out of their Governments Monk out-did Caesar for the Roman being come into the City offered violence to the Senate and unjustly usurped the Dictatorship The other entering London under colour of restoring the Parliament by a rare instance of Loyalty and Modesty restored the King Nor were the emulous and competing Crassus and Pompey more sollicitous in drawing in Caesar than Fleetwood and Lambert were in endeavouring to associate Monk into the Government for though they contributed their mutual assistance in overturning the Rump-Parliament yet it is certain they hardly conspired in any thing but in the fear that both of them had of Monk Fleetwood was jealous of Lambert's ambition and Lambert could not brook Fleetwood's authority the one could not admit of an Equal nor the other of a Superiour Monk therefore was courted by Letters from both as having it in his power to give the Government to what Party he pleased Nor could Fleetwood have expected better Conditions from Lambert had he prevailed against Monk which those who favoured Fleetwood in his Army perceiving avoiding all opportunity of fighting with Monk lest Lambert perchance getting the victory might turn out his Rival Fleetwood Lambert can hardly be compared to Pompey unless it be in boundless ambition and the unhappy issue thereof and Fleetwood not at all to Crassus But without doubt it was the interest of the Publick that both were undone seeing Monk getting the better restored at length Britain to it self Lambert's Forces in all places having either run away or submitted Monk divides his Army and under his own and Morgan's conduct marches streight to London a march that will be famous in all future Ages and memorable to Posterity On New-years-day having sent before the Foot he moved from Caldstream and the day after he himself followed with the Horse and took his Quarters at Wellar the next day when he was come to Morpet he received Letters from the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen of London sent by the City Sword-bearer wherein they earnestly entreat him That according to the great Trust and Power he had having now found an occasion than which Providence had never offered a greater he would relieve the distressed State and call a new and full Parliament as the onely support of their tottering Country freely offering him the assistance and concurrence of the City in the affair And now on the fourth of January Monk having marched his Army over desert Mountains in deep Winter-Snow arrived at Newcastle and the day following sets forward to Durham from thence directing his march to York near Allerton he was honourably received by the Sheriff of the County Being next day come to York he was met by a multitude of Citizens and Persons of Quality and by them splendidly conducted into the City Having performed so great a march in so short a time he rested here five days either that he might let the news of his coming flie before him to London or that having allowed some time he might by his Agents of whom he had a great many in the City be early informed of the Councils of the Rump and inclinations of the Citizens Here Monk met with Fairfax a famous Souldier and his old Companion in the Wars who now following his own humour had risen in Arms against Lambert and was with no contemptible Forces but far greater reputation come over to the right side being now with more honour an Enemy than he had heretofore been General of the same Army During this stay at York Monk received into his service some Regiments of Lambert's Army having changed the Colonels and Officers and no Enemy now appearing anywhere he mustered his Army and sent back part of it under the command of Morgan into Scotland He himself with four thousand Foot and eighteen hundred Horse marches forwards towards London Such was the Army of Monk the least and yet most renowned body of men that ever marched through England which being hardly a third part in number to the enemy buoyed up the fate of tottering Britain and the fortune of Charles the Second The Army marching from hence and being come to Nottingham he was met by Clarges who came post from London a man deservedly of great interest and authority with him He secretly informed him of the designes of the Rump the strength of the City-Forces the suspicions and jealousies of the Sectarians and that the hopes of the Citizens depended wholly on him Upon his march he was met at Leicester and congratulated by Scot and Robinson Commissioners from the Rump upon pretext of doing honour to the General and civilly waiting upon him in his march but in reality as Spies to dive into his secrets and diligently to observe his words and actions Nor was Monk less circumspect but being a great concealer of his thoughts and sparing in words accommodating all his discourse to occasion and shewing the Commissioners all imaginable respect in the Army he confirmed them in the opinion of his sincerity In this long and
Parl. should adhere The flight of the Members of Parl. is approved The Rebels having got the power into their hands forget the K. some being for an Oligarchy and others for Democraty All conspire against Monarchy and the K. Whose murder they plot some privately Others by a Council of War Some under pretext of a Parliamentary Authority To which they make way gradually sending Propositions to the K. with a pretence of peace but in reality to find a cause of accusing him Which though the Commanders of the Army had procured in Parl. yet in the Camp they perswade the K. not to condescend to them The K. makes answer to the Parl. proposals Appeals to the Demands of the Army as more conducing to peace Where at Cromwel and the Commanders seem to rejoyce But from thence labour to incense the rest of the Members against him They juggle with the K. putting him by turns in hope and fear At which his Majesty being moved makes his escape to the Isle of Wight From thence he speedily writes to the Parl. sending also Concessions Vpon which he demands a Treaty with the Parl. Thus the Rebels oppose and take occasion of asking Demands preliminary to the Treaty Which the Scots oppose both in Parl. and before the King The King answers Is confined to close imprisonment The Oligarchick Commanders reduce the Democraticks to order and restore Military Discipline They openly rail against the King And pass a Vote of none Addresses to the King But surreptitiously in the Lower House By force and threats in the Vpper House Cromwel excuses himself of perfidiousness They publish a Declaration Which they stuff with all the Calumnies they can against the King They command it to be read publickly by the Ministers in all Parish-Churches And sooth them with promises that they may commâ—nd it in their sermons They endeavour by their Emissaries to procure gratulatory Petitions The K. Majesty is justified by many Apologies The Parsons coldly execute their orders very few congratulate All the people grumble and fret Many petition for a personal Treaty with the King The Rebels in vain opposing it ☜ First were the Essex-men Next those of Surrey who are abused by the Souldiers But nevertheless more Petitions come from other Counties And the Kentish and Essex men with several others being repulsed betake themselves to Arms. The Fleet also falls off from the Parl. The Scots rise in arms for delivering the K. out of prison The English are overcome by the enemy And the Scots Hamilton the General being taken The ships prepare to make a defection from the Prince matters succeeding ill at Land The Parl. in the mean time think of making peace The Act of None Addresses is rescinded They appoint a Conference with the K. by Commissioner in the Isle of Wight No notice taken of the Scots To what Conditions the Commissioners are tyed The Conference to be held at Newport The K. is allowed his necessary servants The K.'s wonderful prudence in the Conference In the middle of the Treaty the Parliamentarians require that the Marquess of Ormond's Commission be recalled The K.'s Answers are censured in Parl. The K. unexpectedly granted many things * There is no mension of the Court of Wards in these Articles thô it is expressed both here and in Baker's Chronicle and perhaps was thought of after these Articles were printed The K. makes some Proposals To which the Parl. in a great part consent The promising hoâ—es of Peace Are disappointed by the Rebels In what manner The Commanders of the Army pretend to be pleased with Peace They stir up the common Souldiers against it and to destroy the King The souldiers are drawn together near London Ireton makes a Remonstrance against the Peace And that in name of the Army The Army being called together And a Fast appointed ☞ Which was often abused by them It is read and approved And presented to the Parl. in name of the Army and People Nevertheless the Lower House persists in considering of the Kings Concessions at which the Commanders of the Army are angry and carry the K. away from the Isle of Wight They march to London and post themselves about the Parliament-house Yet the Members meet And debate about the Kings Concessions They vote them to be a sufficient ground for a Peace The House of Lords agreeing to it This incensed the Oligarchick Rebels The Commanders of the Army beset the Parl. house imprison many Members debar others from entering Some they carry away by force out of the House And abuse the Captives The Oligarchick Faction to the number of about forty men snatches the Authority Who are still over-ruled by the souldiers They enact concerning the highest affairs and of bringing the King to a tryal They confirm the Votes of None Addresses and rescind that concerning a Conference with the King They pass Votes preliminary to the Kings murder * M. Horatius Cons of Rome caused a Law to pass Ut quod tributim plebes jussisset populum teneret that is That what Laws or Orders the Com-Counc or Tribes of Rome should make should oblige the body of the Common-wealth by which the Senate Nobility lost their power way was made for the turning that State into a Democracy to the ruine of it Liv. l. 3. c. 55 They erect a Trib. of subjects against the K. And appoint 150 Judges of their own Faction to do the fact Some Nobles and Judges also Commanders of the Army Members of the House of Com. Mechanicks Bankrupts All obnoxious men The Vpper H. is slighted But the Republicans send them their Bills to be confirmed They are rejected as hurtful and unlawful Wherefore the Lords are dashâ— out of the number of the Kings Judges And the Judges of the Kingdom as contrary to their Bill They chuse a President of the Court And an Attorney-General In the mean time the Presbyterian Ministers cry out against it The Scots also protest against it The States General intercede English Loâ—ds offer themâ—ves Hostages for the King The whole People rages Burghill lies in wait for Bradshaw But in vain and with danger of his life But all attempts are in vain Peters from the Pulpit encouraging the Judges Accusers and Witnesses against the K. are cited by a Herald The King is brought to the Bar. Is indicted in name of the People of England The Lady Fairfax publickly contradicting it He calls into question the Authority of the Court. Which the President affirming to be derived from the People that chuse the King the King denies it * But then that neither one nor both the Houses nor any other Tribunal upon Earth had any power to judge the King of England much less a parcel of pack'd Judges of the Lower House who were masked onely with the oppressed power of that Court. The King is again and a third time brought to the bar And being about to alleadge Reasons against the Authority of the Court The President