Bowl once put besides its Byass goes the further from its Mark the more 't is inforced THE FIFTH DYNASTY OF NORMANS OF NORMANS THE Normans so call'd by the French in respect of the Northern Clime from whence they came heretofore call'd * Dionis Patav l. 8. c. 4. Scandia since Norwey were another Branch of the antient Cimbri seated near the frozen Sea whose Country being too barren to nourish so fruitful a People they disonerated their Multitudes wheresoever force could make way for them Some stragling as far as the Mediterranian others farther Southward some few lost in the Frozen Sea attempting the Desert Isles far Northward but most following the Sun infested their Southern Neighbours About the time of Charles the Great they began to grow very troublesome by their frequent Pyracies making several Inroads into England but especially into France pressing so hard upon Lewis the Holy that he was fain to empty all his frontier Garrisons and quitting the Maritime draw them into the interior and more considerable parts of his Empire as the Spirits are drawn to the heart upon all Commotions to preserve life Their Successes in Germany England Scotland and Holland having made them so bold that they doubted not to advance as far as Paris where after divers disputes with Charles the Bald Charles le Grosse and Charles the Simple which concluded with an honourable Composition they six'd their two Chiefs Hastang and Rollo in the most fertile and best parts of that goodly Country the first being made Earl of Charters the last Duke of Neustria from him call'd afterwards Normandy the seventh in descent from whom was Duke William better known to us here by the Name of The Conquerour who with like confidence and not unlike Injustice invaded England as his Ancestors did France pretending a Donation of the Soveraignty from his near Kinsman King Edward the Confessor confirm'd as he alledged by his last Will and Testament in the presence of most of the English Nobility a pretence that could have been of no validity had it not been back'd by more then humane Power to disinherit Edgar Atheling who as being of the whole English Blood was rather Heir to the Kingdom then to the King and so by no Law could have his Right collated to a Stranger but the use he made of it was to convince the World that he had more Reason not to say Right to demand than Harold to detain the Crown who having put Prince Edgar besides the Succession desied the Justice of all Mankind as he was an Usurper and so it was a design worthy his Sword who had so fortunately vanquish'd even before he wrote Man those great difficulties at home given by the Opposition of Domestick Rivals no less puissant and populous then Harold to put him at least out of Possession But that which seems strange and was questionless a great surprize upon Harold was the conjunction of the Peers of France in an Action that was so apparently hazardous to the greatness of their own State every addition to so near and dangerous a Neighbour grown long before too powerful being a kind of diminution unto them whereof there can be no probable Cause assign'd beyond their natural affectation of Glory and wantonness of Courage but that Influence which the Conquerors Father in Law Baldwin Earl of Flanders had by being then Governour of the King and Kingdom of France who not only ingaged most of the grtatest Persons there as the Duke of Orleance the Earls of Champaigne Blois Brittain Ponthieue Maine Nevers Poictiers Aumale and Anjou but drew in the * Henry IV. Emperour himself and many of the German Princes to side with him This Preparation being such as it was it cannot be thought that the English lost any honour by mingling blood with men of that Quality and Condition the sound of whose Names was perhaps little less terrible then that of their Arms much less takes it from the reputation of their Courage to have heâ—d up the dispute but for one day only having fought it out as they did till the number of the slain so far exceeded that of the living as made the Conqueror doubt there would not be enough left to be conquer'd Who knows not that Fate made way for the Normans where their Swords could not guiding them by a Series of Successes near about the same time to the expectation of an universal Empire having but a little before made themselves Lords of Apulia Calabria Scicily and Greece and inlarged their Conquests as far as Palestine But what we allow to the Courage we must take from the Wisdom of the English that being subdued they continued Nescia vinci vexing the Conqueror after they had submitted to him by such continual Revolts as suffered him not to sheath his Sword all his Reign or if he did urged him to continue still so suspicious of their Loyalty that he was sorc'd alway to keep his hand upon the hilt ready to draw it forth having not leisure to intend what was before established much less to establish what he before intended So that they put upon him a kind of necessity of being a Tyrant to make good his being a King Yet such was the moderation of his mind that he chose rather to bind them stricter to him by the old Laws then to gall them with any new guarding his Prerogative within that Cittadel of the Burrough Law as they call'd it from whence as often as they began to mutiny he batter'd them with their own Ordnance and so made them Parties to their own wrong and however some that design'd to pre-occupate the grace of Servitude gave him the ungrateful Title of Conqueror which he esteem'd the greatest misfortune his good Fortune had brought upon him thereby to proclaim his Power to be as boundless as his Will which they took to be above all Limitation or Contradiction yet we find he suffered himself to be so far conquer'd by them that instead of giving to he took the Law from them and contentedly bound himself up by those which they call'd St. Edward's Laws which being an Abbreviation of the great triple Code of Danique Merke and West-Sexe Laws was such a form of Combination as he himself could not desire to introduce a better and if any thing look'd like absolute 't was his disarming them when he found them thus Law-bound hand and foot After which he erected divers Fortresses where he thought fit dispos'd all Offices of Command and Judicature to such as he could best confide in and by that Law of Cover feu obliging them to the observation of better hours of Repose then they had formerly been us'd to gave himself more rest as well as them As for his putting the Law into a Language they understood not whereby they were made more learn'd or less litigious then they were before it was that the Lawyers only had cause to complain of whose practise at the first perhaps was a
third Monarch of the English II. date of accession 534 KENRICK his Son succeeded him both in the Kingdom and Monarchy III. date of accession 561 CHEVLIN his Son was the fifth Monarch but his Power being not adaequate to his Fame he in 33 years time could not so settle himself but that he was dispossest by his Brother IV. date of accession 592 CEARLICK who being not so good at keeping as in getting the Kingdom into his hands was himself depos'd in like manner by V. date of accession 598 CHELWOLPH Son of Cuth fifth Son of Kenrick a Prince worthy the Greatness he inherited who notwithstanding he was assaulted by the Picts and Scots and East-Angles all at once kept his Ground and left it to his Successor VI. date of accession 622 KINGILLS a Prince famous for his piety and courage who left his Son VII date of accession 643 KENWALD to succeed him whose beginning may be compar'd to the worst his ending to the best of Kings renouncing first his Faith after his Wife both which though he afterwards retain'd yet the sin stuck so close to him that the first left him without a Kingdom the last without a Son whereby VIII date of accession 675 ESWIN of the Line of Chelwolph took place who for six years kept out the right Heir IX date of accession 677 KENWIN younger Son of Ringills who utterly expuls'd all the Briâ—ains and forc'd them to seek their safety in those inaccessable Mountains of Wales whereby his Successor X. date of accession 686 CEADWALD had so much leisure as to fall upon his nearest Neighbours the South-Sexe and weaken them so far that they were forc'd to yield to his Successor XI INE worthily esteem'd the greatest Prince of his time and the most magnificent yet withal the most humble he dyed in a Pilgrimage to Rome nominating XII date of accession 762 ETHELWARD the Son of Oswald the Son of Ethelbald descended from Kenwaâ—d his Successor who reign'd fourteen years and left the Scepter to his Brother XIII date of accession 740 CUTHRED whose heart being broken by seeing his Son murther'd the Crown came to XIV SIGEBERT one whose vices were less obscure than his Parentage who murthering one of the best of his Friends was himself slain by one of the basest of his Enemies a Swineherd whereby XV. date of accession 755 KENWOLFE succeeded a person worthy of better sate than he met with being slain by the hand of an Outlaw at a time when he did not expect and consequently was not prepar'd for death and so XVI date of accession 784 BITHRICK succeeded the last King of this House lineally descended from Cerdick who being poyson'd by his own Queen this Kingdom came to Egbert the Son of Ingils and Brother of Ine who reduc'd the whole Heptarchy into a Monarchy and therefore worthily led the Van to the absolute Monarchs of England THIS was the third Kingdom of the Heptarchy and deservedly so call'd if we consider the largeness of its extent which measur'd by the Line of Circumvallation reach't if some of our modern Geographers say true above 700 miles in compass being commonly call'd the Kingdom of the West-Sexe by Bede the Kingdom of the Genevises by Cambrensis from Genesius Grandfather to Cerdick who had the honour to be esteem'd the first Founder of it although in truth he rear'd but a small part of this stately Fabrick the rest being the work of Time and Fortune and came not to perfection in almost 500 years He was for his fierceness sirnam'd the Dragon possibly in imitation of the British Kings who had that title and having beaten * The Britaine call'd him Mâ—â—ge Coâ—â—â—â—â— Natanleod the Dragon of the Western Britains forc'd him to retreat and leave 5000 of his people behind him in possession of no more of their own ground than serv'd to make them one common Grave from whom 't is thought he took this Shield of the Dragon He was thereupon declar'd the third Monarch of the English men his Son Kenrick was the fourth and his Grandson Cheulin the fifth Each of these shar'd with him in the honour of being the first raisers of this Kingdom the establisher of it was King Kenwin the ninth Monarch who expuls'd all the Britains the first that enlarg'd it was Ceadwald the tenth King who having made his way to the Conquest of Kent by that of the South-Sexe left his Successor Ine worthily therefore sirnam'd the Great to give his Neighbours a true estimate of his power by that of his wealth and a measure of his wealth by that of his munificence whereof there needs no other instances than in the Foundation of the Abbey of Glastenbury the Furniture of whose Chappel only took up 2835 pound weight of Silver and 337 pound weight of Gold a vast sum for those days which being for the ornamental part only could not be comparable to that which was left for the endowment He Founded also the Cathedral Church of Wells the West part whereof is perhaps one of the most stately Fabricks in the known World Yet neither of these are more lasting Monuments than those of his Laws translated for their excellency by the learned Lambert into Latin as being the Foundation of what we are govern'd by so long since This was he that gave the first Eleemosinary Dole of Peter-pence to the Church of Rome which was exacted in the next Age as a Tribute In this mans Reign this Kingdom was at its heighth declining after his death insensibly till the time of Egbert who being the Darling of Fortune as well as of his own Subjects and a Prince of great towardliness after he had corrected his youth by the experience he had in the Wars under Charles the Great being the first of all the Saxon Princes that were educated abroad he got so far the advantage of all his home-bred Contemporaries that he easily soar'd above the common height of Majesty and beat up the seven Crowns into one which placing on his own head he not only gave those Laws but that Name to the whole Isle which continued till King James his Reign who uniting Scotland to the rest of the Terra firma not reduc'd altered the style of King of England into that which only could make it greater writing himself King of Great Britain to which August and most Imperial Title we now pay homage and may we ever do so THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF EAST-SEXE IV. I. date of accession 527 ERCHENWIN the Son of Offa Great-Grandson of Sneppa third in descent from Seaxnod third Son of Woden the common Progenitor of the Saxons began this Kingdom with the happiness of a long Reign which however it be seldome desir'd was certainly very advantagious to his Successor II. date of accession 587 SLEDDA who thought the readiest way to keep what his Predecessor got was to add to it what his Successors were not like to keep a Peace with the Kings of Kent his next Neighbours
himself of Northumberland Godfrid his younger Brother held Mercia but King Athelstan fell upon both and took from the last his Life from the first his Kingdom which was recovered again not long after by his Son VI. date of accession 946 ANLAFF the Second thereupon esteem'd the third King of the Northumbers His reign was not long for his Subjects weary of continual wars set him besides the Saddle to make way for VII date of accession 950 ERIC the Third or as some call him IRING Son of Harold the Grandson of Gurmo King of Denmark recommended to them by Milcolmb King of Scots but he being elected King of Sweden the Northumbers submitted to Edgar the younger Brother or next in succession to Edwyn and from that time it continued a Member of the English Crown till about the year 980 when VIII date of accession 980 ANLAFF the Third understanding they were affected to his Nation arriv'd with a fresh Supply and making his Claim was admitted King but being over prest the Title came to IX date of accession 1013 SWAIN King of Denmark who made this his first step to the Engâ—ish Throne into which as he was mounting death seiz'd on him and kept the Room empty for his Son Knute DANES Absolute Kings OF ENGLAND I. date of accession 1017 KNUTE was deservedly surnam'd the Great as being the very greatest and most absolute King that ever England or Denmark knew those of the Roman Line only excepted for he was King of England Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden and Lord of a great part of Poland all Saxony some part and not a little of Brandenburgh Bremen Pomerania and the adjacent Countries most of them not to say all besides Denmark and Norway reduc'd under his Obedience by the valour of the English only upon his death Denmark and Norway fell to his Son Hardycanute the rest as Sweden c. devolv'd upon the right Heirs whilst England was usurp'd by his Natural Son II. date of accession 1036 HAROLD surnam'd Harfager or Golden Locks who being the Elder and having the advantage to be upon the place entred as the first Occupant thereby disappointing his legitimate Brother III. date of accession 1041 KNUTE surnam'd the Hardy design'd by his Father to be the next Successor to him as bearing his Name though upon tryal it appear'd he had the least part of his Nature for he had not the Courage to come over and make any claim as long as Harold liv'd and after his death he drown'd himself in a Land-flood of Wine losing all the Glory his Predecessors had gotten by wading through a sea of blood which made the way to his Throne so slippery that those English that came after him could never find firm footing But upon the very first Encounter with the Norman caught such a Fall that could never recover themselves again This Gurmo came out of Ireland I take it in the second year of King Elfrid not without a confident hope of making good his Predecessors Conquest which had cost already so much blood as made his desire of Rule look like a necessity of Revenge the Monarchy of Denmark it self being put if I may so say into a Palsie or trembling Fit by the loss of the Spirits it had wasted here So that he came with this advantage which those before him had not That the Cause seem'd now to be his Countries more then his own who therefore bore him up with two notable props Esketel and Amon men of great Conduct and known Courage the one of which he plac'd as Vice-Roy in Northumberland t'other in Mercia And having before expelled Burthred the Saxon he fixed himself in East-Anglia as being nearer to correspond with Denmark and most commodious to receive Reâ—ruits Upon his first advance against King Elfrid Fortune appear'd so much a Neuter that either seem'd afraid of other and striking under line preferr'd a dissembled Friendship before down-right Hostility And to shew how much the edge of their Courage was rebated they mutually accorded to divide the Land betwixt them Gurmo was to be Lord of the North and East Elfrid to hold the South and West part of the Isle The politick Dane after this suffered himself to become what the English would have him to be a Christian to the intent that he might be what he would have himself to be absolute changing his Pagan name of Gurmo into that of Athelstan which being of all others the most grateful to the Saxons he render'd himself by that Condescension so acceptable to the whole Nation that they consented to his Marriage with the fam'd Princess Thyra King Elfrids vertuous Sister by whom he had Issue Harold Blaatand that liv'd to be King of Denmark after himself and another Knute whom he left in Ireland to make good the Acquests of the first Gurmo there a Prince of so great hopes and so belov'd by him that the knowledge of his death being slain at the Siege of Dublin gave him his own for he no sooner apprehended the tidings thereof by the sight of his Queens being in mourning but he fell into such a violent fit of Grief as left him not till he left the World whereby the Crown of Denmark fell to his Son Harold the Title and Possession of East-Anglia with its Appurtenances he bequeath'd to his Brother Eric who having perform'd the first Act of Security to himself in having taken an Oath of Allegiance of all his Subjects suffer'd them to perform the last Act of Piety towards him in giving him all the Rites of an honourable Interment at Haddon in Suffolk which place it seems he purposed to make the Burial place of all the East-Anglian Kings But this Ambition of his beginning where it should have ended with a design of assuring to himself more honour after he was dead then he was able to make good whiles he was living ended as soon as it began as will appear by his Story following Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Upon which his Queen frighted with the horrour of their Inhumanity fled back to her Brother Athelstan to seek from his Power Justice Protection and Revenge whiles Anlaff took upon him to be King The Equality of Power as well as of Ambition ripen'd the Factions on both sides very fast by the heat of their Contest But before they came to Maturity there was a Parliament conven'd at Oxford that took the matter into consideration where the Lords fearing that the Question if delay'd might be decided by Swords and not by Words out of a deep sence of the lingring Calamities of a new War all the wounds of the old being not yet cured or at least not so well but that the Scars were yet fresh in many of their Faces they declar'd for the King in possession but with such a wary form of Submission as shew'd they did it rather out of regard to themselves then him whereupon Goodwin produced the deceased Kings Will in opposition to theirs but the
little disordered by it but those since who have found the benefit of having the Laws mysterious and less intelligible have little cause to decry him for it unless for this cause that they are never pleas'd with any fighting King In fine he strain'd not the Prerogative so high but his Son Henry the First let it down again as low when he restored to the People their ancient freedom of General Assemblies or rather permitted them a kind of share with himself in the Government by instituting a form of Convention so much nobler then any thing they had been acquainted with in elder timety in that the Peerage sate as so many Kings parting stakes with Soveraigns if what * Who was Lord Chief Justice to his Grandson Hen. 3. Bracton tells us be true who saith there were many things which by law the King could not do without them and some things which legally they might do without him which those that have read upon the Statute of Magna Charta can best explain This was not therefore improperly call'd the Parliament in respect of the Freedom of parlying after another fashion then had been permitted to their Ancestors in former Meetings which being Ex more or as they were wont to phrase it of Custome Grace during all the time of the Saxon Kings we cannot imagine their Debates to be much less restrained then themselves who attending in the Kings Palace like the Lords of the Councel at this day having had the honour to give their Opinions in any point of State submitted the final Judgment and determination to the Kings will and pleasure And whereas then the Commoners were wholly left out of all Consultations unless with the Learned Lambert we may think them included in the word Barones which seems to have been as equivocal a term heretofore in England as that of Laird yet in Scotland they now were made partakers of the like priviledge of voting as the Lords so that in Henry the Third his time to look no further backward we find them call'd by the yet continued stile of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to consult together with the Lords pro Pace asseverandâ firmandâ c. as the †lib. St. Alban f. 207. 4 H. 3. Record expresses it neither sate they when they met as Cyphers to those great Figures For when Pope Alexander the Fourth would have revoked the Sentence of Banishment past upon his proud Legate Adomare Bishop of Winchester for that he was not as he alledged subject to lay Censure they took upon them to give their Answer by themselves and it was a bold one That though the King and Lords should be willing to revoke it ‖ Vt pat Chart. orâ—g sub sigil de Mountford Vic. tot Communitat Rot. Parl. 42 Hen. 3. Communitas tamen ipsius ingressum in Angliam nullatenus sustineret How far their Priviledges were afterward confirmed and enlarged by several Kings successively but more particularly by that most excellent Prince Henry the Fifth who first allowed * 2 Hen. 5. The Petition of Right and permitted it to be entred in their Journals as the Great Standard of Liberty is not unknown from which time it hath been esteemed the second Great Charter of England whereby we were manumitted into that degree of Freedom as no Subjects in the world enjoy the like with like security from the fear of future bondage For as no man can be made lyable to the payment of any more or other Taxes then what himself layes upon himself by his representatives in that great Pan-Anglio call'd the Parliament so all the Kings of England since that time have been pleas'd to accept the Aids given by them even for the necessary support of the Government as so many Freewill-Offerings And well it is that they esteem them free since they are not obtained without a kind of Composition I might say obligation to give good Laws for good mony wherein the performance on the Princes part alwaies precedes that on the Peoples But there is yet something further then all this that renders the Norman Conquest so much more considerable then either that of the Romans Saxons or Danes by how much it spread its wings over the Seas into those goodly Provinces of the South never known to the English before thereby not only giving them Title to keep their Swords from rusting as long as they had any Arms to draw them forth but the Advantage therewithal of a mutual Conversation with a civiliz'd People who introduced so happy a Change in Laws and Language in Habits and Humours in Manners and Temperature that not only their rough I might say rude Natures no way inclin'd before to any kind of Gaiety admitted of smoother Fashions and quicker Motions but their dull Phlegmatick Complexions pale and wan by the continued use of dozing dreggy Liquor Ale became as ruddy as the Wine they drank which having more of Spirit and Fire then that other heavy composition sublimated their Courage and Wit and render'd them more lofty and eloquent both in Action and Language the last being before so asperous harsh and gutteral that an hours discourse together would have indanger'd the skin of their throats but being softned by the French and Latine Accents it became so gentle and smooth that as a Modern Master of Elocution hath observ'd 't is now so soft and pleasing that Lord Faulkland Prefat to Sands his Translation of the Psalms those From whom the unknown Tongue conceals the Sence Ev'n in the sound must find an Eloquence From the Normans likewise we had that honourable distinction of Sirnames which however they borrowed in the first place from the French who as Du Tillet tells us were about the year 1000 much delighted with the humour of Soubriquets * Vid Buck. Vit. Rich. 3. or giving one another Nic-names as we commonly call them insomuch that two of the very chiefest Houses amongst them the Capets and the Plantaginets had no other rise for their Names were continued no where with that certainty and order as amongst us here to the great renown and honour of our Families whose Nobility if it exceed not the date of the Norman Conquest may yet without any disparagement compare with any of those who call themselves the unconquer'd Nations of the World It being space long enough considering the vicissitude of time and power of Chance to antiquate the glory of great States much more of private Families and few there are that have attain'd to that Age. For however Honour like old Age magnifies its reverence by multiplying its years yet it is to be considered that there are visible decayes attend Veneration and it may so fall out that Names as well as Men may out-live themselves while the glory of a Family by over-length of time being less known may be the more suspected to have been but imaginary as some who exceeding the common bounds of certainty do pretend to justifie
their Gentility by Charters from St. Edward and others from King Edgar whose Pedigrees do yet fall short of many of the Welch by many Descents In fine from the Normans we first learn'd how to appear like a People compleatly civiliz'd being as more elegant in our Fashions so more sumptuous in our Dwellings more magnifick in our Retinue not to say choicer in our Pleasures yet withal more frugal in our Expences For the English being accustomed to bury all their Rents in the Draught knowing no other way to out-vie one another but as a †Jaq. Praslin Progmat French Writer expresses it by a kind of greasie Riot which under the specious Name of Hospitality turn'd their Glory into Shame began after the Conquest to consume the Superfluity of their Estates in more lasting Excesses turning their Hamlets into Villes their Villages into Towns and their Towns into Cities adorning those Cities with goodly Castles Pallaces and Churches which being before made up of that we call Flemmish Work which is only Wood and Clay were by the Normans converted into Brick and Stone which till their coming was so rarely used that Mauritius Bishop of London being about to re-edifie Paul's Church burn'd in the Year 1086. was either for want of Workmen Materials or both necessitated not only to fetch all his Stone out of Normandy but to form it there So that we may conclude if the Conqueror had not as he did obliged the English to a grateful continuance of his Memory by personal and particular Immunities yet he deserv'd to be Eterniz'd for this that he elevated their minds to a higher point of Grandeur and Magnificence and rendred the Nation capable of greater Undertakings whereby they suddenly became the most opulent and flourishing People of the World advanc'd in Shipping Mariners and Trade in Power External as well as Internal witness no less then two Kings made Prisoners here at one time one of them the very greatest of Europe whereby they increased their publick Revenues as well as their private Wealth even to the double recompensing the loss sustain'd by his Entry whilst himself however suppos'd by that big sounding Title of Conqueror to have been one of the most absolute Princes we had got not so much ground while he was living as to bury him here when he was dead but with much ado obtain'd a homely Monument in his Native Soil THE ORDER AND SUCCESSION OF THE Norman Kings I. date of accession 1066 WILLIAM I. known by that terrible Name of the Conqueror gave the English by one single Battel so sad experience of their own weakness and his power that they universally submitted to him whereby becoming the first King of England of the Norman Race he left that Glory to be inherited by his second Son II. date of accession 1087 WILLIAM II. surnam'd Rufus who being the eldest born after he was a King and a Native of this Country succeeded with as much satisfaction to the English as to himself but dying without Issue left his younger Brother III. date of accession 1100 HENRY I. surnam'd Beauclark to succeed in whose Fortune all his Friends were as much deceiv'd as in his Parts his Father only excepted who foretold he would be a King when he scarce left him enough to support the dignity of being a Prince As he set aside his elder Brother Robert Duke of Normandy so he was requited by a like Judgment upon his Grandson the Son of his Daughter Maud who was set aside by IV. date of accession 1135 STEPHEN Earl of Blois his Cousin but she being such a woman as could indeed match any man disputed her Right so well with him that however she could not regain the Possession to her self she got the Inheritance fixed upon her Son V. date of accession 1155 HENRY II. Plantaginet the first of that Name and Race and the very greatest King that ever England knew but withal the most unfortunate and that which made his misfortunes more notorious was that they rose out of his own Bowels his Death being imputed to those only to whom himself had given life his ungracious Sons the eldest whereof that surviv'd him succeeded by the Name of VI. date of accession 1189 RICHARD I. Coeur de Leon whose undutifulness to his Father was so far retorted by his Brother that looking on it as a just Judgment upon him when he dyed he desired to be buried as near his Father as might be possible in hopes to meet the sooner and ask forgiveness of him in the other World his Brother VII date of accession 1199 JOHN surnam'd Lackland had so much more lack of Grace that he had no manner of sense of his Offence though alike guilty who after all his troubling the World and being troubled with it neither could keep the Crown with honour nor leave it in peace which made it a kind of Miracle that so passionate a Prince as his Son VIII date of accession 1216 HENRY III. should bear up so long as he did who made a shift to shuffle away fifty six years doing nothing or which was worse time enough to have overthrown the tottering Monarchy had it not been supported by such a Noble Pillar as was his Son and Successor IX date of accession 1272 EDWARD I. a Prince worthy of greater Empire then he left him who being a strict Observer of Opportunity the infallible sign of Wisdom compos'd all the differences that had infested his Fathers Grand-fathers and Great-Grand-fathers Governments and had questionless dyed as happy as he was glorious had his Son X. date of accession 1307 EDWARD II. answer'd expectation who had nothing to glory in but that he was the Son of such a Father and the Father of such a Son as XI date of accession 1328 EDWARD III. who was no less fortunate then valiant and his Fortune the greater by a kind of Antiperistasis as coming between two unfortunate Princes Successor to his Father and Predecessor to his Grandson XII date of accession 1377 RICHARD II. the most unfortunate Son of that most fortunate Father Edward commonly call d the Black Prince who not having the Judgment to distinguish betwixt Flatterers and Friends fell like his Great-Grand-father the miserable example of Credulity being depos'd by his Cosin XIII date of accession 1399 HENRY IV. the first King of the House of Lancaster descended from a fourth Son of Edward the Third who being so much a greater Subject then he was a King 't was thought he took the Crown out of Compassion rather then Ambition to relieve his oppress'd Country rather then to raise his own House and accordingly Providence was pleas'd to rivat him so fast in the Opinion of the People that his Race have continued though not without great Interruption ever since His Son XIV date of accession 1412 HENRY V. was in that repute with the People that they swore Allegiance to him before he was crown'd an honour never done to any of his Predecessors
year there but the taking only one Town and besieging another which upon notice of the Disorders at home that a wise man might easily have foreseen and prevented he quit with no less disorder leaving the whole Action with as much precipitation as he took it up insomuch that his Wife and Sister that accompanied him and all their Attendants and Officers were forc'd to shift for themselves and get home as they could which Inconsideration of his met with that pitiful Event before mention'd to redeem him from which his People were fain to strain themselves beyond their abilities Lay-men and Clergy parting with a fourth part of their Real and a tenth of their Personal Estate all not being sufficient to make up his Ransome till they pawn'd and sold their very Chalices and Church Ornaments Being thus as it were un-king'd and expos'd naked to the Vulgar stript of his Honour as well as Treasure he thought himself not secure of the fai h and reverence due to his birth by any other way but a Recoronation which being as extraordinary as the rest of his Actions for he 's the first we meet with twice crown'd was notwithstanding the poverty of the Nation that had paid in two years time no less then jj hundred thousand Marks of Silver the vastness of which Sum may be guess'd at by the Standard of those Times when twenty pence was more then a Crown now perform'd with that solemnity as shew'd he had the same mind though not the same purse as when he began his great Adventures After this he fitted out a Fleet of 100 Sail of Ships to carry him into Normandy to chastize the Rebellions of his Brother John who incouraged by the King of France the constant Enemy of England had during his absence depos'd his Vice-roy Long-champ and forc'd him to lay down his Legatine Cross to take up that of the holy War and had put himself in so good forwardness to depose him too having brought the People to swear a Conditional Fealty to him that there wanted nothing to give him possession of the Crown which was before secur'd in Reversion but the consent of the Emperor to whom there was offer'd a Bribe of 150 thousand Marks to detain him or 1000 pounds a Month as long as he kept him Prisoner But such was the power of the Mother who was alwaies a fast Friend to the younger Brother and had indeed a greater share in the Government of the elder then consisted with the weakness of her own or the dignity of his Sex that she made them Friends and obtained an Indempnity for all the Faults committed during Longchamp's Reign who indeed was more a King then his Master so that his Indignation being wholly diverted upon the French King he began a new War that was like to prove more chargeable then the old which he had so lately ended To maintain which he had new Projections for raising Money but Providence having determin'd to put an end to his Ambition and Avarice offer'd a fatal Occasion by the discovery of some Treasure-trove out of which the Discoverer the Viscount Lymoges voluntarily tendring him a part tempted him to claim the whole and so eager was he of the Prey that being deny'd he besieg'd the Castle of Challons where he conceiv'd 't was hid from whence by a fatal Arrow shot from the hand of one whose Father and two Brothers he had kill'd with his own hand he was unexpectedly slain leaving no Issue either of his Body or Mind that the World took notice off excepting his three Daughters before mention'd father'd on him by the Priest by the disposal of which though it were but in jest we may see what he was in earnest For he bestow'd his daughter Pride on the Knights Templars his daughter Drunkenness on the Cestercian Monks and his Daughter Leachery he left to the Clergy in general which quickness of his as it savour'd of Irreligion so it made good that in him which makes all things else ill the comprehensive Vice of Ingratitude the Clergy being the only men to whom he was indebted for his Honour Wealth and Liberty but the unkindness he shew'd to them living was sufficiently requited to him dead by one of the same function who reflecting upon the Place where he receiv'd his fatal wound shot an Arrow at him that pierc'd deeper then that which slew him Christe tui Calicis Praedo fit praeda Calucis This mounted him on the wings of Fame but that unexpected height was attended with a fatal Giddiness which turn'd to such a kind of Frenzy as render'd him incapable of all advice So that intoxicated with the fumes of his Power he committed many outrages not sparing his own Brother Jeoffry Arch-bishop of York who using the freedom of a Brother in reprehending his Exorbitances had all his Estate taken from him and confiscated a whole year before he could recover it again by the help of all his Friends The Earl of Chester fair'd yet worse who was banish'd upon the like accompt of being too faithful a Counsellor Neither did the Lord Fitz-Walter suffer less then either because he would not consent to prostitute his fair Daughter Matilda to his Lust And whether he shew'd any foul play to his Nephew Arthur after he was his Prisoner is not certain who surviving his Imprisonment but a few dayes gave the World cause to think he was not treated as so near a Kinsman but as a Competitor and that which confirm'd this Opinion was the Judgment from Heaven that attended it for from that time he grew very visibly unprosperous loosing not only his ancient Patrimony the Dutchy of * Which his Ancestors had hâ—ld in despight of all the power â—f France and the rest of their potent Neighbours above 300 years Normandy and that as strangely as t'other did his life but with it all the rest of his Possessions on that side the Water all taken from him in less then a years space not so much by force of Arms as by process of Law whiles the King of France proceeded against him as an Offender rather then as an Enemy And to aggravate that by other Losses seeming less but perhaps greater he near about the same time not only lost his two great Supporters Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury and Fitz-Peter his Lord Chief Justice as wise and faithful Counsellors as any Prince ever had but her that was the Bridle of his Intemperance his Indulgent Mother Elinor a prudent Woman of a high and waking Spirit and therefore a most affectionate Promoter of his because it tended to the supporting of her own Greatness These stayes being gone he prov'd like a mounted Paper Kite when the string breaks which holds it down for taking an extravagant flight he fell afterwards as that usually doth for want of due weight to keep it steddy and being no less sensible of the shame then the loss instead of taking revenge on his Foes he fell upon
his Friends charging all his misfortunes upon disloyalty of the Earls and Barons that refus'd him aid whom therefore he fin'd first the seventh part of their Goods after that the thirteenth part of all their Moveables and not content with the aid of their Purses forced them at last with the hazard of their Persons to attend him in the prosecution of a no less chargeable then disadvantageous War where the recovery of part of his own indangered the total loss of their own Estates This as it was grievous to the Subject in general so more particularly to the Nobility being most of them descended out of Normandy and by his ill management shut out of their ancient Inheritances there had no other satisfaction for their Losses but by improving what was left here who finding themselves thus doubly damnified were inraged to that degree that using a Martial freedom sutable to the necessity of that stimulation by which they were urg'd they began to recollect all the wrongs done them by his Grandfather Father and Brother and to shew they were in earnest insisted upon renewing the great Charter of their Liberties neither were they unprovided of Arguments or Arms this contumacy of theirs being countenanced by the sullen Retirement of his own Brother Jeoffry the Archbishop who chose rather to cast himself into voluntary Exilement then submit any longer to his Tyranny In vain now demands he Pledges of their Faith whilst they believed him himself to have none Sending to the Lord Bruce for his Son to be deliver'd as an Hostage to him he receiv'd an answer from the Mother which it seems exprest the affections if not the sense of the Father That they would not commit their Son to his keeping who was so ill a keeper of his own Brothers Son which rash return cost him afterward his Estate her her life with the loss of two for the saving one only Child a Revenge so fully executed that it could meet with no counterbuff but what must come from Heaven Here began the breach that disjoynted the whole frame of his Government the King resolving to keep what by advantage of time and sâ—fferance he had got the Barons continuing as obstinately bent to recover what their Predecessors had so tamely lost Both sides prepare for War and whilst they face and parle like men loath to ingage yet scorning to quit their Cause either alike confident to hope the best and not unlike active to prevent the worst a new accident parted them by presenting a new Enemy which made the War give place as it were to a single Combat The Pope not allowing the King the Priviledge of Nominating a Successor to the deceased Arch-Bishop of Canterbury he makes a Truce I cannot call it a Peace with his Domestick Adversaries to try his Fortune with his Forreign Foe The Contest was not like that of Jacob and Esau who should be born first but like that of Caesar and Pompey who should be uppermost Now as desire of Rule brought these two great Champions into the List so the confidence each other had in his strength and skill to handle his Weapon made them unreconcileable The Pope made the first Pass who threatning to interdict the Kingdom was answer'd with a Menace of confiscating all the Lands of the Clergy and banishing their Persons The second Thrust given by his Holiness was a Threat of Excommunication of the Kings Person To this he returned that he would utterly disavow his Authority Thus far they were upon the even Terms and as it were hit for hit upon the next Pass they closed and as men desperately bent either maked good his Charge The Pope shuts up the Church doors the King those of the Cloysters the first took away all the Sacraments leaving the dead to bury the dead without Priest Prayer or Procession The last seized on all the Ecclesiastical Revenues and disposed them into Lay-hands Whilst they were thus in close grapple the King of France appeared as second to the Triple Crown Had the Barons then stept in as second to their King they had not only made good their own Honour as well as his but probably had secur'd the Liberties they contended for without any force there being more to be hoped for from this Kings Generosity then his Justice but which was most degenerous and leaves a stain upon their memory never to be washed off they finding him thus overlaid turn'd all their points upon his back poyson'd with the venome of the most opprobrious Calumnies that ever Majesty suffer'd under the Infamy of being not only a Tyrant but an Infidel all which he was fain to bear with more Constancy of Mind then Fortune But as we see a wild Boar when beaten out of breath chuses rather to dye upon the Spears of the Hunters then to be wearied by the Dogs so his Rancor turning into disdain he yielded to his Nobler Enemies and chose rather then not have his Revenge upon them whom he thought God and Nature had put under his dispose to humble himself to the Church hoping as 't is thought by their Keys to unlock the Rebels Power but over-acting his Revenge he stoop'd so low that the Crown fell from his Head which the Popes Legate taking up kept three dayes before he thought fit to restore it verifying thereby the Prediction of a poor innocent Hermite who foretold that there should be no King of England which however it was true yet being in some sense untrue too 't was in the Prerogative of him who never spar'd where he could shed Blood to make his own Interpretation which cost the poor Prophet his Life The Barons finding him thus incens'd and seeing how to make good his Revenge he had quit his Soveraignty they resolv'd to quit their Allegiance to make good their Security intending to call in the Dolphin of France and swear Fealty to him whilst the Common People were left to their Election whether to take the wrong King that promis'd to do them Right or the right King that persisted to do them so much wrong who as little understanding the Principles of Religion as the dictates of Reason the Bonds of Command and Obedience that should hold them together seem'd so wholly slackned that there was upon the Matter no other Tye on them then that of their Interest which sway'd them variously according to the divers Measures they took of it But as there are many Ligaments in a State that bind it so fast together that 't is a hard thing to dissolve them altogether unless by an universal concurrence of Causes that produce a general alteration thereof it being seldom seen of what temper soever Kings are but that they find under the greatest desertion imaginable a very considerable Party to stand by them upon the accompt of Affection or Ambition Honour or Conscience so this King the first of England we find put to this streight had yet many Members of Note and Power besides his chief
as often as any advantage was offer'd to him during the Barons War playing fast and loose sometimes as an Enemy otherwhile as a Friend as it made for his turn and having it alwayes in his Power by being in Conjunction with Scotland without which he had been inconsiderable to disturb the Peace of England at his pleasure never neglected any occasion where he might gain Repute to himself or booty for his People Upon him therefore he fastened the first Domestick War he had entring his Country like Jove in a storm with Lightning and Thunder the Terrour whereof was so resistless that that poor Prince was forc'd to accept whatsoever terms he would put upon him to obtain a temporary Peace without any other hope or comfort then what he deriv'd from the mental reservation he had of breaking it again as soon as he return'd whereunto he was not long after tempted by the delusion of a mistaken Prophesie of that false Prophet Merlin who having foretold that he should be crown'd with the Diadem of Brute fatally heightened his Ambition to the utter destruction both of himself and Country with whom his innocent Brother the last of that Race partaking in life and death concluded the Glory of the ancient British Empire which by a kind of Miracle had held out so many hundred years without the help of Shipping Allyance or Confederation with any Forreign Princes by the side of so many potent Kings their next Neighbours who from the time of the first entrance of the English suffer'd them not to enjoy any quiet though they vouchsafed them sometimes Peace Wales being thus totally reduced by the irrecoverable fall of Llewellen and David the last of their Princes that were ever able to make resistance and those ignorant People made thereby happier then they wish'd themselves to be by being partakers of the same Law and Liberty with those that conquer'd them he setled that Title on his eldest Son and so passed over into France to spend as many years abroad in Peace as he had done before in War in which time he renew'd his League with that Crown accommodated the Differences betwixt the Crowns of Scicily and Arragon and shew'd himself so excellent an Arbitrator that when the right of the Crown of Scotland upon his return home came to be disputed with Six some say Ten Competitors after the death of Alexander the Third the Umpirage was given to him who ordered the matter so wisely that he kept off the final Decision of the main Question as many years as there were Rivals put in for it deferring Judgment till all but two only were disputed out of their Pretensions These were Baliol and Bruce the first descended from the elder Daughter of the right Heir the last from the Son of the younger who having as 't was thought the weaker Title but the most Friends King Edward privately offered him the Crown upon Condition of doing Homage and Fealty to him for it the greatness of his Mind which bespoke him to be a King before he was one suffer'd him not to accept the terms whereupon King Edward makes the same Proposition to Baliol who better content it seems with the outside of Majesty accepted the Condition But see the Curse of ill-got Glory shewing himself satisfied with so little he was thought unworthy of any being so abhor'd of his People for it that upon the first occasion they had to quarrel with his Justice as who should say they would wound him with his own Weapon they appeal'd to King Edward who thereupon summon'd him to appear in England and was so rigid to him upon his appearance he would permit none else to plead his Cause but compell'd him in open Parliament to answer for himself as well as he could This being an Indignity so much beneath the sufferance of any private Person much more a King sunk so deep into his Breast that meditating nothing after but Revenge as soon as he return'd home securing himself first by a League and Allyance with the King of France to whose Brothers Daughter he married his Son he renounced his Allegiance and defied King Edward's Power no less then he did his Justice This begat a War betwixt the two Nations that continued much longer then themselves being held up by alternate Successes near three hundred years a longer dated difference perhaps then is to be found in any other Story of the World that Rancor which the Sword bred increasing continually by the desire of Revenge till the one side was almost wholly wasted t'other wholly wearied Baliol the same time King Edward required him to do Homage for Scotland here prevailed with the French King to require the like from him for his Territories there this began the Quarrel that the Division by which King Edward which may seem strange parting his Greatness made it appear much greater whilst himself advanc'd against Baliol and sent his Brother the Earl of Lancaster to answer the King of France Baliol finding himself overmatch'd as well as over-reach'd renew'd his Homage in hopes to preserve his Honour But King Edward resolving to bind him with stronger Fetters then Oaths sent him Prisoner into England whereby those of that Country wanting not only a Head but a Heart to make any further resistance he turn'd his Fury upon the King of France hastning over what Forces he could to continue that War till himself could follow after But Fortune being preingaged on the other side disposed that whole Affair to so many mistakes that nothing answered Expectation and which was worse the Fame of his Male-Adventures spirited a private person worthy a greater * Wallis Name then he had to rise in Scotland who rallying together as many as durst by scorning Misery adventure upon it defied all the Forces of England so fortunately that he was once very near the redeeming his despairing Country-men and had he had less Vertue might possibly have had more success For scorning to take the Crown when he had won it a Modesty not less fatal to the whole Nation then himself by leaving room for Ambition he made way for King Edward to Re-enter the second time who by one single Battel but fought with redoubled Courage made himself once more Lord of that miserable Kingdom all the principal Opposers Wallis only excepted crowding in upon Summons to swear Fealty the third time to him This had been an easie Pennance had they not together with their Faith resigned up their Laws and Liberties and that so servilely that King Edward himself judging them unworthy to be continued any longer a Nation was perswaded to take from them all the Records and Monuments whereby their Ancestors had recommended any of Glory to their Imitation Amongst other of the Regalia's then lost was that famous Marble Stone now lodg'd in Westminster-Abby wherein their Kings were crown'd in which as the Vulgar were perswaded the Fate of their Country lay for that there was an ancient Prophesie
dispend a thousand Marks a day which I have the rather noted to shew how the Kingdom flourish'd as well as the King gaining as all wise States do by their layings out for the whole Revenues of the Crown in his Grand-fathers days were esteem'd to be not much above a hundred thousand Marks a year Five years the French King continued Prisoner here in England time enough to have determin'd the Fortune of that great Kingdom and dissolv'd their Canton'd Government into parts had it not been a Body consisting of so many strong Limbs and so abounding with Spirits that it never fainted notwithstanding all its loss of Blood but scorn'd to yield though King Edward came very near their heart having wounded them in the most mortal part their Head The Scotch King could not recover his Liberty in double the time being the less able to redeem himself for that he was upon the matter but half a King the other half being in the possession of Baliol who to secure a Moyety to himself surrendred the whole to King Edward whose Magnificence vying with his Justice he gave it back again upon Terms more befitting a Brother then a Conqueror shewing therein a Wantonness that no King perhaps besides himself would have been guilty of nor probably he neither had either his People been less bountiful to him or Fortune less constant which to say truth never forsook him till he like his Father forsook himself leaving all Action and bidding adieu to the World ten years before he went out of it declining so fast from the fortieth year of his Government that it may rather be said his famous Son Prince Edward commonly call'd the Black Prince reign'd then he and happy 't was for him that when his own Understanding fail'd him he had so good a Supporter who having it in his power to dispose of Kingdoms whilst he liv'd ought not to be denyed after he dyed the honour of being esteem'd equal to Kings in the Prerogative of a distinct Character Begin we then the Date of his Government from the Battel of Crassy which happening in the Sixteenth year of his Age makes the Computation of his Glory to commence near about the same time his Fathers did who however he was King at fourteen rul'd not till after Mortimer's death by which Battel he so topt the Fortune of France as his Father had that of England that he may be said to have taken thereby Livery in order to the Seisin of that Kingdom And after the Recovery of Calais it may be said the Keys of the Kingdom rather then of that Town were deliver'd into his hand for that he therewith open'd all the Gates of almost every Town he came to till the King of France incompassed him like a Lion in a Toil with no less then 60000 of the best Men of France and brought him to that streight that it seem'd alike disadvantageous to sight or yield and which made the danger more considerable as things then stood England it self was in some hazard of being lost with him here he seem'd to have been as well accomptable to his Country as to his Father for his Courage and Discretion and how well he acquitted himself appears by the Sequel when forcing Hope out of Despair like fire out of a Flint he necessitated his Men to try for Conquest by shewing them how impossible 't was for him to yield and by that incomparable Obstinacy of his made Fortune so enamour'd of his Courage that she follow'd him wherever he went while his Sword made its way to Victory and his Courtesie to the Affections of the Conquer'd whom he treated with that regard and generosity that many of them were gainers by the loss being dismiss'd with honourable Presents that made his second Conquest over them greater then the first the King of France himself being so well pleas'd with his Bondage that he return'd voluntarily into England after he was redeem'd to meet two Kings more that might be Witness of his Respect and Gratitude In short he was as King of England on the other side the Water as his Father was on this side keeping so splendid a Court in Acquitaine that no less then three Kings came to visit him too all at once these were the King of Majorque Navar and Castile the last of which craving Aid of him against an Usurper who was back'd by an Army consisting of no less then One hundred thousand men if the Writers of those times say true was re-instated accordingly by his single power to shew the World that he could as well make Kings as unmake them His second Brother who had the Title of King by marrying with the King of Castile's Daughter and Heir being principally indebted to him for the honour of that Title and it prov'd a fatal Debt both to him and his Son Richard the Second costing the one his Life the other both Life and Kingdom too for as himself never recover'd the health he lost in undertaking that Expedition so his Son never recover'd the disadvantage put upon him afterward by his Uncle Lancaster who by that means having got the Regency of his drooping Father King Edward who tyred with Action rather then Age fatally submitted to the loss of more years of his Government then he got by his unnatural Anticipation from his own Father and suffer'd himself to be buried alive as we may say under his Cradle put fair for setting his Nephew aside but wanting a Colour for so apparent an Injustice his jealous Father the Black Prince having declar'd him his Successor in his life time to prevent all tricks he thought it enough to make way for his Son to do it and accordingly put such an impression of dislike upon the innocent Youth at his very first Edition as prov'd Indelible in his riper years for the very same day he was presented to take his Grandfathers Seat in Parliament as Heir apparent to the Crown being then but eleven years old he taught him to demand a Subsidy purposely to turn the Peoples blood who were then big with their Complaint of Taxes But possibly he is made more splenetick as well as more politick then he was for it was scarce possible to make the Youth more odious then he had made himself before by disgusting those two potent Factions of the Church and the City of London who to shew how weary they were of his governing the old Child his Father would not after his Death let him longer Rule the young Child his Nephew but purposely depos'd him to the end as they said that he might not depose the other Thus this great King ended as ingloriously as he began who having stept into the Throne a little before he should 't is the less wonder he left it a little before it was expected he would especially if we consider that in out-living the best Wife and the best Son in the World he had a little out-liv'd himself being so unfortunate
Troyes she should be there to be espoused to him and with her he should have the Assurance of the Crown of France after the Decease of her Father and to gain the more Credit the Bishop secretly deliver'd him a Letter from the Princess her own hand which contained in it so much sweetness as had been enough to have made any other man but himself have surfeited with Joy his happiness being now so full and compleat that he had nothing beyond what he enjoyed to hope for Upon his Marriage with her he was published Regent of the Kingdom and Heir apparent to the Crown the Articles being published in both Realms and the two Kings and all their Nobility Sworn to the observance of them only the Daulphin stood out in utter Defiance both of his Right and Power Against him therefore the two Kings his Father and Brother together with the King of Scots who was newly arrived the young Duke of Burgundy and the Prince of Orange the Dukes of Clarence Gloucester and Bedford and twenty one Earls forty five Barons and Knights and Esquires sans nombre advanc'd with an Army of French English Scotch and Irish to the number of six hundred thousand if the Historians of that time may be credited and having taken in all the Towns and Places that denied to yield they return'd to Paris where King Henry the Articles being ratified the second time and a Counterpart sent into England began to exercise his Regency by Coyning of Money with the Arms of England and France on it placing and displacing of Officers making new Laws and Edicts and lastly awarding Process against the Daulphin to appear at the Marble Table to answer for the Murther of the Duke of Burgundy But being willing to shew his Queen how great a King he was before she brought him that Kingdom he left his Brother Clarence his Lieutenant General there and brought her over into England where he spent some time in the Administration of Justice and performing such Acts of Peace as spoke him no less expert in the knowledge of governing then in that of getting a Kingdom But he had not been long here before he received the sad News of the death of his Brother Clarence who betrayed by the Duke of Alansons Contrivance into an Ambuscade was slain together with the Earls of Tankervile Somerset Suffolk and Perch and about two thousand Common Souldiers whereupon he deputed the Earl of Mortaine in his room and not long after went back again himself with his Brother Bedford to reinforce the War taking in all the Fortresses in the Isle of France in Lovaine Bry and Champagne during which time the Daulphin was not idle but industrious to regain Fortunes savour if it were possible made many bold Attempts upon several places in possession of the English But finding the Genius of our Nation to have the Predominancy over that of his own he diverted his Fury upon the Duke of Burgundy betwixt whom and King Henry he put this difference That as he dreaded the one so he hated the other Accordingly he laid Seige to Cosney a Place not very considerable in it self but as it was a Town of the Duke of Burgundy's King Henry was so concern'd to relieve it beyond any of his own that he marched Night and Day to get up to the Enemy and making over-hasty Journeys over-heat himself with unusual Travel and fell so sick that he was fain to rest himself at Senlis and trust to the Care of his Brother the Duke of Bedford to prosecute the Design who relieved the Town and forced the Daulphin to retreat as he thought a great Looser by the Seige but it prov'd quite otherwise For the loss of the Town was nothing in comparison of the loss of King Henry who died not long after and which made his Death the more deplorable was That he no sooner left the World but Fortune left the English whereof having some Prophetick Revelation 't is thought the knowledge thereof might not be the least reason of shortning his Dayes by adding to the violence of his Distemper For 't is credibly reported that at the News of the Birth of his Son Henry born at Windsor himself being then in France even wearied with continual Victories he cryed out in a Prophetick Rapture Good Lord Henry of Monmouth shall small time Reign and get much and Henry of Windsor shall long time Reign and lose all but Gods will be done Which saying has given occasion to some to magnifie his Memory above all the Kings that were before him not to say all that came after him in that he was in some sense both King Priest and Prophet HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE A Prince of excellent Parts in their kind though not of kindly Parts for a Prince being such as were neither sit for the Warlike Age he was born in nor agreeable to the Glory he was born to but such rather as better became a Priest then a Prince So that the Title which was sometimes given to his Father with relation to his Piety might better have been applyed to the Son with reference to his that he was the Prince of Priests Herein only was the difference betwixt them That the Religion of the one made him bold as a Lion that of the other made him as meek as a Lamb. A temper neither happy for the times nor himself for had he had less Phlegme and more Cholar less of the Dove-like Innocence and more of the Serpentine subtilty 't is probable he had not only been happier whilst he liv'd but more respected after he was dead whereas now notwithstanding all his Indulgence to the Church and Church-men there was none of them so grateful as to give him after he was murther'd Christian Burial but left him to be interr'd without Priest or Prayer without Torch or Taper Mass or Mourner indeed so without any regard to his Person and Pre-eminence that if his Obsequies were any whit better then that which holy Writ calls the Burial of an Ass yet were they such that his very Competitor Edward the Fourth who denied him the Rights of Majesty living thought him too much wronged being dead that to him some kind of satisfaction he was himself at the charge of building him a Monument The beginning of his Reign which every Body expected to have been the worst and like to prove the most unsuccessful part in respect of his Minority being but Nine Months old when he was crown'd happen'd to be the best and most prosperous there being a plentiful stock of brave men left to spend upon who behaved themselves so uprightly and carefully that it appear'd the Trust repos'd in them by the Father had made a strong Impression of Love and Loyalty to the Son The Duke of Bedford had the Regency of France the Duke of Gloucester the Government of England the Duke of Exeter and the Cardinal Beauford had the Charge of his
Conclusion from so bad a Beginning by making way for some Protestant Lady of that Country that might advance the Reformation begun by him there he vext the Question a long while and finding that the Pope over-aw'd by the Emperour durst not consent to a Divorce he to scandalize him the more set forth by many learned Arguments the unlawfulness of the Marriage and so nettled King Henry that the Pope doubting the effects of his Impatience propos'd by way of Expedient though but faintly to Gregory Cassalis the English Resident then at Rome that he would permit him ut aliam duceret Uxorem which in plain English was That if the King pleased he would allow him to have two Wives at once Now whether it were that the King doubted his power and thought he could not make good what he promised for that he could not make that Marriage out which he had already to be either lawful or unlawful so as to relieve him or dismiss it Or whether he had as is more probable a clear Sentiment of the Popes slight Opinion of him in making so unusual not to say unlawful a Proposal to him is not certain but certain it is he never forgave the Affront till by vertue of his own proper power he had divorced himself from his Authority which the Cardinal labouring to uphold by his Legatine power out of hope of being himself Pope nor only lost himself in the attempt but drew all he Clergy who took part with him into a Premunire Of whose Error his wise Servant Cromwel took the advantage making his Masters fall the occasion of his own rising by whom the thoroughly humbled Convocation weâ—e perswaded to petition the King for their pardon under the Title and Stile of Ecclesiae Cleri Anglicani Protector supremum Caput which rais'd a greater dispute upon the Supremacy not long after then was before upon the point of Divorce For the Bishop of Rochester who by reason of his great learning and sanctity of Life was a leading man refusing to subscribe the aforesaid Petition unless some words might be added by way of explanation of the Kings Supremacy Cromwel took the Defence thereof upon himself and by advice with Bishop Cranmer there were many Arguments brought to justifie the same both from the Authority of Kingship in general de Communi Jure by vertue of that Divine Law that has given the stile of a Royal Priesthood to all anointed Kings and to which by a parallel Case the Pope himself did not long after give more then a seeming allowance For Clement the Seventh at the interview of Marselles when he was urged by some that desired Reformation and prest for the liberty of receiving the Sacrament in both kinds by an Argument taken from the custome of the Kings of France who alwayes received both Elements he answered That it was a peculiar priviledge by which Kings were differenced from other men as being anointed with the Unction of Priesthood as likewise from the particular Prerogative of the Kings of this Isle de proprio Jure or by the Common Law of this Land which was of ancienter date then any Prescription made by the Pope having been ratified by the Sanction of several Acts of Parliament that had declar'd all Spiritual Jurisdiction to be inherent in the Crown This Doctrine of his wanted not its Use for the King had this immediate benefit of the Dispute to be restored to the Annates and First-fruits of the Bishopricks and now the Bond of his Holiness 's Authority being thus loosed one priviledge dropt out after another till at length they not only divested him of the profit but of the honour of his Fatherhood forbidding any to call him any more * Anciently written Pa. Pa. i. e. Pater Patriarcharum Papa or Pater for that there could be but one Lord and Father but only Bishop of Rome These Annates as they were some of the principal Flowers of the Triple Crown and could not well be pluck'd off without defacing the Sacred Tyara so the whole Conclave took such an alarm at the loss of them that apprehending no less then a total defection to follow they most peremptorily cited the King himself to appear at Rome under pain of Excommunication This was thought to be so unreasonable an Indignity offered to his Majesty in respect it was neither convenient for him to abandon his Kingdom by going so far in Person nor any way decent to trust the Secrets of his Conscience to a pragmatical Proctor that the Parliament who were conven'd to consider of the matter thought it but necessary to put a stop to all Appeals to be made out of the Realm under the penalty of Premunire and pray'd his Majesty without more ado to appoint a Court of Delegates here at home to determine the Cause Upon which the Marriage being not long after declared void Cromwell hastned on the Match with the Lady Anne Bulloigne but the Court of Rome judging the first Marriage good and the last void anathematiz'd all that were assistant in the Divorce and to shew how much they were incens'd by the precipitation of their Sentence they concluded it in one only which by the usual Form could not be finish'd in less then three Consistories This began that Fiery tryal which followed not long after wherein we may say his Holiness himself prov'd to be the very first Martyr dying immediately after the pronunciation of that great Curse as one blasted by the Lightning of his own Thunder whereby the Church Universal being without a Head The Reformists here took that opportunity to provide for their own by declaring the King Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England for the support of which Dignity they vested in the Crown the First-fruits of all Benefices as they had before of all Bishopricks Dignities and Offices whatever spiritual Setting forth in what manner Bishops Suffragans should be nominated and appointed and what their Priviledges and Authorities should be In defence of which their proceedings the King himself wrote an excellent Book or at least it pass'd for his De Potestate Christianorum Regum in suis Ecclesiis contra Pontificis Tyrannidem c. But there were many however and those of no small note who continued so obstinate in their Popish Principles that they could neither be moved by his Pen nor his Penalties to submit chusing rather to part with their Blood then their Blessing And whether they were real or mistaken Martyrs or not rather Sufferers then Martyrs I will not take upon me to say it being as hard for others to judge them as for themselves to judge the thing they died for Truth and Treason being in those dayes Qualities so like one another that they were scarcely to be discern'd as appears by the nice Cases of those two I think the most eminent persons of all that were so unhappy as to suffer for setting up the Papal above the Regal Authority the
headless Queens The Lady Anna Buloigne and the Lady Katherine Howard either as far divided in Religion as they were in their Affections Eight dayes and upwards past between the proclaiming of this Queen and the calling her first Parliament during which time the two Religions were publickly permitted with equal Indulgence The Divine Service being so blended with Superstition that as one observes the State of England before her Persecution was not much unlike that of the Jews after theirs who presently upon the Captivity took a mid way between Hebrew and Ashdod on the same day that Mass was sung in the Quire at Westminster the English Service was sung in the Body of the Church And the two Religions if divided Opinions may deserve that Name being thus brought to confront each other no marvel if the Demagogues of each Perswasion justled for Precedence the Protestants being back'd by the present Laws the Papists by the Prerogative these incouraged by the Queens Opinion those by her Promises But as in the close of Day light and darkness contesting for Superiority seem equally match'd till in the end the latter prevails So happen'd it now upon the death of the late King whose Religion being different to that of his Successor the Question was which must take place and become the Religion of the State She her self being not so forward to declare after she came to be Queen as she was before But to palliate the matter in discharge of her Obligations to the Loyal Protestant Gentry of Suffolk and Norfolk that were the first set her up she seem'd content to call a Parliament that might take off the Odium from her making way to it by a general pardon which had so many Exceptions in it as shew'd there would be more found at the Convention And now being fearless of any more danger by Rivals happy in the single possession of her self and Throne there wanted nothing to compleat her felicity save that she knew it not Whereby it fell out so unluckily that she brought upon her self very great hatred and clamor by that whereby most Princes secure the love of their People to them whilst being wholly guided by those of her Councel she submitted her Reason to their Passions who under the pretence of Religion ingaged her in the greatest Persecâ—tion that ever was known under any Christian Government causing her to shed more Blood although she reign'd only five years four months and some odd dayes then was spilt by those two great Tyrants Richard the Third and her own Father putting both together there dying for Religion only not to mention what suffer'd on Civil Accompts no less then Three hundred whereof there was one Arch-bishop four Bishops and twenty one Divines of note But that which made it the more supportable was that however she was prodigal of her Subjects Lives she was yet more sparing of their Livelyhoods For she began with a rare Example in pardoning the very first Subsidy she had and she never had but one more So that putting that which was remitted against that which was received she had upon the matter none at all all her time And yet we find she was in continual Action at home or abroad having alwayes as her Father before her occasion to make use of men at Arms either to defend or inlarge her Dominions For as she was obstinate in the Resolution she had taken of restoring the Popes Authority contrary to the promise she made to those who first set her up being perswaded by the Priests that rul'd there that she had no such way to manifest her Faith as by the breach of it So she cut out so much matter for Rebellion by the Violence she offer'd both to Conscience and Interest that she had little Rest but no Peace all her dayes Now whether it were a natural Distrust of her weakness as she was a Woman or a Feminine Diffidence of her Wisdom as she was a Maid or that in truth she desir'd a help meet for satisfaction of her Affections as well as for support of her Affairs is not otherwise to be judg'd then by the choice she made But so it was that finding she could not stand by her self without a Husband no more then an Adjective without a Substantive she propos'd it as the first thing to her Councel directing them to make choice of such an one for her as might be as fit to give Laws to her as she to them Three there were in Proposal for her Philip Infant of Spain Son to the Emperour Charles the Fifth the old Cardinal Pool and the young Marquiss of Exeter to each of which as there were some Motives to draw her Affections so there were many Arguments to disswade her from them Those that had respect to the settlement of the Kingdom thought Philip the fittest match as being a Puissant King strengthned with many great Allies and who had as great an Enmity to the French the only Enemy England ought to fear as they themselves But against him the first Objection was That he was a Stranger The second That being Native of Spain he probably might by this Match bring England into some danger of Subjection to that Kingdom And lastly That there was somewhat of undecency not to say inequality in respect to his Person for that it seem'd strange that she should be the Wife of the Son now who thirty years before should have been Wife to the Father Those that stood for the Cardinal urg'd his Love to his Country and the Love the Country had for him in respect of his great Sanctimony and Wisdom which rendred him particularly acceptable to the Queen then for his Dignity he was not much inferiour to Kings and by his Mother descended from Kings and for his Age it was more agreeable to that of the Queens then that of either of the other two But the principal end of Marriage being Procreation he fell under an exception not to be answer'd as being a Batchelor of near Sixty four years old and so needed a Nurse rather then a Wife The Youth of the Lord Courtney being a brisk Cavalier and by Birth as well as the best Blood of England and France could make him gave him the preferrence above the Cardinal But some of the Juncto objecting That he lov'd Popularity more then ever he could be brought to love the Queen and that he smell'd too ranck of Lutherism to be her Bed-fellow they carried it by a general Vote against him for King Philip as well to take off all Exceptions by the Disparagement of marrying a Subject as for those seasonable and most Incredible Advantages it brought to England which were express'd in the Instrument of Marriage yet extant whereof there needs no further mention then the addition of the Netherlands and Burgundy to be for ever a Member of the Imperial Crown of this Realm in case there had been any Issue betwixt them All this notwithstanding such was the
should be but short were easily drawn into many desperate Conspiracies which ending with the Forfeiture of their own brought her Life and Government into continual Jeopardy The next great thing that feâ—l under her Consideration was the point of Marriage and Singularity For it being doubtful in what state the Kingdom would be left if the Queen of Scots Title should ever take place who besides that she was an avow'd Papist had married the French Kings Son who in her Right bore the Arms and Title of England as well as of Scotland it was told her she would not shew her self a true Mother of her Country without she consented to make her self a Mother of Children Whereunto King Philip of Spain as soon as he heard of Queen Mary his Wives death gave her a fair Invitation by his Ambassador the Conde Feria whom he sent over publickly â—o Congratulate her as a Queen but privately to Court her as a Mistress assuring her that he much rather desired to have her to be his Wife then his Sister and as the Report of her being Successor to his Queen had much allay'd the grief he conceiv'd for her death so he said 't was his desire she should take place in his Bed as well as in his Throne that so by giving her self to him she might requite the kindness shew'd by him when he gave her to her self after her Sister left her exposed to the malice and power of her Enemies In fine he omitted no Arguments to gain his end that might be rais'd from the Consideration of her Gratitude or his own Greatness But she being naturally Inflexible not to say as some have said Impenetrable lest it to her Councel to return this grave Answer for her That she could not consent to have him of all men for a Husband without as great reflection on her Mother as her self since it could not be more lawful for two Sisters to marry the same Husband then for two Brothers to marry the same Wife Secondly That she could not consent to a Match that was like to prove so unfortunate as this would be if without Issue and yet so much more unfortunate with it in respect her Kingdom of England must by the same Obligation become subject to Spain as she to him Thirdly That nothing could more conduce to the Establishing that Authority which had been so industriously abolish'd by her Father and Brother of blessed Memory and conscientiously rejected by her self Fourthly That it could neither be satisfactory to her self or Subjects to have such a King to her Husband whose greatest Concerns being necessarily abroad could neither regard her nor them as he ought much less as they desired This Denial though it seem'd reasonable enough yet King Philip inferring that she dislik'd his Person rather then his Proposal very temperately recommended his Suit to his more youthful Kinsman Charles Duke of Austria second Son to the Emperour Ferdinand who was Rival'd by Eric eldest Son of Gustavus King of Sweden as he by Adolph Duke of Holst Uncle to Frederick III. King of Denmark But neither of these being more successful then his most Catholick Majesty the whole Parliament became Suiters to her to think of Posterity and to eternize her Memory not so much by a Successor like her self as by one descended from her self Which serious address she answer'd with a Jest telling them she was married already And shewing them a Ring on her Finger the same she had received at her Coronation told them it was the Pledge of Love and Faith given her by her dear Spouse the Kingdom of England which words she delivered with such an odd kind of Pleasantness that all the Wise men amongst them thought she made Fools of them and the Fools thought themselves made so much wiser by it as to understand her meaning to be that she would not look abroad for a Husband but take one of her own Subjects Amongst the rest thus mistaken was Leicester himself who having the vanity to believe he might be the man obstructed his own preferment when he was propos'd as a fitting Husband for the Queen of Scots The Catholick King however he had been rejected hoping that the Catholick Religion might find better acceptation continued his Frâ—endship a long time after his Courtship was ended being so respectful to the Nation not to say to the Queen her self that he would make no accord with the French at the Treaty of Cambray without the restoration of Calais to the English But when he understood how far the Queen had proceeded in point of Reformation how she had as resolutely refus'd to be the Popes Daughter as to be his Wife how she had disallow'd the Councel of Trent and set up a Synod of her own at London he not only left her as slightly as she left him but made such a Conclusion with the French as gave her more cause of Jealousie being not his Wife then she could possibly have had if he had been her Husband For marrying the Lady Isabella eldest Daughter to that King it was suspected that the two Crowns might thereupon unite against England upon the account of the Queen of Scots her Claim who being the Daulphins Wife and the next in Succession after Queen Elizabeth or as some will have it in Right before her as being the undoubted Heir of the Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh was therefore the only Person in the World to whom she could never be reconciled holding her self oblig'd by the Impulse of Nature Honour and Religion to oppose her as after she did to the death wherein perhaps there was no less of Envy then Reason of State being as much offended with her Perfections as her Pretensions For that t'other was a Lady that equall'd her in all surmounted her in some and was inferiour to her in no respects but Fortune only This as it prov'd a Feud that puzled that Age to unriddle the meaning of it charging all the Misunderstanding betwixt them upon the despite of Fate only which to speak Impartially was never more unkind not to say unjust all Circumstances of the Story considered to any Soveraign Princess in the World then to that poor Queen so it was the wonder of this till we saw by the no less fatal Example of that Queens Grandson our late Soveraign how the best of Princes may fall under the power of the worst of men For it was Flattery and Feminine Disdain questionless that first divided them beyond what the difference of Nation Interest or Religion could have done which heightning their mutual Jealousies insensibly ingag'd them before they were aware in such a Game of Wit and Faction as brought all that either had at last to stake and made them so wary in their Play on both sides that the Set ended not as long as the one liv'd or the other reign'd The Queen of Scots had the advantage of Queen Elizabeth by the Kings in her Stock the Kings of
which were likewise confirm'd by Act of Parliament the great Lords having as yet heard nothing of any Commission of Surrendries which was that great Rock of Offence against which his Successor King Charles the First did so unluckily dash himself to pieces Due care being thus taken for Establishment of Truth and Order in the Church the next great Work was to establish quiet in the State that Righteousness and Peace might kiss each other which he judged to be a consideration not less necessary then prudent the active Government of his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth who led all the brave men in her time to hard duty having tired out almost a l the stirring Spirits of the Nation However though it did ease it did not generally please the People the humor of Fighting being not so wholly spent but that it broke out afterward to worse purpose it being in our Fate as has been observ'd by some Melancholy States-men that whenever we are long kept from quarrelling with others we are apt to quarrel with one another But that which discontented the Men of Mars most was to see the Faction of the Gown-men pricking up and wholly predominant Upon this lower Orb as in the Skie Aleyn Vit. H. 7. Sol constantly is nearest Mercury Neither did he take part with them so much out of the pleasure he had in Books as out of an aversness to Arms whereunto he seem'd to have such an Antipathy that by his good will he did not care to see any Sword-man within his Palace whereby the Court came by degrees to loose two points of its ancient Lustre one in the Exercise of Tilting which was an Entertainment that added much to the Grandeur and Magnificence of the late Queen and King Henry her Father the other in the choice of the Gentlemen Pentioners an Order which being set up by the Wisdom of her Grand-father Henry the Seventh a Prince of severe Gravity she was so fond of and so curious in ordering the state of their attendance that none could attain to that honour all her time but who were men of very good Quality and yet more goodly Stature who by their graceful Personage might set forth the place as she design'd the place should set forth them so that in time it became a kind of Nursery for Officers and Men of Command who were sent abroad into France and the Low-Countries to learn the Art of cutting Throats if need were and so return'd again But this King it seems being taken with no such armed Pomp neglected it so far that some of the ruffling Gallants about the Town began to speak of it with more freedom then became their Duty or Discretion taxing him downright with Pusillanimity and causless fears saying that he trifled away more money in insignificant Embassies and Negotiations for a dishonorable Peace then would have maintain'd an honorable War But he having before shut up the Gates of Janus all his talk was as we commonly say without Doors for he esteem'd it honour enough that he had conquer'd himself according to that of the Poet Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Moenia Peace he had at home without his seeking for it O Neil the great Disturber of his Predecessors quiet being presented to him as a Prisoner by the Lord Mountjoy as soon almost as he came in which gave him the occasion to begin with the settlement of Ireland first by giving the possession of the whole Province of Ulster O Neil's Country and the sink of Rebellion to the Citizens of London who thereupon setled two Colonies there the one at Derry every since call'd London-derry t'other at Colraine which they stor'd with Four hundred Artizans whilst the King for the better supplying them with Souldiers erected a new Order of Knighthood call'd Baronets from their taking place next the Sons of Barons each of which was ingaged to lay down as much money at the Sealing of his Patent as would maintain thirty Foot Souldiers one whole year at the rate of Eight pence a day a piece which came to twenty shillings a day And the Complement of these Knights being Two hundred there was a compleat Establishment of Three thousand Souldiers without any further noise to be ready for his Service whenever he had occasion to make use of them Now in order to the having Peace abroad there needed no more but to renew the Leagues he had made before with the Princes his Neighbours under another stile The great Question was Whether he should accept of the Olive-branch from the King of Spain with whom his Predecessor had so long contended for the Laurel and upon debating the whole matter besides the motives of the Half-peace already made with him whilst he was King of Scotland and the whole benefit of Trade that he was like to have as he was King of England the certainty of setting the Catholick and the most Christian Kings together by the Ears the uncertainty of being able to raise monies to maintain a War so easily as Queen Elizabeth did who had the knack of borrowing money which serv'd her to as good purpose as if it had been given the Parliament being for the most part the Pay-masters there were many Reasons of State some whereof were not fit to be publish'd perhaps not to be understood which induced him to call in the Letters of Mart and conclude that League which how acceptable it was to both Kings may be guess'd by the mutual Caressings of each other with extraordinary Embassies and Presents and the more then ordinary Ratification of the Articles of Peace but how far the People were content to have any Friendship with the Catholick King it is easie to guess especially after the discovery of that Catholick Plot commonly call'd the Gun-powder Treason which as it was contriv'd in a hotter place then Spain so it was hatch'd up in Darkness never to partake of the Light but when it was to be all Light and to give such a terrible blow as was at once to Extinguish the Light the Hope and the Glory of this Nation This the All-seeing Eye of Providence which pierces thorow the dark Womb of Conspiracy and blasts the Embrio of Treason before it can be form'd miraculously detected to the amazement of all Mankind no body imagining there could be such danger by Fire so near unto the Water the meaning of it being so little understood even after it was discovered that neither could the Lord Monteagle who receiv'd the first notice in a Letter writ in an unknown hand tell to what Friend he owed his Preservation nor any one else guess from what Enemy they were to expect their destruction till the King himself by inspiration rather then instinct yet admonish'd perhaps by the subversion of that House wherein his Father was murther'd apprehended by the word Blow what the Element must be that was to be so subtil in its Execution as that they who were hurt for
is said to have been transformed into a kind of Copper-colour And having to that brazen face of his such an Iron heart as deem'd nothing too difficult for him to attempt they were easily perswaded to joyn themselves with him whiles he threw himself upon dangers seemingly invincible so seemingly unconcern'd as if he had known or at least believed that he earrled the Fate of the three Nations upon the point of his single Sword So that it is no marvel after a long Series of Successes both in Ireland and Scotland where his very name like that of Caesars made his way to Victory having at the last got the better of the King himself in the fatal Battel of Worcester whom yet with a Politick Modesty he denied to have been defeated by his but as he said by an Arm from Heaven he should be so hardy as with the same Club he wrested out of Hercules hand to dash out the Brains of the Infant Common-wealth not then full five years old making himself the sole Administrator of all its Goods and Chattels to wit the Moneys raised by sale of Crown and Church Lands the growing benefit of all Forfeitures Confiscations and Compositions together with the annual Rent of Ninety thousand pounds per mensem over and besides which he had advantage of all the queint Projections then on foot as the years rent laid on Houses built upon new Foundations in and about London the Contributions for the distressed Protestants in Savoy the Collections of the Committee of Propagation as 't was call'd who were to take care for the planting the Gospel in the dark Parts of the World being no inconsiderable Levies These I take to have been the personal Estate of the Common-wealth To the real Estate of Inheritance which he principally aim'd at viz. the Soveraignty and Dominion of the three Kingdoms by Sea and Land since he could make no better Title then as the first Occupant by his Primier Seisin which in effect was none other but plain Disseism so long as the right Heir was alive against whom there could be no bar by Fine or Recovery whilst he continued beyond the Seas the Learned Knaves about him advised him to intitle himself to it by Act of Parliament Now forasmuch as by the first Instrument of Government it was Articled that there should be a Parliament once in three years two whereof he had already call'd that had neither pleas'd him nor were pleas'd with him the first being so bold to question his Authority the next himself he resolv'd now to appear like the Grand Seignior with his Bashaws about him and accordingly he chose several Prefects of Provinces whom he call'd by the name of Major Generals whose business it was first to keep down the unreconcileable Cavaliers secondly to new mould the Linsey-wolsey Covenanters many of whom about this time began to be corrupted with Principles of Honesty and lastly to reform the Elections of Burgesses so that he might with no less satisfaction then safety call as a little after he did the third Parliament whom yet he vouchsafed not the honour of that Name but to shew them how little he feared any Battery of their Ordinance permitted them to be nick-nam'd The Convention a strange Pack made up on purpose for the strange Game he was to play of all Knaves but Knaves as it appear'd afterward of different Complections These having fram'd another Instrument of Government Indeavours to make the Protector King pressed him by their humble Petition and Advice as they term'd it with not unlike flattery and falshood as M. Anthony did Caesar to legitimate his Usurpation by taking upon him the Title of King The Lawyers that were of his Common-Council urg'd him to it for that as they said there was no other way left for him to guard the Laws or for the Laws to guard him The States-men that were of his Privy-Councel provok'd him to it by the Example of Brutus the Roman Liberator whose folly they said it was that having murther'd Caesar he did not set up himself or some other King though by some other name since as he could not be ignorant that such abortive Liberty as he had given life to must needs prove the Parent of a lasting servitude so he might foresee that Caesar had so ingrafted himself into the Body Politick that one could not be separate from the other without the destruction of both and as he had need of Forces so had they of a Head and better one craz'd then none at all His nearest Friends and Relations press'd him upon the point of Honour Neither could there be a readier Argument to perswade him to take upon him to be a Prince then to tell him he was descended from Princes For who knew not that his great Ancestor Cradoc Vraych Vras Earl of Ferlix having as the Herauld said married the Princess Tegaire Daughter and Heir of Pelinor King of Great Britain many hundred of years before either the Norman or Saxon Conquerors could pretend to any thing so that now the Question was not so much with what right he could make himself King of England as by what right he had been so long kept out of it In this confusion of Counsels it came to his own turn at last to advise himself and accordingly he weighed all their Arguments and taking the last first into consideration he easily over-pass'd the honour of his Extraction for two Reasons First for that his was not the chief Family of Wales and secondly for that he was not the Chief of his Family Besides common Fame had debas'd him by an odd kind of Disparagement which however perhaps mistaken took much from the dignity of his Person as being believ'd to have been an ordinary Brewer though it prov'd to be as Daniel observes by Jaques D' Artevile the great Stickler of Flanders in Edward the Third his time a Brewer of more then of Beer Neither did he much more regard the point of Law for that he knew it to be no otherwise binding then as a silken Cord which upon any force used to it is apt to flip and let go its hold That which mov'd him most was the point of State rais'd out of that pinching President of Brutus yet there was an unanswerable scruple rested upon that too to wit How it could be reasonable for him to expect to hold them in with a twine thread of voluntary Submission who had so lately by his own advice broken the strong bond of Allegiance and which yet he durst not object to any but himself he foresaw his Death would make way for some of his Fellow Regicides to usurp by his own Example as much upon his Successors to the disseisin of those who call'd him Father as he had done by disinheriting the Sons of the true Father of his Country This shewing him that the thing call'd Chance would have its share in despight of all his wisdom and providence and that there was
Britannis Imperio Less ambitious but not less amorous was the Sanguine SAXON who bewitcht with the beauty and fertility of the place quit the certain profits of his old Inheritance at home for the uncertain hopes of new here purchasing with the loss of their Lives a Title as mutable and frail as their fortune The DANES their Successours esteem'd the Conquest of this Country worth the unpeopling their own Invading the Invaders with such incredible numbers as left their Wives and Children without defence there whilst they strove to Captivate those here surprizing the Saxons as the Ichneumon does the Crocodile which finding his Jaws open to devour his prey leaps into his mouth and makes a passage through his Bowels The NORMANS and they like little Torrents hastning to loose themselves in the fathomless depth of our British Ocean which chang'd their Natures as well as their Names and gave them another Spirit fit for another World for so was this Island esteem'd and accordingly is to be consider'd in the next place as the third and last Instance of its glory 3. In being it self esteemed another World 14. It was a great advance of Cesar's name and made no small noise through all the Streets of Rome when they heard he had past the danger of that dark Ocean Qui geminos interluit Orbes When he had shot that dismal Gulph which ran betwixt two Worlds under the Arch of Heaven and as it was scarce credible that he could e're return so upon his Return they look'd on him as come from the Gods and with a suitable adoration he was saluted by the Senate with that Title of Divus never given to any bâ—fore but whom they thought Immortal but this glory of his like that of Lightning frighted them at the same time it shin'd in their faces to that degree that the horrour continued in their apprehensions to the very time of Caligula who designing to transport his Army out of Holland into Britaine was on the sudden surpriz'd with such a Pannick Fear at the Sight of our dark Sea that as one depriv'd of all sense of honour he contented himself with having only look'd towards us and return'd Laden with no other Spoils than a few Cockle shells gather'd in the Belgick Shoar The like apprehensions had those Legions in Gallia whom Claudius sent to attend him in his expedition here mutining against their Officers and crying out with one voice that they would not make War in any other World but their own This conceit of Britains being another World held to the middle times as appears by that Title given to our Countryman Constantine stil'd by the Panegyrist Divus Vrbis Orbis c meaning Britain and accordingly 'tis reported that when the British Souldiers saluted him Emperour at York they presented him with a Tufa or Golden Ball as a Symbol of his Soveraignty over the World of Britains upon which being the first of that kind he after his Conversion to Christianity placing a Cross it is since become the usual Ensign of Majesty and usurpt I will not say how improperly by all other Christian Princes being reck'ned amongst the Regalia as the Crown and Scepter neither hath this conceit of Britains being another World been so antiquated but that Vrban the Second had respect thereto when in the Councel of Cleremont he caus'd the Arch Bishop of Canterbury to sit at his Feet and Decreed that he should take the same place in all future Councils Tanquam alterius Orbis Pontificem The Reason of this Conceit came not from the distance of the place so much as the greatness of the Isle the greatest saith (a) Tacit. vit Augusti Tacitus ever known to the Romans the greatest saith (b) Java Borneo Sumatra and Madagascar being not discovered at that time Dionisius ever known to the World and truly if we make our Computation as the Antients did theirs from the Limits of the Sea which as I noted before they thought to be comprehended by Britain or within it the bounds thereof will appear to be boundless extending to those far distant Regions now become a part of us and growing apace to be the bigger part in the Sun-burnt America c Grotius Silvar lib. 2. Finis hic est qui fine caret Quae meta Britannis Littora sunt aliis Regnique accessio tanta est Quòd ventis velisque patet 15. But I am loath to lessen our greatness by Extending it The Geometrical Greatness of the British Empire since the Isle it self without Consideration of any of its Appendixes Contains Ground enough within the Integral Limits of its Terra firma to keep up the Repute of being stil'd as we find it in Aristides by way of Excellence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Island for by the narrowest Computation of our modern Geographers 't is not less than (d) Dion in Ser. reckonâ— h 891 miles eight hundred Italian miles in length and above four hundred broad but taking in the (e) By the Greek Writers call'd the Hesperides Sorlings at the South west Cape of the Land and the Isle of Schetland generally suppos'd to be the antient Thule that was always reckon'd a part of Britain at the utmost North cast point with the lesser Islands thereunto belonging it is little less than 1500 miles long the breadth since the addition of Ireland bearing a due proportion by the present scale and therefore 't is no marvel that upon the Division of Christianity into Nations at the two general Councels of Constance and Pisa the first the very greatest that ever was the last not the least England gave voice as one fourth part of Christendome the other three being France Germany and Italy which being Iberia Major contain'd Spain as Iberia Minor 16. The Land forâ—e of this Isle Others there are that take the measures of our greatness from the number of those Forces this little spot of Earth hath maintained in all ages the Reputation of whose Victories both at home and abroad hath added so much more to the Opinion Strangers have had of our Grandeur by how much they find their own Historians more faithful Witnesses to our Glory than any born amongst our selves How far fam'd were those 6000 Tribelius Max. carry'd hence to strengthen Otho's Faction in Germany neither was there a less value put upon those 8000 transported away by Honorius Flac. to make good Vitellius's party More famous but less fortunate were those 10000 for they were no less that were tempted by Claud. Albinus to partake of his Fate in France Numberless were the numbers on which Constantine founded his greatness as appears by that (f) Little Britaigne in France call'd bâ—fore Armorica Province whereof a remnant only peopled that thereupon took its name from us Constantine the Second carried away no less than 30000 to maintain the hope he had conceiv'd of being Lord of the greater as well as the lesser World These were
to prey for himself where ere they could find their Quarry Ambrosius set upon the Saxons whiles Uter sought out Vortigern This brought a fourth pretender into the list as forward and fortunate as either of them who had he been as skilful to keep as he was to get a Victory he might possibly by turning Fortune round have made her so giddy that she could not in a short time have been able to bear up as after she did and fix her self upon one side This was Pascentius the second Son of Vortigern who mov'd with like Zeal to preserve his Father as his elder Brother was to preserve his Country joyned with the Saxons and set upon Ambrosius to divert Uter and if possible to have contracted the War into a narrower room at that place now called Aymesbury but in the first place Ambrosebury in memory of K. Ambrosius his being slain there where they met with so like assurance and not unlike courage that the hopes on either side seem'd evenly poys'd But the Battel ending with the lives of the two great Undertakers Ambrosius and Pascentius the one just ready to step into the Throne the other not well fixed in it who went into the other World with a sufficient train of Followers to shew what rank they held in this Uter enter'd not only without resistance but without a Rival which added no less to his Greatness then to his Security This one would have thought had been sufficient to have unravel'd all his Glory and to have rendred him not only lost to all the World but to himself too But as the Palm-tree is therefore figurative of Victory because the more it is depressed the stronger it bears up against the weight is laid upon it so he less sensible of his own then his Armies weakness caus'd himself to be carried in his Litter to them and that unexpected conquest of his own infirmities so animated their activity that finding they must either leave all their Bodies dead upon the place or his in case they did not make themselves Masters of the Day they tarried not to expect the Assault but gave it whereby turning the surprise upon the other side they slew Ten thousand of their best men and forced the rest to seek safeguard under the protection of their new landed Forces who taught by the experience of former Battels lost how necessary 't is to joyn to Courage caution had strongly fortified themselves within an inaccessable Rampart which he indeavouring to force lost his Victory as unexpectedly as he got it and with it his own amongst many other lives falling like the fierce Creature from which he took his Name whose Image 't is thought he bore upon his Shield to shew his descent from the Roman Emperours as our Kings since have continued it amongst the Royal Banners of England to shew their descent from him THE THIRD DYNASTY OF ENGLISH OF ENGLISH SUccessors to the Romans were the English a People of so ancient an Extract that he that will trace their Original must follow it as Berosus doth into the Flood for as they were ever famous by Sea so they deduce their Pedigree from the Universal Deluge (a) Whom the â—ermans worshipt for their God of War as the Romans Mars Woden their Common Ancestor being descended in a direct Line from (b) From whom the German Language is call'd the Tentonick Theutones the Grandchild or (c) Lanquet Gambrivius the first Inventer of good Ale and Beer which they have lov'd but too well ever since he was the third in descent from (d) From whom they were call'd Germans Manus Son of (e) From whom the German Language came to be call'd the Twich or Tutch Tongue Tuisco the eldest Son of Gomer the first Son of Japheth third Son of Noah whom Moses remembers by the name of Aschenaz from whom the Hebrews call the Germans (f) Illust Poliolb fol. 70. Aschenims Thus their own Records will have them to be some of the most renown'd Reliques of the Old World however Tacitus who began to live near about the time Christ died by what mis-understanding I know not makes no mention of them otherwise than under the Common Name of Cimbri But probable 't is that in respect they possess'd that part of Germany which lyes betwixt the Rhene and the River Albis over which the Romans never pass'd being by (g) Ptol. lib. 5. c. 18. Ptolomey's Reckoning near a third part of the whole he had not the good hap to attain to any near acquaintance with them At their first Arrival here they design'd to change the Name of Britain into Nova Saxonia or rather Saxonia Transmarina they themselves passing under the general Name of Saxons so call'd from their (h) Lipsius Seaiâ—es a sort of short Swords or rather long Knives that they wore under their Arming Coats So much more remarkable amongst the unadvised Britains in that they made a most fatal Proof of the dangerous use of them by the loss of no less than three hundred Lives at one Interview amongst whom were divers of the best Quality of their Nation who were inhumanely butcher'd at a Parley where they met unarm'd in that desert place now call'd Stonenge in Wiltshire by some suppos'd to be the Monument of that days Treachery for which there can be no excuse but that of the Poet Virtus an dolus quis in Hoste requirat But after they got the entire possessâ—on of the whole they chang'd their minds and as some say in honour of Engist the first Invader they turn'd the Name of Britain into Engistland or as others say complying with the Angles the greatest People amongst them call'd it Anglelond which since we term England They were divided into three distinct Tribes differing as in Countrey so in Name The first call d JUTES or as Bede calls them VITES these before they came hither inhabited the Mountains that divide Germany from Italy in the first place and afterwards fixt themselves in the Cimbrian Cbersoness since call'd Juitland their portion here was most of the South part of the Isle being thereupon term'd South-sex toward that Island which from them was call'd the Isle of Vites or Wight The second Tribe was call'd ANGLES who possessing the South part of the Chersoness gave name to the Town of Angolen These were the greatest Scept both for fame and power who taking up much of the East all the North and most of the North-west part of this Isle being four parts of seven in the whole the rest took its denomination from them and fell under the general appellation of (i) Which in the Ventonick Tongue signifâ—es the Sâ—aight or Narrow Land Angleland or England The third Tribe which afterwards devorred the other two were those most properly call'd Saxons and for distinction sake from the rest of their own Countrey (k) Aâ— Holiz quod Silvâ—â— Ligâ—â—â— sigâ—â—ficat HOLY SAXONS in respect of their woody Countrey
by taking off his Caution so that after Dinner he would needs go hunt in the New Forrest and taking his Bow to shoot a Deer in that ominous place where before a * His Brother Richard Brother and a †The Son of Robert Duke of Normandy his elder Broth r. Brothers Son of his had both met with violent Deaths Tyrel his Bow-bearer being plac'd right against him as the best Marks-man let fly an Arrow that glancing against a Bough miss'd the Deer and found out him Pectus dum perforat ingens Ille rapit calidum frustrâ de Vulnere Telum Unâ eademque viâ Sanguisque Animusque sequuntur Being thus quietly stated he sweetned his Government by taking off all Taxes to shew his Beneficence and some of the principal Taxers to shew his Justice By the first he pleas'd the Multitude in point of Relief by the other the better sort in point of Envy and Revenge gratifying their Spleen by sacrificing the griping Bishop of Durham a man who being rais'd from a base Condition by baser means had attained to the honour of being Chief Minister to his Brother King William and was grown learn'd in the Science of selling Justice by the distribution of whose Bribes he brib'd those whom he thought fit to make his own Ministers neither thought it he enough to be an English man himself without assuring the State that he intended all his Posterity should be so too and therefore to the end to make sure the wise men that were as apt to be jealous as the weaker sort to be querulous he married Maud Sister to the Scotch King and Daughter to Margaret Sister to Edgar Atheling the right Heir of the English Blood a Lady that brought him an Inheritance of Goodness from her Mother and a good Title of Inheritance from her Uncle Thus firmly did he intrench himself before his Brother whom he had made a King in fame only that he might the easier make himself a real one return'd home who arriving unlook'd for was welcom'd by the Nobility of Normandy with more then ordinary Joy by whom being inform'd of what was done in England he made it the business of the first year to provide an Army and in the second landed it at Portsmouth in order to the recovery of his lost Right whereof he was the more assur'd in respect of those of the Norman Nobility here as he thought inclin'd to him who mov'd with revenge or discontent would be glad of any Occasion to Revolt This as it was a storm King Henry saw at a distance so he provided so well for it by cutting off all Assistances that Duke Robert and those with him doubting the success and seeing themselves certainly lost if they prevail'd not it being in his power to fight them where he pleas'd and when upon his desire to save the effusion of Christian Blood yielded to Articles of Peace the Substance whereof was this That Henry being born after his Father was rightfully King and being now invested in the Crown by act of the Kingdom should enjoy the same during life and pay Robert 3000 Marks per Annum as an Earnest of the Reversion after his Death in case Robert out-liv'd him With these Conditions Robert rather blinded then satisfied returns back again into his own Country and it had been well if he had never been blinded otherwise But such is the frenzie of Ambition that it suffers not unhappy Princes to consider either what they ought to do or what to suffer whilst like the Superior Orbs they are hurried with restless Motion without understanding by what Intelligences they are actuated Finding himself fallen from the height of his Expectation into some degree of Contempt with his own Subjects he assai'd by Profusion which some call Liberality to raise his Reputation at least to disguise his Impotency spending so freely that the Nobility fearing the Revenues of the Dutchy would not suffice to support his vanity complain'd thereof to King Henry who to shew his own power and t'others weakness sent for him over to chide him and indeed reprehended him so sharply as if he had been his Father and not his Brother and as if he would have him to know he rather expected the Reversion of the Dukedome after his death then to be accomptable to him for the Kingdom after his own and whether it were that he threatned him with a Detention of his Pension or drew him being of a yielding Nature as most indigent men are to give him a release for some inconsiderable Sum of ready Mony is not certain but so it was that upon his return he could no longer conceal the indignation he had conceived at it but took the very first Occasion to shew it by joyning himself with some mutinous Lords who having before begun an unsuccessful Combustion in England had fled over thither to commit what Outrages they could there King Henry for a while pretended himself touch'd in Conscience with the foulness of a Fraternal War but was indeed apprehensive that such trivial Injuries as the taking a few Castles was not worthy the trouble of drawing him over in Person at least not worth the charge of entring into such a War as might justifie the requiring his Dukedom for a satisfaction but having let them alone till he believ'd his sufferance had elevated them beyond the temper of hearkning to any conditions he then took his time to chastise their folly and by one single Battle upon the very same day and in the very same manner as 't is reported that his Father just forty years before won England he won Normandy and having made his brother prisoner depriv'd him first of his liberty after of his country and lastly of that which was dearer than either the light of his Eyes requiting his attempt which was but natural to escape out of prison with a punishment that was of all other most unnatural and as much beyond death as it was short of it which inhumanity to his brother though it was perhaps but a just judgment from Heaven upon him for his inhumanity to his Father whose life he had twice attempted being wilfully blinded by the King of France yet 't was such as was altogether undeserv'd as from him for t'other had him fast enough within his power circumscrib'd by all the rules of Hostility besieged within a Fort and half starv'd he was so far from pressing upon him that he pittied him and broke with his brother Friend to save his brother Enemy Poor Prince Robert how was he betraied by the goodness of his own Nature and tempted like a Child to save the bird which was to pick out his Eyes How did he live to see himself buried before he was dead invelop'd in dark and dismal thoughts whilst he contemplated his Sons loss with more affliction than his own a forward Prince born to two Crowns but now reduc'd to that necessity to borrow one to buy him bread So long
much better success than he that the victorious Empress was forc'd to give place to the more victorious Queen and so hardly escaped that to save her life she was content to be reckon'd amongst the dead being carried off in a Coffin as if she had been kill'd and so forc'd to leave him a prisoner behind that was indeed the life of her Cause the Earl of Gloucester her Brother and her General whose liberty being set against that of the Kings both sides became even again in the list of their fatal Contention And now the Kings Party labours to recover what they had lost those of the Empress her Faction strove only to keep what they had gain'd till both having tired out and almost baffled the Courage of their partakers at home sought for recruits abroad Maud sends into Normandy the King into Flanders each side seems to fright from this time forward not so much for Victory as Revenge But whilst they fright the people with a noise of their great preparations the bubble of expectation swollen to its full height broak and the hopes of either side sunk so low by the death of Prince Eustace Son and Heir to the King and that of the Earl of Gloucester the only pillar which supported the Empress this the party by whom that the party for whom the War was first begun not to say miantain'd that they concluded a Peace for want of strength rather than of stomach all things ending as they began by determination of the free vote of the people who in an open Parliament at Winchester parted the Stakes as evenly as they could giving to King Stephen the Crown during life to Henry Son of Maud and as some think by him the reversion expectant after his death who if he were not his Natural was thereupon made his adopted Son and so ended the troubles of this King which seem to have been so agreeable to his nature that as soon as they ceased he ceased to live surviving the War no longer than just to take leave of his Friends being evicted by an Ejectione firmâ brought against him by Fate to let in the Son of his Enemy after he had held the possession notwitstanding the continual Interruption given him nineteen years with great prosperity though little or no peace witness those many works of Piety done by himsel or others in his time there being more Instances of that Nature during his short Raign than had been in many years before He was the first King of the Plantaginets and began his Raign as the Great Solomon who was near about his Age did his with the choice of wise Councellors to take off all objections against his youth with the expulsion of all Strangers to take off all objections against his being a forrainer with the resumption of all aliened Crown Lands to take of the fear as well as the necessity of Taxes which as it increas'd his reputation no less than his revenue so he pleas'd many with disgusting but a few After this he pluck'd down all those Castles which being erected by King Stephen's permission had proved the nurseries of the late rebellion and he did it with the less clamour in respect the people thought it contributed as much to their quiet as to his own Lastly by expelling those false Lords that contrary to their oath given to his Mother took part with the Usurper Stephen he at once satisfi'd his Revenge and confirm'd the opinion conceiv'd of his Justice and Piety Thus having got the start in point of honour as well as of Riches of all the neighbour Princes his Contemporaries one would have thought so prosperous a beginning must have concluded with as prosperous an ending but it sell out quite otherwise for to the rest of his Greatness was added that of having great troubles and troubles of that durance as ended not but with his life Nor could it well be otherwise for he was of a restless spirit seldome without an Army seldomer without an Enemy but never without an Occasion to provoke one for he was a great ingrosser of glory whereby being necessitated to set himself against every one every one set themselves against him and the confederations against him were so well timed that in one day they invaded him in England Normandy Acquitain and Britain but that which made his unhappiness seem singular was that the greatest part of his Enemies were those of his greatest Friends I mean not such as were of remoter relations as subjects servants confederates or allies c. but those of nearest propinquity his brother his wife his own children such as were flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone so that he could not possibly sight for himself without fighting against himself like those who to preserve life are constrain'd to dismember themselves wherein the malice of his Fate seem'd to exceed that of his Foes whiles it drew more cross lines over his Actions than Nature had drawn over his Face rendring all his undertakings so disasterous that even when he had the best on 't he seem'd yet to have the worst on it and lost his honour though he got his enterprize Thus when he recover'd the Earldome of Northumberland from David King of Scots and the Dukedom of Anjou from his brother Geoffry the first by the power of his Wisdom the last by the wise management of his power both which contests ended not without giving to each of them full satisfaction for their pretentions yet one brought upon him the clamor of injustice t'other the scandal of Avarice two vices ill beseeming any man worse a King So in the dispute he had with the Earl of St. Giles about the County of Tholosse which was his Right though t'others Possession he was fain to ask peace of one that he knew was unable to carry on the War and after he brought him to his own terms was himself so hamper'd with the same Fetters he put upon him that in conclusion he suffer'd no less in the opinion of his wisdom than he had before in that of his power So when he married his Son Henry to the daughter of his great Enemy the King of France with a prudent design of being reconcil'd to him in a nearer combination he found that instead of keeping him out of his Territories which was all he had to care for before the Match he had now let him into his House to do him more mischief with less difficulty there being more danger by his undermining than battering whiles himself permitted the pit to be made in which the foundation of his Sons greatness was to be laid to whom having given too early an expectation of his Kingdom by allowing him the title of King without being able to give him the Grace to tarry for his death he found when 't was too late that a Crown was no estate to be made over in Trust yet this he did not by chance neither as one transported by any Fatherly
Ingraven on it which denoted that wherever that Stone shou d be placed there should the Scotch Dominion take place a Prediction verisied in our days in the Person of King James the Sixth the first of their Kings ever crowned here With this he took away likewise all their Books and Bookmen as if resolved to rob them of all sense of Liberty as well as of Liberty it self only the brave Wallis continued yet Lord of himself and being free kept up their Spirits by the Elixir of his Personal Courage mixt with an Invincible Constancy and Patience till being betray'd by one of his Companions a Villain sit to be canoniz'd in Hell he was forc'd to yield though he would never submit first to the King after to the Laws of England which judging him to dye as a Traytor eterniz'd the Memory of his Fidelity and Fortitude and made him what he could never have made himself the most glorious Martyr that Country ever had No sooner was he dead but Robert Bruce Son to that Robert Earl of Carric who was Competitor with Baliol appeared as a new Vindictor who escaping out of the English Court where he had long liv'd unsuspected headed the confused Body which wanted only a King to unite them in Counsel Power and Affection but unfortunately laying the Foundation of his Security in Blood murthering his Cosin Cumin who had been one of the Competitors upon pretence he held correspondence with King Edward the horror of which fact was aggravated by the manner and place for he took him whilst he was at his Prayers in the Church it cost him no less blood to wipe off that single stain then to defend his Title the Partakers with the Family of Cumin who were many mighty and eager of Revenge joyning thereupon with the English against him This drew King Edward the fourth time personally into Scotland who had he suffered his Revenge to have given place so far to his Justice as to have pursued Bruce as an Offender rather then as an Enemy he might possibly have done more in doing less then he did but he not only sacrific'd the two innocent Brothers of Bruce making them after they became his Prisoners answer with their lives the penalty of their Brother's Guilt but declar'd he would give no Quarter to any of his Party whereby he not only drove them closer together but arm'd them with Desperation which as it hath a keeper edge then hope so it wounded so deep and inraged them to that degree of Courage as not only to give the greatest Overthrow to the greatest Army that ever the English brought thither but to repay the measure of Blood in as full manner as it was given or intended and in the end broke the great Chain of his well laid Design which was to have inâ—arged his Power by reducing the whole Isle Wales being taken in a little before under one Scepter with no less respect to the quiet then the greatness of England but maugre all his Power or Policy they let in a Race of Kings there that found a way to conquer his Successors here without a stroke of which he seems to have had some Prophetick knowledge upon his Death-bed when he took so much care to make his Revenge out-live himself by commanding his Son Edward to carry his Bones round about that Country having just begun his fifth Expedition as he ended his life and not suffer them to be buried till he had vanquish'd it wholly Thus this great King who spent most of his time in shedding others Blood was taken off by the excessive shedding of his own for he dyed of a Dissentery and like Caesar who terrified his Enemies with his Ghost seem'd not willing to make an end with the World afâ—er he had done with it but which never came into any Kings thoughts before or since resolv'd to Reign after his Dominion was determined being confident that his very Name like a Loadstone which attracts Iron to it would draw all the English Swords to follow its fate till they had made good that Union which he with so much harshness and horror had accelerated but as Providence which more respects the unity of Affections then the Unity of Nations did by the * Burrough on the Sands in the Bishoprick of Durham Place where he dyed shew the frailty of that Foundation he laid whilst he liv'd all his Glory expiring with himself so Nature as in abhorrence to the violation of her Laws by the effusion of so much blood as he had shed the most that any Christian King of this Isle ever did turn'd the Blessing she gave him into a Curse whilst she took from him before his Eyes three of his four Sons and the only worthy to have surviv'd him and left him only to survive who only was worthy never to have been born And now whether it was his Fault or his Fate to dote thus upon Gaveston who being only a Minister to his Wantonness could not have gain'd that Power he had over him to make himself so great by lessening him without something like an Infatuation the matter of Fact must declare For before his Coronation he made him Earl of Cornwal and Lord of Man both Honours belonging to the Crown at his Coronation notwithstanding the Exceptions taken against him by all the Nobility he gave him the honour to carry King Edward's Crown before him which of right belonged to a Prince of the Blood to have done and after the Coronation he married him up to his own Niece the Daughter of his second Sister Jone de Acres by Gilbert Clare Earl of Gloucester having indeed rais'd him to this pitch of Greatness as tempted him to raise himself higher being not content with the Power without he might aâ—so share in the Glory of Soveraignty most vainly affecting the Title of KING and if he were not King of Man as he desired he was at least King in Man ruling both there and in Ireland like an absolute Prince not without hopes of a fair possibility of being if the Kings Issue had fail'd King of England after him which Hope made him Insolent and that Insolence Insupportable so that the Lords finding it bootless to expect Justice from the King against him resolv'd to do themselves right and without more ado let fly a whole volley of Accusations at him This first forced him to part from the King and being separated they found it easie to make him part from himself for it was not long before he fell into their hands being taken Prisoner by the Earl of Pembroke who chopt of his Head a deaâ—h however esteem'd to be the most honourable of any other was to him questionless the most grievous in that it made him stoop who never could endure to submit This violent proceeding of the Lords as it shew'd a roughness of the Times suitable to that of their own Natures so it was the first occasion of the second Civil War of England
unsettledness of the Times or of mens Minds rather whilst some were led by Conscience others by their Temporal Concerns some out of Love to Reformation and others out of fear of Superstition some again out of desire of Change but most out of dread of Forreign Servitude that the Conclusion of this Match gave beginning to a desperate Rebellion which though at first it seem'd despicable enough being headed by no better a man then Sir Thomas Wyat a private Knight of Kent the Duke of Suffolk who was in the Conspiracy being apprehended almost as soon as he appear'd yet before it could be supprest the wise Match-makers found they had met with their Match in that Rebel who was so fortunate as to rout the Queens General and take all their Ordnance and Ammunition Upon which he march'd up with full Assurance of taking the chief City into which though he brought but sive Ensigns 't is probable he might have carried it had not Heaven taken part against him as usually it doth against Rebels first arming them with Impudence and then disarming them with Fear making the Arch-Traytor a terrible Example of unparallel'd Insolence who whiles he was at large continued bold as a Lion but being once apprehended prov'd so base a Coward that brib'd with the hopes of Life he made himself guilty of a greater Treachery then he was to dye for accusing Edward Earl of Devon and the Princess Elizabeth the Queens Sister to have been privy to his Conspiracy which gain'd Credit not so much from the Suspect of any private Affection betwixt them two although he alleadged they were to be married as from the secret disaffection either of them had he to the King that should be as being his Rival she to the Queen that was as being her Disseisor the two Sisters as little agreeing in point of Right of Succession as their two Mothers in point of Right of Marriage but fain he would have acquitted them when he found he could not be acquitted himself by it for having serv'd their turn of him the Statesmen gave the fatal turn to him However the malitious Chancellor Gardner resolving to take the Truth at the wrong end and believe it as he pleas'd secur'd them in several Prisons till he were at leisure to examine the matter being then deeply ingaged in providing Fire and Faggots for those Learned Hereticks Cranmer Ridley and Latimer c. who were to make a Holocaust preparatory to the Queens Nuptials which having been defer'd by this unexpected Rising was now propos'd in Parliament For the greater confirmation the three States of the Kingdom assenting thereto upon the Conditions following First That King Philip should admit no Stranger into any Office but only Natives Secondly That he should Innovate nothing in the Laws and Customes of the Realm Thirdly That he should not carry the Queen out of the Realm without her consent nor any of her Children without consent of the Councel Fourthly That surviving the Queen he should challenge no Right in the Kingdom but suffer it to descend to the next Heir Fifthly That he should carry away none of the Crown Jewels nor remove any Shipping or Ordnance Sixthly and lastly That he should neither directly nor indirectly intangle the Realm of England with the Wars betwixt Spain and France Upon which Terms 't was hop'd by those affected not the Match that Philip would knock off there being neither Youth or Beauty to tempt him But as the House of Austria did ever prefer their Ambition before their Love so designing the universal Monarchy he thought he made a great step to it by being put in possession of England and so near intituled to France And now the most Catholick King being joyn'd with the Faith defending Queen it cannot be imagin'd but that they must begin with Religion In order to the Regulation whereof Cardinal Pool being first restored again in blood and reputation was sent for over who arm'd with his Legatine Power and a natural Force of Eloquence press'd hard upon the Parliament and shewed them the danger they were in by their late Schism being become as he said Exiles from Heaven and in no capacity to have been ever readmitted had he not brought from Rome the Keys that opened the gates of Life and thereupon he advised them to abrogate those Laws which lay as blocks in their way urging them thereto from the Example of their good King and Queen who he said had resigned their Title of Supream Head to shew themselves true Members of the Mystical Body and had made Restitution of those Lands which had been sacrilegiously taken from the Church by their Predecessor Which Speech of his being very Methodically digested and delivered with great gravity startled many of the Lords who reflected upon their Fore-fathers Devotion to the holy See but those of the lower House having it seems lower thoughts and deeming it a rare Felicity to have shaken off that heavy Yoke that had so long gall'd their Fore-fathers necks did not so readily assent to receive his profer'd Fenediction at so dear a rate as to part with their Lands which having been divided by the Queens father amongst them were by several Settlements and Alienations so translated from one Family to another that without great Inconvenience they could not be sever'd from their Temporal Proprieties However they so far complyed as to agree That the first Fruits and Tenths granted by the Clergy to King Henry Anno 1534 should be remitted But after they came to consider the Poverty of the Treasure the reason of the several Pensions that had been granted in Lieu thereof by the said King to divers Religious Persons that were still living they revok'd their Decree again Upon which the Legate not skilful enough to deal with a Multitude as appear'd afterward by his loosing the papal dignity desisted content it seems with the honour of having prevail'd over the more devout Queen the heat of whose Zeal had so softned her heart that it was fit for any Impression Now as he had a better Faculty in Canvassing of the Feminine Sex which Cardinal Carraffa afterward Pope Paul IV upbraided him withal in the open Conclave so he prevail'd with her to give up all that she had in her own possession who to move others to imitate her piety did it with that detestation of the Sacriledg of her Predecessors that when one of her wise Counsellors yet of the same Religion told her it would be a great Diminution to the Revenues of her Crown she answered piously and as she thought prudently that she had another Crown to look after that she valued a thousand times more then that But while she is thus careful for the eternal King Philip her Husband was no less busie to secure his Temporal Crown In order to which he went over to receive the Blessing of the Emperour his Father then in Flanders who upon his Arrival delivered up to him the possession of the Low
Countries having given him the Kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem before of the first of which the Pope either envying or fearing the Emperour's Greatness had made the French King some Assurance purposely to ingage him thereby in a War that might weaken them both Great Preparations were made by either Party to secure themselves both with Arms and Alliances the Emperor leaving all his Dominions on this side to his Son whilst himself retires into Spain to alarm the French on the other side and by his Vicinity to Italy whose petty Princes he suspected not to be firm to his Interest makes himself as terrible to his Neighbours as his Enemies But whilst this great design was in Prospect only King Philip was suddenly called home by a Brute that his Queen was with Child the Joy whereof was so universal that it is strange to tell how much it transported the whole Kingdom raising them by the hopes of a young Prince to a degree of seeming Infatuation for they not only mock'd God Almighty in the Church with causeless Thanksgivings but troubled the King and Queen every hour in Court withâ—s groundless Petitions for Places of Attendance on the unborn Child and so far did the Delirium prevail to delude even the Parliament themselves with extravagant apprehensions of their future happiness by the enjoyment of such a Prince who however he were like to be Lord of the greatest part of Christendom would yet in all probability make England the Seat of his Empire that they humbly besought the King in case the Queen should dye in Travel that he would be pleas'd to take upon him the rule and government of the Child and Kingdome such ado have great Princes to be born as well as to dye in quiet But this mistaken Embryo proving at length to be nothing else but a Mis-conception whereof she could not be delivered so as to make way for any better Conception turning to such a fleshy inform Substance as Physitians call a Mole and we vulgarly English a Moon-Calf it put King Philip so ouâ— of Countenance that he tarried not a Month here after her time of Reckoning was our but passing into Flanders put it out of his head since he could not put it out of her belly by beginning a War with France whereto he had a good ground upon the account of the Five years Truce being broken that had been made but a little before The Queen to requite him for her late Miscarriage broke with her People and resolving not to stand Neuter whilst her Husband was ingaged found occasion to make the French Aggressors upon the Crown of England Whereupon the Earl of Pembroke was sent over with Ten thousand Horse and Four thousand Foot who joyning with the Kings Forces which were Thirty five thousand Foot and Twelve thousand Horse before they came they all of them sate down before St Quintins a Town of great importance which the French in vain indeavouring to succour lost Twenty five thousand upon the place Amongst whom were divers of the greatest Quality as John of Bourbon Duke of Anguin the Dukes of Monpensier and Longevile the Viscount Turein c. the Lord Chadenier the Mareschal St. Andrew the Rhinegrave the Constable Mount Morency and his Son Brother to Count Lodowick Gonzaga Brother to the Duke of Mantova the Admiral Coligny and his Brother with divers other Lords of no less eminence who being all taken with the Town made it look like the beginning of a War which every Body judged could not end till the Rupture reach'd to the middle of France The report of this Victory gave great matter of rejoycing to every Body but most especially to the Queen her self yet could it not divert that Melancholy occasioned by the conceit of her Misconception which brought her into a Distemper that not long after kill'd her by her Physicians mistaking her Malady who giving her improper Medicines without regard to the over-cooling of her Liver which it seems is the mischief attends those Moles found not their error till she was so far gone into that desperate kind of Dropsie which they call Ascites that there was no help for her now That which added to her Distemper was an over-nice resentment of the Popes displeasure who offended at her breach with the French punish'd her as Princes use to be by whipping their Favourites with taking away the Legatine Power from her beloved Minister Cardinal Pool to whom as she had ever a great regard so she opin'd that the disgrace put upon a Man of so great Authority and Credit who had been so active in the Conversion of the Nation would as indeed it did not only reflect something on her honour but hazard much the reputation of the Catholick Cause whiles the Roman Religion was not so fully establish'd as she design'd it should and the Enemies of the Church no less dangerous to that of her State This gave her great trouble of Mind and that trouble being heightened by the absence of her beloved Husband brought her into a burning Feaver that foretold a death that might have proved a living one had it not been hastned by the news of the revolt of Calais which being lost in less then six dayes time after it had continued English above Two hundred years came so near her heart that drying up all her Blood brought her under such a fix'd sadness as left her not till she left the World Now to say truth she had great reason to resent the loss for as it was the only Key left to let her into France so it was no small over-sight to hang it by her side with so slender a String as she did there being not above Five hundred Souldiers in it when it was attach'd which were much too few to defend a place of that Importance where there was a kind of necessity to keep the Gates alwayes open HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Christ was the Word that spake it He took the Bread and brake it And what the Word did make it That I believe and take it Which however it seem'd an obscure and uncertain Solution so baffled all her Adversaries that the Priests themselves who hop'd with like Success to have soil'd her as the First Temptor did the First Woman upon the First great Question of Take and Eat found themselves left in the dark to grope after her meaning as well as they could whilst she shut her self up from further Pressures within the Closet of her own private Sense But as Wisdom is perhaps the only Vertue that is distrustful of it self so to shew how little Confidence she had in the strength of her own Abilities she made it her first business to fortifie her self with able Counsellors In the choice of whom her Affections gave place to her Judgment as her Fears to her Foresight admitting divers of her Sisters great Ministers who having been privy to all the Secrets of State were like sharp
Land was divided into two Armies the one consisting of Two and twenty thousand Foot and One thousand Horse commanded by the Earl of Leicester whose Post was at Tilbury The other consisting of Four and twenty thousand Foot and Two thousand Horse which were the Guard of her Person were Commanded by the Lord Hunsden the Sea-ports being Garrison'd with Twenty thousand old Souldiers who were seconded by the Train'd Bands in the respective Counties where they lay The Guard by Sea consisted of One hundred and forty Ships divided into three Squadrons The two first consisting of Fifty each under the Lord Howard the Admiral and Sir Francis Drake the Vice-Admiral waited the coming of the Enemy in Plymouth Road The last Squadron of Forty Commanded by the Rere-Admiral the Lord Henry Seymour second Son to the Duke of Somerset rode between Dunkirk and Callais to prevent any Conjunction with the Prince of Parma With this great Body she design'd to shew the World her Grandeur but when she meant to shew her Power she made use but of Fifteen of them Now as it happens oftentimes that great Calmes precede great Storms so the Catholick King hoping to out-wit the Heretick Queen a little before his great Fleet was ready to come forth dissembling a passionate desire of Peace press'd hard for a Treaty but whilst he thought to deceive her he was deceiv'd by her For she to return the trick upon him consented to the Proposal and by the sending her Commissioners to Ostend so possess'd him of the suppos'd Advantage he had gotten by it that it's thought it made him appear a little sooner then he would for before they could enter into the business he was entred into the British Seas and was no less shock'd when he found her in readiness then he expected she should have been if he had taken her unawares This made them resolve rather to make a Chase fight then lye by 't though they had the advantage of the Wind their honour being preserv'd till they came to Callais for that it was suppos'd all the haste they made away tended only to the Conjunction with the Prince of Parma but after they cut their Cables having not the Courage to stay to weigh Anchor and made all the Sail they could to fly from only eight Fire-ships it then plainly appear'd they neither understood their own Strength nor hers But these Ships being the first of that kind that ever were seen we may allow them to be The Wonder that gave Name to that wonderful Year In this great Conflict were lost more then half of the Spanish Fleet of the English only one Ship and that of no great Consideration so that 't was believ'd having sounded the danger of our Dark Seas passing round by the North they had taken their final Leave of England However the Queen was resolv'd not to leave them so but after much mischief done them by several Privateers whom she permitted to go forth upon their own Charge she resolv'd to become her self the Aggressor and repay to him the great dishonour of his Invasion it being an Indignity not to be forgiven by Princes because it cannot be forgotten by their People who can never be discharg'd from the Fears they have of him who has once set upon them till there be some Confront given that may assure them their own Prince is not so weak as the Enemy by seeking him out would have the World believe The Fleet she set forth consisted of One hundred and fifty Sail yet was not call'd the Invincible though it prov'd so being commanded by the Earl of Essex as General at Land and the Lord Howard as General at Sea who setting upon Cales the second time took it and in it all the Wealth that may be imagin'd to be lodg'd in such a Store-house as that is and after having burn'd all the Ships they found there for which they were offer'd Two Millions of Ducats if they would spare them they spoil'd the whole Island and demolish'd all the Forts and did as 't is thought as much Damage as amounted to Twenty Millions of Ducats more To requite which the King of Spain rigg'd up another Navy and mann'd it with Irish Runnagado's but either their Skill or their Courage failed them at least the Winds did not so favour them but that the Expedition came to nought And now when all the Storms at Sea seem'd to have been blown over and past there rose a Cloud at Land which gave the Queen greater apprehensions of danger then ever she had before The French King who was joyn'd with her in a League Offensive and Defensive against Spain and had reap'd this good Effect by it to recover Amiens which the Spaniard had surpriz'd by the help of the English only yeilding to the Importunities of the Pope and his own People made his Peace without her who quitting his Religion at the same time he quit her Friendship 't was believ'd they would all joyn to set upon her at once Hereupon there were great Debates in Councel upon the point of her closing with the Spaniard who seem'd much to desire a Peace Essex the great Idol of the Sword-men was for continuing the War Burleigh who was the great Patron of the Pen-men was for the Peace And it seems they argued the matter so warmly that being scarce able to keep Peace amongst themselves 't was not likely they should obtain it abroad For Essex could not forbear unseemly Reflections upon the old man nor he from retorting them back as sharply who 't is said being more witty in his Anger call'd for a Bible at the Table and shewing him that Verse in the Psalms where 't is said The bloody minded man shall not live out half his dayes gave him grave warning by an ominous Presage of that which follow'd for we know how shortly after he swell'd and burst However the Queen mov'd with like Zeal to Religion as Essex was with hatred to the Spaniard inclin'd to his Opinion whereupon Cecil submitted to her Judgment but pray'd to have the Question put first to the States of Holland her Confederates Whether they would agree to her making Peace and knowing it to be against their Interest so to do he took the Advantage of their Refusal to demand an aid towards the carrying on of the War out of whom by that trick of State he did her this good Service against her will to screw Eight hundred thousand pounds which being to be paid by Thirty thousand pounds yearly for which the Queen had Cautionary Towns given as a Security it look'd so like a Tribute that after their having offer'd her the Soveraignty as they did 't is hard to prove it was not so And now casting up the Accompt betwixt her and the Spaniard who was her greatest and not to say her only Enemy for the Pope however he bore no less hatred to her yet being at that distance as he was he could not come to close
made Captain of his Guard All persons out-law'd for Treason had their Utlaries revers'd all the bad Subjects were declar'd good and some of the best declar'd Traytors A Treaty of Peace was concluded with England upon Conditions that the Queen-Mother should never be releas'd and in order to the bringing on her Tryal as after it fell out which Tryal of the Mother prov'd yet a greater tryal to the King her Son who having before lost his Father and Grandfather by a dismal Fate both privately murther'd was much more abasht to appear so much a King and no King as to be a helpless Spectator now of his Mothers Tragedy made away by such a publick Tryal as seem'd to proclaim his weakness and shame more then her guilt This seem'd to be the very dregs of that bitter Cup whereof he had drank so largely a little before but being as he hop'd the last draught he was to take of Infelicity he bore it with suitable patience as became a Christian and a King But his Destinies decreed that there must yet be one Throw more before the Birth of his Greatness For however his Majesty clear'd up from the time of his Mothers departure like the Sun after a stormy Morning which becomes brighter and brighter as it draws nearer its Meridian yet there happen'd after all this an Eclipse that lasting only half an hour had like to have extinguish'd all his Light and Glory if a Hand from Heaven had not rescued him For the young Gowry who at the time of his Fathers death and long after continued in Italy the Country where they are learn'd in the Art of Revenge having found an opportunity to draw him again into that fatal Castle where he was before Prisoner to his Father under pretence of shewing him some Chymical Rarities got him up into some higher Rooms whiles his Servants were retired to eat it being presently after he had dined himself where by the help of his younger Brother and another appointed to assist them they intended to have assassinated him had not he that was to do the horrid Deed not only relented at the very instant when he drew his Sword upon him but turn'd his point upon his Fellow Regicide and thereby gave him time to step to a Window and call for help which came so timely to him as to rescue him by the death of the two Gowrys This though it was the last of Treasons was not yet the last of dangers he met with For after this mov'd by what Obligations besides that of Love I know not which commonly is not so domineering a Passion over Princes as private men he run as much danger at Sea as he had before at Land exposing himself to the mercy of that unruly Element at the most dangerous Season of the year to fetch over his Queen the Daughter of Frederick II. King of Denmark who having attempted several times to come to him was drove back and as 't is said by the power of Sorcery into Norwey which hazard being afterward recompenced by the satisfaction he had in the Vertue of his Wife and the hopes conceiv'd of the Children he had by her two Sons and a Daughter as he had no further cause to Fear so he had nothing further to wish but that lucky hit that came by the death of the late Queen Elizabeth to have the Glory of bringing this Isle so long divided from all the World to be at Unity within it self And now to the end he might take the Inclinations of the People at the first bound wherein no man was ever more skilfull then he he abrogated the two names of Distinction England and Scotland and reconciled them to each other under the comprehensive Appeliation of Great Britain restoring England to its old Name as he from whom he claim'd had restor'd the Crown to its ancient stock Fain he would have brought them under the unity of the same Laws but finding neither Nation pleas'd with the Proposal either being partial to their own Constitutions as fitted with due and different respects to their different Tempers Interests and Proprieties he quitted that Design as a Labour of too hard digestion But however the Reasons of State varied he was resolv'd to reconcile the Polity of the two Churches as in an Union of Possession so in an Uniformity of Government and Worship Those of his own Country having then no other Form but that impos'd upon them by Boanerges Fox without taking Counsel of Prince or Prelate which was not otherwise to be made good but by the same Violence with which it was at the first introduced against the Will of any of the Nobility but such whose Ancestors were brib'd by the Alienation of the Church Lands But before he could impose any thing upon them understanding there were many here in England that followed that Classical way he resolv'd to have a free Conference with the ablest of their Demagogues to the end that sounding the depth of their Principles he might if possible fathom that of their Piety which no man could better do then himself being an universal Scholar as well read in Men as Books and so transcendently versed in the last that he was not improperly stil'd Rex Platonicus How confident he was of his skill in discussing all points Theological appears by his entring the List with Pope Pius the Fourth and making him give ground Neither was he a little provoked to this Spiritual Warfare by a clamorous Petition pretended from a thousand dissatisfied Ministers who not having yet matter enough of just Complaint made up the Cry by the number of Complainants To whom while he was considering what Answer to give or rather how to make them answer themselves as after he did by taking each of them apart and commanding him to set down in Writing what it was he singly desired which when compared altogether prov'd so contradictory and absurd that like men brought to cudgel one another in the dark they withdrew with broken Pates he was interrupted by the Discovery of a Treason which coming on so early in the Dawn of his Government could not well be discovered what it was nor whereto it tended For whereas most other Conspiracies are hatch'd by men of the same Faction Interest and Judgment this strangely involv'd People of all sorts and conditions without respect to any Repugnancy of Quality or Concern Priests and Laymen Papists and Puritans Noblemen and Ignoble Citizens and Country-men were all piec'd up together in the same Combination but whether ingaged by Faction Ambition Covetousness or Malice was not known or at least by the Kings Wisdom conceal'd However by the well-known Names of the Principal Conspirators the Lord Cobham who was Lord-Warden of the Cinque Ports the Lord Gray of Wilton who had a great Post in the late Queens Government Sir Walter Rawleigh Lord-Warden of the Stanneries Sir John Fortescue Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Griffith Markham Sir Edward Parham and several
so were the words of the Letter should not see who hurt them Which Discovery of his being a kind of Revelation as elevated the Opiniâ—n conceiv'd of his Wisdom to that degree that the Vulgar began to idolâ—ze his Understanding and reverence him as the Jews did Moses for the shining of his Face as believing it almost impossible for any humare Judgment to have sounded the depth of so profound a Plot. And as this begat a great regard to his Person a greater to his Parts so looking on him as a kind of Illuminated Man they gave him the Reverence of a Prophet which did not a little please him who having it in his humour to pretend to a Faculty in Divination easily prevail'd with them to receive his Conjectures as Oracles which serv'd him to so good purpose for that which is pleasant to tell whatever almost he desired to have done he needed no more to effect it but to foretell it would so fall out which give him his due he improv'd by his King-craft as himself was wont to call it to many good uses both for the Publique benefit and his own private Security and not seldom for his Mirth and Pleasure as often he was disposed to let down his Majesty and play the Good-fellow at which times he let down no Drink which was not a kind of Inspiring Liquor being for the most part strong sweet Wines as Canary Frontiniack White Muskadels High-Country-wines or Hypocras which though he would make it seem otherwise had contrary Effects upon him then usually upon other men for instead of opening his Heart they opened his Powels and not filling his Head never provok'd him to empty his Mind but rather to digest many serious Affairs by seeming all the while in Jest And as he lov'd to Droll so he would sometimes please himself by singling out some wise Fool of the Company and be very grave with him in asking his Opinion of something that never was nor nere was like to be and otherwhile giving him some little State hints as who should say A word to the Wise whereby he not only obliged them to keep secret the nothing he had intrusted them with but by that Secrecy created in him a self-conceipt that made him matter of much Mirth another time In fine he had so excellent a Faculty in seeming to be what he was not and in being what he pleas'd that if it be true that Dissimulation is a Vertue in Kings though it be not so in private men he was so great a Master of Art in that Liberal Science that he could dissemble without seeming to be a Dissembler and vary his shape so naturally and so easily that he could cozen whom he pleas'd and when he pleas'd though in truth he never cozened any Body unless it were himself and that he did very often being not seldom prevail'd with by those of his brib'd Country-men about him to make underhand Agreements with the Farmers of his Revenue whilst his Councel were contriving how to raise their Rents to ten times the value Which easiness of his had been an oversight not agreeable to the rest of his Understanding had he not had the knack of breaking those blind Bargains again as easily as he made them hastily upon the account of being as 't was apparent he was mistaken in his Grant whereby he left that Imputation of Folly at their Doors which otherwise would have rested at his own whilst he made them his Creditors with more advantage then they could have made themselves his Tenants filling his privy Purse with a Superfluity of what they had only got out of the Publick But when he came to have any thing to do with his Parliament who were to treat with him upon the Publick Faith in the behalf of the People he alwayes gave them a penny-worth for their Penny and as oft as they presented hâ—m any Aids Benevolences or Subsidies made them a Return of good and wholsom Laws which has been alwayes accompted good payment and if they were not the best that ever this Nation had yet as Plutarch sayes by those of Solon they might have been so had not the fault been more theirs then his It were too tedious to give further Instances of his Prudence the wise choice of his Servants and Favorites the equal distribution of his Rewards and Punishments the solid managery of all the Actions of that time as well English as Scotch and Irish Ecclesiastick or Civil not suffering any of the Factions to rise higher then he could reach them nor to grow stronger then he could either alter or divert them keeping a due Temperament sometimes by Preventions sometimes by Lenitives other while by strict Justice but oftenest by unexpected Mercy testifies his great Abilities and Knowledge in Men and Manners in Books and Sciences and if the Sum of the Accompts betwixt him and the Subject be rightly plac'd with Relation to his Justice and Judgment we shall find they were more indebted to him for a long Peace and Prosperity then he to them for any extraordinary Payments The Londoners we know prevail'd with him to pay the Debts of his Predecessor which he was in no manner obliged to do yet we find not that they discharg'd their Gratitude in any suitable Returns to him giving down their Milk no longer then they were stroak'd insomuch that he was forc'd to send his Privy Seal often abroad to particular Friends in the Country to discharge his immediate Expence of State whereof he was so frugal and provident a Manigeer that notwithstanding the many Occasions he had for Money perhaps beyond any of his Predecessors by keeping a double Court by receiving at home and imploying abroad so many Ordinary and Extraordinary Ambassadors as he did some to Complement others to Expostulate with but all to have an Eye upon his Neighbours by being obliged to stop the mouths of his querulous Country-men who presuming on his Goodness for as one observes he was no more troubled at their robbing him then a Bridegroom at the loosing his Points or Garters thought it so much their Right to share with him in his new Acquests that they drew many strange Boons from him One of them not to mention any more having the confidence to beg no less then Twenty thousand pounds in ready Money at one time and had obtained his desire had not the wise Lord Treasurer by shewing the King the whole Sum in Silver upon a Table altogether brought it down to a Composition of Five hundred pounds only I say notwithstanding all these great and pressing Occasions for Money for certainly there is no one Virtue in a Prince so advantageous to himself as Bounty whiles like the Sun he nourishes the whole Creation under him by letting down the Dew which he shall certainly draw up again with increase he found like means though not by a like way to enlarge his Empire as the great Augustus did his super Garamantus
Indos The first possession we had of new-New-England being principally ascribed to that of his here in Old England both that Virginia and Bermudas three of our most famous Plantations however discover'd before his time having in no measure recover'd so much strength as to make good the Ground they laid Title to till influenced by his Wisdom The chief Town therefore of Virginia the chief Plantation being in honour of his Memory call'd James town by which remote Land-mark if we take the Dimensions of his Greatness considering the Ocean he commanded betwixt this and that other World which was no less properly his Dominion then the Terra Firma beyond it We need not wonder at the Learned Grotius his making him a Rival with Neptune since his Trident was nothing so glorious as t'others three Scepters tria Sceptra Profundi Grot. Silvar lib. 2. In magnum Coiêre Ducem Licet omnia Casus Magna suos metuunt Jacobo Promissa Potestas Cum Terris Pelagoque manet HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Neither was it the least cause of his Misfortunes that he had a War devolv'd upon him by his peaceable Father without any means to carry it on so that to save a Sister he in some sort hazarded the loosing himself the ill beginning of the Recovery of the Palatinate being the first if not the principal Cause of loosing as after he did his own Dominions beyond all Recovery For as it was evident that his Parliaments taking the first Occasion from his Necessities to put what price they pleas'd upon their Supplies made this the first Occasion of a breach betwixt them so 't is as evident That the King of France taking his measure of his weakness by that of their strength was tempted to provoke him to a second before he had ended the first War which he not being able to sustain was necessitated to stoop to such low Conditions as prov'd the Foundation of a more Fatal War at home then that he declined abroad Thus the sower Grapes his Father eat set his Teeth on edge and however the same Fruit is said to have cost his elder Brother his Life yet when he came to declare what 't was he lov'd best he preserv'd the * The French before the Spaâ—â—st Lady Vine before the Pomgranate whether as judging it more flexible or certainly more fruitful is not known but it appears by what follow'd that he rather pleas'd himself in that choice then his People who as they ever preferr'd Spanish before French Wine so their aversness to the French Nation made them not only pass by many unbeseeming Censures upon the Match not condering they deny'd him that Liberty every private man of them contested for but malitiously to charge the Innocent Queen with all the Ills that follow'd afterward as oft as his Parliaments and he differ'd which was as often as they met and that was not seldom for he had no less then five in fifteen years who notwithstanding never any Prince desired more to give them satisfaction were all very froward and ill dispos'd towards him The very first he call'd shewing themselves not willing to understand him and the second behav'd themselves so that he was asham'd to own he understood them and at the third meeting either understood one another so well that they began to quarrel the fourth gave him the Justle and the fifâ—h made it good by fighting him Neither were the States of Holland shorter sighted then the K. of France who as they were false to their own and naturally hated all Kings so they took Occasion to fish in our troubled Waters breaking in upon his Soveraignty at Sea as his own Subjects upon his Prerogative at Land which though it were as great an Affront to the whole Nation as to him yet the grand Representatives of that time took so little notice of it that one would have thought they had designed to have exprest no less disdain of his then the Roman Senate did of the Government of the Decemviri Qui nequid eorum Ductu aut Auspicio prosperè gereretur vinci se Patiebantur saith Tacitus for when he came to demand aid of them they not only deny'd him but left him in a worse Condition then they found him making him as great a Sufferer in his Reputation as he was in his Right And that which made this Misfortune the more notorious was That the same Course he took to make the matter better made it worse For having no ready money to set out a Navy nor means to get any he was forced to make use of a little Treasure-trove if I may call it for which he was beholding to his Attorney-General Noy who incouraged him to lay a Tax upon the People by the dubious Authority of an antiquated and as it was afterward call'd Arbitrary Law whereby the Kings of England heretofore had power given them to impose a Naval Tax in case of eminent danger by Sea A Law which at the first making was judg'd to be as reasonable as necessary being intended to prevent the frequent Incursions of the Danes before the Norman Conquest but all Fears of that Nature having vanish'd so long since to revive it now was look'd on like the drawing forth of an old rusty Sword which gave such a wound to the Liberty of the Subject that though it were not very deep rankled to that degree as notwithstanding the many good applications afterward to heal it the inflammation could not be taken off till it turn'd to a Gangreen Thus whilst he resolv'd to do nothing but by Law the legality of his proceedings is taken for an act of the highest Tyranny Neither was this the worst on 't to see his Fleet as it were dry-foundred at Land before it could put to Sea for the Parliament instead of maintaining his busied themselves wholly in asserting their own Rights bringing them to the old Standard of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Which however it seem'd to be bad enough in the Intention all Circumstances then consider'd proved yet worse in the Explication being constru'd not long after to the prejudice of his Right of Tonnage and Poundage in discussing whereof they committed a Violence upon themselves which declared what they intended upon him by leaving a President that as much out-lasted their Cause as the Cause did their Priviledge shutting up the Doors of their House as if guilty that they deserv'd to be disturb'd till they had fully vented their Passion in some menacing Vores that urg'd him to dissolve them by such a kind of Force as was every whit as rare as their Insolence the breaking up their Doors for so he was fain to do before he could get Entrance though himself was there in Person to demand it making so great a noise that it was heard not only thorow every part of the discontented City but Kingdom and the sound became the more