Selected quad for the lemma: daughter_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A50910
|
The life and reigne of King Charls, or, The pseudo-martyr discovered with a late reply to an invective remonstrance against the Parliament and present government : together with some animadversions on the strange contrariety between the late Kings publick declarations ... compared with his private letters, and other of his expresses not hitherto taken into common observation.
|
Milton, John, 1608-1674.
|
1651
(1651)
|
Wing M2127; ESTC R12978
|
91,060
|
258
|
THE LIFE AND REIGNE OF King CHARLS Or the Pseudo-Martyr discovered With a late Reply to an Invective Remonstrance against the Parliament and present Government Together with some Animadversions on the strange contrariety between the late Kings publick Declarations Protestations Imprecations and his Pourtracture compared with his private Letters and other of his Expresses not hitherto taken into common Observation Istud est sapere non solùm ea quae ante Pedes videre sed futura prospicere Seneca London Printed for W. Reybold at the signe of the Unicorn in Pauls Church-yard 1651. The Preface TO write the Lives of Princes in another world and fallen through their owne frailties or by the influence of others counsells from the high pitch of Soveraignty for regality is a slippery precipice in charity may be allowed a faire and favourable memoriall but for a King falling by the high hand of Justice not for common faults and frailties incident to humane nature but presumptuous sins sins of lood perfidie cruelty rapine wilfully perpetrated in the face of God and man and without any remorse to pursue the destruction not of one but three flourishing Kingdoms such desperate and violent Princes deserve no other favour than to be set out to the life of their Tyrannous actions though in pitty to him who hath already paid his debt to Nature and his offences much of his exorbitant government and irregular motions might and doubtlesse would have been concealed more tenderly intreated and himselfe sufferered to rest where he is in the silent grave had not that madnesse of his defeated surviving party by their indefatigable instigations given frequent occasion of taking over the ashes of him who living without injury to truth and his memory it may be said that rather than to have failed in the accomplishing of his designs had it layn in in his power he would have set the World on fire It was an unhappy and no iningenious expression of him who hath written it That there were a sort of men borne to the world not so suffer it to be at rest a sentence not more true than made good in this most unhappy King had this been put in addition neither himselfe to take his owne rest and sleep as he could not quietly and peaceably like other men I am not ignorant what senslesse maxims and ridiculous principles have gotten credit in the World as undoubted Oracles indisputably to be obeyed as that de mortuis nil nisi bona but by no means to tread on the sacred Urne of Princes though living never so vicious and exorbitant as if death had bequeathed unto them a supersedeas for the covering over their faults and licencious reignes and to close them up in the Coffin of Oblivion with a ne plus ultra not to admit of the least mention that they had done amisse when many thousands of oppressed and desolated families must stand mute whilest the malicious partizans of an irregular King take a liberty to themselves to vindicate his indefensible actions and not so content but asperse and scandalise those that opposed him in his cruelties and likewise would perswade others to adore him for a Saint and an innocent martyr whose Fathers Brothers and Friends have been most barbarously slain to fulfill the lust and pleasure of one wilfull man if to speake truth in due season or to be the faithfull witnesse to convey the verity of things past to the present and after times be a crime unpardonable or an injustice done to the memory of the dead the Malignant generation of this age may on the same reason charge it as a fault on those holy and inspired pen-men of the sacred Scriptures which have recorded and left to after ages the wicked reignes of Kings leaving an everlasting staine and taint on their memories how prophane would it be to tax that holy man the meekest of men Moses for leaving to posterity the fratricide of Cayne the mockery of that wicked Cam what madnesse to accuse Samuel and the Authors of the Chronicles of the Kings of Iuda and Israel in leaving to after ages the Tyranny of Saul in murthering at once eighty of Gods priests that presumptuous sin and perfidious fact of David in plotting the death of Vriah that he might enjoy his Wife which lay in his bosome Rehoboams Tyrannies the Cruelties and Idolatries of Ieroboam who stands branded as the Sonne of Nebat which made Israel to sin with what face can it be imputed as an incharity to Tacitus Livy Florus and others of the Roman Historians for inserting in their histories the rape of Lucretia by that Tyrant Tarquin the Tyrannies of Tiberius and his privado Scianus those of Nero that Monster of Princes and the condemnation of him by the Senate To omit Forraign examples what offence in reason can be charged on Matthew Paris Hoâ—eden Sir Th. Moor Daniell and infinite others of our owne Historians for describing the vices and tyrannies of our owne Kings both ancient and moderne What injury have they committed in their Registers in setting downe that William the first of our Norman Kings was a known Bastard of Robert Duke of Normandy an usurper and from which spurious root all our Kings since his usurpation derive their deified titles and that most of his descendants ruled tyrannically and that amongst them all King Iohn was one of the most subtill persideous and bloody Princes that history hath afforded That Henry the third his sonne admitted by the indulgence of the Barons and People in hopes of his better Government proved as oppressive and bloody to the Nation as any of the rest That Richard the third in murthering his Brothers sonnes and usurping the Crowne was more wicked than the worst That Henry the seventh was the descendant of a Bastard sonne of Iohn of Gaunt begotten on Catherine Swinford another mans Wife though legitimated by act of Parliament yet had no other title to the Crowne but that of his Sword That six of his descendants and of our last Princes claym their rights to the Crowne from his spurious stock as if it had been in the fate of the English Nation to be perpetually chaind up to the irregular domination of a race of Kings transmitted from one bastardized roote to another That Henry the eighth was a most imperious and bloody prince the pattern and Idea of all Tyranny and one that neither spared any man in his wrath or woman in his lust That his daughter Queen Mary was the spurious issue begotten on Catherine of Austria his elder brother Arthurs Wife that Alecto superstitious and bloody Princesse That King Iames and our late King Charls were discendants from the same Stock of Henry of Richmond the one who most of all our Kings secretly cunningly and underhand indeavoured and laid the plot to undermine the freedoms of the english nation and King Charls to have followed the design with more plots wiles and stratagems than any of our former
Iames the fifth had the fortune to dye of a naturall death but as to his onely Daughter Queen Mary and mother 〈◊〉 King Iames the sixt it is manifestly knowne that she caused Henry Lord Darnley her second Husband to be cruelly murthered and only to make way to her third Marriage with Earl Bothwell her Paramour whom the States banished and shortly after call'd her to accompt for her Husbands murther and for that fact and other conspiracies against the State by the Votes of the major part of the Peeres and Commons in Parliament she was adjudged to die whereupon she fled into England where contriving sundry plots with the Papists and the Duke of Norfolke against Queen Elizabeth and restlesse in her ambitious contrivements to dispossesse the Queen Regnant of the Crowne you know to what end she came at Fodringay where we may safely believe that Gods just judgments overtook her when she little dream't to have dyed at the block what since became of her only Sonne King Iames and his two sonnes Prince Henry and our last King Charls though the manner of the two first deathes are still held in dispute yet we all know to what a fatall end the last came even at his own Gates and in the same place where the first blood was spilt by his own servants the Cavaleers pardon me then If I present you with an opinion of my own which I am confident is an infallible verity that allmighty God in his justice suffers not any man to come to a prodigious end but for such sinnes by him committed as are equivalent to that sin for which he suffered it is Gods own Oracle an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and he that kils by the Sword by the same weapon or the like he shal surely dye for a conclusion take this as a knowne truth to all the Nation that both the late Kings as they were naturall Scots very rarely loved an English man sure we are not the Nation in generall and that very seldome either of them admitted any of the English into their Bed-chambers for generally they were all Scots neither took they any of the English Buckingham excepted into their secrets and as their privadoes untill Strafford was taken into our last Kings favour but no otherwise than as a meer States-man and a bold instrument to act any thing conducible his Masters designs and such projects which were suitable to his endeavours and inclinations otherwise I never knew any that were fit servants for him and it is most certaine that both the Father and the Sonne laid more subtill and cunning snares to insnare the English Nation than all of the Norman race before them the Father to have laid the foundation and the Sonne to build up the whole fabrick of absolute Soveraignty as insensibly at first and from the beginning of their reigns as possibly their designs could permit but King Charls towards his last and long before the Warres began openly and shortly thereupon in hostility and with morter tempered with more English blood than ever hath been so wilfully and profusely spilt by any one Tyrant in the World and for what cause and on what grounds I beseech you tell me more than for the Nug◠and idle fictions of a divine prerogative and to rule alone without other Law than his owne Will and without accompt to any but to God alone they are both the Fathers and the Sonnes owne Maxims just Tyrant-like quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem and yet which is the mystery and the wonder of the times is this wilfull King cryed up by his many partizans for the onely paragon of Princes and that which is of more admiration his Protestations in the common belief preferred and credited before his visible actions and Cabinet Letters which if men were not besotted I am sure best of all other evidences layes open the most hidden secrets of the heart But it is most certaine that before and a long space after the battle at Edgehill he refused all overtures of Peace though t is confest he made many motions for Peace to the Parliament but ever no other than on such disadvantagious terms as were utterly unfit for the Parliaments embrasure and the Kingdomrs security for we find them evermore accompanied with such restrictions reservations and ambignous conditions howsoever gilded over with plausible pretences that the Parliament at length durst not either trust him or any of his specious Declarations as in the observations on the Reliquiae Carolinae are manifested for it is most true that as soon as he had attracted a very considerable Army to his assistance by his artifices and the severall visits and the orations he made to the respective Sheriffes and Gentry before and after the setting up of his Standerd of the Counties of Yorke Lincolne Nottingham Leicester Chester Stafford Denby Flint Salop Oxford and Berks wherein he neither spared any pains or travel or lost a minute of time both to deceive and win the people to his cause and 't is evident that he had not onely written his particular Letters to most of the prime Gentlemen of the Kingdome to side with him but had sent his peremptory commands to most of the Colonells of the Parliaments Army sent into Ireland for the assistance of the distressed Protestants to repair to his ayde against the Parliament a treachery and a testimony beyond all others of the falsenesse of his heart considered as hereafter it shall be made more apparent unto you with the seeming zeal and care he pretended to bear to those poor Irish Protestants It is worth your further observation that this most unfortunate Prince having so often accustomed himselfe to fraud and dissimulation that it came at last to this sad issue that all his after Messages and Overtures made to the Parliament in the declination of his power and after he was a Prisoner though happily more really intended than formerly and atested with exceeding specious plausible Protestations some of them confirmed with his wonted Imprecations were not beleeved but suspected for fallacious so long had this most unhappy King like the Flie that playes with the flame which comes in the end to burn himself out of his own fury such power had his will and naturall inclinations over his reason where you may take an instance or two in the way for a proofe thereof When he first raised his Army at York for which he endeavours to flam off the Parliament that those forces were onely raised as a guard for the security of his Person and to confirme this he caused divers of the Fugitive Lords then attending him shamefully to attest that he had no intent thereby to levy War against the Parliament when immediately thereupon he began to march and to run from place to place as before is noted to raise more force and that which is most perfidious after he had erected his Standard at Nottingham he continued