so many Martyrs in this Kingdom to which glory and Crown far above all his other Diadems this Defender of the Faith was through so many future hazards to aspire And the better to clear his innocency from those malicious aspersions it suffered under though the Sun at noon-day never was brighter or clearer than his entire profession of the Protestant Religion of his being in heart a Papist his Majesty being at Christ-Church in Oxford in 1643 and prepared to receive the Sacrament from the hands of the Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh used these publick expressions just before the receiving of the blessed Elements My Lord I Espy here many resolved Protestants who may declare to the World the resolution I now do make I have to the utmost of my power prepared my Soul to become a worthy receiver and so may I receive comfort by the blessed Sacrament as I do intend the establishment of the true Protestant Religion as it stood in its beauty in the happy dayes of Queen Elizabeth without any connivance of Popery I bless God that in the midst of these publick distractions I have still liberty to communicate and may this Sacrament be my damnation if my heart do not joyn with my lips in this Protestation But even this most sacred asseveration and then which nothing can more oblige belief and confidence was by these profaners of all holy things rejected and slighted and measured by their own perjurious Oaths and Covenants wherefore the King to undeceive the Forein Reformed Churches since he could not convince his own Subjects with whom their Emissaries had tampered and insinuated the same detestable falshood and who seemed to be otherwise affected to this their noble Defender than their duty required in those his times of affliction published a Declaration in Latin and sent it abroad the tenour whereof being of main concernment to our purpose is in English as followeth CHARLES by the special Providence of Almighty God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith To all those who profess the true reformed Protestant Religion of what Nation condition and degree soever they be to whom this present Declaration shall come Greeting Whereas we are given to understand that many false Rumours and scandalous Letters are spread up and down amongst the Reformed Churches in Forein parts by the politick or rather the pernicious industry of some ill affected persons that we have an inclination to recede from that Orthodox Religion which we were born baptized and bred in and which we have firmly professed and practised through the whole course of our life to this moment and that we intend to give way to the introduction and publick exercise of Popery again in our Dominions which conjecture or rather most detestable calumny being grounded upon no imaginable foundation hath raised these horrid Tumults and more than barbarous Wars throughout these flourishing Islands under pretext of a kind of Reformation which would not prove only incongruous but incompatible with the Fundamental Laws and Government of this our Kingdom We desire that the whole Christian World should take notice and rest assured that we never entertained in our imagination the least thought to attempt such a thing or to depart a jot from that Holy Religion which when we received the Crown and Scepter of this Kingdom we took a most solemn Sacramental Oath to profess and protect Nor doth our most constant practise and daily visible presence in the exercise of this sole Riligion with so many asseverations in the head of our Armies and the publick attestation of our Lords with the circumspection used in the education of our Royal Off-spring besides divers other undeniable Arguments only demonstrate this but also that happy alliance of mariage we contracted between our eldest Daughter and the illustrious Prince of Aurange most clearly confirms the reality of our Intentions herein By which nuptial engagement it appears further that our endeavours are not only to make a bare profession thereof in our own Dominions but to enlarge and corroborate it abroad as much as lieth in our power This most Holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy thereof we solemnly protest that by the help of Almighty God we will endeavour to our utmost power and last period of our life to keep entire and immovable and will be careful according to our Duty to Heaven and the tenour of the aforesaid most sacred Oath at our Coronation that all our Ecclesiasticks in their several stations and incumbencies shall preach and practise the same This came very seasonably into the World as to the Protestant part of it who never imagined or thought Subjects of their perswasion would take up Arms or resist without some grievous alteration in Religion though they condemn it in any case whatsoever and therefore the Protestant States abroad did wholly decline their owning of them though they did nothing positively for the Kings assistance which by this means he could not rationally promise to himself from the Catholick Princes who would not engage without some great advantages for his Popish Subjects against which his Majesty was so religiously resolved though he were most dutifully and cordially served by them throughout the War To resume our narrative the Kingdom was all in a flame the Sectaries every where finding Friends to their specious Cause and having the City of London for their inexhaustible Magazine and supplies of men money and Arms. Divers fields were fought in the chief whereof the King himself was personally present with various success till the year 1645 where at Naseby he received that fatal overthrow which ushered in so many succeeding calamities most unworthy of his great virtues and piety I cannot but observe before I come to repeat the perpetration of all their complicated mischief in his murder how gradually his enemies forsook their allegiance and how the paint of their religious and loyal pretences wore off by time which will leave their fair-faced impiety indelible First their General must go fight with the Kings Army and rescue him from his evil Councellors but preserve his Person this Riddle was resolved in my Lord Fairfaxes Commission when they had so far engaged their partakers that there was no way of receding from those dangerous courses where there was not such a word but kill and slay without exception During the War all their importunate desires were that he would be graciously pleased to disband his Army and return to his most dutiful Subjects at Westminster afterwards towards the expiration of the War when he urged what they had so vehemently obtested they were most ungraciously displeased at the proposal and so proceeded in conclusion to that heighth of impiety as Tacitus speaks of another cursed caytiffe Ferox scelerum quia prima provenerant their successe in one wickednesse provoking them to more For the King being every where worsted and besieged in his Chief Garrison the University of Oxford was advised and resolved to cast
the Church of England I have no negative Religion believing to be saved by the onely merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ putting off his Hat and whatsoever else is profest in the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England authorized by Law humbly beseeching Almighty God to restore unto this Church her Peace Prosperity and Patrimony whereof I have been an obedient and a loving however an unworthy Son And now both my Hope being confident and my Faith perfected there remains onely Christian Charity Charity we carry into heaven Charitie on Earth and that I leave beseeching all whomsoever I have offended whether I have or no to forgive me as I from the bottom of my heart do them whomsoever blessing Almighty God for the happy advantage he takes to bring me nearer to heaven blessing Almighty God that he hath given me this advantage as he hath been merciful to me before the foundation of the world in my Saviour so that now he hath in mercy honoured me with suffering for his Name in obedience to his Commandment On this day seven night I was summon'd before that Justice which condemned me on Friday last praised be Almightie God that by this way he hath brought me the nearer to himself putting off his hat My Charge I presume is publick as my punishment is visible if there have been any thing in the management of my part being unskilful having discontinued my own Countrie many years I shall beseech the Christian charity of all you my beloved Country-men to impute it unto the right part the ignorance that is in this skilful way of managing It was objected unto me there that I had a vanitie of delighting in strange Tongues I was best skill'd in the Italian but free from that vanity I thank Almightie God and therefore I would in defence of my life if it had been the Custom here or the Judges favour have used that Language It was objected That I did not so freely as a thorow-paced Cavalier own my Master I was told since I came into England for other skill I have not in your Laws that a legal Denial in Law might be tolerable I hope I did not exceed the bounds of that in any thing for God forbid that I should be ashamed of serving so good so pious so just a Master putting off his hat for that I therein rejoyce and I humbly beseech Almightie God to fill my heart and my tongue and all that hear me this day with thankfulness for it As to the business that another construction had been made and believed here then what was there the righteous God knoweth it if any weakness was in the management that was mine I was sent to serve and protect not to in jure any and as God acquits me of the intention in matter of Fact as having done any manner of evil that way however here understood blessed be his holy Name putting off his hat so those Gentlemen of the Turkey Company if they would seriously consider for they know it very well the impossibilitie of my doing them any manner of harm Whereas that of the Embassie objected against me that my Master never honoured me with all I was never worthy of it I was his Messenger an Internuncia for the conservation only of his good Subjects of all the Merchants until such time as he could confirm that Gentleman now Resident or to send any other and they themselves know that there was impossibility in me as I bless God there was an innocency in me unto any such intention to do them any harm for my Masters Commands were point-blank the contrary I was onely sent for their good as I never owned the Title so the very Letters themselves speaking no other I never did so much as think of any manner of Address unto the Grand Seigniour but gave him the Letter from my Master the rest of the English Nation that were there present may when they please assert so much This I would insert That those Gentlemen as they have been losers by the miscarriages of others may now have no breach of their charity with me but if it be as it seems it is now in this Country a Sin to be Loyal I hope my God hath forgiven that when it is upon harmless employment not invading any according to his just Masters Order for indeed I have bin alwais bred up in that Religion my Allegiance hath been incorporated into my Religion and I have thought it a great part of the service due from me to Almighty God to serve the King putting off his Hat I need not make any Apology for any thing in relation to the present things in England for were I as I spake before my Judges as evil as my Sentence hath made me black it were impossible for me to have prejudiced any body in England or to England belonging in that employment but I bless God for his infinite mercy in Jesus Christ putting off his Hat who hath brought me home to him here in this way it was the best Physick for the curing of my Soul and those that have done it have no more power then that of my body I leave nothing behind me but that I am willing to part withal all that I am going to is desireable And that you may all know that Almighty God hath totally wrought in me a total Denial of my self and that there is that perfect Reformation of me within and of my own corruption by the blessed assistance of his holy Spirit I desire Almighty God in the abundance of the bowels of his mercy in Jesus Christ not only to forgive every Enemy if any such be in the World here or wheresoever but to bring him into his Bosom so much good and particular comfort as he may at any time whether the Cause were just or unjust have wished me any manner of evil for I take him to be the happy instrument of bringing me to Heaven It is tedious but I have an inward comfort I bless Almighty God pray Gentlemen give me leave speaking to some that prest upon him I should never do it but to give satisfaction to all charitable hearts I have been troublesome Sheriff You have your liberty to speak more if you please Sir Henry Hide But as to that part Master Sheriff that did concern the Denial as it was affirmed by Master Attorney General of my Masters employment Truly landing at Whitehall I told that Council there was just Commissions to an old Officer by the blessing of God I have by me and I have other good things that God hath blessed me withall more then all the good Christians in the World that are not the Grand Seigniour's Slaves And we that are Merchants abroad we allow our selves any sufferance that may conduce to our own safety enlargement of Trade or preservation of what is ours Why I had by the grace of my gracious Master a confirmation of my old Commission of Consulage in Greece But
against St. Faith's Door a good and suitable prop to such constant Loyalty which he resolutely maintained to his last and so bravely exposed himself to their bullets Collonel Poyer shot to death in Covent Garden I Cannot deny this Gentleman a room in this Martyrology those that came the eleventh hour shall find entertainment though he was formerly for the Parliament especially because he was mainly concernd in this aforesaid businesse of Pembroke He rendred at mercy and by order of a Council of War drew lots with the other two for his life which fell upon him and thereupon he was shot as aforesaid The execrable and horrid Murther of our late Martyred Soveraign King Charls the First of ever blessed memory I Intend not to write the History of this Pious Prince so excellently and curiously drawn by himself and those who have traced his memorials and remains not taking a far prospect of him which was fair and beautiful and pleasant in the beginning of his Reign but viewing neerer at hand the black and dismal cloud which wrapt up and enveloped his setting glories now by Divine Justice and favour risen again to their full and radiant lustre We shall retrospect no further than the beginning of the Scotch War at which time the Symptomes of a general Rebellion first appeared For what the Scots covertly implyed in their undutiful Papers Declarations and Remonstrances was soon after avowedly insisted on by the prevailing Faction of the long Parliament The King was loaded with an heavy imputation of being led by evil Councellors that their design was to introduce Popery to erect an arbitrary Government as in the businesse of Ship-money Patents and Monopolies That he declined Parliaments as the boundaries of his unlimited Prerogative to the great burden and oppression of his Subjects No sooner therefore had he composed the Scotch War but to take away and remove all jealousie and distrust of him in his People though all along his Reign he had found some popular leading Grandees to be the untractable and unsatisfiable Enemies of his Kingdoms Peace he summoned his last the long Parliament in November 1640 which by a gracious Act of his was not to be dissolved or prorogued without their own consent and if that should so determine a Bill also was signed by him for a Tâ—iennial or perpetual Parliament that so his Subjects might rest confident and assured in the due manage and administration of the Government But these favours gave the Faction no other satisfaction then that they saw they might presume to add other demands and by how much more gracious his Majesty was to them they judged they might be the more impudent towards him in which they failed not a tittle dasiring as their only safety from the danger of the Prerogative the Militia in their own disposal the only defence and the unseparable right of his Crown To attain this they most insolently by their partisans in the City tumult him at his Court at White-hall from which to avoid both the danger and dishonour that rebel rout threatned he was compelled to withdraw to see if by his absence that rage and madnesse might be allayed and the two Houses set at freedom which by his presence was the more enflamed and the Priviledge of Parliament prostituted to the licentious and mad frenzy of the multitude But this afforded them their desired advantage from hence they calumniate the King that since he could not dissolve the Parliament he would invalidate their Authority and render them uselesse and unserviceable to those great ends for which they were called by refusing to concur with them and departing from that his great Council With these and such like suggestions they so filled the minds of men who were predisposed by some former discontents and who had their Authority through some disuse of it in great reverence that every where but especially in London parties were framed intelligencies and correspondencies held Divers Petitions presented in the pursute of these designs to the Parliament offering to stand by them with their lives and fortunes to the attainment of those ends held forth in their Declarations and Resolves which in conclusion were summed up in that unhappy Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom by the Lords and Commons remaining at Westminster divers of both Houses either out of fear of the rabble or conscience of their duty absenting themseves and retired home or followed the King's Fortune who having traversed some ground about London from one of his Royal Palaces to another in hope the distemper would abate and the People return to their reason and obedience together at last finding his hopes frustrated by more unreasonable demands every message to him from the two Houses came burdened with he resolved to go for York and secure his Magazine at Hull But Sr. John Hotham being newly sent thither by the Parliament refused the Kings admittance into that Town unless himself with some few of his retinue would please to enter the King passionately complained of this to the Parliament but with as little redress as his demand of Justice against the Authors of the Tumults this was the Inrroduction to those after violences of his Royal Person and Authority For the Parliament forthwith raised an Army under the command of the Earl of Essex and the County of York humbly professed themselves to the Service of his Majesty whereupon August the 22 1642. he set up his Standard at Nottingham whence after he had marched into Shrewsbury and having raised a considerable Army thereabouts was on his way to London he was overtaken by the Earl of Essex at a place called Edge Hill where ensued a fierce Fight with equal loss on both sides October 23 1642. where God was pleased to cover the Kings head in the day of Battel and permit him to fall by their execrable hands in the time of Peace to which he so often solicitously wooâ—d them In their Generals Commission they had tyed him up with a limitation the preservation of the Kings Person but left their bullets at random A subtil time-serving distinction between the Cannon and the Axe which afterwards they trayterously lifted up against his Annoynted and sacred Head The Parliament to strengthen their Cause treat with the Scots and for the better mutual assurance and to difference their abettors and fautors from the Kings Leige People as well as to lay a baite for all sacrilegious and covetous minded men to invite them to supplies of money in this rebellion enter into a Solemn League and Covenant the main design whereof was the utter extirpation as previous and necessary to the Kings destruction of Episcopacy and the established Government of the Church of England Popery being added also for the greater colour of this engagement against which the King issued forth his Royal Proclamation laying open the mischievous design thereof being resolved to maintain the Religion so long and so happily professed and sealed by the blood of
done formerly So have I seen a windy and stormy day concluding in stilness and Sunshine as if weary and desiting to rest without any breath of trouble The Minister only waiting on him to the last and about five a clock enters the Lieut. of the Tower and the Sheriff of London Two sure friends that will not leave him as long as he hath life remaining in him They told him a sowr message that they were come to conduct him to his death's blow He reply'd they were very welcome and received them so fearlesse and untroubled that the Sheriffe told the Minister He was sorry to see him so ukfit for that condition but under favour he mistook his condition That which he accounted fitness to die our Pamphlet-monger would have called flagging and cowardise So a hard thing it is to satisfy all curiosities even with our blood and nothing more ingenious then to carry this bitter cup even when so many misconstructions shake it At his lodging he desired the Sheriffe that he would permit the Minister and three others that were his friends and servants to go upon the Scaffold with him which as it was seasonable wisdome in him to desire so was it a fortunate kindnesse from them that granted it else it may be their testimony might have been wanting to his injured reputation He took leave particularly on the Houshold where he was as a prisoner and was so clearly collected in every thing he did that he went out of his way into the kitchin to bid his Lanlady farewell giving thanks for her respects during his bonds which he said he should die in to her As he passed by the Guards in the Tower he gave them mony twice and told them he should trouble them no longer being on his remove to better Guards He walked along to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill shewing a great deal both of humility and respect to the people who generally lamented him and prayed for him As he went he was bare-headed for the most part carrying his hat in his hand and sometimes resting it in a carelesse bravery on his left side When he came to or rather leap'd upon the Scaffold for he was so far from flagging when to tread that Tragical stage that many observed how sprightfully he seem'd to skip up the steps to it as if he had gone to dance there rather then to die his grim executioner presented himself to him to whom with a chearfull smile he said Welcome honest friend And desiring to see his Ax he took it into his hands and kissing it with a pretty glance of his eye which was a natural lovelinesse in him towards the Minister he said This will do the deed I warrant it The Scaffold was very much crowded with people yet as well as he could he made some turns to and sro upon it with a paper which he had taken out of his pocket in his hand wherein it seemes he had prepared some heads of a speech which he intended to have delivered but the Sheriff and Lieutenant told him if he spoke any thing it must be very brief and that they must not suffer him to speak any thing that was seditious Well Gentlemen said he your will be done but God be praised I never yet had to do with any thing that was seditious I would fain have spoken something to clear my self to the world according to the custom if it might have been But come Sir saith he turning to the Minister Let you and I speak to him that will give us leave and so kneeling down together in a corner of the stage the Minister pray'd with him a short time which done they stood up again Then turning himself to the people and putting off his hat he told them That he was not permitted to speak a few words according to his intention yet he doubted not but what he would have said would come to their eyes though it must not come to their ears But this I desire all to take notice of and this he spoke with a double vehemence that I die a faithful subject and servant to King Charles the second whom I pray God to bless and râ—store to his rights and had I ten thousand thousand lives I would gladly lay them all down thus for his service Here he was interrupted and the Sheriff wished him rather to confess what he knew concerning the horrid Plot he was condemned for He answered That he had confessed all that he knew concerning any Plot that he thought they knew more of the Plot that condemned him then he did but he heartily forgave them The Minister told him it was well done to forgive and pardon those that persecute us That was an act of true Christian love but as his case stood love was not enough He ought to deal in this business upon which his life lay with all candour and sincerity not concealing any thing of that nature as was charged against him as far as he might glorisie God and serve the publick good Upon which lifting up his eyes towards heaven and laying his hand upon his breast Oh Sir sayes he if there had been any such thing in this breast would I not have revealed it before this time I protest in the sight of Almighty God I know no more of any such design but only what I have often acknowledged that it was motioxed to me by Major Henshaw who I confidently believe is in their hands and debated twice or thrice when I was with him but I never enâ—ertaived it at all and at the last flatly disown'd it and told him I would have nothing to do in it He was many times pressing me to nominate what persons I knew I could bring to have their names but let them shew any such thing if they can against me But I am certain he is in their hands Pawsing here a little and fetching a turn or two upon the Scaffold being very hot as he had baen all that morning he call'd for some small beer which he had given order to be ready and was brought thither in a stone bottle of which he drank a little once or twice Then the Minister went to him and minded him that something might be expected from him as to his Religion and disposition to dye To which gathering up an extraordinary resolution in his face he replyed I dy a Christian a true Christian according to that Faith and Religion which was professed by the Church of England in the time of our late King of blessed memory And I praise God I am so fitted and ready to dye that I am confident by the merits of Christ Jesus that my sins are pardoned and my salvation is at hand Then turning about he called for his wast-cote and cap and throwing off his doublet put them on whilst his servants helped to put up his hair His wast-coat was not very clean which he took notice of to his man but 't is no great matter saith he
us that right which a Gentleman and a Souldier ought to have done I had not now been here The man I forgive with all my heart but truly Gentlemen his protesting against those Articles he himself with so many protestations and importunities put upon us hath drawn so much dishonour and blood upon his head that I fear some heavy judgement will pursue him Though he hath been false to us I pray God I do not prove a true prophet to him Nay I must say more that coming on the road to Exon he the said Captaine Crook told me Sir Joseph Wagstaff was a gallant Gentleman and that he was sorry he was not taken with us that then he might have had the benefit of our ARTICLES but now said he I have beset all the Country for him so that he cannot escape but must be hanged He also questioned me as I passed through Salisbury from London whether he had given me conditions Which I endeavouring to make appear to Major Butler he interrupted me and unwillingly confest saying I profered him four hundred pounds to perform his Articles which had been a strange proffer of mine had I not really conditioned with him And I told him then having found him unworthy I would have given him five hundred pounds believing him to be mercenary To make it yet farther appear I injure him not by stiling him unworthy after these Articles were given he proffered to Pistol me if I did not perswade another house to yeeld which then were boldly resisting To which my servanr John Biby now a prisoner replyed I hope you will not be so unworthy as to break the Law of Arms. Thus much I am obliged to say to the honour of the souldiery that they have been so far from breaking any Articles given to others that they have rather bettered them then otherwise It is now our misfortune to be made presidents and examples together But I will not do the Protector so much injury as to load him with dishonour since I have been informed that he would have made our conditions good if Crook that gave them had not abjur'd them This is not a time for me to enlarge upon any subject since I am now become the Subject of death But since the Articles were drawn by my hand I thought my self obliged to a particular Justification of them I could tell you of some souldiers which are turned out of his Troop for defending those conditions of ours but let that pass and henceforward instead of life liberty and estate which were the Articles agreed upon let drawing hanging and quartering bear the Denomination of Cap. Crooks Articles However I thank the Protector for granting me this honourable death I should now give you an account of my Faith But truly Gentlemen this poor Nation is rent into so many several opinions that it is impossible for me to give you mine without displeasing some of you However if a man be so critical as to enquire of what faith I die I shall refer him to the Apostles Athanasius the Nicene Creed and to the testimony of this Reverend Gentleman Dr. Short to whom I have unbosomed my self and if this do not satisfie look in the thirty nine Articles of the Catholick Church of England to them I have subscribed and do own them as authentick Having now given you an account concerning my self I hold my self obliged in duty to some of my friends to take off a suspition which lies upon them I mean as to some persons of Honour which upon my examination I was charged to have held correspondency with The Marquess of Hartford the Marquess of Winchester and my Lord of Pembrook were the persons nominated to me I did then acquit them and do now second it with this protestation That I never held any correspondency with either or any of them in relation to this particular businesse or indeed to any thing which concern'd the Protector or his Government As for the Marquess of Winchester I saw him some twelve years since and not later and if I should see him here present I believe I should not know him And for the Earle of Pembrook he was not a man likely to whom I should discover my thoughts because he is a man of a contrary Judgment I was examined likewise concerning my Brother Freke my Cousin Hastings Mr. Dorrington and others It is probable their estates may make them liable to this condition but I do here so far acquit them as to give the World this farther protestation that I am confident they are as innocent in this business as the youngest child here I have no more to say to you now but to let you know that I am in charity with all men I thank God I both can and do forgive my greatest persecutors and all that ever had any hand in my death I have offered the Protector as good security for my future demeanor as I suppose he could have expected if he had thought fit to have given me my life certainly I should not have been so ungrateful as to have imployed it against him I do humbly submit to Gods pleasure knowing that the issues of life and death are in his hand My blood is but a small sacrifice if it had been saved I am so much a Gent. as to have given thanks to him that preserved it and so much a Christian as to forgive them which take it But seeing God by his providence hath called me to lay it down I willingly submit to it though terrible to nature but blessed be my Saviour who hath taken out the sting so that I look upon it with terrour Death is a debt and a due debt and it hath pleased God to make me so good a husband that I am come to pay it before it is due I am not ashamed of the Cause for which I die but rather rejoyce that I am thought worthy to suffer in the defence and cause of Gods true Church my lawfull King the liberty of the Subject and Priviledge of Parliaments Therefore I hope none of my Aliance and Friends will be ashamed of it it is so far from pulling down my Family that I look upon it as the raising of it one story hi heâ— Neither was I so prodigal of nature as to throw away my life but have used though none but honourable and honest means to preserve it These unhappy times indeed have been very fatall to my family two of my Brothers already slain and my self going to the slaughter it is Gods will and I humbly submit to that providence I must render an acknowledgement of the great civilities that I have received from this City of Exon and some persons of quality and for their plentiful provision made for the prisoners I thank Mr. Sheriff for his favour towards us in particular to my self and I desire him to present my due respects to the Protector and though he had no mercy for my self yet that he would have
much enlarged by Dr. R. Read The Queen of Arragon a Play in Folio In Quarto Large Jo. Barkley his Argenis Translated by Sr. Robert le Grise Knight by his Late Majesties special Command with Figures or without Quarto small An Experimental Treatise of Surgery by Felix Wortz Abrahams Faith or the good Old Religion c. by John Nicholson Minister of the Gospel The Anatomy of Mortality by George Stroud Attersols three Treatises Universal Husbandry improved or divers rare and choyce Experiments and Secrets in Husbandry Gardening and Planting with divers Rarities of Gabriel Plat and others by Sam. Hartlib Aynsworth on the Cantic Gralle against Appolonius A Treatise of Civil Policy c. By Sam. Rutherford Professor of Divinity of St. Andrews in Scotland Politick and Military Observations of Civil and Military Government containing the Birth Encrease Decay of Monarchies the Carriage of Princes and Magistrates Mr. Pinchin his Meritorious Price of mans Redemption cleared Astrology Theologized shewing what Nature and Influence the Stars and Planets have over men and how the same may be diverted and avoided Wells his Souls Progress Christ tempted the Devil conquered Being a plain Exposition on the Fourth Chapter of St. Matthews Gospel By John Gumbleden Minister of the Gospel The Saints Society D. Stoughtons thirteen choyce Sermons with his Body of Divinity The Reasons of the dissenting Brethren concerning the Presbyterian Government together with the Answer of the Assembly of Divines The Doctrine of mans Redemption by Edward Holioke Of the Doctrine of the Church of England sweetly harmonizing with the Confessions of Faith of all the Protestant Reformed Churches The Philosophical Touchstone or Observations upon Sr. Kenelme Digby's Discourses of the Nature of Bodies and of the reasonable Soul by Alexander Ross The Saints Triangles of Dangers deliverances and Duties by Nathanael Whiting Minister of the Gospel The Confession of Faith of all the Congregational Churches of England agreed upon at the Savoy 1659. An History of Angels being a Treatise of our Communion and War with them by Henry Lawrence The Description of the Universal Quadrant c. by Tho. Stirrup Mathem The whole Art of Drawing Painting Limning and Etching collected out of the choycest Italian and German Authors by Alex. Brown Practitioner Several Pieces of Mr. Edward Bagshaw Student of Christs-Church 1. Exercitationes duae de Presbyt Episcop 2. A Discourse of Christ and Antichrist 3. Signs of the Times or Prognosticks of Future Judgments with the way how to prevent them Large Octavo A Treatise of the Divine Promises by Edw. Liegh Esquire The Rights of the Crown of England as it is established by Law by Edward Bagshaw Esquire of the Inner Temple Florus Anglious with the Lively Effigies of all the Kings and Queens since the Conquest cut in brass The Life and Reign of King Charls from his Birth to his Dâ—th bp Lambert Wood. The Night-search the second part by H. Mill. A view of the Jewish Religion with their Rites Customs and Ceremonies Useful Instructions for these Evil times held forth in Twenty two Sermons bp Nicholas Lockier Provost of Eaton Colledge The Nâ—llity of Church-Censures or Excommunication not of Divine Institution but a meer humane Invention Written by the Famous Tho. Erastus and never before Englished Merry Drollery in two Parts being a Collection of Jovial Poems Merry Songs and Witty Drolleries intermixt with pleasan Catches Small Octavo Edw. Waterhouse Esquire His Discourse of Piety and Charity Panacea or the Universal Medicine being a Discourse of the admirable Nature Vertues of Tobacco by Dr. Everard and others A View and Defence of the Reformation of the Church of England very useful in these times Mr. Pet. du Moulin his Antidore against Popery published on purpose to prevent the Delusions of the Priests and Jesuits who are now very busie among us Vinditiae Gratiae Sacramentalis duobus Tractatulis comprehensae 1. De Efficacia Sacramentorum in genere 2 De Efficacia Baptismi quantum ad parvulos quibus praesigitur Epistola Reverendissimi Patris Johannis Davenanti nuper Episcopi Sarisburiensis Dr. R. Record his Urinal of Physick Rare Verities or the Cabinet of Venus unlockt and her Secrets laid open Ovid de Ponto in English The Loves of Clerrio Lozio a Romance Herberts Devotions Mr. Knowles his Rudiment of the Hebrew Tongue Florus Anglicus or an exact History of England from the Reign of William the Conqueror to the death of the Late King Lingua or the Combate of the Tongue and five senses for superiority a serious Comedy acted by Oliver Cromwel the Late Usurper The Spirits Touchstone being a clear Discovery how a man may certainly know whether he be truly taught by the Spirit of God or not The poor mans Physitian and Chyrurgion now Printing Physical Rarities containing the most choyce Receipts in Physick and Chyrurgery for the cure of all Diseases Incident to mans Body by R. VVilliams To which is added the Physical Mathematicks by Hermes Tris-megistus The Idol of Clowns or the Relation of VVat Tylers Rebellion The Raconian Catechism in English The Life of that incomparable man Faustus Socinus Senensis described by a Polonian Knight The Golden Fleece or a Discourse of the Cloathing of England Dr. Sibbs his Divine Meditations Vigerius Precepts of Idiotismes Grotii Poemata Three Books of M. Matthews Minister at Swansey in South-Wales Duodecimo Dr. Smiths Practise of Physick Proverbs English French Dutch Italian and Spanish all Englished and Alphabetically digested The London Distiller or the whole Art of Distillations laid open Fryer Bacon his Discovery of the Miracles of Art Nature and Magick The Grammar War Posselius Apothegmes Fasciculus Florum Crashaws Visions The Juniper Lecture Helvicus Colloquies The torments of Hell shaken or a discourse with many proofs shewing that there not is a punishment after this Life for any to endure that shall never end by Sam. Richardson The understanding Christians duty often to commemorate the death and Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus with the necessary preparatives thereunto The Christian Souldier his Combat with the three Arch Enemies of Mankind the World the Flesh and the Devil Seasonable Advice to the Apprentices of the Honourable City of London touching their duty to God and their Masters Heinsius de Crepundiis The History of Russia or the Government of the Emperour of Muscovia with the Manner and Fashions of the People of that Countrey Drexelius his School of Patience Drexelius his right Intention of every ones Action A School or Nurture for Children or the Duty of Children to Parents very useful for all that intend to bring up their Children in the Fear of God A Help to Prayer being the duty of every man and Woman that intends to be saved Viginti Quarto The New Testament The third Part of the Bible Sr. Richard Bakers Meditations and Prayers for every day of the Week All the Works of that Great and Glorious Monarch and Martyr King Charles the first Collected into one Volumn The London Chanticleers a Play
homes and let me be never so unhappy as that the last drop of my Bloud should rise up in Judgment against any one of you but I fear you are in a wrong way My Lords I have but one word mâ—re and with that I shall end I prosesse that I die a true and obedient Son to the Church of England wherein I was born and in which I was bred Peace and Prosperity be ever to it It hath been objected if it were an Objection worth the answering that I have been enclined to Popery but I say truly from my heart that from the time that I was one and twenty years of age to this present going now upon forty nine I never had in my heart to doubt of this Religion of the Church of England Nor ever had any man the boldnesse to suggest any such thing to me to the best of my Remembrance and so being reconciled by the Merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour into whose bosom I hope I shall shortly be gathered to those Eternal happinesses which shall never have end I desire heartily the forgivenesse of every man for any rash or unadvised words or anything done amisse And so my Lords and Gentlemen Farewel Farewel all the things of this world I desire that you would be silent and joyn with me in Prayer and I trust in God we shall all meet and live eternally in heaven there to receive the Accomplishment of all happinesse where every Tear shall be wiped away from our eyes and every sad thought from our hearts and so God blesse this Kingdom and Jesus have mercy on my Soul Then turning himself about he saluted all the Noble-men and took a solemn leave of all considerable Persons upon the Scaffold giving them his Hand After that he said Gentlemen I would say my Prayers and entreat you all to pray with me and for me then his Chaplain laid the Book of Common-prayer upon the Chair before him as he kneeled down on which he prayd almost a quarter of an hour and then as long or longer without the Book concluded with the Lords Prayer Standing up he espies his Brother Sir George Wentworth and cals him to him saying Brother we must part remember me to my Sister and to my Wife and carry my Blessing to my Son and charge him that he fear God and continue an obedient Son to the Church of England and warn him that he bears no private grudg or revenge toward any man concerning me bid him beware that he meddle not with Church-Livings for that will prove a Moth canker to him in his Estate and wish him to content himself to be a Servant to his Country not aiming at higher preferments Aliter To his Son Mr. Wentworth he commends himself and gives him charge to serve his God to submit to his King with all Faith and Allegiance in things temporal to the Church in things Spiritual chargeth him again and again as he will answer it to him in Heaven never to meddle with the Patrimony of the Church for if he did it would be a Canker to eat up the rest of his Estate Carry my blessing also to my Daughter Anne and Arabella charge them to serve and fear God and he will blesse them not forgetting my little Infant who yet knows neither good nor evil and cannot speak for it self God speak for it and blesse it now said he I have nigh done one stroke will make my Wife husbandlesse my dear children fatherlesse and my poor Servants masterlesse and will separate me from my dear Brother and all my Friends But let God be to you and them all in all After this going to take off his Doubler and to make himself unready he said I thank God I am not afraid of death nor daunted with any discouragement rising from any fears but do as chearfully put off my Doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed then he put off the Doublet wound up his hair with his hands and put on a white Cap. Then he called where is the man that is to do this last Office meaning the Executioner call him to me when he came and asked him forgivenesse he told him he forgave him and all the world then kneeling down by the Block he went to Prayer again himself the Primate of Ireland kneeling on the one side and the Minister on the other To the which Minister after Prayer he turned himself having done Prayer and spoke some few words softly having his hands lifted up and closed with the Ministers hands Then bowing himself to lay his Head upon the Block he told the Executioner that he would first lay down his Head to try the fitnesse of the Block and take it up again before he would lay it down for good and all And so he did and before he laid it down again he told the Executioner that he would give him warning when to strike by stretching forth his hands And presently laying down his Neck upon the Block and stretching forth his Hands the Executioner struck off his Head at one blow and taking it up in his hand shewed it to all the People and said God save the King His Body was afterwards embalmed and appointed to be carried into Yorkshire there to be buried among his Ancestors He lift these three Instructions for his Son in Writing First That he should continue still to be brought up under those governors to whom he had committed him as being the best he could pick out of all those within his knowledge and that he should not change them unlesse they were weary of him that he should rather want himself then they should want any thing they could desire Secondly He chargeth him as he would answer it at the last day not to put himself upon any publick Employments till he was Thirty years of age at least And then if his Prince should call him to Publick Service he should carefully undertake it to restifie his Obedience and withal to be faithful and sincere to his Master though he should come to the same end that himself did Thirdly That he should never lay any hand upon any thing that belonged to the Church He foresaw that Ruine was like to come upon the Revenues of the Church and that perhaps they might be shared amongst the Nobility and Gentry But if his Son medled with any of it he wished the Curse of God might follow him and all them to the destruction of the most Apostolical Church upon Earth Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford HEre lies Wise and Valiant Dust Huddled up 'twixt Fit and Just STRAFFORD who was hurried hence 'Twixt Treason and Convenience He spent his time here in a Mist A Papist yet a Calvinist His Princes nearest Joy and Grief He had yet wanted all Relief The Prop and Ruine of the State The Peoples violent Love and Hate One in Extreams lov'd and abhorr'd Riddles lie here or in a word Here lies Bloud
and let it lie Speechless still and never cry The Life and Death of that Great Prelate and Martyr the most Reverend William Laud Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England Beheaded January 10. 1644. THE Fate of this Learned and Magnificent Prelate first and signally verified that Presage of King James No Bishop no King he being the Usher to that miserable calamity which in the same manner and method the same way of death befel that most Blessed Prince for that Prophetick Saying was to be accomplished in every Point not only of Regiment but in the concerns of natural Life like Hippocrates his Twins to live and die together His Originals were from an honest and well-reputed Parentage of good esteem and credit in the Town of Reading the place of his Nativity his Father a Clothier his Mother of the Family of the Souths of a gentile extraction by which side Sir John Robinson is related to him The Estate they had was such as neither so low to cloud or obscure his promising natural Endowments or so advanced as to serene them and shew them to the world in that Pomp and Lustre to which at some distances they exerted themselves and by degrees mounted to the top 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Ecclesiastical Promotion and Dignity in this Kingdom From his Seed-place and Nursery of Reading he was transplanted to St. Johns Colledge in Oxford where he gave present signs of his Future Glory being observed by all men as the Ornament of the House and whole University He continued here having passed through all the Honourable Employments of his Colledge till his worth could be no longer concealed and much beholding was he to that his Modesty of Nature which so long hid him from publick employment and gave him time and opportunity of laying in that Stock and Provision of all kind of Learning which his unwearied diligence did so freely spend in the several Places and Provinces he so wisely discharged being Chaplain first to the Earl of Devonshire and Proctor of his University From Batchelor of Divinity he proceeded Doctor became Chaplain to Dr. Neat then Bishop of Rochester afterwards translated to York who preferred him to King James who made him Prebend of Bugden and Westminster Dean of Glocester and Archdeacon of Huntington and lastly President of his own Colledge Soon after he was made Bishop of St. Davids by the same bountiful Master but King Charles finding his great abilities took him into more especial favour giving him the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells made him Dean of his Chappel and one of his Privy Council then Bishop of London and Chancellor of Oxford and in conclusion Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Abbots his Predecessor in that See Remisseness and Indifferency concerning the ceremonies used in the Church of England was the cause that the Gangren of Non-conformity was so far spread that it was no lesse trouble then it raised Envy and Obloquy against him to strive to enjoyn and take order for the strict Observation of the said Rites being every where called Innovations By this means Episcopal Government was by many traduced many Books and Libels printed against them wherein this Prelate was sure to bear the greatest burthen the chief of those Writers were Bastwick Burton and Mr. Pryn who were afterwards sentenced in the Star-Chamber and suffered in the Pillory But that which mainly and chiefly helped forward his ruine was his recommending or enjoying the use of the English Liturgy in the Scotch Church which was received there with so much exasperation that it mightily promoted the Wars then in intention and designment by the Faction in that Kingdom Soon after Libels were thrown about full of sedition and railing and scurrilous jeers against him which were seconded with a Tumult and rabble of Londoners assaulting his House at Lambeth for which one of the chief Thomas Bensted was hanged in St. Georges Fields in Southwark He was falsly by such People reported for a Papist whereas what stronger proof can be brought for his firmnesse in the Protestant Religion than that Book of his against Fisher the Jesuit which like a Hammer hath beaten all the Romish Arguments into pieces an unanswerable Work and of which they will never clear themselves brag and vapour what they please As to his Religion this will suffice for the morality and integrity constant tenour of life let him be judged by his Diary published in part by Mr. Prin. He had little intermission of his pen or intention of mind against the Roman Faction whatsoever his Enemies have reported of him to the contrary having before his eyes as his main aim the glory and prosperity of this Church in the right and solemn Worship of God He first began the reedifying of that ruinous and decayed Cathedral of St. Pauls London towards the charge whereof he expended great sums of money out of his own purse and this was reckoned to him as Superstition though in the account of sober and wife men it was a noble zeal to Gods House The North-door of that Church he repaired wholly with his own money the Workmen not knowing whence their wages came In sum for these joynt Graces and Vertues Piety Learning magnificence prudence and humility he is hardly to be paralled by any of his Predecessors many have had one or two of them but wanted the other in him they were a bright constellation whose lustre made this Church glorious to the envy and wonder of the Nations about us But the time of Gods visitation being come for the unfruitfulnesse negligence and unthankfulnesse of the Clergy a generation of men were raised up as scourges to inflict the Divine Judgments For in the beginning of our dissentions as soon as the businesse of the Earl of Strafford was over the mad multitude fell a raving and crying no Bishops no Bishops In the beginning of the year 1641 and the latter end of 1640 this Reverend Prelate was committed from the Black Rod to the Tower whither not long after ten more of that sacred Order were sent after him He continued in the Tower four years before any charge was brought against him though he all along petitioned and desired the Parliament he might come to his trya◠which could not be obtained till the year 1644 a full account whereof 2s also of his death we have here subjoyned It would trouble Plutarch if he were alive to find out a fit Parallel with whom to match him All therefore I shall do at the present time and t is the last publique Office I shall do him is to lay down the story of his death and sufferings together with a view of those plots and practises which were set on foot to pluck a few years from a weak old man and bring him to an unnatural calamitous end For though that maxime in Philosophy is most true and certain that corruptio est in instanti that death comes to us in a moment or in the
twinckling of an eye as the Scriptures phrase is yet are there many previous dispositions which make way unto it all which are comprehended in the name of death And in that latitude of expression do we take the word in laying down the story of his death before you which being writ out of an honest zeal to truth and a sincere affection to his name and memory shall either be approved of or at least excused It was the practice and position of the antient Donatists the Predecessors and Progenitors of the modern Puritan occidere quemcunâ— qui contra eos fecerit to kill and make away whoever durst oppose their doings or was conceived to be an hindrance to their growing faction And by this Card their followers in these Kingdoms have been steered of late imprisoning and destroying all who have stood against them It is long since they entertained such desperate purposes against the life and person of the Lord Arch-Bishop threatnig his death in scattered Libels tellig him that his life was sought for that neither God nor man could endure so vile a Counsellor to live any longer This was about the end of March 1629 and was the Prologue to those libels full of threats and scandals which year by year exasperated and inflamed the People till they had made them ripe for mischief and readily prepared to execute whatever their grand Directors should suggest unto them Saint Paul did never fight more frequent and more terrible combats with the beasts of Ephesus for the promotion of the Gospel then he with these untractable and fiery spirits who most seditiously opposed his religious purposes of setling unity and uniformity in this Church of England And in this state things stood till the year 1640 in which not only many factious and seditious People in and about the City of London made an assault by night on his House at Lambeth with an intent to murther him had they found him there but the whole faction of the Scots declared in a Remonstrance to the English Nation that one of the chief causes which induced them to invade this Realm was to remove him from his Majesty and bring him to the punishment which he had deserved The manner of their coming hit her and the great entertainment given them by the faction here shewed plainly that they were not like to be sent away without their Errand and makes it evident that his ruine was resolved on in their secret Councils before the Parliament was called or that they had declared so much by their will revealed The Parliament had not long continued but he is named for an Incendiary by the Scottish Commissioners and thereupon accused of Treason by the House of Commons And although no particular Charge was brought against him but only a bare promise to prepare it in convenient time yet was he presently committed to the custody of the Gentleman Vsher and by him kept in durance till the end of February being full ten weeks about which time his Charge was brought unto the Lords but in generals only and longer time required for particular instances And yet upon this Lydsord law by which they used to hang men first and endite them afterwards was he committed to the Tower being followed almost all the way by the Râ—scal multitude who barbarously pursued him with reproaches and clamours to the very gates and there detained contrary to all Law and Justice almost four years longer This was the first great breach which was made by Parliament in the liberties of the English Subject save that their like proceedings with the Earl of Strafford was a preparative unto it and was indeed the very gap at which the slavery and oppression under which this miserable Nation hath for many years pined and languished did break in What right could meaner persons look for when as so great a Peer was doomed to so long imprisonment without being called to his Answer But yet the malice of his Enemies was not so contented For though some of the more moderate or rather the lesse violent Lords who did not pierce into the depth of the design gave out that they intended only to remove him from his Majesties eare and to deprive him of his Arch-Bishoprick which resolution notwithstanding being taken up before any charge was brought against him was as unjust though not so cruel as the others yet they shewed only by this Ovonture that they did reckon without their Hosts and might be of the Court perchance but not of the Counsel The leading and predominant party thought of nothing lesse then that he should escape with life or go off with liberty Only perhaps they might conceive some wicked hopes that either the tediousnesse of his restraint or the indignitie and affronts which day by day were offer'd to him would have broken his heart not formerly accustomed to the like oppressions And then like Pilate in the Gospel they had called for water and washed their hands before the multitude and said that they were innocent of the blood of that righteous person thinking that by such wretched figg-leaves they could not only hide their wickednesse and deceive poor men but that God also might be mocked and his All-seeing eie deluded to which all hearts lye open all desires are known and from which no secrets can be hidden To this end not content to immute him up within the walls of the Tower they robb him of his menial servants restrain him to two only of his number and those not to have conserence with any others but in the presence of his Warder and in conclusion make him a close Prisoner not suffering him to go out of his lodging to refresh himself but in the company of his Keeper And all this while they vex his Soul continually with scandalous and infamous Papers and set up factious and seditious Preachers to inveigh against him in the Pulpit to his very face so to expose him to the scorn both of boyes and women who many times stood up and turned towards him to observe his countenance to see if any alteration did appear therein And to the same ungodly end did they divest him of his Archiepiscopal and Episcopal jurisdiction conferring it on his inferiour and subordinate Officers sequester his rents under pretence of maintenance for the Kings younger Children as if his Majesties Revenues which they had invaded were not sufficient for that purpose convert his House at Lambeth into a Prison and confiscate all his coals and fewel to the use of their Gaoler deprive him of his right of Patronage and take into their own hands the disposing of all his Benefices seize upon all his goods and books which they found at Lambeth and in conclusion rifle him of his notes and papers not only such as were of ordinary use and observation but such as did concern him in the way of his just defence In which they did not any thing from the first to the last but in a proud
defiance to the Laws of the Land which they most impudently violated in all these particulars and more than so they had proceeded step by step to this height of tyranny a whole year almost before they had digested their general charge into particular Accusations or ever called him to his Answer in due form of Law 5. But God had given him such a measure both of strength and patience that these afflictions though most great and irksome did make no more impressions on him than an Arrow on a rock of Adamant For at his first commitment he besought his God as Master Pryn observes out of his Manual of devotions to give him full patience proportionable comfort and contentment with whatsoever he should send and he was heard in that he prayed for For notwithstanding that he had fed so long on the bread of carefulnesse and drank the water of affliction yet as the Scripture telleth us of the four Hebrew children his countenance appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than any of those who ate their portion of the Kings me at or drank of his wine And he was wont to say to his private friends that he thanked God he never found more sweet contentment in his greatest liberty than in the time of that restraint And certainly it was no wonder that it should be so he being conscious to himself of no other crimes which drew that fatal storm upon him than a religious zeal to the honour of God the happinesse of the King and the preservation of the Church in her peace and patrimony as he professed at his death before all the People So that despairing of successe in the way intended his Enemies fell upon another but more desperate course which was to ship him for new-New-England and make him subject to the insolencies of Wels and Peters two notorious Schismaticks But this being put to the question in the House of Commons was rejected by the major part not out of pity to his age or consideration of his quality nor in respect unto the Laws so often violated but to preserve him yet a while as a stale or property wherewith to cheat the Citizens of some further sums and to invite the Scots to a new invasion when their occasion so required For it was little doubted by discerning men but that the Scots who made their first invasion on a probable hope of sequestring the Lord Arch-bishop and the Earl of Strafford from His Majesties Counsels and sped it so well in their design that they were recompensed already with the death of the one would easily be tempted to a second journey upon assurance to be glutted with the blood of the other 6. And this appears more plain and evident in that about the coming on of the Scots which was in the middest of January 1643. they did again revive the businesse which had long lain dormant causing the Articles which they had framed in maintenance of their former Accusation to be put in Print about that time as is apparent by the Test of John Brown their Clerk dated the 17 of that moneth And as the Scots advanced or slackned in their marches Southward so did they either quicken or retard the work till hearing of the great successes which they had in Yorkshire they gave command to Master Pryn to prosecute the charge against him and bring him to his long expected trial as he reports it of himself who having rifled him of his Papers and thereby robbed him of those helps which he had purposely reserved for his just defence and having personal quarrels of his own to revenge upon him was thought to be the fittest blood-hound in the whole kennel to pursue the scent And now there was no talk but of quick dispatch When hatred doth accuse and malice prosecute and prejudice and prepossession sit upon the Bench God help the innocent There 's nothing but a miracle can preserve him then And so it proved in the event They called him after to the Bar both before and after caused a strict inquisition to be made into all his actions they winnowed him like wheat and sifted him to the very bran which was you know the Devils office they had against him all advantages of power and malice and witnesses at hand upon all occasions but still they found his answers and his resolutions of so good a temper his innocence and integrity of so bright a die that as they knew not how to dismisse him with credit so neither could they find a way to condemn him with Justice And though their Consciences could tell them that he had done nothing which deserved either death or bonds yet either to reward or oblige the Scots who would not think themselves secure whilâ— his head was on they were resolved to bring him to a speedy end Only they did desire if possible to lay the Odium of the murther upon the common People And therefore Serjeant Wilde in a speech against him having aggravated his supposed offences to the highest pitch concluded thus that he was guilty of so many and nototious treasons so evidently destructive to the Commonwealth that he marvelled the People did not tear him in pieces as he passed between his barge and the Parliament Houses Which barbarous and bloudy project when it would not take and that though many of the Rabble did desire his death yet none would be the executioner they then imployed some of their most malicious and most active instruments to go from door to door and from man to man to get hands against him and so petition those to hasten his condemnation which must forsooth be forced to their own desires whereof and of the Magistrates standing still and suffering them to proceed without any check he gave them a memento in his dying Speech This being obtained the businesse was pursued with such heat and violence that by the beginning of November it was made ready for a Sentence which some conceived would have been given in the Kings Bench and that their proofs such as they were being fully ripened he should have been put over to a Middlesex Jury But they were only some poor Ignorants which conceived so of it The leading members of the plot thought of no such matter and to say truth it did concern them highly not to go that way For though there was no question to be made at all but that they could have packed a Jury to have found the Bill yet by a clause in the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford they had bound the Judges not to declare their facts for Treason in the time to come for which they had condemned and executed that Heroick Peer And therefore it was done with great care and caution to proceed by Ordinance and vote him guilty first in the House of Commons in which being parties witnesses and Judges too they were assured to passe it as they would themselves which was done accordingly about the 20 of November But yet the businesse
was not done for the Lords stuck at it Some of which having not extinguished all the sparks of honour did by the light thereof discover the injustice of so foul a practice together with the danger might befal themselves if once disfavoured by the Grandees of that potent Faction A thing so stomacked by the Commons that after some evaporations of their heat and passion which broke out into open threats they presently drew and sent up an Ordinance to the Lords tending to dispossesse them of all power and command in their Armies But fearing this device was too weak to hold they fall upon another and a likelier project which was to bring the Lords to sit in the Commons House where they were sure they should be inconsiderable both for power and number And to effect the same with more speed and certainty they had recourse to their old Arts drew down Sir David Watkins with his general muster of subscriptions and put a petition in his hands to be rendred by him to the Houses that is themselves wherein it was required among other things that they would vigorously proceed unto the punishment of all Delinquents and that for the more quick dispatch of the publick businesses of the State the Lords would please to vote and sit together with the Commons On such uncertain terms such a ticklish Tenure do they now hold their place and power in Parliament who so officiously complied with the House of Commons in depriving the Bishops of their Votes and the Churches birth-right And this was it which helped them in that time of need For by this though stale and common Stratagem did they prevail so far upon some weak spirits that the Earls of Kent Pembroke Salisbury and Bullingbrooke the Lords North Gray of Wark and Brews a Scotchman but an English Baron and generally called the Earl of Elgin resolved to yield unto the current of so strong a stream and thought they had made a gaining voyage if by delivering the Lord Arch-Bishop to the Peoples fury they might preserve themselves in the Peoples favour And we know well both who it was and what end he came to who though he knew that the accused party was delivered him out of envy only and that he found no evil he was guilty of yet being wearied with the clamours and the Crucifiges of the common people and fearing that some tumult would be made about it delivered him unto his enemies to be put to death And for those other Lords who withdrew themselves and neither durst condemn nor protect the innocent though far the major part as it is reported it is not easie to determin whether their consciences were more tender their Collusion grosser or their courage weaker All I shall say is only this that Claudius Lysias in the Acts had been as guilty of Saint Paul's death as any of the forty who had vowed to kill him if upon notice of the Plot which was laid to murther him he had brought him down unto the people or not conveied him with a strong guard to the Court of Felix The journies end must needs be foul which such lewd and crooked waies do conduct unto And it is worth your observation that the same day the fourth of January in which they passed this bloody Ordinance as if therein they would cry quittance with his Sacred Majesty who on the same accused the six guilt Members they passed another for establishing their new Directory which in effect was nothing but a total abolition of the Common-Prayer-Book and thereby shewed unto the World how little hopes they had of setling their new form of Worship if the foundation of it were not laid in blood The Bill being thus dispatched in the House of Lords if still they may be called Lords which are so over-loaded by the Common-people there wanted yet the Kings Assent to give life to it which they so far contemned they had more reason to despair of it that they never sought it They had screwed up their Ordinances to so high a pitch that never Act of Parliament was of more authority and having found the Subjects so obedient as to yield unto them in matters which concerned them in their goods and liberties it was but one step more to make trial of them whether they would submit their lives to the self-same tyranny And this they made the first experiment in this kind both of their own power and the peoples patience he being the first man as himself noted in his Speech which words are purposely omitted in Hindes Copy of it that was ever put to death by Ordinance in Parliament but was not the last as we have too sadly experienced Certain it is that by that Ordinance they then made themselves the absolute Master of the Subjects lives and left them nothing that they could call their own but ruine and destruction Just as it was observed by our Gracious Soveraign upon occasion of the Ordinance for the 20th part that the same power which robbed the Subject of the twentieth part of their Estates had by that only made a claim and entituled it self to the other nineteen when soever it should be thought expedient to hasten on the general ruin In which His Majesty proved but too true a Prophet And though perhaps some of the people were well pleased with this bloody Ordinance and ran with joy to see it put in execution yet all wise men did look upon it as the last groan or gasp of our dying liberty And let both them and those who passed it be assured of this that they who did so gladly sell the blood of their fellow Subjects seldom want Chapmen for their own in an open Market And here as it was once observed that the predominant Party of the United Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnovelt subverted all those fundamental Laws of the Belgick liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip the Second so would I know which of those Fundamental Laws of the English Government have not been violated by these men in their whole proceedings for preservation of which Laws or rather under colour of such preservation they did bewitch the people unto that Rebellion It is a Fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta that the Church of England shall be free and shall have her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable yet to make way unto the condemnation of this innocent man and other the like wicked and ungodly ends the Bishops must be Voted out of their place in Parliament which most of them had held far longer in their Predecessors than any of our noble families in their Progenitors And if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the people must come down to the House in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishops at the Parliament doors till by the terror of their tumults they extort it from them It
is a Fundamental Law of the English liberty that no Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause shewn or be detained without being brought unto his Answer in due form of Law yet here we saw a Freeman imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any Charge was brought against him and kept in prison three years more before his general Accusation was by them reduced into particulars and for a year almost detained close prisoner without being brought unto his answer as the Law requires It is a Fundamental Law of the English Government that no man be disseised of his Freehold or Liberties but by the known Laws of the Land yet here was a man disseised of his Rents and Lands spoyled of his Goods deprived of his jurisdiction devested of his Right and Patronage and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land that no particular charge was so much as thought of It is a Fundamental Law of the English Liberty that no man shall be condemned or put to death but by lawful judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land i. e. in the ordinary way of a legal tryal and sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of trial for the English subject or ever reckoned to be such in the former times And finally it is a Fundamental Law in the English Government that if any other case than those recited in the Statute of King Edward 3. which is supposed to be Treason do happen before any of his Majesties Justices the Justices shall tarry without giving judgment till the cause be shewn and declared before the King and His Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not yet here we had a new found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of His Majesties Justices nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and His Parliament but only voted to be such by some of those few Members which remained at Westminster who were resolved to have it so for their private ends Put all which hath been said together and then tell me truly if there by any difference for I see not any between the ancient Roman slaves and the once Free-born Subjects of the English Nation whose lives and liberties whose goods and fortunes depend on the meer pleasure of their mighty Masters But to return unto our Story the passing of the Ordinance being made known unto him he neither entertained the news with a Stoical Apathy nor wailed his Fate with weak and womanish Lamentations to which Extreams most men are carried in this case but heard it with so even and so smooth a temper as shewed he neither was afraid to live nor ashamed to die The time between the Sentence and the Execution he spent in Prayers and applications to the Lord his God having obtained though not without some difficulty a Chaplain of his own to attend upon him and to assist him in the work of his preparation though little preparation needed to receive that Blow which could not but be welcom because long expected For so well was he studied in the Art of dying especially in the last and strictest part of his Imprisonment that by continual Fasting Watching Prayers and such like Acts of Christian Humiliation his flesh was rarified into Spirit and the whole man so fitted for eternal Glories that he was more then half in heaven before death brought his bloudy but triumphant Chariot to convey him thither He that had been so long a Confessor could not but think it a release of miseries to be made a Martyr And as it is recorded of Alexander the great that the night before his best and greatest Battel with Darius the Persian he fell into so sound a sleep that his Princes hardly could awake him when the Morning came so is is certified of this great Prelate that on the Evening before his Passeover the night before the dismal combat betwixt him and death after he had refreshed his spirits with a moderate Supper he betook himself unto his rest and slept very soundly till the time came in which his Servants were appointed to attend his Rising a most assured sign of a Soul prepared The fatal morning being come he first applied himself to his private Prayers and so continued till Penington and other of their publick Officers came to conduct him to the Scaffold which he ascended with so brave a courage such a cheerful countenance as if he had mounted rather to behold a triumph then to be made a Sacrifice and came not there to die but to be translated And to say Truth it was no Scaffold but a Throne a Throne whereon he shortly was to receive a Crown even the most glorious Crown of Martyrdom And though some rude uncivil people reviled him as he passed along with opprobrious Language as loath to let him go to the Grave in peace it never discomposed his thoughts nor disturbed his patience For he had profited so well in the School of Christ that when he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed his cause to him that judgeth righteously And as he did not fear the Frowns so neither did he cover the applause of the vulgar Herd and therefore rather chose to read what he had to speak unto the People then to affect the Ostentation either of memory or wit in that dreadful Agony whether with greater Magnanimity or Prudence I can hardly say As for the matter of his Speech besides what did concern himself and his own purgation his great care was to clear His Majesty and the Church of England from any inclination unto Popery with a persivasion of the which the Authors of our then miseries had abused the People and made them take up Arms against their Soveraign approving himself a faithful Servant to the last By means whereof as it is said of Samson in the Book of Judges that the men which he slew at his death were more then they which he slew in his Life so may it be affirmed of this famous Prelate that he gave a greater blow unto the enemies of God and the King at the hour of his Death then he had given them in his whole life before But this you will more clearly see by the Speech it self which followeth here according to the best and most perfect Copies The Speech of the L. Archbishop of Canterbury spoken at his Death upon the Scaffold on the Tower-hill Jan. 10. 1644. Good People THis is an uncomfortable time to preach yet I shall begin with a Text of Scripture Heb. 12.2 Let us run with patience that Race which is set before us looking unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our Faith who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of
whom the Causes come which are unknown to the many could not or would not do Justice but at their appointment A way which may endanger many an Innocent man and pluck his bloud upon their own heads and perhaps upon the Cities also And this hath been lately practised against my self the Magistrate standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from Parish to Parish without check God forgive the setters of this with all my heart I beg it but many well meaning People are caught by it In St. Stephens case when nothing else would serve they stirred up the people against him and Herod went the same way when he had killed St. James yet he would not venter upon St. Peter till he found how the other pleased the people But take heed of having your hands full of bloud for there is a time best known to himself when God above other sins makes Inquisition for bloud and when that Inquisition is on foot the Psalmist tells us That God remembers but that 's not all He remembers and forgets not the Complaint of the Poor that is whose bloud is shed by oppression vers 9. take heed of this 'T is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God but then especially when he is making Inquisition for bloud And with my Prayers to avert it I do heartily desire this City to remember the Prophesie that is expressed Jer. 26.15 The third particular is the poor Church of England It hath flourished and been a shelter to other neighbouring Churches when storms have driven upon them But alas now 't is in a storm it self and God only knows whether or how it shall get out and which is worse than a storm from without it s become like an Oak cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body and at every cleft prophanenesse and irreligion is entring in while as Prosper speaks in his second Book De vit a contemptu cap. 4. Men that introduce prophanenesse are cloaked over with the name Religionis Imaginariae of Imaginary Religion for we have lost the Substance and dwell too much in Opinion and that Church which all the Jesuits machinations could not ruine is fallen into danger by her own The last particular for I am not willing to be too long is my self I was born and baptized in the bosome of the Church of England established by Law in that profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to dye This is no time to dissemble with God least of all in matter of Religion and therefore I desire it may be remembred I have alwaies lived in the Protestant Religion established in England and in that I come now to dye What Clamours and Slanders I have endured for labouring to keep a Uniformity in the external service of God according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church all men know and I have abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High Treason in Parliament a Crime which my Soul ever abhorred this Treason was charged to consist of these two parts An endeavour to subvert the Laws of the Land and alike Endeavour to overthrow the true Protestant Religion Established by Law Besides my answers to the several Charges I protested my Innocency in both Houses It was said Prisoners Protestations at the Bar must not be taken I can bring no witnesse of my heart and the intentions thereof therefore I must come to my Protestation not at the Bar but my Protestation at this hour and instant of my death in which I hope all men will be such charitable Christians as not to think I would dye and dissemble being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it I do therefore in the presence of God and his holy Angels take it upon my death That I never endeavoured the subversion either of Law or Religion and I desire you all to remember this Protest of mine for my Innocencie in these and from all Treâ—sons whatsoever I have been accused likewise as an Enemy to Parliaments No I understand them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I did mislike the misgovernment of some Parliaments many waies and I had good reason for it For Corruptio optimi est pessima there is no corruption in the World so bad as that which is of the best thing in it self for the better the thing is in nature the worse it is corrupted And that being the highest Court over which no other have Jurisdiction when 't is mis-informed or mis-governed the Subject is left without all remedy But I have done I forgive all the World all and every of those bitter Enemies which have persecuted me and humbly desire to be forgiven of God first and then of every man whether I have offended him or not if he do but conceive that I have Lord do thou forgive me and I beg forgivenesse of him And so I heartily desire you to joyn in Prayer with me Oeternal God and merciful Father look down upon me in mercy in the riches and fulnesse of all thy mercies look upon me but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the Crosse of Christ not till thou hast bathed me in the bloud of Christ not till I have hid my self in the wounds of Christ that so the punishment due unto my sins may passe over me And since thou art pleased to try me to the utmost I humbly beseech thee give me now in this great instant full Patience proportionable Comfort and a heart ready to dye for thy Honour the Kings happinesse and this Churches preservation And my zeal to these far from arrogance be it spoken is all the sin humane frailty excepted and all incidents thereto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this particular of Treason but otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially what ever they are which have drawn down this present Judgment upon me and when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own eyes and carry me through death that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me Amen And that there may be a stop of this issue of bloud in this more than miserable Kingdom I shall desire that I may pray for the people too as well as for my self O Lord I beseech thee give grace of repentance to all Bloud thirsty people but if they will not repent O Lord confound all their devises Defeat and Frustrate all their designs and endeavours upon them which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy great Name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and His Posterity after Him in their just Rights and Priviledges the Honour and Conservation of Parliaments in their just power the Preservation of this poor Church in her Truth Peace
and Patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed People under their ancient Laws and in their native Liberties And when thou hast done all this in meer mercy for them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulnesse and with Religious dutiful-obedience to thee and thy Commandments all their daies So Amen Lord Jesus Amen and receive my Soul into thy Bosome Amen Our Father which art c. The Speech and Prayers being ended he gave the Paper which he red unto Dr. Sterne his Chaplain now Lord Bishop of Carlisle desiring him to shew it his other Chaplains that they might know how he departed out of this World and so prayed God to shew his mercies and blessings on them And noting how one Hinde had employed himself in taking a Copy of his Speech as it came from his mouth he desired him not to do him wrong in publishing a false or imperfect Copy Which as Hinde promised him to be â—areful of calling for punishment from above if he should do otherwise so hath he reasonably well performed his promise he next applied himself to the fatal Block as to the Haven of his rest But finding the way full of people who had placed themselves upon the Theatre to behold the Tragedy he desired he might have room to dye beseeching them to let him have an end of his miseries which he had endured very long All which he did with so serene and calm a mind as if he had been rather taking order for another mans funeral then making way unto his own Being come near the Block he put off his doublet and used some words to this effect Gods will be done I am willing to go out of this World no man can be more willing to send me out of it And seeing through the chinks of the boards that some people were got under the Scaffold about the very place where the Block was seated he called on the Officers for some dust to stop them or to remove the people thence saying it was no part of his desires that his bloud should fall upon the heads of the People Never did man put off mortality with a braver courage not look upon his bloudy and malitious Enemies with more Christian charity And thus far he was gone in his way towards Paradise with such a Primitive magnanimity as equalled if not exceeded the example of ancient Martyrs Then he turned towards his Executioner and gave him money saying without the least distemper or change of countenance here honest friend God forgive thee and do thy office upon me with mercy and having given a sign when the blow should come he kneeled down upon his knees and prayed as followeth The Lord Arch-Bishops Prayer as he kneeled by the Block LOrd I am coming as fast as I can I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to see thee But it is but umbra mortis a meer shadow of death a little darknesse upon nature but thou by thy merits and passion hast broke through the jaws of death So Lord receive my Soul and have mercy upon me and blesse this Kingdom with Peace and Plenty and with brotherly love and charity that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them for Jesus Christ 's sake if it be thy will Then laying his head upon the Block and praying silently to himself he said aloud Lord receive my Soul which was the signal given to the Executioner who very dextrously did his office and took it off at a blow his Soul ascending on the wings of Angels into Abrahams bosome and leaving his Body on the Scaffold to the care of men after he had lived 71 years 13 weeks and 4 dayes which was interd in Alhollows Barkin Church with the decent Ceremonies of the Church of England On the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury I Need no muse to give my passion vent He brews his tears that studies to lament Verse chymically weeps that pious raine Distill'd with Art is but the sweat o' th brain Who ever sob'd in numbers can a groan Be quaver'd out by soft division T is true for common formal Ellegies Not Bushels Wells can match a Poets eyes In wanton water-works hâ—e'l turn his tears From a Geneva Jig up to the Sphears But when he mourns at distance weeps aloof Now that the Conduit-head is our own roof Now that the fate is publick we may call It Britaines Vespers Englands Funeral Who hath a Pensil to express the Saint Put he hath eyes too washing off the paint There is no learning but what tears surround Like to Seths Pillars in the Deluge drown'd There is no Church Religion is grown From much of late that she 's increast to none Like an Hydropick body full of Rheumes First swells into a bubble then consumes The Law is dead or cast into atrance And by a Law dough-bak't an Ordinance The Lyturgie whose doom was voted next Died as a Comment upon Him the Text. There nothing lives life is since he is gone But a Nocturnal Lucubration Thus have you seen Deaths Inventory read In the sum total Canterburies dead A sight would make a Pagan to baptize Himself a Convert in his bleeding eyes Would thaw the rabble that fierce beast of ours That which Agena like weeps and devours Tears that flow brackish from their Souls within Not to repent but pickle up their sin Mean time no squallid grief his look defiles He guilds his sadder fate with noble smiles Thus the worlds eye with reconciled streams Shines in his showers as if he wept his beams How could success such villanies applaud The State in Strafford fell the Church in Laud The twins of publick rage adjudg'd to dye For Treasons they should act by Prophecy The facts were done before the Laws were made The trump turn'd up after the game was plaid Be dull great spirits and forbear to climbe For worth is sin and eminence a crime No Church-man can be innocent and high 'T is height makes Grantham steeple stand awry Master Robert Yeomans and Master George Bowcher Citizens of Bristol murdered there May 30 1643. THere were few cities in the Kingdom for all the Artifices and popular cheats of those at Westminster who had debauched a great number of the Kings good Subjects wherein his Majesties Cause had not an equal share in the Affection and Opinion of the Inhabitants if in some places it went lesse in others it was paramount as the Difference was visible in the neighbouring Cities of Glocester and Bristol In the last whereof we shall present you with a very sad and deplorable example of Loyalty and cruelty in the persons of Mr. Yeomans and Mr. Bowcher intending it as a sweet Oyntment to embasm their Funerals that though with their Saviour the Ignominy of whose Crosse sanctified even the death of that accursed Tree in their death they were numbred among the Transgressors yet Loyalty being their Epitaph they may make their Graves amongst the
Honourable When the Long Parliament first sate these two Gentlemen with the rest of the Kingdom rejoyced to see that day and stood at gaze as greedily as any expecting what acts of Bounty what Relief of Grievances the King would through their hands convey unto his Subjects And while they kept in the Sphere of their Duty and Allegiance were as forward to applaud them as any but after the Publication of the Remonstrance wherein the Parliament so abominably slandered the Kings Government which was the Ground-work of the Rebellion and the Critical time being come in which men must either declare themselves either for or against their Soveraign though the City was deeply leavened with disloyal Principles yet these Gentlemen and the major Part of the Citizens of whom they were chief were the Kings most faithful Subjects They were men of good esteem plentiful estates known Integrity and true Children of the Church of England who seeing the miserable condition of those places where the Rebels bore sway and beginning to be sensible of the same Bondage under Col. Essex entred into a Consultation how to put the City of Bristol into the Kings Possession and Protection To this purpose they dispatcht an Agent to the Court to inform the King that he had many good Subjects in Bristol and withal to signifie their desire to deliver up his own City to himself if he would send some of his Forces thither to take it The Inducements and Reasons of this Design were these First Conscience to God not to resist the King knowing they that do shall receive unto themselves Damnation Detesting that abominable Sect of the Hothamites those State-Hereticks who accounted it their duty to keep the Kings Towns for the Kings use by shutting the Gates against the Kings Person Secondly the frequent Affronts given to His Majesty by scandalous and disloyal Speeches on all Occasions belched out against him by Protestations Declarations Messages Contempt of his Gracious Offers before the Face of his Messengers as to instance in Sr. Baynham Throckmorton whom the King sent to Bristol requiring the Mayor and Aldermen not to give admittance to any of the Parliament Forces promising that he himself would not impose any on them together with tender of the promise of his Favour yet did the Mayor and Sheriffe two Boutefews in that City send 4 Pieces of Ordnance at that very instant to Marleborough to be employed against the King Lastly Out of regard to their own security and to quit themselves of those Oppressions and Grievances under which they suffered and these were many 1. The often repeated Taxations and Loans of Money unto the King and Parliament as they were pleased to twist them upon the thredbare Security of the publick Faith the illegal exactions employed for repairing the Castle building of Forts and maintaining a Garrison against the King 2. By urging upon them new and treasonable Votes and Protestations if not fully in words yet in the use and interpretation of them directly opposite to the Oath of Allegiance the Oath of every Citizen when made a Freeman with a paticular Engagement to resist Prince Rupert the Lord General the Earl of Forth and Brainford the Lord Marquesse Hertford the Earl of Newcastle Sr. Ralph-Hopton and their Forces 3. By their disarming all such as were any way suspected to bear duty and Affection to his Majesty unlesse they would take the aforesaid Protestations 4. The perpetual Scorn and Obloquy to which they were exposed being reproached every day as they passed the streets with the names of Malignants and Papists 5. The General Contempt and Prophanation of Gods holy Worship and Service tearing the Common-Prayer-Book c. Lastly Because upon the Point they were confined to Bristol not daring to go out of the City for in all places where the Commands and Ordinances of the Two Houses prevailed they had given a List of the Names of those that durst appear for the King to the end that if any of them came thither they might be apprehended and sent Prisoners to Taunton Barkley Castle as Delisâ—quents to the Parliament It was no wonder therefore that a City thus robbed of its Wealth and Liberty groaning under an insupportable Yoke of Bondage and Tyranny should endeavour by restoring the King to his Rights to restore themselves to their former Freedom Upon these Motives therefore they engaged in a Loyal Confederacy to deliver the City from its Captivity into his Majesties Protection if possible without any bloodshed as afterwards by their Examination appeared 'T is therefore true that these two Gentlemen with their Associates had an Intention to cast out the Rebels and to secure Bristol for the King and ro seize the Governour and some of the Chief Rebels but not to kill them and to that end a Commission was got and sent to Mr. Yeomans to raise Forces and constitute Commanders for the Kings Service whereupon a Protestation was drawn by Mr. Bowcher to be taken by all the Partakers in this businesse which fully exprest their Intentions in this undertaking which being in general Terms for the Assistance and Defence of the King against all Forces raised without his Command need not here be inserted After Communication of Counsels and many Messages interchanged between Oxford and Bristol drawing to the Design some of the Parliament Officers under Coâ— Essex who loathed and condemned themselves for being in their Service in was resolved that upon Monday Mar. 7. 1642. Prince Rupert with a Party of the Kings Forces should face the City on Durdan-Down distant not a full Mile from the City while they within should possesse and make good Froom Gate and Newgate seize the Court of Guards open the Gates and give the Signal thereof for the Kings Forces to make their Approach by Ringing of St. Johns and St. Michaels Bels. Accordingly Prince Rupert came expecting the Signal by Five of the Clock in the morning and the Ports to be opened but the Combination was discovered and these two Gentlemen with others apprehended there being found several Armed men with them in their Houses which being signified to the Prince he marched presently away Having them thus in their power they clap Irons upon them tie them Head and Feet together make them close Prisoners deprive them of all Comfort to be administred by their Wives Children or Friends and used them with that Barbarousness and Inhumanity as is not imaginable could be practised by one Christian upon another and after 11 weeks hard Imprisonment frequent Examination barbarous insulting over them especially by Nathaniel Fiennes they were brought to their Trial at a Council of War where upon the Articles exhibited against them by Advocate Walker they were condemned to die but first Mr. Yeomans received this Judgment The Judgment upon Robert Yeomans Upon due Consideration of the Articles exhibited on May the 8th by Clement Walker Esquire Advocate to this Council of War against Robert Yeomans and others the late conspirators in this
Country for to clear my self both as an honest man a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with my Innocency In troth I think it not very needful for me to insist long upon this for all the world knows that I never did begin a war with the two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witness to whom I must shortly make an Account That I never did intend for to incroach upon their Priviledges they began upon me it is the Militia they began upon they confest that the Militia was mine but they thought it fit for to have it from me and to be short if any body will look to the Dates of Commissions of their Commissions and mine and likewise to the Declarations will see clearly that they began these unhappy Troubles not I so that as the guilt of these Enormous crimes that are laid against me I hope in God that God will clear me of I will not I am in Charity God forbid that I should lay it upon the Two Houses of Parliament there is no necessity of either I hope they are free of this guilt for I do believe that ill Instruments between them and me has been the chief Cause of all this bloudshed so that by way of speaking as I find my self clear of this I hope and pray God that they may too yet for all this God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that Gods Judgments are just upon me Many times he does pay Justice by unjust Sentence that is ordinary I will only say this that an unjust Sentence * that I sufferred to take effect Strafford is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon me this I have said to shew you that I am an Innocent man Now for to shew you that I am a good Christian I hope there is * Pointing to Dr. Juxon a good man that will bear me witness That I have forgiven all the world and even those in particular that have been the chief causers of my death who they are God knows I do not desire to know I pray God forgive them But this is not all my Charity must go further I wish that they may repent for indeed they have committed a great sin in that particular I pray God with St. Stephen that this be not laid to their Charge nay not only so but that they may take the right way to the peace of the Kingdom for my Charity commands me not only to forgive particular men but my Charity commands me to endeavour to the last gasp the Peace of the Kingdom Turning to some Gentlemen that wrote So Sir I wish with all my soul and I do hope there is some here will carry it further that they may endeavour the Peace of the Kingdom Now Sirs I must shew you both how you are out of the way and will put you in the way first you are out of the way for certainly all the way you ever have had yet as I could find by anything is in the way of Conquest certainly this is an ill way for Conquest Sir in my opinion is never just except there be a good just Cause either for matter of Wrong or just Title and then if you go beyond it the first quarrel that you have to it is it that makes it unjust at the end that was just at first But if it be only matter of Conquest then it is a great Robbery as a Pirat said to Alexander that he was the great Robber he was but a Petty Robber And so Sir I do think the way that you are in is much out of the way Now Sir for to put you in one way believe it you will never do right nor God will never prosper you until you give God his due the King his due that is my Successors and the People their due I am as much for them as any of you You must give God his due by regulating rightly his Church according to his Scriptures which is now out of order For to set you in a way particularly now I cannot but only this A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle this when that every Opinion is freely and clearly heard For the King indeed I will not then turning to a Gentleman that touched the Ax said Hurt not the Axe that may hurt me * Meaning if he did blunt the edge For the King the Laws of the Land will clearly instruct you for that therefore because it concerns my own particular I only give you a touch of it For the People and truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any body whosoever but I must tell you that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government those Laws by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own It is not for having share in Government Sir that is nothing pertaining to them A Subject and a Soveraign are clean different things and therefore until they do that I mean That you do put the people in that Liberty as I say certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sir it was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an-Arbitrary way for to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword I needed not to have come here and therefore I tell you and I pray God it be not laid to your Charge that I am the Martyr of the People Introth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer for I will only say this to you that in truth I could have desired some little time longer because I would have put this that I have said in a little more Order and a little better digested then I have done and therefore I hope you will excuse me I have delivered my Conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are best for the good of the Kingdom and your own Salvations Dr. Juxon Will Your Majesty though it may be very well known your Majesties Affections to Religion yet it may be expected that you should say somwhat for the worlds satisfaction King I thank you very heartily my Lord for that I had almost forgotten it Introth Sirs My Conscience in Religion I think is very well known to all the world and therefore I declare before you all That I die a Christian according to the Profession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my Father and this honest man * Pointing to Dr. Juxon I think will witness it Then turning to the Officers said Sirs excuse me for this same I have a good Cause and I have a Gracious God I will say no more Then turning to Col. Hacker he said Take care they do not put me to pain and Sir this and it please you But then a Gentleman coming near the Axe the King said Take heed of the Axe pray take heed of the Axe Then the King speaking to
the Executioner said I shall say but very short Prayers and when I thrust out my hands Then the King called to Dr. Juxon for his Night-cap and having put it on he said to the Executioner Does my hair trouble you who desired him to put it all under his Cap which the King did accordingly by the help of the Executioner and the Bishop then the King turning to Doctor Juxon said I have a good Cause and a Gracious God on my side D. Juxon There is but one stage more this Stage is turbulent and troublesom it is a short one But you may consider it will soon carry you a very great way it will carry you from Earth to Heaven and there you shall find a great deal of cordial Joy and Comfort King I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where no disturbance can be no disturbance in the world Dr. Juxon You are exchanged from a Temporal to an Eternal Crown a good Exchange The King then said to the Executioner Is my Hair well Then the King took off his Cloak and his George giving his George to Dr. Juxon saying Remember * It is thought to give it to the Prince Then the King put off his Doublet and being in his Wastcoat put his Cloak on again then looking upon the Block said to the Executioner You must set it fast Executioner It is fast Sir King When I put my hands out this way stretching them out then After that having said two or three words as he stood to himself with hands and Eyes lift up immediatly stooping down laid his Neck upon the Block and the Executioner again putting his hair under his Cap the King said thinking he had been going to strike stay for the sign Executioner Yes I will and it please your Majesty And after a very little Pause the King stretching forth his Hands the Executioner at one blow severed his Head from his Body the head being off the Executioner held it up and shewed it to the People which done it was with the Body put in a Coffin covered with black Velvet for that purpose and conveyed into his Lodgings there And from thence it was carried to his House at St. James's where his Body was embalmed put in a Coffin of Lead laid there a Fortnight to be seen by the people and on the Wednesday seven-night after his Corps embalmed and coffined in Lead was delivered chiefly to the care of four of his Servants viz. Mr. Herbert Captain Anthony Mildmay his Sewers Captain Preston and John Joyner formerly cook to his Majesty they attended with others cloathed in Mourning Suits and Cloaks accompanied the Herse that night to Windsor and placed it in that which was formerly the Kings Bed-Chamber next day it was removed into the Deans Hall which Room was hanged with Black and made dark with Lights burning round the Herse in which it remained till Three in the Afternoon about which time came the Duke of Lenox the Marquess of Hertford the Marquess of Dorchester the Earl of Lindsey having obtained an Order from the Parliament for the Decent Interment of the King their Royal Master provided the Expence thereof exceeded not five hundred Pounds at their coming into the Castle they shewed their Order of Parliament to Col. Whichâ—ott Governour of the Castle desiring the Interment might be in St. Georges Chappel and by the Form in the Common-Prayer-Book of the Church of England this Request was by the Governour denied saying it was improbable that the Parliament would permit the use of what they had so solemnly abolished and therein destroy their own Act. To which the Lords replied there is a difference betwixt destroying their own Act and dispensing with it and that no power so binds its own Hands as to disable it self in some cases all could not prevail the Governour persisting in the Negative The Lords betook themselves to the search of a convenient place for the Burial of the Corps the which after some paines taken therein they discover a Vault in the middle of the Quire wherein as is probably conjectured lieth the Body of King Henry the Eighth and his Beloved Wife the Lady Jane Seamor both in Coffins of Lead in this Vault there being room for one more they resolve to interre the Body of the King the which was accordingly brought to the place born by the Officers of the Garrison the four Corners of the Velvet Pall born up by the aforesaid four Lords the pious Bishop of London following next and other Persons of Quality the body was committed to the Earth with Sighs and Tears especially of the Reverend Bishop to be denied to do the last duty and Service to his Dear and Royal Master the Velvet Pall being cast into the Vault was laid over the Body upon the Coffin was these words set KING CHARLES 1648. I cannot let pass this Horrid Act of treason without letting the world know of the Damnable hypocrisie of that Arch Traytor Oliver Cromwel The Day assigned for Murdering of the King being come the Council of War sate which then managed all A Letter without name was addressed to the Council to represent to them by Reasons Conscience of and Prudence the formidable Consequence of so strange and execrable an Execution Cromwel seemed to be much toucht at it which caused some then present to suspect that he had a hand in procuring it and proposed it to the consideration of the Council many of which began to relent and lean toward Compassion Cromwel observing it made a Turn toward the Door and sent one of his Confidents to those to whom the Execution was committed to command them to dispatch the business then returning to the Council-Table made a large discourse shewing the Inconvenience of this Execution and advised them so to secure the Person of the King that he might neither do nor receive hurt which Discourse was seconded by others and re-assumed by himself with a great many words to lengthen out the time until one briskly entring into the Chamber told them Gentlemen you may cease to consult the Work is done the King is executed upon which Cromwel fell down upon his Knees with great Devotion and made an Eloquent Prayer giving Glory to God and acknowledging his Divine Justice A Letter worthy Perusal written by King Charles to his Son the Prince from Newport in the Isle of Wight Dated Nov. 29. 1648. Son BY what hath been said you may see how long We have laboured in the search of Peace Do not you be discouraged to tread those waies in all those worthy means to restore your self to your Right but prefer the way of Peace shew the Greatness of your mind rather to conquer your Enemies by pardoning them then by punishing If you saw how unmanly and unchristianly this implacable disposition is in our ill-willers you would avoid that Spirit Censure Us not for having parted with too much of Our own Right the Price was great the
men to have saved the precious life of the King c. which being to be had will need no other Commendation When the other two Lords were beheaded he was brought last to the Scaffold where he spake as followeth His Lordship in the way to the Scaffold put of his hat to the People on both sides looking very austerely about him And being come upon the Scaffold Lieut. Collonel Beecher said to him Sir Is your Chaplain here CAPEL No I have taken my leave of him and perceiving some of his Servants to weep he said Gentlemen refrain your salves refrain your selves and turning to Lieut. Col. Beecher he said what did the Lords speak with their hats off or no Col. Beech. With their Hats off And then coming to the front of the Scaffold he said I shall hardly be understood here I think and then began his Speech as followeth Capel The conclusion that I made with those that sent me hither and are the cause of this violent death of mine shall be the beginning of what I shall say to you When I made an address to them which was the last I told them with much sincerity that I would pray to the God of all mercies that they might be partakers of his inestimable and boundless mercies in Jesus Christ and truly I still pray that Prayer and I beseech the God of Heaven forgive any injury they have done to me from my Soul I wish it And truly this I tell you as a Christian to let you see I am a Christian But it is necessary I should tell you somewhat more that I am a Protestant And truly I am a Protestant and very much in love with the profession of it after the manner as it was established in England by the Thirty nine Articles a blessed way of profession and such an one as truly I never knew none so good I am so far from being a Papist which some body have truly very unworthily at some time charged me withall that truly I profess to you that though I love Good Works and commend Good Works yet I hold they have nothing at all to do in the matter of Salvation my Anchor-hold is this That Christ loved me and gave himself for me that is that that I rest upon And truly something I shall say to you as a Citizen of the whole World and in that consideration I am here condemned to die truly contrary to the Law that governs all the World that is the Law of the Sword I had the protection of that for my life and the honour of it but truly I will not trouble you much with that because in another place I have spoken very largely and liberally about it I believe you will hear by other means what Arguments I used in that case But truly that that is stranger you that are English-men behold here an English-man here before you and acknowledged a Peer not condemned to die by any Law of England not by any Law of England nay shall I tell you more which is strangest of all contrary to all the Laws of England that I know of And truly I will tell you in the matter of the civil part of my death and the Cause that I have maintained I die I take it for maintaining the fifth Commandment injoyned by God himself which enjoyns reverence and obedience to Parents All Divines on all hands though they contradict one another in many several opinions yet all Divines on all hands do acknowledge that here is intended Magistracy and Order and certainly I have obeyed that Magistracy and that Order underwhich I have lived which I was bound to obey and truly I do say very confidently that I do die here for keeping for obeying that fifth Commandment given by God himself and written with his own finger And now Gentlemen I will take this opportunity to tell you that I cannot imitate a better nor a greater ingenuity than his that said of himself For suffering an unjust judgment upon another himself was brought to suffer by an unjust judgment Truly Gentlemen that God may be glorified that all men that are concerned in it may take the occasion of it of humble repentance to God Almighty for it I do here profess to you that I did give my Vote to that Bill against the Earl of Strafford I doubt not but God Almighty hath washed that away with a more precious blood the Blood of his own Son and my dear Saviour Jesus Christ and I hope he will wash it away from all those that are guilty of it truly this I may say I had not the least part nor degree of malice in doing of it but I must confess again to Gods glory and the accusation of mine own frailty and the frailty of my Nature that truly it was unworthy Cowardize not to resist so great a torrent as carried that business at that time And truly this I think I am most guilty of of not courage enough in it but malice I had none but whatsoever it was GOD I am sure hath pardoned it hath given me the assurance of it that Christ Iesus his Blood hath washed it away and truly I do from my Soul wish that all men that have any stain by it may seriously repent and receive a remission and pardon from God for it And now Gentlemen we have had an occasion by this intimation to remember his Majesty our KING that last was and I cannot speak of him nor think of it but truly I must needs say that in my opinion that have had time to consider all the images of all the greatest and vertuousest Princes in the World and truly in my opinion there was not a more vertuous and more sufficient Prince known in the World than our gracious King CHARLES that died last God Almighty preserve our King that now is his Son God send him more fortunate and longer dayes God Almighty so assist him that he may exceed both the vertues and sufficiencies of his Father For certainly I that have been a Councellour to him and have lived long with him and in a time when discovery is easily enough made for he was young he was about thirteen fourteen fifteen or sixteen years of age those years I was with him truly I never saw greater hopes of vertue in any young person than in him great judgment great understanding great apprehension much honour in his nature and truly a very perfect Englishman in his inclination and I pray God restore him to this Kingdom and unite the Kingdoms one unto another and send a great happinesse both to you and to him that he may long live and Reign among you and that that Family may Reign till thy Kingdom come that is while all temporal power is consummated I beseech God of his mercy give much happinesse to this your King and to you that in it shall be his Subjects by the Grace of Iesus Christ Truly I like my beginning so well that I
righteousnesse and the Holy Ghost fill you with all comforts Coming near the Scaffold he looked up and said God I thank thee I am not afraid to go up here though I am to dye there there are but these few steps to my Eternity Then kissing the Ladder he went up and saluted the people he walked a turn or two upon the Scaffold then went to the East-end of the Scaffold and pulled off his Hat again and saluted the people with a chearful countenance said I am come by the will of my heavenly Father to dye in this place and I thank God I do with all willingnesse and readinesse submit to his most blessed will 'T is a place I desired to see when I was last in the Country both for the mutual Obligations that have been betwixt this Town and my Family as also for your particular respects to me whom I have understood to be ready to clear me from that â—oul imputation That I was a man of blood and that particularly I killed one Bootle here in cold blood I doubt not but there are here many men present both that day this Town was taken and divers other times during this War that can justiâ—ie I preserv'd many lives but I know there is not any one present that can lay the blood of any man whatsoever to my charge unlesse what might casually happen in the fury and heat of a Battel and why I die in this Town I know not unless it be to perswade the Nation that I fall as a Sacrifice for that blood which some said I shed here from which I am acquitted before you and from which I had also cleared my self before my Grand Judges at Westminster had they pleased to hear me before they had destroyed me that 〈◊〉 â—ing hastily brought up among 〈◊〉 by some that I hoâ—e God hath foâ—giâ— and too readily drunk in by others whom I pray God to forgive As for my Crime as some are pleased to term it which was objected against me by the Council of War for Bootle's death was never mentioned against me there that being only secretly used to raise a prejudice against me in the judgements of such as old not know me my Crime I say though I hope it deserves a far better Name was That I came into my own Country with my own lawful King I came in obedience to his Majesties call whom both by the Lawes of God and the Lawes of this Land I conceived my self obliged to obey and according to the Protestation I took in Parliament in the time of that blessed Prince his Father so if it be my Crime I here confess it again before God Angels and Men That I love Monarchy as the best Government and I die with Love and Honour and for the Love and Honour I bear to my Master that now is Charles the Second of that Name whom I my self in this Country proclaimed King the Lord bless and preserve him and encline the hearts of those that have power in this Nation to accept him to his Fathers Throne with Honour and Peace for certainly as I believe this Nations will never be well contented never throughly happy without a King so I believe also that King Charles the Second our now lawfull King were he a stranger to this Crown were the most fit and most accomplisht Prince that this day lives to take the Government of this People his admirable Piety Vertue Justice great Valour and Discretion far above so few years doth now make him in all places he comes highly beloved and will hereafter make him honourable among all Nations and I wish the people of this Nation so much happiness when my eyes are closed that he may peaceably be receiv'd to the enjoyment of his just Right and then they shall never want their just Rights which till then they will alwayes want As for my being in Arms in the beginning of this War I profess here in the presence of my God before whom in a few minutes I must make an account for this profession I only fought for peace setling the late King my Master in his just Rights and the maintenance of the laws of this Land and that I had no other design intent or purpose for my then taking up Arms and for this last engagement I profess here again in the presence of the same God that I did it for the restoring of my lawful Sovereign into that Throne out of which his Father was most unchristianly barbarously taken by the most unjust sentence of a pretended Court of Justice and himself against Law all Justice kept out and disposest of and this was all my reason For as for estate and quality I wanted not a sufficient competency neither was I ever ambitious to enlarge either for by the favor of my Kings Predecessors my family was raised to a condition well known in this Countrey and now it is as well known that by his enemies I am adjudged to die and that by new and monstrous Laws as making me an enemy to my Country as fighting for my Country as a Traitor to the Laws for endeavouring to preserve Lawes But Oh! God give me grace to consider him who suffered such contradictions of sinners and O my God assert the King to his Fathers Throne assert the Laws to their former honour and restore thy own Religion in its purity that all these shadows and false pretences of Religion may vanish away and our childrens posterities may serve thee in Spirit and in Truth Good friends I die for the * At which words King and Laws a Trooper said aloud we will neither have King Lord nor Laws and upon a sudden the souldiers being either surprized with fear at a strange noise that was heard or else falling into mutiny presently fell into a tumult riding up and down the streets cutting and slashing the people some being killed and many wounded his Lordship looking upon this sadâ— spectacle said thus Gentlemen it troubles me more then my own death that others are burt and I fear die for me I beseech you stay your hands I flie not you pursue not me and here are none to pursue you But being interrupted in his speech and not permitted to go on further for which the Officers were much troubled he turn'd aside to his servant and gave him the speech into his hand saying I will speak to my God who I know will bear me and when I am dead let the world know what I would have said Here his Lordship was 〈◊〉 errupted but it was as follows in his own copy under his own band King the Laws of the land and the Protestant Religion maintained in the Church of England all which as I was ready to maintain with my life so I cheerfully suffer for them in this welcome death I am sentenced to death by a Council of War after quarter for life and assurance for honourable and safe usage by Captain Edge I had
reason to have expected the Council would have justified my Plea which hath been Ancient Honourable Sacred and Vnviolable until this time that I am made the first suffering Precedent for 1 dare affirm it that never Gentleman before in any Christian Nation was adjudged to death by a Council of War after quarter given I am the first and I pray God I may be the last Precedent in this caâ—e I must die and I thank God I am ready for it Death would now be my choice had I the whole world in competition with it I leave nothing behind me which I much care for but my King my Wife my Children my Friends whom I trust the never-failing mercies of my God will provide for I beseech God shew mercy to those who neither had mercy nor justice for me My blessed Saviour taught him by his example and command both to pray for my enemies and to forgive my enemies I forgive them freely even those that contrived my ruine and pursued to death I thank God never persinally offended them to my knowledge in my life and let me not offend against them at my death I forgive them freely and pray God for Christs sake to forgive them also Of my Faith and Religion I shall not hope need to say much herein I hope my enemies if now I have any will speak for me I profess my faith to be in God onely from whom I look for my salvation through the precious merits and sufferings of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ which merits and sufferings are applied to my soul by the blesâ—ed spirit of comfort the Spirit of God by whom I am assured in my own Soul that my God is reconciled unto me in Jesus Christ my blessed Redeemer I die a dutiful son the Church of England as it was established in that blessed Prince my late Masters Reign which all my of learning and temperance will acknowledge to be the most pure and agreable to the Word of God and primitive Government of any Church within 12. or 1300. years since Christ and which to my great comfort I left established in the Isle of Man God preserve it there and restore it to this Nation And O blessed God I magnifie thy Name that thou gavest me the happinesse and mercy to be born in a Christian Nation and in a Nation where thy truth was professed in purity With honour to thy Name and comfort to thy people I ascribe the comforts of the Holy Spirit which I feel in my bosome to the Ministry of thy Word and Sacraments conveyed unto me in thy Church and made effectual by the operation of the same blessed Spirit In this faith good people I have lived and in this I die pray for me I beseech you and the God of mercies hear your prayers and my prayers for mine and your salvation Presently after the tumult was over Here his Lordship began to speak again his Lordship called for the Headsman and asked to see the Axe and taking it in his hand said Friend I will not hurt it and I am sure it cannot hurt me and then kissing it said Methinks this is as a Wedding Ring which is as a sign I am to leave all the VVorld and eternally to be married to my Saviour Then putting his hand in his pocket said to the Headsman Here Friend take these two pieces all that I have thou must be my Priest I pray thee do thy work well and effectually Then handling the rough furr'd coat the Headsman had on This says he will be troublesome to thee I pray thee put it off and do it as willingly as I put off this garment of my flesh that is now so heavy for my soul then some of the standers by bid the Heads-man kneel and ask his Lordship pardon but he did not but was surly and crabbed but his Lordship said Friend I give thee the pardon thou wilt not ask and God forgive thee also Then turning up his eyes to heaven said aloud How long Lord how long then gently passing over the Scaffold and seeing one of his Chaplains on horseback among the people Good Sir said he pray for me and the Lord return your prayers into your own bosome and I pray remember me kindly to your Brother and God remember him for his love to me and mine Then turning towards his Coffin Thou art said he my bridal Chamber in thee I shall rest without a guard and sleep without souldiers Then looking towards the block he asked if all were ready That said he methinks is very low and yet there is but one step betwixt that and heaven then turning his eyes to the people he saluted them and desired again their prayers then said I see your tears and hear your sighs and groans and prayers the God of heaven hear and grant your supplications for me and mine for you and the Mediation of Christ Jesus for us all Here his Lordship caused the block to be turned that he might look upon the Church saying Whilst I am here I will look towards thy holy Sanctuary and I know that within a few minutes I shall behold thee my God and King in thy Sanctuary above under the shadow of thy wings shall be my rest till this calamity be overpast then he pulled off his blew garter and sent it to his Son and pulling off his doublet with a very religious chearfulness he said I come Lord Jesus and O come thou quickly that I may be with thee for ever upon this he said Pray tell me how must I lie I have been called a bloody man yet truly I never yet had that severe curiositie to see any put to death in peace then laying himself down on the block after a few minutes he rose again and caused the block to be a little removed then said to the Headsman Friend remember what I said to thee and be no more afraid to strike then I to die and when I put up my hand do thy work so looking round about his friends and the people he said The Lord blesse you all and once more pray for me and with me at which words he kneeled down and prayed privately within himself with great sighings about half a quarter of an hour concluding with the Lords Prayer then rising up again he said smilingly My soul is now at rest and so shall my body be immediately The Lord bless my King and restore him to his right in this Kingdom and the Lord bless this Kingdom and restore them to their rights in their King that he and they may joyn hand in hand to settle truth and peace and the Lord bless this County and this Town and this People The Lord comfort my sad wife and children and reward all my friends with peace and happinesse both here and hereafter and the Lord forgive them who were the cause and authors of this my sad end and unjust death for so it is as to mankind though before God I deserve
if the heart be clean aliâ—s well enough Being thus prepared he calls for the Block and viewing it as with delight laid himself down upon it to see how it would fit and was so far from sinking at the sight of it that he almost play'd with it and rising quickly pulls a little paper-book out of his pocket which he gave to the Minister willing him to find that particular Prayer which was proper for that occasion but the crowd being great he could not quickly find it so that he kneeled down with the book open a while in his hand as if he had read but quickly shut it and prayed with great expressions of fervency by himself When he had done the Lieutenant said something to him as it seems concerning his Brother Charles that had witnessed against him I know not what the Lieutenant said for he spake low but Mr. Gerhard spake aloud and replyed passionatly O Christ Sir I love my poor brother with all my heart he is but a youth and was terrified I know how he was dealt with tell him I love him as well as ever I lov'd him in my life And commend me to my brother Sir Gilbert whose release I beseech you Sir to assist there being no more cause that I know of for imprisonment then only that he was found in the same bed with me which sure is no capital crime Having said this he took his leave of him and the Sheriff and all he knew on the stage and turning about once more to the people desired them to pray for him himself kneeling down with the Minister laid his hand in his bosom and they prayed together the last time After this he bids them all farewell again and besought them to remember they had a poor Soveraign abroad who deserved to be remembred Then forgiving the Executioner and saluting the Minister with his last embrace and kisses he bow'd himself to the stroak of death with as much Christian meeknesse and noble courage mix'd together as I beleive was ever seen in any that had bled upon that Altar And this all the people that were Spectators did seem to understand and acknowledge beholding his fatal blow with an universal sadness and silence whereas when the other Gentleman fell quickly after upon another score of blood and ryot they gave a great and general shout as applauding the Justice of the Portugals death but pittying and bewailing the untimely fall of so brave and magnanimous a spirit as did through all the clouds of death shine gloriously in this unfortunate Gentleman His Speech Gentlemen AS this kind of spectacle is no new entertainment to your eyes for you havhad a late glut of such objects So is it no strange thing to me to be made such a spectacle for I have been bred upon the Theatre of death and have learned that part so well though I confess a very hard one as to perform it pretty handsomly both as becomes a Gentleman and a Christian Only I must desire you to expect no fine Prologue or Speech from me I never studied to make Orations a very unfit man to lay plots against a State who am scarce able to lay a few lines of plain English together as I ought But though I cannot speak happily I doubt not but I shall die happily I confesse my self a great sinner Who is innocent God be mercifull to me a miserable sinner I adore the justice of God in all this that is come upon me I have deserved to die long since and blessed be God who hath given me such time to prepare But for this Crime I stand condemned for to day I do protest mine own innocency as to any consent or ingagment to act in it I hope you will believe me when you consider upon what slender proofs and testimonies I suffer none of them legal or positive but circumstantial For my brother Charles Alas poor youth how he was wrought upon but I desire all my friends to think honour ably of him For my Brother Sir Gilbert This imagination of a Plot is said to be hatched in France but I fear the nest was at Whitehall As for the King so far from concurring to such a Deed that I am only unsatisfied in this whether I shall dye right in his favour because suspected of any thing so unworthy of him I fear he lost his Kingdom by such practices but whether he would recover them so is a question God hath better ways when it shall be good in his sight to plead his cause I was lately in France but on my own score for I have commanded there and probably might For my past life it hath been but a troublesome one but now I hope I shall rest Since I was any thing I have served the King as I was bound And I wish all that did so had done it as faithfully He was condemned for a tyrant but God For my Religion though a Souldier I am able to profess I am a Christian souldier a true Son of the Church of England as constituted under Queen Elizabeth K. James and K. Charles of blessed memory Her Doctrine and Government I embrace Her Truth and Peace I pray God to restore I humbly give thanks to God Almighty for providing me the comfort of a Minister on whose fidelity I might repose my soul And I pray God to bless the poor faithfull Ministers of this Church and give you hearts to esteem them the want whereof is no small cause of our misery My dayes have been few and evil yet God be blessed in all the vanities and folly of youth I have been far from Atheism or concempt of Gods worship I had always awfull impressions of Gods honour and service which is now my comfort And now dear Countrymen fare you well I pray God blesse you all his whole Nation Alas poor England When will these black days be over When will there be blood enough I wish mine might fill up the measure I forgive all Once more fare you well Commend me to all my friends Pray for me I pray God make you as faithfull and loyal as I have lived and as happy as I shall be by and by when I am dead Come Lord Jesus come quickly Father of mercies have mercy on me Saviour of the world save my soul O lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world hear my prayers Into thy hands O Lord I commend my pâ—irit Lord Jesus receive my soul The last Speech of Mr. Peter Vowell which he intended to have delivered had he been permitted upon Munday the 10th of July 1654. on which day he suffered death in the place where Charing Crosse stood as from the Original paper written with his own hand appeareth Gentlemen AT this earthly Bar from them that pretend to have a great measure of sanctity I had hard measure but to that Bar I am now going the Bar of heaven I shall have Justice yea one day Justice against them
except they water their beds and couches with tears of Repentence The court gave severe and rash Judgment on my body and sent a pitifull fellow bur a pitiless fellow that gave as rash a Judgment of my soul but that precious Jewel none of them could touch to hurt The souls under the Alter cry loud for vengeance long ago how many more of late years have been added to them to help the cry the cry is loud of those lately whose blood hath been unlawfully spilt but vengeance is Gods and I will leave it to him The Court at my Tryal said I was confident and held it as a fault He also whom they sent to the Tower I know not if to intrap me under pretence to comfort my soul told me also I was confident I say the same and the same confidence I bring with me now and by Gods assistance I hope I shall carry it out of this world with my innocency Gentlemen Souldiers Among the ancient and savage sort of Heathen they had a Law once every three six or twelve moneths to offer up a sacrifice of humane blood to their god and that their god was a Devil Among us whether Heathen or not you best know of late years we have had a fatal custome once in three six or twelve moneths to make not only a sacrifice but many sacrifices of humane Christian blood our Scaffolds have reek'd and smoak'd with the choisest sort of blood But unto what God do you judge What God is he that delights in the blood of man Baal the god of Ekron Bâ—lzebub the god of Flyes Amongst the Primitive Christians that lived nearest the time of our Saviour Christ the greatest Tyrants and persesecutors of the Christians lived the persecution was great and yet the courage of those persecuted Christians was so great that it excelled the fury of the persecutors that they came in faster to be killed then they could kill they offered their bodies and throats so thick unto the slaughter that the hands of Tyrants were weary with killing and yet Sanguis Martirum was Semâ—n Ecclesiâ—e and many Heathens came in with the Christians seeing their chearfull constancy turned Christians and dyed Christians and dyed with them the Christians still encreased the more Of late years here hath been a great persecution in this Nation and yet the sufferers have been so many and present themselves so thick in the vindication of their King Country and Laws that they startled the very enemy himself their constancy so great that the eyes of their Judges dropped tears whether reall or true let the Judge of Judges judge They still stand amazed at their constancy though they exceed the old Heathens are not weary of killing Oh Souldiers How many of you have been brought up and led on by blind principles wronged in your education or seduced by your indiscreet heedless and heady Teachers How many of you young men have for some small discontent departed from your loving Masters dear Friends or tender Parents and fled into the Army how many of you driven by Tyranous oppression poverty or cruelty have left your dear wives and children And some for novelty or wantonness adhere to this employment not considering the great danger of spilling innocent blood How many of you have drawn your Swords you do not know for what How many of you keep drawn your Swords you do not know for what You have put to death a pious and just King and in his stead have reared up even another Jeroboam that makes Israel to sin What his goodnesse is you best know You have put down a good old Law and reared up another of your own to judge the people by my calling for the benefit of the former and for the equity even of your own Law I am in part condemned here to die Be you Judge of the proceedings How many of you have had a hand in putting down the ancient true Church and raised up in your own imaginations a new one But alas You know not what you do if you did you would grieve to see what a glorious Church you have ruind You would never have pulled down the hedges and broken down the fences that the wild beasts of the Forrest should come in that the little foxes should devour and the wild Boar should root out so stately a Vine When the Jewes were led into captivity their goodly and magnificent Temple was burnt but in process of time they obtained favour amongst the Heathen KINGS they dwelt amongst and had liberty therewith to re-build re-build they did and finished a second Temple at which fight all the young men rejoyced to see so gallant a Temple but the old men wept to see how far different and short the second Temple was from the glory of the first So you young men rejoyce at your imaginary Church but the old men methinks I see some weep Oh weep not so me weep for your Country weep to see Religion Liberty and Laws taken from you weep to see so many good men snatcht a way but indeed from the miseries to come and weep for what your unhappy selves will suffer Souldiers however you flourish for atime and perhaps many of you may rejoyce at our deaths but believe it as Sampson pull'd the house of the Philistims down when he fell so shall we give you and your Cause a greater blow by our deaths than living we possibly could have done You may for a time flourish but remember what our Saviour said All you that make use of the sword shall perish by the sword you shall be cut down like the grass and whither away like the green herbs But do you behold yonder glorious place Do you behold the spangled Heavens where the holy Angels dwell where God himselfe is rounded with Thrones Principalities Powers and the Celestial Spirits of just men when the Trump shall blow when the dead shall rise at the dreadful day of Judgment How will you answer all your Rapes and Murthers Do you think your hands that have been bathed in the blood of your King the blood of so many of your eminent Country-men so unjustly that have been bathed in the blood of many of your friends your kindred perhaps your Parents can ever reach yonder glorious place without repentance Oh no! Repent now therefore it is not too late shake off your bloody Protector rescue your ancient Laws and call in your Royal young Prince whom you have long enough wronged Make your Add esses to the great Protector of Heaven and Earth as I now do my self for a Pardon for all your former and present transgressions I dye an obedient Son of the Church of England and with a dutifull heart to the KING and desire that none present that love him will he disheartned by my death but continue faithfull to the end And so farewell I forgive all the world c. Colonel Penrudock Colonel Groves and others are taken at Southmolton in
respect to my family I am now stripping off my clothes to fight a duel with death I conceive no other duel lawful but my Saviour hath pulled out the sting of this mine enemy by making himself a sacrifice for me And truly I do not think that man deserving one drop of his bloud that will not spend all for him in so good a cause The Truth is Gentlemen in this Age Trea on is an individium vagum like the wind in the Gospel it bloweth wher it listeth So now Treason is what they please lighteth upon whom they will Indeed no man except he will be a Traytor can avoid this Censure of Treason I know not to what end it may come but I pray God my own and my Brothers blood that is now to die with me may be the last upon this score Now Gentlemen you may see what a condition you are in without a King you have no law to protect you no rule to walke by when you perform your duty to God your King and Country you displease the Arbitrary power now set up I cannot call it government I shall leave you to peruse my tryal and there you shall see what a condition this poor Nation is brought into and no question will be utterly destroyed if not restored by loyal Subjects to its old and glorious Government I pray God he lay not his Judgements upon England for their sluggishness in doing their duty and readiness to put their hands in their bosoms or rather taking part with the Enemy of Truth The Lord open their eyes that they may be no longer lead or drawn into such snares else the Child that is unborn will curse the day of their Parents birth God almighty preserve my Lawful K. Charles the second from the hands of his Enemies and break down that wall of Pride and Rebellion which so long hath kept him from his just Rights God preserve his Royal Mother and all his Majestys Royal Brethren and incline their hearts to seek after him God incline the hearts of all true Englisâ—men to stand up as one man to bring in the King and redeem themselves and this poor Kingdom out of its more then Egyptian slavery As I have now put off these garments of cloth so I hope I have put off my garments of sin have put on the Robes of Christs Righteousnesse here which will bring me to the enjoyment of his glorious Robes anon Then he kneeled down and kissed the block and said thus I commit my soul to God my Creator and Redeemer Look upon me O Lord at my last gasping Hear my prayer and the prayers of all good people I thank thee O God for all thy dispensations towards me Then kneeling down he prayed most devoutfuly as followeth O Eternal Almighty and most mercifull God the Righteous Judge of all the world look down in mercy on me a miserable sinner O blessed Jesus Redeemer of Mankind which takest away the sins of the world let thy perfect manner of obedience be presented to thy Heavenly Father for me Let thy precious death and bloud be the ransome and satisfaction of my many and heynous transgressions Thou that sittest at the right hard of God make intercession for me O holy and blessed Spirit which art the Comforter fill my heart with thy consolations O holy blessed and glorious Trinity be mercifull to me confirm my faith in the promises of the Gospel reviveâ— and quicken my hope and expectation of joys prepared for true and faithfull servarâ—ts Let the infinite Love of God my Saviour make 〈◊〉 love to him steafast sincere and constant O Lord consider my condition accept my tears aswage my grief give me comfort and confidence in theâ— impute not unto me my former sins but most mercifull Fathâ—r receive me into thy favour for the merits of Christ Jesus Many and grievous are my sins for I have sinned many times against the light of knowledge against remorse of conscience against the motions opportunities of grace But accept I beseech thee the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart in and for the perfect sacrifice oblation and satisfaction of thy Son Jesus Christ O Lord receive my soul after it is delivered from the burthen of the flesh into perfect joy in the sight and fruition of thee And at the general resurrection grant that my body may be endowed with immortality and received with my soul into glory I praise thee O God I acknowledge thee to be the Lord O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy on me Thou that sittest at the right hand of God hear my prayer O Lord Jesus Christ God and Man Mediator betwixt God and Man I have sinned as a Man be thou mercifull to me as a God O holy and blessed Spirit help my infirmities with those sighs and groans which I cannot expresse Then he desired to see the Axe and kissed it saying I am like to have a sharp passage of it but my Savior hath sweetned it unto me Then he said If I would have been so unworthy as others have been I suppose I might by a lye have saved my life which I scorn to purchase at such a rate I defie such temptations and them that gave them me Glory be to God on high On Earth peace Good will towards Men. And the Lord have mercy upon my poor soul Amen So laying his Neck upon the Block after some private Ejaculations he gave the Heads-man a sign with his hand who at one blow severed his head from his body The true Speech of that Valiant and piously resolved Hugh Grove of Chisenbury in the Parish of Enford and County of Wilts Esquire beheaded the 16th of May 1655. in the Castle at Exon. Good people I Never was guilty of much Rhetorick nor ever loved long Speeches in all my life and therefore you cannor expect either of them from me now at my death All that I shall desire of you besides your hearty prayers for my soul is That you would bear me witnesse I die a true son of the Church of England as it was established by King Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charls the first of blessed memmory That I die a Loyall Subject to King Charls the second my undoubted Soveraign and a lover of the good old Laws of the Land the just priviledges of Parliaments and Rights and Liberties of the People for the re-establishing of all which I did undertake this engagement and for which I am ready to lay down my life God forgive the bloody-minded Jury and those that procured them God forgive Captain Crook for denying his Articles so unworthily God forgive Mr. Dove and all other persons swearing so maliciously and falsely against me God forgive all my enemies I heartily forgive them God blesse the KING and all that love him turn the hearts of all that hate him God blesse you all and be merciful to you and to
the title was mistaken and no answer given therefore it was that another petition was drawn up to the same effect with a new Title given as I remember presented by the Serjeant at arms and one writ it over in such hast lest they should be drawn out of the Painted-Chamber into the Court that I had not time to read it over only I subscribed my name and there was in the front of the Petition a word left out but what the word was I know not and this was taken so ill as if I had put an affront or contempt upon the Court And it was thought they would have heard me plead and then because of that mistake they sent word I should have my answer when I came into the Court and my answer was the sentence of condemnation And therefore I pray with all my sonl that God would forgive all those that occasioned the charge to be drawn against me to give such unjust things against me I pray with all my soul that God would forgive all those upon so slender and small grounds adjudg'd me to die taking advantage of such simple ignorance as I was in And I had at the very beginning of my pleading engaged their honours no advantage should be taken against me to my prejudice that in as much as I understood nothing of the Law And having heard that a man in the nicety of the Law might be lost in the severity thereof meerly for speaking a word out of simple ignorance I made it my prayer to them that no advantage might be taken against me to the prejudice of my person and there was to me a seeming consent for the President told me there should be no advantage taken against me and upon these considerations I am afraid there was too great uncharitableness But I pray God forgive them from the very bottom of my soul and I desire that even those that shed my blood may have the bowels of the God of mercy shed for them And now having given you the occasion of my coming hit her it is fit I should give you somewhat as concerning my self as I am a Christian and as I am a Clergy-man First as I am a Christian I thank God I was baptized to the holy Church so I was baptized to be a Member of the holy Catholique Church that is the Church of England which I dare say for purity of Doctrine and orderly Discipline till a sad reformation had spoiled the face of the Church and made it a query whether it were a Church or no I say it was more purely Divine and Apostolical then any other Doctrine or Church in the Christian world whether National or Classical or Congregational And I must tell you That as I am a Member of this Church so I am a Member of the holy Catholick Church shall give a most just confession of my Faith both negatively and affirmatively Negatively I am so a Member of the Catholick Church that I abhor all Sects Schisms Sedition and Tyranny in Religion Affirmatively so that as I hold Communion with so I love and honour all Christians in the world that love the same Lord JESUS in sincerity and call on his Name agreeing with those truths that are absolutely necessary and clearly demonstrated in the Word of God both in the Old and New Testament though in charity dissenting from some others that are not necessary And I as I am thus a Christian I hope for salvation through the Merits of Christ Jesus his blood I relie on his merits I trust to for the salvation of my own soul though to this Faith good Works are necessary not meritorious in us but onely made meritorious by Christ his death by his alsufficiency by his satisfaction and his righteousness they become meritorious but in us they are no other than as defiled Rags And truly as I am a Member of the Church so I told you I was a Member of this Community and so pleaded for the Liberties and Priviledges thereof I must now answer something I am aspersed withal in the World They talk of something of a Plot and a Treasonable design and that I had a great interest in the knowledge and practise thereof and that for the saving my life I would have discovered and betrayed I cannot tell what I hope my conversation hath not been such here in this City where I have been a long time very well known as to make one imagine I should intermedle in such an action and go so contrary to the practice of my profession and I hope there are none so uncharitable towards me as to believe I had a knowledge of that design Here I must come to particulars for a Plot of having a design upon the City of London for the firing of it I so much tremble at the thought of the thing that should have been done as they say for the carrying on of such a design if my heart deceive me not had I known it I so much abhorre the thing I should have been the first discoverer of it Nor ever had I had correspondency or meerings with such persons as would have carried on such a design It is said likewise I entertained the Earl the Marquess of Ormond To my remembrance I never saw the face of that honourable person in my life It is said one Lords day I did preach at Saint Gregories and the next Lords day I was at Brussels or Bruges and kist the Kings hand and brought I cannot tell what Orders and Instructions from him This I shall say For these three years last past together I have not been sixty miles from this City of London and I think it is somewhat further to either of those places than threescore miles It is said that I kept correspondency with one Mallory and Bishop They are persons I have heard of their names but never saw their faces and to my knowledge I do not know they know me nor do I know them at all but only as I have heard of their names And whosoever else hath suggested such things against me I know not His Highnesse was pleased to tell me I was like a flaming Torch in the midst of a sheaf of Corn He meaning I being a publick Preacher was able to set the City on fire by sedition and combustions and promoting designes Here truly I do say and have it from many of those who are Judges of the High-Court that upon examination of the business they have not found me a medler at all in these Affairs And truly I must needs say therefore That it was a very uncharitable act in them whoever they were that brought such accusation against me and irritated his Highness against me I will not say it was malice it might be zeal but it was rash zeal which caused me to be senrenced to this place The God of mercy pardon and forgive them all And truly as I am a Member of the Church and as a member