Usurpation and to look somewhat shy on those of the Royal-Party he had before caressed and done kindness for shewing more state and greatness than formerly and growing more reserved to his familiars But moneys growing scarce his Council advises him forthwith to call a Parliament and accordingly Summons are issued out for this Convention to meet at Westminster on the 27 th of January Elections being made after the usual manner tho some would have opposed it and by sending Writs to the several Boroughs they thought they should get a Parliament to their minds but were deceived Ireland and Scotland also sent each 30 according to the Model of Government and for the upper House the chiefest Officers of the Army were pitch'd upon but many of them were of such base extraction that the Commons could hardly be brought to own them Richard began to have some jealousie of the Army and finding many of his Council too great favourers of them and of their power he began to cast about to have brought in others of his friends to ballance them but he found such opposition that he could not bring it about On the other side the Army and Sectarian Officers began to be afraid of the ensuing Parliament and therefore some of them advised him to follow his Father's steps who was accustomed at such a time to cause the chiefest Officers of the Army to come up to London and to be assistant to him on such occasions This startled Richard being as much afraid of the Army as they were of this approaching Convention yet wanting his Father's courage and resolution he sent for many of the Army to Town from their Commands where they had the opportunity of Caballing and laying designs for his destruction Besides Lambert by the favour of Fleetwood was got again into Command and had a Regiment given him and was as much in the favour of the Sectaries as ever Richard was as yet General when Desborow and others would have perswaded him that the Army being discontented and ready to mutiny the best way for him would be to settle it on some known Officer amongst them and nominated Fleetwood but Richard it seems was not so very a fool as to divest himself of that Command but told them that by his Father's example he would keep that for a security both to them and to himself without which he could not protect them and that the Parliament which was suddenly to meet would give them satisfaction as to their Grievances to whom he should remit them And now at the time prefixed the Parliament meet consisting of two Houses the other House beginning now to be called the upper House for the Commons was chosen Mr. Chute a Lawyer as their Speaker who sickning Long Recorder of London was chosen pro tempore in his stead and for the upper House Nathaniel Fiennes Lord Keeper of the Great Seal was their Speaker The first fortnight was taken up about the Recognition with which they were awhile intangled but at last they Vote and it was Resolved on Monday 14 th of February That it be part of this Bill to Recognize and declare his Highness Richard Lord Protector and chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging Resolved That before this Bill be Committed the House do declare such additional Clauses to be part of this Bill as may bound the power of the chief Magistrate and fully secure the Rights and Privileges of Parliament and the Liberties and Rights of the People and that neither this or any other previous Vote that is or shall be passed in order to this Bill shall be of force and binding to the people till the whole Bill be passed This done a Committee of Inspections is setled to take a view of the Accounts and the Revenue of the Common-wealth of which Mr. Scowen was Chair-man The Commonwealths-men who were considerable in this Convention cunningly put in many Debates to gain time which they did though the Protectorian party were the major and so could effect little yet they had hopes of the infection of the Army which they knew by means of their Emissaries spread much for at Wallingford-house Fleetwood Desborow and Lambert with several others held their Consults for the dispossessing of Richard and Fleetwood was courted to take the Protectorship upon him Richard had notice given him of their proceedings and some of his friends advised him to cut them off and profer'd to do it if he would be Resolute and stick to them but Richard was timerous and fearfull and had not courage enough to give them such a Commission and so lost his opportunity of setling himself In the mean time the King had sent a Commission to Arthur Anslow now Earl of Anglesie to John Mordant Brother to the Earl of Peterborow Sir John Greenvill Sir Tho. Peyton and William Leg giving them power as his Commissioners to treat with any of his Subjects of England excepting the Regicides and to offer them his pardon if they would now joyn together for his Restauration and also to assure them of Rewards and Recompence for any service done for the future towards the bringing in of his said Majesty and that whatever those his Commissioners should promise in his name he would ratifie and confirm This was dated at Brussells 11 March 1659. By this means and by the wary management of these Gentlemen the King's designs began to thrive better than formerly being still betray'd by Thurlo's Agents So that now there were several Interests at work and bringing several designs to the Anvil The King 's for his just Rights and Restauration Richard's for the setling himself in his unjust Usurpation The Commonwealths-men to regain their lost Dominion and Tyranny and the Army to keep their Rule and the people in slavery and to set up a Governour of their own and that might be only ruled by their Power These have all their several close Cabals and all strenuously busie one against another Upon a report made by Secretary Thurlo concerning the State of the War betwixt Sweden and Denmark the Parliament send General Mountague with a considerable Fleet into the Sound but so straiten'd in Commission that he did little good The Military-Council of Officers were very high and favoured much by the upper House which much distasted the Commons and made them Vote That during the sitting of the Parliament there should be no general Meeting or Council of Officers of the Army without direction leave and authority of the Protector and both Houses of Parliament Richard upon this by advice sends for the Council of Officers and dismisses them And the Commons proceed to a farther Vote Resolved That no person should have or continue Command in any of the Armies in England Scotland or Ireland c. that should refuse to subscribe That he will not disturb or interrupt the free meeting in Parliament of any of the Members of either House
least obnoxions of them endeavoured to save themselvs and to be instrumental in his Majesties Restauration among whom were Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper St John Ingoldsly Morley and others But the Oath was this I doe hereby swear That I doe renounce the pretended title of Charles Stewart and the whole line of King James and of every other person as a single person pretending or which shall pretend to the Crown or Government of these nations of England Scotland and Ireland or any of them and the dominious and territories belonging to them or any of them And that I will by the grace and assistance of almighty God be true faithfull and constant to the Parliament and Common Wealth and will oppose the bringing in or setting up any single person or House of Lords and every of them in this Common Wealth A third part at least of their Council of State refused this Oath saying it was a snare and a confining of Providence and so were not permitted to sit The secluded Members would not yet give over their Right of sitting and tho they knew and had declared that the Parliament was legally dissolved by the Death of the late King yet they upon the resitting of the Rumpers require admission whereupon it was again resolved that they did stand duely discharged from their sitting as members of that Parliament and that writs should be immediatly issâ—ed out for the electing of new members in their places Thus they are still provideing to perpetuate themselves And then falling to their old trade of divideing the spoyle and to let them see how much they were offended they order the Estates of Sr Georg Booth a secluded member and all his adherents to be forthwith sould General Monk who kept a correspondence in Ireland received the news that his friends had surprized Dublin Castle and that most of all Ireland had declared for him and the Parliament to sit again but he was surprized at the actual siting again of the Rump having other designs in his head than their restauration and therefore thinks it now high time to march tho' in the midst of winter and great snow yet on the 2 of January he begins to set forward resolving for London In the mean time the Junto knowing that both City and Country were highly exasperated who would not be satisfied with any thing but the restorâ—ing the old members or a free Parliament and having also had experience of the Armies stubbornness and aptness to mutiny therefore to provide for their own Safety which was very dear to them they make Morley Lieutenant of the Tower and ordered a letter of thanks to be sent to General Monk which was accordingly done and which the General received being upon this march and caused it to be read to his souldiers at the head of their Regiments whilst they stood up to the knees in snow This letter was but cold comfort and they feared lest it should have hind'red their march for the souldiers long'd to be at London and the Messenger told Monk that Lambert's forces were dispers'd and all things quiet yet the General would not understand him but continued his march Southwards for he said he would see them setled and take care no more force should be put upon them and by a messenger of his own sent them a letter much to the same purpose with a return of thanks for the honour they did him and of professions of fidelity to them and that they being in an unsetled condition he thought it best to see them setled c. with several other things which he recommended to them both as to the soulderie and the people The General had left Major General Morgan behind in Scotland with sufficient force to keep that nation in quiet who were now in great expectation of the issue of Monks march into England All the way as he march'd he was highly caressed by the Gentry and addressed by the Counties for a free Parliament to whom he was very reserv'd tho' civil so that many scruples and doubts a rose concerning him some suspecting him a Royalist others a Rumper and others believing he intended to set up himself in Olivers place The Citty likewise sent their Swordbearer to complement him and to offer him their service and then by 3 Commissioners requesting the same thing the readmission of the secluded members without any previous Oath or a free Parliament either of which they knew would bring in the King tho' they durst not yet speak out Monk observ'd all and tho' inwardly glad he knew one error might spoyle all therefore he still kept his mind to himself and answer'd them that he would see the Parliament freed from all force and the House filled and good provision made for future Parliaments But the Rumpers who had also received the like declarations from the Country doubting what those caresses might produce sent two of their subtlest members Scot and Luke Robinson in shew to wait upon Monk but in effect to watch and observe him and to give them an account of all his actions for their Jealousie of him dayly increased The General came to St. Albans upon the 28 th of January and there made an hault sending from thence a letter to the Junto which he had framed before-hand as Nottingam in which he desired to have his quarters assigned him according to the list he had sent ready drawn in his letter and that thoses forces that were now there might draw forth and march to severall Quarters far enough a sunder as he had also by his list inclosed appoynted or desired telling them he did it upon mature consideration of the present posture of their affairs that those places he had assigned to them who were to march out might be secured for them he having intelligence of their distemper'd condition and that he presumed with submission that it would not be for their service that those souldiers then in London lately in Rebellion against them should mingle with those of his approved faithfull Regiments till they should by their new Officers put over them be reduced to a more assured obedience to them Colonel Merley's and Colonel Fagg's Regiments were excepted he having an assurance of them This letter was sent by Colonel Lydeot who was allyed to the Speaker This letter caused a violent dispute which lasted from 8 in the morning till 12 at noon the result of which was That the Parliament did agree with the distributions of the souldiers according to the Lists and that the Souldiers be forth with distributed accordingly The General was not a little glad to hear of this for by this he did his business and it was of great consequence as to his design in thus getting the sole possession of London and Westminster into his power Fleetwoods armie marched out of London having a months pay assigned them but this did not satisfie nor keep them from grumbling and some of them mutined at Somerste-house but at last were
James's in woman apparel and landed safe at Dort in Holland and about the same time several Petitions came to the Parliament and especially one from the County of Essex which supplicate That the Army might be paid off and Disbanded and the King admitted to a personal Treaty Surry and the City of London followed with the like and the Affections of the People began to appear and were ready to fly to Arms. The Kentish men being up ten Thousand strong were routed by General Fairfax the Earl of Norwich who headed them with five hundred men crossed over the Thames into Essex and Sr. Charles Lucas joyning him with 200 thousand men they possessed themselves of Cholchester which became the seat of War and endured a famous Siege Also at the same time a part of the Navy revolted to the Prince who having attempted to help his Father in vain was forced to retire into Holland with his Fleet. Then the Earl of Holland the Earl of Peterborough and others Head a fresh Insurrection at Kingston upon Thames where they were routed the Earl of Holland taken and the Lord Francis Villers the Duke of Buckingham's Brother slain Affairs standing in this Posture the Scots are much displeased tho they had many fair Offers made them by the Parliament Concerning the Payment of money yet due to them and on the 24 th day of July they passed an Ordinance to establish the Presbyterian Government in England and Ireland under Classical Provincial and Parochial Assemblies to please them yet all would not do for they Voted in Scotland a War with England and published a Declaration wherein they propose That the King may come to London or to some of his Houses near with safety That those who had Carried him away might make Satisfaction or be punished for it That the Army under the Lord Fairfax might be disbanded That Presbytery be setled and Sectaries punished That all members of the House might be restored Upon this Berwick was surprised Forces came out of Ireland and many rise in the North for the King Carlisle is seized and their Forces increased under Sr. Marmaduke Langdale Sr. Thomas Glenham Sr. Philip Musgrave and others to the number of three Thousand Horse and foot Sr. Marmaduke Langdale is made their General And on the 13 th of July the Scots enter with an Army into England under Duke Hamilton with whom Langdale joyns and beats Lambert at Appleby Several places declared for the King and all things seemed in an hopeful way when Cromwell having quieted wales marches with his Army to Preston in Lancathire to give a stop to Hamilton who was about twenty Thousand strong with the English Lambert joyns with Cromwell and make up a Body of about twelve Thousand on the 17 th of August both Armies Face one another and the battel being begun on the English side after two hours dispute the Scots gave ground and were most fiercely pursued by the English and Totally routed multitudes of them being taken but Hamilton escaped to Nantwich with three Thousand horse where the Countrey being up in Armes seized upon most of them and at last Hamilton himself was taken at uloxeter by the Lord Gray of Grooby the Scots Ensigm Cornets and Colours then taken were afterwards hung up in Westminster Hall Sr. Marmaduke Langdale was also taken and Cromwell improving his Victory marches towards Monroe who was coming with a reserve of six Thousand Scots but upon Hamilton's overthrow had order to return into Scotland which they did but the Anti-Hamiltonian party in Scotland under Argile which were the stricter sort of Presbyters invited Cromwell into Scotland which the laying hold on to smooth his way he put forth a Declaration severely prohibiting any Souldier under pain of Death to take either Money Horses Goods Victuals or any other thing or any ways to abuse the People He put such a terror among the Scots that they all presently submitted and agreed to disband their Armies and to render up to him Berwick and Carlile which were in their Hands That a Parliament should be called in Scotland for the setling Religion and composing their differences and also that none that had been in the last Ingagements against England should be chosen of this new Parliament or into their general Assembly Thus having setled Scotland to his mind he returns into England Upon his Victory against Hamilton Colchester being driven to the utmost extremity was surrendred and the two valiant Gentlemen contrary to Faith given Sr. Charles Lucas and Sr. George Lisle shot to Death and the Earl of Norwich Lord Capel and others sent Prisoners to London While these things were in doing there had been some Attempts made towards the private murthering of the King which was made known to the Parliament who took some Examinations thereupon but nothing to any purpose done in it he being now look'd upon as a Tyrant and suffered openly to be so called daily with many other most opprobrious Speeches both against his person and Government which the Parliament took no notice of but had made an Order in April before That any three of their Committe-men at Darby House should have Power to Imprison and sequester all such as shall actually adhere to any that shall raise or endeavour to raise my Tumults or Insurrections or shall so much as speak or publish any thing reproachful of the Parliament or their proceedings so that you see they had tyed up mens Tongues from speaking against themselves without the least restraint of reviling their King and for every light Word a free born Subject of England was made an offender and lyable to be ruined at the Pleasure of three Arbitrary men of their Committee absolutely against that known Maxim of our Law Nemo imprisonetur aut disseisâ—tur nisi per legale judicium parium suorum No man shall be imprisoned or disseised of his Property but by the lawful judgment of his Peers that is by a jury of twelve men But what signified Magna Charta Petition of Right the Ancient Laws of the Land to these Men who had trampled the Imperial Crown under their feet and usurp'd more than ever rightful Monarch or the most Arbitrary of our Kings ever Claim'd And had raised upon the People for the maintainance of this unnatural War and towards the enslaving of themselves about three Millions of pounds sterling Per annum which was six times more than ever the most rapacious of our Kings had raised on the People besides the vast Incomes of the Kings revenue Sequestrations and Compositions About the third of August the Prince now our Soveraign sent Letters to the City Expressing his good affection to Peace and to the whole City and his Endeavours to vindicate his fathers Liberty and just Prerogative and Rights and to restore to the People their Laws Liberties and Property to free them from Bondage and to ease them of the Burthen of Excise and Taxes to settle Religion and to reduce all things
void and null to all Intents and Purposes was false Scandalous and Seditious and tended to destroy the visible and fundamental Government of the Kingdom And therefore ordered the printed Paper to be suppressed and that all who had an hand in it to be uncapable to bear Office or to have any trust place or Authority in the Kingdom or to fit as Members of either House of Parliament Here again you see a most bold stroke of Arbitrary Sway and what Noses of Wax they made of all priviledes of Parliaments O most excellent Conservators of the Liberties of the Nation The next thing they fell upon was the unvoting of all former Votes of the House which tended to any accommodation with the King and renewed again their old Vote of Non-Addresses in Terminis and that the Treaty with him in the Isle of Wight was highly dishonourable and apparently Destructive to the good of the Kingdom Thus forty or fifty of this Independent Junto undid what was before done by at least three hundred and forty before December 14 th Major General Brown Sr. William Waller Sr. John Clotworthy Major General Massy Commissary General Copley were all imprisoned by a Council of War at White-Hall tho Members of Parliament upon which they put forth also a new Declaration or Protestation in the name of themselves and all the Free-born people of England against the violent and illegal Proceedings of the General and his Council of War against the Laws of the Land and Liberties of the People the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and that it was an higher Usurpation and exercise of an Arbitrary and unlawful Power than hath been heretofore pretended or attempted by this or any other King or other Power whatsoever within this Realm About this time came forth a Paper from the Army called the Agreement of the People being almost word for word the same which formerly had been presented in the Year 1647. by the Agitators of the Army and one Gifford a Jesuite busie in promoting it and then condemned by the Commons as matter Destructive to the beings of Parliaments and to the Fundamental Government of the Kingdom and caused General Fairfax to condemn one of these Agitators who promoted it and caused him to be shot to Death at Ware This was ill timed and the business not yet Ripe enough and was a second time by the Vote of the same House condemned as Seditious and Contemptuous and Destructive c. and several were imprisoned upon it but now the same being again obtruded upon this Junto they closed with it and followed it's Dictates which were briefly That the people should agree or did agree together to take away the present Government by King Lords and Commons which they were now going about as the Armies Journy-men as fast as they could And now Oliver Cromwell every day begins to grow more Conspicuous insomuch as several Lords laying aside their Honour and Greatness begin to Court and fawn upon him and servilely to attend on him and do him Homage The next thing the Lords and Commons do is to Curb the City whom they suspect and to hinder them from a free Election of their City Officers another mark of Arbitrary Power For which end many Exceptions are made for those that were to be elected into any Office that none who had bore Arms for the King in the first or second War or that had joyned with the Scots or had subscribed the Engagement 1647. or were aiding in any Tumult or Insurrection in the City with other Restrictions by which they brought all those under that they believed not fit for their wicked purposes This was thought yet too short by Skippon who moved it to have also added That none might bear Office that promoted the Treaty with the King or endeavoured to have him brought to London Which according to the desire of the Saints was ordered as an Additional Ordinance So that you now see the very endeavouring of a Peace and Settlement of the Nation was become a notorious Crime and made a person incapable of bearing any Office in the City And to make themselves sure one of another as Oaths Declarations and Protestations could make these Usurpers they cause their Members to sign a new Pâ—otestation against the Votes for a Treaty in the Isle of Wight and especially against that Vote which much troubled them That his Majesties Answers to the Propositions of both Houses were a ground for the two Houses to Proceed to a Settlement This tho formerly thought by themselves to tend to Faction was now readily performed at the Armies request Four of their imprisoned Members had been released and now sixteen more were sent for before Ireton and by him discharged Telling them it was the General 's pleasure they should be released provided they attempted nothing against the Actings of the present Parliament and Army But the Gentlemen would pass no such Engagement which seeing he gave order for their release but with this Menace That if they made any Disturbance it should be at their peril The business they had now in hand and were Resolved on viz The King's murther must be cloaked under a Religious Covering as if they were about some Pious Work and therefore they mock God as well as delude man and keep a Fast at St. Margarets Westminster where some few Lords and some of the Commons assembled to whom the Pulpit merry Andrew Hugh Peters preached Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt being the Subject which he applyed to the General and the Leaders of the Army now leading the people out of Egyptian Bondage and after some tâ—me as Ridiculously as profanely hiding himself in the Pulpit he starts up and tells them he had it now by Revelation That the Army was to root out Monarchy not only in England but in all other Kingdoms and so should bring all people out of that Egyptian Bondage That that Army was the Stone cut out of the Mountain which was to dash all the Powers of the earth to pieces With other Blasphemous Speeches of the like Nature Mr. Prin was yet kept a Prisoner at the Kings-head-Inn in the Strand from whence he wrot a Letter to Fairfax to know by what Authority he was thus kept a Prisoner he beâ—ing a Parliament man and a Free-born Subject of England The General who was but Chip in Porridge and knew little of what was done by Cromwell and Ireton sent him word That he thought he had been released with the rest and that he would send to know what they had against him Upon which Mr. Prin puts forth a Declaration shewing the horrid Injustice of their Proceedings against the Members of Parliament and against and Contrary to all the Laws of the Land and the Liberty of the Subject The Council of War in the mean time to humble his Majesty ordered That all State and Ceremony should be forborn to the King and his Attendants lessen'd And now
all Acts by Pretext of such Power were illegal and the adjudging any Person to death and Executing them was Treason and wilful Murther Thirdly That the said Commons had no power to make any great Seal of England and that all Commissions granted under their great Seal were illegal and all Proceedings in Law upon such Writs null and voyd to all intents and purposes Lastly That the denyal of the King's Title to the Crown and the plotting to deprive him of it and the setting it upon the Head of another was High Treason and within the Stat. 25 th Ed. 3. Ch. 2. as likewise their Subverting the fundamental Laws of the Land and introducing an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government was High Treason at the common Law c. This was all the Loyalists could do at present by these weak Indeavours to assert the Kings right and shew the people what Slaves they were become but this affrighted not these Men who in the next place February 1 st Vote That all such Members who assented to the Vote of the 5 th of December 1648. That the Kings Concessions were a Ground for the House to Proceed to a Settlement should not be admitted into the House until they had declared their disapproval of that Vote before they sit and that such as were now in the House should enter their dissent to that Vote being only those who had before Voted in the Negative The Lords were yet sitting but no notice taken of them by the Commons for having overthrown the Monarchy they now lay aside the Lords and therefore Vote them dangerous and useless Frebruary 5 th and so Voted them down with this Proviso That they might be capable to be Elected Knights of the shire and Burgesses and so sit among the Commons Three of them only so debased themselves viz. The Earls of Pembroke Salisbury and the Lord Howard of Estrick The rest of the Peers put forth their Protestation against these Proceedings of the Commons which came forth on the 8 th of Frebruary in which they asserted their own Priviledges and the fundamental Laws of the Nation disclaiming the Votes of the Commons for Erecting an high Court of Justice for the Tryal of the King and altering the Government Law Seal c. and against their Traiterous murthering their Soveraign and disinheriting the Prince the Lawful Heir of the Crown of England and also protesting against their Vote of the 6 th of Frebruary for the abolishing the House of Peers as destructive to the beings of Parliament the Fundamental Laws of the Realm and the Lives Liberties and Properties of the people whom they had made Slaves to their Tyrannical and Arbitrary Government But this affrights not the Commons and to keep the Lords from meeting the Army set a Guard at their Doors of their House and the House now proceeds to set up a Common-wealth and to abolish Monarchy and therefore they formed an Act intituled an Act for the Exheredation of the Royal Line the abolishing of Monarchy in this Kingdom and the setting up a Common-wealth which they ordered to be published in all places And to Vindicate these their most horrid Proceedings they had their Pulpit-Trumpeters who justified their Impious Acts in all places and John Godwin and Milton to write in their Defence of putting the King to death declaring in Print That the King suffered on just Grounds and according to his Demerits And now instead of one King these Common-wealth Rumpers set up forty Tyrants as a Committee of State But the people generally seemed displeased at this Alteration of the Government and Reineldson Lord Major of the City refused to publish their Act for abolishing of Monarchy for whâ—ch he was discharged of his Office and with two Aldermen sent to the Tower and Andrews was chosen in his stead upon this the Rumpers put forth a new Declaration to justifie their Proceedings calling them A Deliverance of the people from the Bondage that was brought in by the Norman Conquest and their Maintenance of the ancient Laws notwithstanding their Alteration of some forms of the Regality which ancient Laws might consist very well with a Republick and that they had only abolished their Abuses promising to establish a safe and firm Peace and to advance the true Protestant Religion the Encouragment of a Godly ministry and of Trade and the Maintenance of the Poor thorowout the Realm Then their Great Seal came forth having on one side a Cross and Harp for the Arms of England and Ireland with this Inscription â— The Great Seal of England And on the other side was the Picture of the Commons with these words In the first year of Freedom by God's blessing restored 1648. Likewise they caused a new Coyn to be minted and stamped their Money with a Cross and Harp instead of the King's Effigies with this Motto God with us Then they took away all Clauses in any former Acts for the taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and made them null and a new Oath framed and tendred to all that were to have any publick place of Trust and assumed to themselves both Judicial and Legislative power of the King and both Houses of Parliament and the Executive power they committed to a Council of State of forty Persons of the most Active men in the Army and others of desperate Fortunes Six of the Judges viz. Justice Bacon Brown Beddinfield Creswell Trevor and Atkins quitted their places not being able to bring their Consciences to Act under this Arbitrary and illegal power six other of them continued who were Justice Rolls St. Johns Pheasanâ— Baron Wild and Baron Yates To their new Council of State they gave Power tâ— Command and settle the Militia of England and Irâ—land Power to set forth Ships and such a Considerable Navy as they should think fit Power to appoinâ— Magistrates and stores for England and Ireland and tâ— dispose of them for the Service of the Nation Anâ— power to Execute all the powers given them for a whole Year to come They had two Seals appointed a great Seal and a Signet Cromwell was made Chaiâ—-man of this Committee and an Oath framed for eveâ—â— Member to take to be true to the Parliament as they termed themselves not to disclose their Secrets anâ— to adhere to the present Settlement of the Government 〈◊〉 a Republick without King or House of Lords Abouâ— this time the Officers of the Army at a Councâ—â— of War debated Whether they should not put to the Sword all that were of the King's Party to secure the Nation to themselves and it was carried in the Negative but by two voyces so near were they to a general Massacre And many Petitions came from several Counties that at least three of the most eminent of the King's party in each County might be put to Death to free the Land from Blood-Guiltiness Cromwell by this as you may perceive had gotten all the executive Power of the Kingdom into his own
Hand and into the hands of his own Creatures of the Councel of State altogether ruled by him and therefore it may be wondred at that he did not immediately seize the Crown and set himself in the Throne which he now aspired to But things were not yet ripe and the subtil Fox found such a Levelling party in the Army which he saw must first be Crushed who would never indure it for they were for dividing and sharing all as a Land subdued by them among themselves and for owning no Authority but the Saints who were themselves These begin to rip up the Miscarriages of the Parliament and Cromwell to make them the more Odious puts them upon all Things he believed would make them so to the People and Army One of which was the new Erection of their most Tyrannical Court of Justice for the Tryal of some of the Lords and others whom they had still imprisoned for their Loyalty The first was Duke Hamilton who had invaded England as you have heard with him they at first deal gently hoping to have screw'd out of him the Names of some Eminent men in England that they thought might have invited him in But he either not able or willing in that point to give them Satisfaction and finding the Scots and Argile's party to hate him and to desire his Head he was Condemned tho he pleaded he had Quarter given him by Lambert upon Articles and would have given a hundred Thousand pound to save his Life After him was also tryed and Condemned the Earl of Holland and that most Noble and Heroick Peer the Lord Capel who had escaped out of the Tower but was retaken by means of a perfidious Water-man ever after hated for it He pleaded Articles of surrender but that was denyed him then he pleaded to be tryed at Common-Law put them in mind of Magna Charâ—a Petition of right and of the Fundamental Laws of the Land and that of right he ought to be tryed by his Peers urging them to shew a President of any such Tryal by an Arbitrary Court of Justice as they called it He talk'd to deaf Statues for he was too gallant a Man and too Active and Loyal to be permitted to Live On the 9 th of March these three Lords Duke Hamilton the Earl of Holland and this Noble Lord much lamented were put to Death on a Scaffold in the Pallace-yard in Westminster by severing their Heads from their Bodies It is remarkable that this Lord dyed with much Courage and Christianity being nothing daunted at Death The Earl of Norwich and Sr. John Owen were pardoned by Vote of the House the Earl of Norwich having his Life by the casting Voyce of Lenthal the Speaker only Thus they proceed dipping their hands in Blood growing thereby more Odious to the People and about this time the Scots begin to stir and made a Protest against the Actions of the Parliament of England and on the third of February proclaim the King by the name of Charles the second at Edenborough by Lyon King at Arms. The Scotch Commissioners who had been long here were called home and at their departure they left an Expostulary Declaration putting the Junto in mind of all their Vows and Oaths in maintenance of the Kings Rights and defence of his Person and upbraided them with their shameful Abjuration and Infringment of them by their late horrid Proceedings This paper they Vote Scandalous and Seditious imprison the Messâ—nger who brought it and sending after the Commissioners secure them till the Parliament in Scotland send to justifie the Action and require their Commissioners being imprisoned Contrary to the Law of Nations upon which they were permitted to depart into Scotland and thus Jealousies of a breach began Troublesome John Lilburn an Active Leveller began now to stir delivering a Petition in the Names of many Thousand well affected c. with a Book intituled Englands new Chains discovered in which they find fault with many things done by this Junto and especially the Councel of State and with the erecting an high Court of Justice and altering the Fundamental Laws of the Land for Tryals by Juries Complain of the Excise and of several other things And after this another called a second Part of Englands new Chains which shewed the Hypocrisie and Perfidiousness of the Grandees of the Army and the Councel of State in Cheating all Interests King Parliament People Soldiers City Agitators Levellers c. Upon the back of this comes forth another Book called the Hunting of the Fox which spake against the Army and Councel of State set up by Cromwell and Ireton to erect a new Tyranny worse than the thirty Tyrants at Athens the Star-Chamber the High Commission or house of Lords c. These coming forth one upon the Neck of another shewed the troublesome Spirit that began to ferment in the Army which was now to be Purged as well as the Parliament had been or else Cromwell found he should not be able to work them to his ends And now he had an opportunity offerr'd him for Ireland being in a manner wholly lost excepting Dublin then besieged eleven Regiments were ordered by the Rump to be Transported for its relief by which means Cromwell hoped to purge out this Turgent humour of the Army But some of these bold Petitioners were seized and tryed by a Councel of War of which Barksted was President in which they were Cashiered the Army their Swords ordered to be broken over their Heads and to Ride with their Faces to the Horses Tails with Papers of their Crimes pinned to their Breasts at the head of the Regiments which Sentence was executed accordingly to the great Exasperation of the Army And not long afâ—er several Regiments began to Mutiny and to wear White Colours for distinction in their Hats which might have proved fatal to Cromwell's designs had he not with an undaunted Boldness at that time appearing in Person overawed them and causing two of them to be shot to Death before their Faces But this could not purge out the Humour which 〈◊〉 increasing two more of the Levelling Tribe were 〈◊〉 one of which was named Lockyer a Trooper shot in St. Paul's Church-yard but buried in great State by the 〈◊〉 Faction wearing green and black Ribbons in â—â—â—ir Hats And now the peoples Eyes daily began 〈◊〉 be opened finding what Keepers of Englands Liberties they had got The Regiments ordered to march at Salisbury make an Eruption alledging that this was a Trick to divide the Army and that they were not Mereenaries but took up Arms upon a righteous Principle of Government and therefore would not divide upon which several Regiments revolt and Collonel Scroop's laid aside their Officers and with Colours flying march'd to joyn Harrison's Regiment and Ireton's and Skippon's who had confederated But Fairfax and Cromwell by hasty marches with the whole Army follow them who at Burford in Oxford-shire made up about five Thousand Horse and Foot
Eliz. and the 1. Jacob against Sectaries An Act of general Pardon and Oblivion to all Persons except such as should be nominated therein An Act for relief of poor Prisoners An Act to secure the Souldiers their Arrears Then they were Considering of some orders which the Councel of State were to put in Execution and which the said Councel desired of them after their recess 1. That they might appoint Commissioners in every County to make an Estimate of all Tyths 2. That the Councel of State may consider of setling future Parliaments and the constant time of Calling Sitting and Ending after this Parliament shall Dissolve themselves 3. That they shall consider an Act for regulating Proceedings at Law and to prevent tediousness of Suits 4. That they should consider what Laws are fit to be repealed Thus they were Cutting out one another Work In the mean time Oliver Cromwell with a brave Army lands at Dublin the whole Kingdom being reduced under the Kings obedience most of the Irish coming in except the Ulster Irish under Owen Roe Oneal being prevailed with by the Popes Nuncio Contrary to his promise not to come in and under-hand there was a Confederacy driven between our new Republicans and this Nuncio but on what Conditions was kept Private for their Assistance of reducing that Kingdom under their obedience tho this being laid in their Dish they impudently deny'd it afterwards Some of the Propositions were That all Laws and Penalties against the Popish Religion should be taken off by Act of Parliament and that Act to extend to them and their Heirs for ever That an Act of Oblivion should be pass'd to extend to all of his Party for all things done since the beginning of the year 1641 So that the horrid Massacre of the Protestants should have been forgotten That Owen Oneal should have a competent Command in the Army That they should enjoy their Lands now in Possession and that rightly they might claim from their Ancestors That all Acts of State that incapacitated them to be taken off That Oneal should in regard of his Merit and good Service to the Parliament in joyning with them have all the Estate of his Ancestors or some Estate equivalent to it in the Counties of Tyrone Ardmagh or London-Derry And that his Army should be provided for c. So that the sweetness of ruling and getting Ireland into their hands as well as England made them thus treat with the Popes Nuncio and a most notorius Rebel and Papist to joyn with them But they who had Confederated with the Devil might well joyn with his Holiness to subdue the Cavaliers and yet at the same time these men cryed out upon the Duke of Ormond for joyning with the Irish for the reducing that Kingdom to the obedience of the King And some of Cromwell's own Soldiers hearing of this Confederacy abominating it deserted him which made him to certifie to his Journey-men in London and caused them to null their Debenters for all their Service which were stated before the Expedition And this Agreement with Oneal went so far that the said Oneal assisted Sr. Charles Coot in raising the Siege of London-Derry as may appear by his Letters to the Parliament says the Author of the History of Independency However they fell to pieces afterwards but this is enough to shew by what Principles they Acted and how much they valued Religion when Gain and Dominion stood in Competition Oliver is successful in Ireland at the taking of Tredagh a strong place twenty miles North of Dublin in which were the Flower of the Irish Army where he put to the Sword all persons whatsoever without Distinction of Age or Sex and lasted for three days he slew about three thousand of their best and stoutest men with their Governour Sr. Arthur Aston Sr. Edmund Varny Collonel Warren Collonel Dun Finglus Tempest and others who all fell by his Eury which so affrighted the rest that he no sooner appeared before a place but it was surrendred to him The next place was Wexford a considerable Town by the Sea South West of Dublin which was betray'd to him and where he after a barbarous manner put to the Sword two Thousand more and among the rest two hundred of the chiefest Women of the place fled to the Market-Cross for shelter and there put to the Sword by his Command tho several of his own Soldiers who had before given them Quarter refused to obey his Bloody Commands After which he took Ross Carick Kilkenny Clonmel and other places Munster Thus with extraordinary diligence and great Slaughter in less than a year that he staid there he subdued the greatest part of Ireland and kill'd and exterminated most part of the Irish leaving his Son-in-Law Ireton to complete the Conquest as Governour or his Lieutenant who there died of the Plague before he had quite finish'd his work In the mean time the King being in Jersey received a Letter from the Scots by Mr. Windram with several Conditions the chief of which was the acknowledging them a Parliament and particularly the two last Sessions of that Assembly and then they would treat with him at Breda concerning his coming to Scotland owning him for their King But those about his Majesty having no good Opinion of the Scots were fearful of having him to put himself into their Hands but to trust to Montross whom with a Commission he had senâ— before into Scotland his valiant Service being most remarkable there for the King his Father and they now hoped from him the like success However the King dispatch'd away Windram with a Letter to the Scotch Parliament wherein he concedes to have them to send Commissioners to him to treat at Breda which they did and on the 16 th of March they met where the Agreement was made and it was concluded That they should enjoy the Presbytery throughout the Kingdom the King himself and Family not expected but bound him to the Covenant Directory and Catechisms which the King his Affairs in Ireland being desperate and his hopes in England as little many Noble-men and Gentlemen flying thence from the bloody Tyranny of the States he was forced with great Reluctancy to Consent and then on their parts they Covenant That his Majesty should be admitted to the Throne of Scotland That his Rights should by Parliament be recovered out of the Hands of Usurpers and That they would assist to bring to Condign Punishment the Murtherers of his Father and to restore him to his Kingdom of England But in the interim of this Treaty the gallant and renowned Montross being landed in the Islands of Orkney with a few German Soldiers accompanied with the Lord Trendraught Sr. John Urry Henry Graham Collonel Johnson George Drummond of Ballack and other Persons his Friends and Confederates he begun with great Resolution and Courage to levy men notwithstanding several Losses of Arms at Sea and disappointments of Men and Monies which he had exspected from other
King perswaded returns to St. Johnstons where the Committee of Estates being somewhat more Compliant thank Cromwell for that many of the Kings friends were admitted to him This made many dissatisfied Ministers withdraw themselves into the West as Guthery Gelaspy Rutherford and others where they put forth a Remonstrance against the Proceedings of the Assembly in the Admission of Malignants to Power and Employment and with these Ker Stranghan Laird Warreston Sr. John Cheisley Sr. James Stewart and others joyn in Confederacy These Broils made well for Cromwell who found small Opposition He took Ken Prisoner and Edenborow Castle was surrendred to him on the 24 th of December 1650. This very much troubled the Scots for after that Cromwell succeeded so well that he took in all the Forts on this side of Sterling In January the Scots Crown the King at Scoon the accustomed place for the Coronation of the Kings of Scotland which is not far from St. Johnstons with great Pomp and Solemnity In the mean time the Junto in England still sat and Voted Liberty of Conscience to all which was a most distasteful thing to the Presbyterians Also they fell to levying of Souldiers giving the Command to Harrison now made Major General a fâ—fth-Monarchy man most of these men being raised by those sort of men and the other Sectaries with which this Army swarmed and the Presbyterian Interest daily declined every where being called a most horrid Tyranny and worse than the Prelacy They also about this time formally receive Embassadors from Portugal and Spain who for Interest acknowledge their Power All they did besides was the constant Persecution of the Royal Party after their Tyrannical manner Collonel Eusebius Andrews a constant Loyalist and firm to the interest of his King being by Profession a Councellor of Grays-Inn having been underhand Contriving some Insurrection in the behalf of the King was betray'd by some of his Confederates and taken at Gravesend and after sixteen Weeks being Prisoner in the Tower and several times examined he was brought to his Tryal before their bloody High Court of Justice Bradshaw sitting as President Where he admirably pleaded his Cause but the Attorney General Prideaux over-ruled all and told him the Court was not to take notice of his Law Cases but of his Confession and tho he had Acted no Treason yet he had an Affection for Treason and therefore deserved Death An excellent Mark of the Liberty of the Subject under Usurpers And upon this learned distinction the Bloody Court proceeded to Sentence against him that he should be Beheaded Thus the Will of Usurpers is become Law This Heroick Gentleman suffered accordingly on the 22 d. of August 1650 on Tower-Hill where he dyed with much Constancy Magnanimity and Christianity In October following one Benson involved in the same Design with Collonel Andrews was tryed and Condemned by the aforesaid Tyrannical Court and on the 7 th was Executed being Hanged for his Loyalty At the same time was an Insurrection in Northfolk which being suppressed many suffered for the same in several places In March following the Grandees at Wâ—stminster by the same Arbitrary Power after the Turkish Precedent put to Death the Loyal Sr. Henry Hide before the Exchange It was Crime enough that he was a Royalist and Brother to the afterwards Earl of Clarendon then with the King But his pretended Crime was That he had been an Agent from the King after the Death of his Royal Father to the grand Signior He was bred a Merchant and had a repute amongst the Turkish Company and was by them made their Consul at Morea and this Gentleman the King sent to the Port in order to some private concerns and not for the Confiscation of the Merchants Estates as the people were made to believe but he being there the Visiere was privately tampered with who betray'd him and sent him to England a Prisoner in the Ships thence bound for Smiâ—na in one of which he was brought to London and Committed to the Tower convented before the aforesaid Court by whose Power he was Condemned and Beheaded as aforesaid on the 4 th of March 1650. And now their Hands were in all went to Pot that came in their way the April following Captain Brown Bushell was the next Criminal they Murthered for his Loyalty he had long lain under restraint in the Tower and almost starved for want of Sustinance and at last being put into their Bloody Roll of such as were to be Tryed he was called to their Bar and Condemned But his Wife solicited very hard for a Reprieve which at last hey promised her with which joyful News she repaired to her Husband Comforting themselves together till four a Clock in the Afternoon but had no sooner left him with those flattering Hopes but the Warrant came for his present Execution they finding it seems that he was too well beloved by the Seamen and wree in Fear of him and so about six of the Clock at Night they put him to Death on the Ground under the Scaffold on Tower-Hill which he suffered with much Resolution In the mean time Cromwell was very watchful and Diligent and endeavoured all he could tho not with any success to engage the Scots Army which was drawn up at Sterling where the King was with them But the King having a Design to pass into England waved engaging with as much Care as the other flush'd with Victory and Success sought it who was come within sight of the Scotch Army In Lancashire several expected his coming and were ready to rise upon his approach tho disappointed by the Rumps Vigilancy Cromwell for want of Provisions was forced to remove and attempted to get over to Fife side It was about this time that several rude fits of an Ague shook him so shrewdly that there was an equal engagement of Hopes and Fears on the side of either party of his marching into another world Doctor Write and Dr. Bates two eminent Physicians being sent from London to administer Physick to him being brought very low But at last by the help of these Doctors who had the charge of him by the Junto's order he recovered to the sorrow of the Royal Party At last the English under Collonel Overton with about fifteen or sixteen thousand Foot and four Troopâ— of Horse with much difficulty forced their Landing Cromwell drawing up close to the Scots at the same time with all his Forces with an intention to fall upon their Rere if they should attempt to beat them out of Fife Yet the Scots sent four thousand Horse and Foot under Sir John Brown which Cromwell having notice of sent over Lambert and Okey with two Regiments of Horse and Foot and engaging with him defeated him took him with many others prisoners having slain about two thousand of the Scots This gave the English firm footing in Fife and they easily took in several places on that side the Frith And now the King was necessitated to
follow his design in marching for England and whilst Cromwell went about to set upon S. Johnston's that he might make himself Master of the Pass at Sterlin which he took after a days siege the King marches for England from Sterlin by the way of Carlile with about sixteen thousand complete This News gave Cromwell an allarm and immediately he dispatches a Messenger with Letters to his Masters in England to inform them of it and to comfort them believing they would entertain no pleasant thoughts thereat giving them an account of his successes and that they should have confidence in God and should improve the best they could what Forces they had in readiness and should raise more and not be afraid for the Enemy was heart-smitten and were in a desperate condition with such like stuff In the mean time he orders Major General Harrison and Collonel Rich who were on the Borders to attend the motion of the King's Army until he were able to come up to them with his Forces The Parliament notwithstanding his canting Leâ—ters began to be jealous of him and spoke big words against him which came to his ears and which he remembred afterwards to their cost In the mean time Lambert with about three thousand Horse and Dragoons is speeded after the King and presently after Cromwell himself follows the same day the King enters England which was on the sixth of August having departed from Sterlin the last of July On his entring into England he was proclaimed as he went and pardon offered to all sorts of persons excepting Cromwell Bradshaw Cook and some others the most immediate Murtherers of his Father At the same time a Party in North-Wales began to rise to joyn with the Earl of Darby but were broken and disappointed The King with his wearied Men on the two and twentieth of August comes to Worcester being beset before and behind by the new raised Forces Cromwell Lambert and Harrison The Militia of London and of several Counties flock to Worcester so that by that time Cromwell was come up to them they had formed an Army of forty thousand men or more The Earl of Darby brought to the King two hundred and fifty foot and sixty Horse and having raised about twelve hundred more in Lancashire and those parts he was engaged by Lilburn and routed and several persons of Quality taken By this time Cromwell had close begirt Worcester and the King's Party beheld themselves in a very bad condition hemm'd in on all sides with numerous Foes and now too late saw their error of not marching directly to London which was dreaded by the Junto and which was earnestly desired and expected by the Londoners who wanted only a fuller security of shewing their inclinations for the King being over-awed and hindered through fear from declaring But God did not see it good that the King should be brought to the Throne by any other hand than that of Peace and by his own Subjects of England intending to shew him a more immediate care of his miraculous providence in his preservation and that he might not be subject to the Presbyterians for their assistance nor beholden to them for his Crown he was resolved to bring him in after a more glorious manner Nothwithstanding the great disadvantages the Scots were in they were resolved with much courage to sell their lives as dear as they could and that the English should not find it an easie purchase The first considerable Engagement was at Upton Bridge on Fleetwood's side who was Lieutenant General of the Army where Lambert with five hundred Horse and Dragoons beat Collonel Massy who endeavoured to maintain it But the fatal day was on the third of September auspicious to Cromwell the last year in his fight at Dunbar It is not my design to draw you the Scheme of the Battel intending only in these Papers to shew more particularly things of another nature this Action has been sufficiently made known therefore I shall only very briefly mention it The Scots to give them their due and the little handful of English that were with them fought bravely and shewed great courage and resolution disputing every Field with their numerous Enemies and coming to the But-end of their Muskets and Push of Pike with them covering the Field where they stood with their Bodies The King in person charged in one of the Sallies from the Town shewing extraordinary Valour Conduct and Courage in which Charge Duke Hamilton Brother to the Duke that was beheaded was shot and died suddenly after of his Wound But towards the Evening the English charging most furiously with Cromwell in the head of them enter'd with the retreating Scots into the Town and possessed themselves of the Fort Royal Then it was the King with the Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Derby and some others and about sixty Horse fled being narrowly miss'd by Cobbet but the Foot falling to plunder the Town which they did with great barbarity kept out the Horse for fear they should share with them which favoured his Majesties Escape who got that night to White-Ladies where he was disguised and all the rest departing several ways he was committed to the fidelity of the Pendrills being in the disguise of a Wood-Cutter with a Bill in his hand and for some time lay hid in the Celebrated Oak in Boscobâ—l Wood thence conveyed to Mr. Whitegrave's at Mosely whence as a Servant to Mrs. Jane Lane he went to Bristol but missing a passage there after many signal Marks of God's Providence in his miraculous Escape at least fifty several persons having been made privy to it he at last with the Lord Wilmâ—t embarked at Brightemsted in Suffex and was carried over by one Tetersell Master of the Vessel who afterwards was a Captain of one of his Majesties Frigats and got safe to Diep in France to the great joy of all his Friends The Scots lost in this Battel about two thousand slain upon the place and in the pursuit and about eight thousand Prisoners very few of the Scots got back to Scotland being known by their Tongue and pick'd up in their return by the Country most of the Nobility and chiefest Commanders were taken and carried Prisoners to London with all their Ensigns many of the chiefest Prisoners of the Nobility were kept in Windsor-Castle till the King's Restoration the Colours were hanged up in Westminster-Hall and several of the common Soldiers sold to Merchants and sent away as Slaves to the Barbadoes and other Plantations Comwell himself in great triumph passes to London being met at Acton by the Speaker and Members of the Junto the Lord Mayor of London and Steel their Recorder who in a flattering Speech applauded his great Atchievments applying to him the words of the Psalmist To bind their kings in chains and their nobles in fetters of iron And now the way to the ambitioned Throne seem'd open few Obstacles remaining except the Junto themselves which he had made so
ship This was the fourth Engagement The maintaining of this War against the potent Dutch gained such Reputation to these English States as they were called that the French by the Advice of Mazereen sent Monsieur Bourdeaux as an Agent from the French King to acknowledge them This Action of the French gave great distaste to all the King of England's Friends but this Peace with England preserved the Cardinal being in some danger from the Princes of France And now to maintain this War the Junto lay a heavy Tax upon the People of 120000 l. a Month. Monk and Dean being come out of Scotland are joyned with Blake and the Fleet equipping with all Expedition which the Dutch States hearing of sent away to Van-Tromp who was at Sea Conducting home three hundred sail of Merchant men with seventy six men of War and Commanded him to Block up the Thames to hinder the English Fleet from coming forth but to their great Amazement the English got their Ships to Sea and joyning those at Ports-mouth made up eighty sail and over against Portland lay half Seas over expecting the Dutch On the 18 th of February they discry'd them and about eight in the Morning the fight began Blake and Dean who were in the Tryumph with twelve Ships more encounter'd the Gross of the Dutch Fleet but was relieved at last by Lawson who performed his part exceeding Well The Ship in which General Monk was being a slow Sailor could not so soon come up to engage as he would have had it but he had a great share in the Fight and lost many men aboard her This Fight lasted three days and the Triumph wherein two of the Generals were received seven hundred Cannon shot in their Hâ—ll The next day being Saturday and the nineteenth of Feb. 1652. assoon as the English could overtake the Dutch they engaged them again in the Afternoon which was fought with much fury Tromp still endeavouring to save his Merchant Men fought retreating putting them before him but spite of his teeth he lost many of them which were picked up by the English with some of his Men of War The third day in the Morning being the twentieth the fight was again renewed and continued very fierce till four in the Afternoon but the Wind being cross to the English Van Tromp got at last to Callais Sands and so tyded it home The Dutch lost in the three days Fight eleven Men of War and thirteen Merchants Ships and had killed about fifteen hundred Men. The English lost but one Ship but had not many less slain than the Enemy This was the fifth Engagement in which the English got much the better About this time they erected their High Court of Justice in Ireland by which many of the Irish suffered among the rest the noted Rebel Sir Phelim Oneal was hanged at Dublin The year 1652 being worn out and the Dutch being by their several losses humbled the King's Party crushed and impoverished now the Tax for the maintenance of the Dutch War coming in and filling the Treasury 120000 pounds every month the State owned by the French and himself caressed privately by Mazareen with whom he had secret intelligence but what was more the arbitrary Junto perfectly hated by the People he thought it now a convenient time to step into the Throne and to usurp the supreme â—ower and Authority and to take the Government into his own hands To this end he holds several Consults with the Officers of the Army and much fasting and praying there was among them an extraordinary Work being to be done Cromwell cajol'd them all Lambert was deceiv'd in his hopes of succeeding Oliver which he had made him to believe he intended Harrison was for pulling these old Representatives out of their Seats to make way for the Rule of the Saints Cromwell knew how to please them all that he might by them work his ends All the Party Harrison could make among the Congregations of Feak Rogers Simson and the rest of that Gang were for Cromwell and all impatient to have the Parliament outed and to help forward there came forth dayly from the Army Petitions Addresses Remonstrances and such like Papers for putting an end to this Parliament But notwithstanding all the specious pretences for the putting an end to this Parliament many of the Officers very well perceived the drift of Cromwell and what all would end in viz. his getting the Monarchy into his own hands which troubled them much and some of them made open protests against it for they that could not endure the Rule of a single person in their Lawful Prince could much less endure to be tyrannized over by the arbitrary power of their equal The chief of them that opposed his design were Collonel Venables Scout-Master-General Downing Major Streater and others Streater went about to give his Reasons to the contrary telling them that Cromwell design'd to set up himself and that it was a betraying of their most glorious Cause for which so much Blood had been spilt but Harrison interrupted him and told him that he was assured the General did not seek himself in it and did it to make way for the Rule of Jesus that he might have the Scepter To whom Streater replyed That unless Christ came very suddenly he would come too late For this opposition Cromwell looks on him as his mortal Enemy and claps him up into the Gate-House The Junto was very sensible of these Actings but knew not which way to prevent them yet they did what they could to make these Officers understand the inconveniences that would happen by a sudden dissolving them and that it would be the only way to preserve the Nation to fill up the House with new elected Members which would please the people and their Acts would be received with greater Authority But the Army answered them they were grown so carnal and corrupt that the people of God could expect no good from them and that they would take care that the supreme Government of the Land should be placed in the hands of such as truly feared God and were of approved integrity These Debates between the Parliament and the Army spun out some time at the Junto went about cunningly to secure themselves by preparing an Act for the filling up their House wherein such speed was made that it was near passing the House Cromwell being nettled resolves to stay no longer and to his Council of Officers he shewed That if they should let the people to chuse new Representatives it was a tempting of God who would save them by the hands of a few as in former times and that five or six godly upright men might do more in one day than the Parliament had done or would do in a hundred Upon this he takes with him Lambert Harrison and about eight more Officers of the Army and on the three and twentieth day of April 1653 he enters the House and there after a short
part of my draught of Arbitrary Government under the Power and Tyranny of that noâ—orious Usurper Oliver I shall now proceed to the second Act of this Tragical Usurpation and expose to your view the Tyrannick Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell who now as General of the Armies of England Scotland and Ireland had the full and sole Authority Power and Government of the Three Nations in his hands Yet this would not serve his turn he must have some splendid Title and Royal Ensigns to shew he reigned not by the Power of the Sword which would render him odious to the People though in effect it was the same thing But there is much in State and Ceremony especially where lawful right is not to give a lustre and the name of King with the Ornament of a Crown is the thing ambitioned or some thing like it is to be had if the other could not be obtained But this is not yet to be reach'd he must proceed methodically and like the Tyrant Richard the Third intreated much to accept of what he greatly desired The first thing Oliver does after he had thrust the Rump-Parliament out of doors was to put forth a Declaration of the Reasons for Dissolving the Long Parliament who had designed to perpetuate themselves desiring all good people to seek God for him that he might not doe any thing to dishonour his Name and that they should peaceably follow their Vocations as when the Parliament was sitting and that all Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace Mayors Bayliffs and other Civil Officers and Publick Ministers whatsoever should proceed in their Offices and Places and that the Writs should run in the same stile as before of the Keepers of the Liberty of England And then out of his Chief Officers of the Army and his Confidents he Creates a Council of State who were to manage all affairs till a Parliament could be called Thus the Laws and Liberties of the People and the whole Civil State and Government of England depended upon the Sword and the Arbitrary Will and Pleasure of a General and some few of his Military Officers These men to ingratiate themselves with the people lessen the Monthly Tax from 120000 l. to 90000 l. a Month and to keep fair with the Presbyterian who yet kept up their form of Church-worship and the most of one publick perswasion they prohibited all disturbances in the Church which was then frequent and the Phanaticks Licentiousness in the Army which swarmed with Anabaptists Ranters Quakers Seekers and other strange new Lights and who were set a madding after the possession of the remaining Revenue of Church-Lands Tythes Glebe Impropriations often addressing to that purpose as no remains of Dagon might be left Oliver at this time also was Courted by the French Ambassador Burdoe in the behalf of his Master lest he should favour his Rebels and which he gave him assurance he would not doe and though solicited on the other side he would not favour Enemies to Monarchy â—â—ready looking upon himself to be a Monarch The Dutch thought now to take the advantage of these Divisions in England and very early got their Fleet to Sea but no great Commotion following thereupon at home they had leasure to look after their Sea-affairs and getting forth the Fleet under Blake Monk and Dean on the second of June 1653 they meet the Dutch on the Coasts of Flanders Commanded by Van Tromp in chief and under him the two Eversons de Wit and Ruytier all stout expert and able Sea-men Pen was Vice-Admiral of our Fleet and Lawson Rear-Admiral The Dutch had One hundred and four Men of War Twelve Galliots and Nine Fire-Ships the English had One hundred Ships of all sorts Monk and Dean were in one Ship the Fight begun about Eleven of the Clock at Noon and the first Broad-side from the Enemy carried away General Dean being shot in two by a Cannon Bullet close by Monk's side who flinging a Cloak over his body bid the Soldiers to mind their business and unconcerned apply'd himself to the Battel continued with much fury on both sides as long as they had light The next morning Monk finding himself near the Dutch they again furiously engaged each other and Monk pressed so hard upon them that he sunk six of their best Ships and two others were blown up and eleven Ships taken and One thousand three hundred and fifty Prisoners and had not the Dutch got upon the Flats near Calais and Dunkirk where our great Ships could not come at them most of their Fleet had been ruined or taken The English had not one Ship lost or disabled and excepting General Dean but one Captain lost and about One hundred and fifty Men and few hurt General Blake came not in till towards the end of the Fight with Eighteen fresh Ships This was the sixth Engagement with the Dutch in this Wâ—â— The English Fleet â—â—e before the Texel and the Vly and now let the Dutch see they were Conquerors which so humbled them that they sent away a Vessel with a white Flag for England with a Messenger to prepare way for two Ambassadors to Treat of Peace however that they might make it on easier terms they prepare with all speed they can to recruit their Fleet and on the Twenty-ninth of July following in the morning the English discry them again with One hundred and twenty five Sail of Ships divided into four Squadrons under Tromp Everson Ruyteâ— and Wit Wittens The English Fleet consisted of Onâ— hundred and six Ships under the Command of Monk in chief for Blake was sick Pen Vice-Admiral and Lawson Rear-Admiral the Battel began by six in the morning and continued till night parted them and the next morning again both fell to it with that bloody fury that they made the most cruel Fight that ever was Orders being given neither to give nor take quarter Everson's Ship was sunk and he taken and the famous Van Tromp shot with a Musket-bullet and slain on the poop of his Ship whereby his men were so daunted that hoisting out all the Sail they could they made away to the Texel The English bought this Victory dear having lost Four hundred Men and Eight Captains and Seven hundred wounded with Five Commanders yet lost but one Ship On the Dutch side was lost besides their Admiral Tromp Thirty-three Ships or more out of which the English saved swiming in the Sea Twelve hundred Men and Five Captains Monk returning victorious with their Prisoners to Solebay where he stayed not long e're he returned to ply upon the Dutch Coasts and to disturb their Trade and to let them see the English were their Conquerors This was the seventh and last Engagement in this â—ar For now the Dutch having enough of iâ— made a Peace with Cromwell which he migâ—â— have had almost upon any terms had he not been so greedy of setting himself up in the Throne beginning also to grow jealous of the great Actions of
General Monk whom he had a desire to send further from him But before this last Fight the Parliament called by Cromwell under his Hand and Seal directed to each man such as he picked out godly men as he calleâ— them fit for his turn about One hundred and forty-two of them in all assembled at White-Hall on the Fourth of July where they chose one Mr. Rous a Cornish man Speaker one that had been by the laâ—e Parliament made Provost of Eaton Cromwell in a set Speech declares to them the occasion of their Meeting with his old way of Canting full of Scripture To these men a company of obscure fellows most of them 〈◊〉 Phanaticks the Council of State surrender 〈◊〉 their Power that they might afterwards give it to Cromwell These Adjourn themselves to Westminster where they sit and call themselves the supreme Authority of the Nation and begin to form Committies for the dispatch of Business But this Parliament called Barebones Parliament from a Leatherseller a Member thereof and consisting as I have said of such obscure Persons that most of them were hardly known in the Counties where they were born began to make such ridiculous Acts and so displeasing to the people that some thought Cromwell had called together this little Parliament to bring Parliaments into contempt the better to devolve the Ruling Power on himself as a Monarch One of their Acts was that none should be married without a Justice of Peace and the Banes asked in the Market-place three several Market-daies Thus the Priesthood was invaded and placed in the Civil Magistrate Then they took off the Penal Law of the Engagement to acknowledge the late Rump whereby it was ordered that no man should be admitted to sue in Law in any Court that had not taken it They voted against Tythes and the Universities as Antichristian They also were going in hand with cancelling the Law and all Law Books and so make a new Code more besitting their own turns and for the establishing of the Saints as they called themselves They were also upon making an Act that one Parliament should upon their dissolving have power to call another and so to make Parliaments perpetual This was not to be endured by the Oliverian Party who expected now to solace themselves under the shadow of his greatness And on the twelfth of December this Party in the House with the Speaker made a Motion for their dissolution declaring that their sitting any longer would not be for the good of the Nation Many of the Committee Blades hardly warm in their seats were startled at it these began to stand up stifly pleading for the Cause of God as they called it and shewing they could not leave the Commonwealth and the People of God committed to their charge so soon which would leave them to utter ruine and Harison and Squib a great Sequestrator were very zealous in defence of their own Authority But Oliver's Party being the greater arose and with their Speaker Rous left the House and the Fifth-monarchy Saints sitting in it who having sought God resolved to continue sitting Rous in the mean time with the Mace before him and his Followers go to Whitehall and there resign to Oliver the Instrument of Power he had given them that made them a Parliament with notice how they had left their fellows sitting Oliver returns them his thanks and kindly receives their Present and presently dispatches a Confident of his Colonel White with a Guard of Red-coates to turn the fag end or Rump of this little Parliament out of the House who entring the House commanded them in the name of the General to depart declaring them to be dissolved but they told him they were upon earnest business and therefore desired that he would not disturb them for they were seeking God to which he replied pish is that all 't is to no purpose for God has not been within these walls this twelve years and so fairly compelled them to go out of the House and to seek God somewhere else About four days after the Officers of the Army had prepared an Instrument of Government on which foundation they erected their new Dominion in a single Person entreating their General to accept of the Government under the Title of Protector of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland and thus a Rotation is made from a Republick to a single Person and Arbitrary Tyranny not the Monarchy is restored and instead of the many Tyrants one as boundless is constituted by a Military Power Good man with his usual dissimulation and Hypocrisie he refused it with much seeming modesty what he so long had sought and ambitioned but being pressed and by being made sensible of the great necessity of it for the upholding the Nation he at last accepts it and is installed with great pomp in Westminster Hall attended by the Lords Commissioners of the great Seal all the Judges in their Robes the Serjeants and learned Counsellors at Law the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Recorder of London in their Scarlets and all the chief Officers of the Army Being seated in a great Chair of State and the Instrument read unto him this Oath was administred I promise in the presence of God not to violate or infringe the Matters and things contained in the Instrument but to observe and cause the same to be observed and in all things to the best of my understanding govern the Nation according to the Laws Statutes and Customes thereof and to seek their peace and to cause Justice and Law to be equally administred But how well he kept this Oath you may perceive by the sequell of his Reign Having taken this Oath putting on his Hat the Commissioners surrender into his Hand the great Seal and the Lord Mayor the City Sword and Cap of maintenance which he respectively returned to them again and then returned in the same pomp to Whitehall The chief Heads of this Instrument as they called it of Government were First That a Parliament should be called every three years Second That the first should assemble the third of September 1654. Third That no Parliament should be dissolved till they had sate five Months Fourth That such Bills as should be offered to the Protector by the Parliament if he assented not in twenty dayes should be Laws without him Fifth That his Council should not exceed the number of twenty one nor be less than thirteeâ— Sixth That immediately after the death of the present and succeeding Protectors the Council shall choose another Protector before they rise Seventh That no Protector after the present should be General of the Army Eighth That the Protector should have power to make War or Peace This they denyed to the King Ninth That in the Intervals of Parliaments the Protector and his Council may make some Laws that should be binding to the Subject Here is a prerogative granted beyond any of the Kings of England Tenth That in the Parliament should be
following But in the mean time Rear-Admiral Stainer with six other Ships of the English Fleet met with the Spanish Fleet near Cadiz returning from the West Indies with Plate where he sunk several of them with great treasure and took others which he brought away with two Millions of pieces of Eight which amounts to 400000 pounds Sterling There were several Noble men and Dons of Spain taken Prisoners whom Cromwell treated handsomely and after a little while generously sent them home without Ransom And now on the 17 th of September 1656 the appointed time for the Meeting of the Parliament those who were Elected met and chose for their Speaker Sir Thomas Widdrington The Major-Generals had a great hand in chusing this Parliament who by their Arbitrary Power and Authority caused whom they pleased to be chosen and it was thought it was one of Cromwell's policies to Constitute them for that end wanting a Parliament that might give him money And also by their most tyrannical sway they had rendred themselves so odious to the Royalists that they desired rather any other Government should be than these Bashaw's and it was indeed thought to be one of Cromwell's policies in their Constitution that their tyranny might cause his Iron yoke alone to sit more easie about their necks for he gave them up to the Parliament who abolish'd them His design of making himself King and of wearing the Imperial Crown and of becoming a legal Monarch and of transmitting it to his posterity now plainly was manifested though God did not see it good to let the Iniquity of the Nation run on so far as to disinherit the right line having in his Wisedom resolved to continue it to the posterity of Chaâ—les the Martyr for though Cromwell knew he had more Power and greater Dominion and was more absolute than any King of England yet the glorious Title of King and the wearing of a Crown was the desire of his ambitious soul not that it could add more to his Power but he imagined that by that means he should be accounted more legal for that the Crown takes away all attaint and that perhaps he might be able to transmit it to his posterity and make it hereditary in his own line He knew his tyrannick Usurpation was against all the Laws of the Land and that he could hold what he had got no longer than the Army pleased to stick to him who like an head-strong beast was grown so skittish he had much adoe to master it but by setling the Crown on his own head he thought to reduce every thing to its old channel the race of the Stuarts only changed for that of Cromwells and for this end he now began all he could to court the Nobility and Gentry of the Royal Party after he had sufficiently humbled and crush'd them and made them poor all to sweeten them against his assuming the Crown having got as he hop'd a Parliament for his purpose for none were admitted into this Parliament after their Elections but such as the Council allowed of and many persons that Oliver durst not trust were in this Parliament and that he thought not fit to sit till some Laws were first made for the strengthning his Authority and carrying on of his design There was therefore a Recognition of his Highness Government by a single person placed ready with a Guard of Red-coats to be signed before any of the Members went into the House and such as refused to sign it were dismissed and not suffered to sit by which means near 200 at the first were excluded those that sat taking no notice of this most horrid force And now let those who so much stand up for Law and Justice and cry out upon Arbitrary Rule tell me if ever a greater could be acted upon the Liberties of the People in denying them their freedoms in the sitting of their Representatives in Parliament and if any of the most Arbitrary Kings of England ever did or durst attempt the like But what might not and what did not this Tyrant and Usurper doe At first this Parliament went on very smoothly and to the content of their Protectorian Master the first thing was they made a Vote declaring his War with Spain to be just and honourable with a resolution of assisting him in it Then as a Grand step for him to Mount the Throne they make an Act for the renouncing the title of â—harles Stuart and the whole line of King James unto the Crown of England Scotland and Ireland seconded with another for the securing his Highness Person and the continuance of the Nations peace which was bound up in it And this last Act was made by reason of a Plot then discovered against his Person by one Syndercomb or rather a Contrivance of his Secretary Thurlo's to further his designs This Syndercomb was a Leveller or Fifth-Monarchy-man and disbanded by Monk in Scotland who being a resolute fellow and disgusted was drawn in by two of Thurlo's Creatures one Cecil and Toop of Cromwell's Life-guard who pretending a Male-contentedness easily drew him in to a design of Murthering the Tyrant there being about that time a book printed and published with the name Allen to it a disbanded Leveller called Killing no Murther which with notable Arguments proved the Lawfulness of Killing Cromwell as an Usurper and Tyrant which book almost scared him out of his wits and made him ever after afraid of every strange face that came near him and made him betake himself to these artifices to affright assassinates by his severity Syndercomb being thus trepann'd and drawn in by his Instruments had prepared a Blunderbuss and had placed it to shoot him in his Coach going to Hampton-Court and if that failed he was to have fired White-Hall by placing a Basket of combustible matter in the Chapel with a train all which is discovered Syndercomb and his Companions seized the Life-guard men confess the Plot and are pardoned Syndercomb is tryed for it at the upper Bench-bar as they then called it and convicted by the Witness of his fellow Conspirators he was Condemn'd to be Hang'd Drawn and Quarter'd at Tyhurn but before his Execution he was found dead and poysoned in the Tower by himself as the Inquest of the Coroner found it though by others suspected to be a fineness of Thurlo's however as a felo de se he was drawn at an Horses tail to Tower-hill and there put into the ground under the Scaffold and a Stake driven thorow his Body This occasioned the Act to be hastned for his Highness preservation and a thanksgiving Voted for this great delivery the Parliament attending him at White-Hall in the Banqueting-house where a Congratulatory Oration upon this occasion was made to him The next day the time being very convenient Alderman Pack started a motion that for the better and more sure settlement of the Nation the Protector might be desired to assume the stile and title of King as the most
was interwoven with the Laws and was most necessary to be assumed For that the Title ought to be accommodated to the Laws not the Laws to it as they must if he continued the name of Protector That new titles were ever suspected and that the name of Protector had still been unfortunate to the Kingdom and to themselves That it being given him by the Soldiers it smelt too much of Conquest That the Roman Empire never thrived so well but was alwâ—ys full of confusion under the titles of Consuls Dictators or Prince of the Senate as it did under the title of Kings untill Caesar came to settle the Empire they also lay'd before him the reasons for the changing the Title of Lord to King of Ireland in the time of King Henry the 8 th for the better and more regular Government of the Nation But their main Argument was drawn from the Statutes of 9 Edw. 5. and 3 H. 7. by which all persons were indemnified that took up Arms for the King in being and would be a great security to himself and the people to have it thus setled upon him by Act of Parliament But for all this for the Reasons aforesaid his fears surmounted his Ambition he at last gave them a peremptory Refusal telling them that it was against his Conscience and that he could not offend so many Godly men and Officers of the Army who had declared against the title and office of King but he desired that the Title of Protector and the Government by a single person might be confirmed by consent of this Parliament Upon this his refusal which was cryed up as a great Vertue and sign of his Humility the Parliament confirm him in his former title and dignity and an explanatory part to the Petition and Advice was prepared in respect of the Protector 's Oath his Counsels Members of the House of Commons and of the other House as they called it instead of the House of Lords which were to sit and to consist of 60 odd Lords of Cromwell's making The chief heads of the Petition and Advice were 1. That he should exercise the Office of Chief Magistrate under the Title of Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and to govern according to the Petition and Advice and that in his life-time he should appoint his Successor 2. That a Parliament should be called every three years at farthest and that it should consist of two Houses 3. That the Members of Parliament legally chosen should not be secluded the House but by consent of the House notwithstanding this he did not re-admit the secluded Members of this House which he had cast out 4. Shewed certain qualifications for the Members to be chosen 5. The power of the other House was declared 6. That no Law should be altered repealed or made but by Act of Parliament 7. That the constant yearly Revenue of the Army and Navy be setled and that to be a Million of Pounds Sterling and 300000 l. more for the support of the Government besides other Temporary supplies as the House of Commons should see necessary and fit 8. That the Protector 's Council should not exceed the number of 21 nor to be under 9 and 7 of them to be a Quorum 9. That the chief Officers of State to be chosen or approved by the Parliament 10. That his Highness should incourage a Godly Ministry 11. That the Protestant Religion should be professed and that he should cause a Confession of Faith to be made and that none should be permitted to reproach it or revile it by words or writings With some other matters of less importance With this the aforementioned Acts with an Act for Assessment of 60000 l. a month for three months Another Money Act for 50000 l. for England 6000 l. for Scotland and 9000 l. for Ireland with some others concerning Trade were presented to Cromwell to Sign by the Parliament To whom returning them many thanks he said That he perceived that among those many Acts they had made that they had taken great care to provide for the just and necessary support of the Common-wealth by those Bills for Levying of Money and understanding that it had been formerly the practice of the chief Governours to acknowledge with thanks to the Commons their care and regard to the Publick therefore he very heartily thank'd them and acknowledged their kindness therein And after he had signed these Bills and the Petition and Advice and Articles therein He told them That he had undertaken one of the greatest burthens that ever was laid upon the back of any humane creature and therefore he asked their help and prayers to God that he might have the divine Assistance for the discharging of this great trust And that for his part nothing should have induced him to have taken upon him this unsupportable burthen to flesh and blood but that he had seen in the Parliament a great care of those things that might make clearly for the Liberty of the Nations and for the Interest of such as feared God And if that the people were not thank full to them for their great care it would fall as a sin upon their heads With much more of the same nature This being done they prepare for the Solemnity of his Inauguration or Investure anew for though he was before solemnly inaugurated into the Protectorate as you have heard according to the Instrument yet it was thought fit that it should be done again for the greater confirmation of the business because the Articles of this Petition and Advice were different from the former Instrument For now there was to be another House and whereas before his Council was to name his Successor he had now power to doe it himself so that he was an absolute Monarch and might leave the Succession to his Son if he pleased A Committee being appointed for this purpose on the 26 th of June 1657 before a great assembly of people and with much more Ceremony than before he was installed in Westminster-Hall under a great Canopy of State in great pomp and much magnificence too long for me here to relate the Great Seal being carried by the Lord Commissioner Fiennes and the Sword by the Earl of Warwick The City Sword by the Lord Mayor Tichbourn all bare-headed The Dutch and French Ambassadors being also present The Speaker of the House of Commons presenting him with a Robe of Purple Velvet a Bible a Sword and a Sceptre making a Speech to him in presenting them Telling him that the Purple Robe was an Emblem of Magistracy and imported Righteousness and Justice The Bible containing the Holy Scriptures was Christ Veiled and Revealed and contained both Precepts and Examples for good Government The Sceptre not unlike a Staff was to shew he was to be the Staff of the poor and weak of ancient use for that the Scripture says The Sceptre should not depart from Judah and that Kings and Princes were called by Homer
Sceptre-bearers That the Sword was not only a Military but a Civil Sword a Sword rather of defence than of offence to defend himself and his people Upon which he would presume to write this Motto Ego sum Domini Protectoris ad protegendum Populum Meum I am the Lord Protectors to protect my People This being ended he gave the Protector his Oath on the Bible and Mr. Manton made a Prayer wherein he recommended the Protector the Parliament the Army and Government to God which done the Trumpets sounded and the Heraulds proclaimed him Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging After which he returned in great State the Lord Sherrard and the Lord Roberts his eldest Son carrying his Train The Pageantry being finished the House having done like good Boys have leave to play for returning to their House they adjourn themselves to the 20 th of January following Being thus setled in his Dignity he began to live more splendidly and like a King having a very full Court and after a Monarchical Manner all his Officers of State Steel was made Chief Baron and Lambert Warden of the Cinque-Ports but that would not satisfie him for he was not a little disgusted that Cromwell had power given him to nominate his Successor and he now plainly perceived his Intentions of setling the Succession in his Children for which he now resolves if he can to ruine him with the Army But Cromwell is vigilant and had on the 19 th of April at a certain house in Shoreditch taken several of the Champions of the Fifth-Monarchy men among whom was one Venner a Preaching Wine-Cooper Ashton Gowler Hopkins and Gray their Scribe these were to have risen and with them was taken a considerable quantity of Arms and their Standard with a Lyon-Couchant Guiles in a Field Argent with this Motto Who shall rouse him The late Vice-Admiral Lawson and Major Danvers were secured As also Major Wildman who was taken at Marlborow drawing up a Declaration against him and clapt up in order to his Tryal And hearing of private Subscriptions to Petitions and Addresses to the Parliament carrying on in the Army against Kingship he peremptorily sent to them to desist upon their peril and so over-aw'd and dasht them that they durst not go on with their attempt There was no body now very considerable of their own party that could give him any disturbance but Lambert and to secure himself against him he followed the example Lambert had set him before in securing himself against the Rump Parliament and caused all the Army by his Privado's Regiment after Regiment to subscribe Addresses Congratulating his legal Authority and declaring their readiness to stand by him with their Lives and Fortunes This year on the 20 th of April 1657 that great action of General Blake was performed against the Spaniards at Santa Cruze in the Island of Tenarif where he burnt their whole West-India Ships being 16 in number notwithstanding they were barracado'd in the Haven and defended by a Castle well fortified and 7 Forts and got forth of their Haven without any loss for which considerable service the Protectâ—r and Parliament ordered him a Jewel of 500 l. and gratuities to the other Officers and Soldiers But this Valiant and Renowned Seaman did not long out-live this his memorable exploit dying at Sea as he was entring the sound of Plymouth Never any Seaman performed so many Actions redounding to the Glory of the English Nation as he did and it was his only misfortune that he serv'd not a lawfull Prince And now the 20 th of January being come at which time the Parliament was to re-assemble they met accordingly but they now were quite another thing than what they were before for according to the Clause in the Petition and Advice That the persons legally Chosen should not be secluded but by the consent of the House those Members that Cromwell had before kept out by force were now re-admitted though against his mind who presently gave him a disturbance Then according to their new Model there was the other House for as yet they did not dare to call it a House of Lords which consisted of his chiefest Favourites of the Army-Officers and others and many pick'd out of the House of Commons some of them being of the excluded Commonwealths-men whom he hoped to draw to his party by this obligation about half a score likewise of the old Nobility were nominated thinking to draw them in but they refused to come The Houses being thus altered in their Constitution quickly let Cromwell see he was deceived in his hopes for Hazelrig and others disdaining his proffer'd Baronage took their seats in the Commons House where they thought they should doe more good and by which means the Commonwealths-men grew so high that the other House was not taken notice of but fell to questioning all their fellows had done during their Seclusion and had the Messages of the other House in contempt and derision And now the Humble Petition and Advice was like to be overthrown The news of their proceedings so inraged the mind of Oliver seeing his great Hopes of being King so suddenly dasht that contrary to the advice of his Council he goes to them and for haste takes an Hackney-Coach and entring into the other House and standing under a Canopy of State he sends for the Commons to come to him who being come with much eagerness made them a long Speech which being remarkable I shall recite some few heads That the Lord was his witness his desires of carrying on the affairs of the Nation were for the ends of Mercy Truth Righteousness and Peace which he desired might be improved That there was not a Man or Woman treading upon English Ground could say that he sought the place of Protector but he thought the Nations happy therein But that he was Petitioned thereunto by them who had the Legislative Power to take up a burthen too heavy for any creature therefore did look they should make it good to him That he could say in the presence of God before whom they were all but poor creeping Ants upon the Earth he had rather have kept sheep than undertook such a place of Government as that was That he had told them he would not undertake it unless he might have men that should go between him and the House of Commons to prevent tumultuary spirits which was granted and he had named another House and that it was not Titles or Lords that they valued but a Christian and English Interest who would be a ballance to them and themselves and of their own rank and quality whilst they loved England and Religion That he thought he had been doing his duty and that they would be satisfied but if they were too high and too low they would not be satisfied That God knew he had taken an Oath upon condition expressed in the Government and thought he had been upon a sure
and against all Law so sent away for the Law says no English man ought to be banished by less authority than by Act of Parliament and ordered forthwith the Prisoners to be set free without Fees or Charges and had they sat longer had undoubtedly punished the Lieutenant too Then after publick faith given and the party restored to Common Privileges he caused that most horrid Order of Decimation to be put in execution on the poor Cavaliers by his Janizaries which was by the ensuing Parliament damned as an unjust and wicâ—â—â— breach of Faith This however is the great the just the brave victorious pious and most renowned Oliver who as I have said is yet by some remembred even to a kind of Idolatry but I shall leave him having long since received his deserved reward and conclude with the rapture of Sterry who Preaching his Funeral Sermon had these blasphemous expressions of him As sure says he as this is the Bible which he held in his hand the blessed spirit of Oliver Cromwell is with Christ at the right hand of the Father and if he be there what may not his family expect from him for if he were so usefull and helpfull and so much good influenced from him to them when he was in a Mortal State how much more influence will they have from him now in heaven The Father Son and Spirit through him bestowing Gifts and Graces upon them I shall now proceed to the second Scene of this single Usurpation and Tyranny which brought his Son short-liv'd Dick upon the Stage Oliver being thus dead on the 3 d. of September about three of the Clock in the afternoon he was opened and embalmed but he stunk so filthily though wrapt in Cearcloths and Lead with Aromatick Spices that they were fain to bury him privately but a Coffin was carried to Somerset-house where after some days with his Effigies made for that purpose he seem'd to lye in great state pomp and magnificence to which sight crouds of people daily pressed The out-rooms all hung with black with Scutcheons hanging on the Walls but the room where the Effigies lay was hung with black Velvet and the Ceiling of the same having a large Canopy of the same deeply fringed the Effigies being Robed in Purple Velvet laced with Gold-Lace and furred with Ermins with strings and tassels of Gold In its right hand a Sceptre in its left a Globe on his head a Velvet Cap furred with Ermins and behind his head placed high on a Chair of Tissued Gold was set an Imperial â—â—wn Eight Silver Candlesticks of about five foot high stood about his Bed of State with large white Waxtapers burning of three foot long all invironed with Rails and Ballisters covered with Velvet within which stood men in Mourning bare-headed which was continued for many weeks and then the Effigies was removed into another room and vested as before set up in a standing posture with the Crown upon his head which it seems he now obtained though he could not wear it while alive Thus they continued this Pageantry to the 23 d of November following when his Funeral was made and he carried in great pomp to Westminster with more cost and state than ever was bestow'd on any King of England costing they say 26000 l. or more and at last was interred among the Kings and Queens of England where he lay till the 30 th of January 1660 when he had a Resurrection to another Exaltation at Tyburn where he was a second time interr'd under the Gallows according to his demerits with his great Counsellors Ireton and Bradshaw But we will leave the dead and relate in bâ—ief the Transactions of the living Oliver being gone the Privy Council met and a search was made in the Protector 's Cabinet for a Paper safely lay'd up wherein he had nominated Fleetwood for his Successor but it was not to be found therefore they send to him and Desborow to know if they did acquiesce in the Declaration of the late Protector which made his Son Richard Cromwell Protector To which Fleetwood sent word that he cordially acquiesced in that Declaration of the late Protector 's concerning his Son's Succession though any other Paper should be found in which he had been formerly nominated his Successor This done the Council wait upon Richard to Condole with him for his Father's Death and to Congratulate him as Protector Then Skippon and Strickland were sent to the City to acquaint them with what was done and the next day they caused a Proclamation to be made subscribed by â—hiverton Lord Mayor the Council of State and several Officers of the Army at White-Hall Charing-Cross Fleetstreet and several places in London Proclaiming Richard Cromwell Protector of the Commonwealth of England c. After which the City-Sword by the Lord Mayor and the Seal by Fiennes were resigned to him and his Oath was given him by Fiennes one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal in which he Swore to maintain the Protestant Religion in its purity and to govern the three Nations according to the best of his power and skill according to the Laws After which he dispatches Messengers to Ireland to inform his brother Harry Deputy there and to General Monk in Scotland to inform them and to know how they stood affected to his Advancement And presently he receives Addresses from most of the Counties in England contrived and made at White-Hall and Protestations from the Armies in England Scotland and Ireland to live and dye with him Also Addresses from the Independant Churches as Goodwins Nyes and the rest of them many giving Adoration to this rising false light forgetting the true Sun yet in Eclipse beyond Sea and the fawning Poets Waller and Dryden among the rest praised to the Skies in their Elegies the dead Tyrant Richard was proclaimed both at Dublin and at Edenborough and all things ran smooth on his side But however General Monk liked not the Tyrannical sway of the Army in England but so early began to form the happy project of his Majestie 's Restauration without which he well perceived these Kingdoms would not be in any setled posture but be still subject to any Usurper or Usurpers the Army should set up but this was a great work and time not yet ripened for it he kept the secret in his own breast and intended to take opportunity by the forelock complying for the present as others did but in the mean time with great diligence he reformed his Army and purg'd it from those ill humours as he knew would soon bring it to destruction but this also he did wisely and cautiously and by degrees for fear of causing too early jealousies of his design Richard seeing the many Addresses made to him from the People and Army and the caresses and flatteries of great ones being a man of no great reach thought all had been real and now began to form to himself an Imagination of setling himself in his
or their freedoms in their Debates or Counsels This was transmitted to the other House who now began to be jealous of a Combination between Richard and the Commons against the power of the Army and that they sought to weaken and divide them so that they did not readily assent to this Vote Besides they were not a little displeased at another Vote of the Commons concerning their Transacting with them as another House which was That the acknowledgment of that House for another House of Parliament should not prejudice the Peer-age of the Land or their Privileges And further the Commons Voted That they would receive no Message from those of the other House but by some of their own number Neither would they treat with this upper House as an House of Lords but found out a new word to transact with them and that upon tryal and during this present Parliament which they foresaw would not be long in continuance The chief of the Officers of the Army were for the Protector but the more numerous being Sectaries or Phanaticks were for Fleetwood Desborow and the Wallingfordians who had made them to believe that Richard had an intent to cast them out of Commissions and that he would put the Army into the Nobilities and Gentries hands who would bring in the King and destroy the Liberty of the Gospel they had so long fought for Thus all parties being highly jealous one of another none knew how it would end but since the Power of the Sword and the Arbitrary and Tyrannick sway of the Army was greatest it might be well expected they would prove the strongest party for the rest having not an Oliver to deal with However the Commons like English men went on resolving for many good Acts mought they have been permitted to sit to finish them One was as they thought pleasing to the Army that care might be taken for the payment of their Arrears They began to assert their Interest in the Militia and had under their Consideration an Act for the taking away of the Excise and new Impost and concerning Customs Tonnage and Poundage after three years Likewise they Vindicated the Peoples Liberties by setting Overton and other Prisoners at liberty imprisoned by Oliver and declared against the illegality of sending men away to Foreign Plantations out of the reach of the Writ of Habeas Corpus whereby an English Subject could not have the benefit of the Law And a strict Bill was preparing against it with an intent to have punish'd that cruel Jaylor Bark stead also they had ordered an Impeachment to be drawn up against Butler one of Cromwell's Bashaw'â— for his many Insolencies put upon Magistrates and for his breach of all Laws and his most Tyrannical Actings equal to any Turkish Bashaw The Committee of Inspections also brought in the State of Accounts Military and Civil whereby it appeared that the yearly incomes of England Scotland and Ireland were Eighteen hundred sixty five thousand seven hundred and seventeen pounds and that the yearly issues amounted to Two millions two hundred and one thousand five hundred and forty pounds so that there was a yearly debt contracted upon the Kingdom of 301540 l. double the Revenue that ever any King of England enjoy'd Besides to maintain the Conquest of Scotland more than its Revenue was expends 163619 l. These people acted fairly and squarely and mought they have sat would have done much good they gave one another no Gratuities nor Offices nor granted any Money from the People which was more than could have been said of any Parliament for a long time before them These Actings of theirs and seeing the People began to have them in esteem caused now the Protector as well as the Army to grow jealous of them as well as of one another so that constant Guards were kept by Richard and the Army for fear of one another and though the House expected a Dissolution they could not yet tell which way it would come or which party to fear most In the mean time they give order for the drawing up an Act of Indemnity to quiet peoples minds But on the 22 d of April Fleetwood Desborow and other chief Officers follow'd by a great part of the Army repair to Richard at White-Hall with a Commission ready drawn and directed to Fiennes for Dissolving the Parliament giving him several Reasons for their so doing but for some time he obstinately refuses and was advised by some of his Confidents to cause his Troops to be drawn up and to appear in the head of them but he was fearfull and irresolute and the other party violent and insolent for his Uncle Desborow told him that unless he would consent they would doe it without him and so by threats and importunities he signed the Commission for Dissolving this Parliament This is sent to Fiennes who twice sent the Black Rod to the Commons who scorn'd the Message and would not admit him but hearing there were Guards of Horse and Foot drawn up in the Palace-yard and that there was like to be a force put upon them they adjourned themselves for three days and the Speaker was attended by all the House to his Coach through all the Soldiery Upon this they cause the Proclamation which they had ready for the Dissolving the Parliament to be published and declared them Dissolved and thus Richard dethroned himself and though Fleetwood and Desborow did not think to go so far as utterly to deject him not having yet agreed what Government to set up yet after this was done the more numerous though inferiour Officers of the Army would not hear of a Protector any more crying that vast allowance allotted for him would go a great way in the maintenance of the Army but resolve for the present that Fleetwood should have the chief Command of the Army and to dispose of all vacant Offices till further order and till they could consider of a fit Model of Government Thus Richard fairly is laid aside and quietly marches off the Stage not long after retiring into the Country having a promise from them that they would take care for the payment of his debts which by reason of his Father's Funeral charge were very great This was a kind of Interregnum all was in confusion and no man knew what to doe The Parliament after three days repair to their House but they find the doors lock'd and guarded by Red-coats and all the Avenues stopt with Soldiers who denied them entrance telling them Richard's business was at an end as well as theirs by whose power they sat and thus ended this Parliament who were not able to struggle with armed Power Fleetwood and Desborow had their hands full and they had as they say pull'd an old house upon their heads for Lambert tho at first he appeared for Fleetwood and his party designed nothing less than the serving of them and since he was not able but by some other Authority to get into the Supreme
Johnson and Josiah Berners These under the Mask of the Good Old-Cause begin to â—urn afresh to their old Villanies and to the enriching themselves with the poor remainers of the spoyls of the â—eople On the 12th of May Lambert accompanied with Desborow Barksted and 12 other Colonels of the Army â—resent a Petition to the House from the Army containâ—â—g their desires concerning the Government That the Government might be a free State and Common-Wealth without a single Person Kingship or House of Peers That there might be a due regulation of the Laws That an Act of Oblivion might be passed That the Laws and Ordinances made in the several changes of the Government and not to repealed may be good in Law That the publick Debts might be paid That a Liberty of Conscience be granted to all excepting Papists and Episcopists That a godly Ministry be incouraged That Universities and Schools of Learning be countenanced and Reformed That all Royalists be discountenanced and not suffered to have any place of Trust That none may have places of Trust but such as are eminent for Godliness Constancy and Faithfulness to the good Cause and Interest of the Nations That a provision be made for Succession of Parliaments That Fleetwood may be the Lieutenant-General of the Army That the Legislative power may be in the Representatives of the People consisting of an House successively chosen by the People That the executive power may be in a Council of State consisting of a certain number of qualified persons That the Debts contracted by his late Highness and his Father might be paid and that a Revenue of 10000 l. per Annum might be setled upon the late Protector and his heirs for ever and 10000 l. per Annum more during his Life and 8000 l. upon his honourable Mother during her Life c. This was the Armies project of Government for which they receive the thanks of the House by their Speaker and are told there are many weighty things contained in it which they would take into their Consideration And upon this before they would make any settlement upon the late Protector they send to him for an Acknowledgment of his submission to the Government which he formally sent them in hopes of the Settlement with a Schedule of his Debts But they refuse to pay them and delay making any Settlement either on Him or his Mother for they were a sort of Persons who never lov'd to give away money from themselves Yet to please him and to remove him further from them they give him 2000 pounds to discharge some part of his Debts and required that he and all his Dependences remove from Whitehall in six days Fleetwood began to grow discontented at this slighting his Brother but to please him they Vote him to be the Commander in Chief of all the Armies and Land-Forces in England Scotland and Ireland for one year and that he should have power to Sign Commissions and nominate Officers under him as should be approved by the Parliament But upon the second Reading of the Bill for this purpose they altered their minds and ordered all Commissions for the Land and Sea-Forces to be Signed by the Speaker and delivered to the Officers Gratis They also Order the Government of Ireland to be by Commissioners and Henry Cromwel to be removed 'T is thought if he had stirred at that time being much beloved by the Officers of his Army there he might have disappointed this Parliament of any further proceedings but being over persuaded he quietly left his Authority Scotland was yet a trouble to them which they knew not how to get into their hands for General Monk kept all things in so great Order and quietness there and was so prudent in all his Actions that they could not find fault with him nor mistrust him but believed him really their Friend They now begin to proceed vigorously and cause the Protector 's Seal to be broken and confirm their own old one of which Terryl Fountain and infamous Bradshaw are made Commissioners very busie they are of preferring one another to places of proffit and about the beginning of June keeping close to their Good Old Cause of Gain they ordered a Bill for publick Sales to be brought in And now White-Hall Somerset-House Hampton-Court and all that Cromwell had kept for himself are ordered to be sold for ready money And beginning with the Deer they fall to selling them by five or six Brace at a time And that no Stone might be unturn'd for the getting of money they project to make all such persons who had assumed Dignities or Titles of Honor heretofore conferred on them by the late King taken away by Act of Parliament to pay the summs forfeited by the said Act. Then they offer at an Act for the makeing all honours conferred by Charles Stewart voyd and null Then they fall to their old trade of raising monies by Assessments and continue the Excise and Customs to the 1 st of October And that they may hook in all they can they authorize the collecting of an Assessment granted by the Parliament 1656 for 3 years one year of which was yet behind and uncollected this was 35000 l. a month on England 6000 l. on Scotland and 9000 l. a month on Ireland thus they owned not the authority of that Parliament yet they owned their mony Assessed by them and put it into their own pockets They next revive their Committee of plundring Ministers and make an order for impressing of Seamen which they wanted Then they make their speaker Custos Rotulorum of Oxford shire and Berks. Sir Hen Mildmay of Essex and several other places to the cheif of their members following their old vocation of shareing all among themselves The Government of Jersay to Coll. Mason Cooper Zanker Sadler and Lawrence have Regiments given them in Ireland All things seem to submit to their power and Fleetwood Lambert Desberow and the rest are forced to receive their Commissions from their General Mr Speaker which tho' dissatisfied dissemblingly they submit to It was very much admired that the Parliament should imagine that the Armie would be true to them or that any Oaths would hold them when they had seen them so often break their former Allegiance to themselves and to their late Protector and on the other side it was as much admired that the Armie would thus trust this Parliament or Junto they had so grosly abused for they could not believe that the Junto would not remember their doings and so provide for their own security and establishment as to ruine the Armie if they could But out of all this evil God was now a forming good For the Government of the Armie under the Speaker the General they made 7 Commissioners namely Lieutenant General Fleetwood Sir Hen. Vaine Sir Arthur Hazlerig Colonels Lambert Desborow Ludlow and Berry These were very active in their authority placeing and displacing many Officers in the Armie by the Parliaments
to dispose of all places of Trust and to make Sales and Compositions of all Delinquents Lands and to execute all the powers of the late Council of State that is to do what they please Surely never any free Nation was so abused and imposed upon by a company of false pretenders to Sanctity The news of General Monks actions in the North allarm'd them at their first siting for he had casheired all those Officers in his Armie who would not joyn with him and imprisoned some of them and had seized Berwick and several others strong Holds and was likely to march into England which put them to their wits ends knowing how highly the people were incensed against them and about the same time as a presage of their dying power Brad shaw who had passed the trayterous Sentence upon the King departed this life the last day of this month to receive sentence himself from the King of Kings However this Committee with a new name put forth a Declaration in with they null and make voyd the pretended Orders Acts and Declarations of the late Junto made on the 10th of that instant October and on the Teusday and Wensday following and likewise all Acts Orders and Proceedings thereupon in as full and ample manner as if they had never been See now what may not these people do when they can null and make void the Acts of that power themselvs adored set up and submitted to not long before calling them Saints Godly Upright and Religious men persons fearing God and seeking the good of the Nation yet now vacate their Acts that were displeasing to them or restrained their power Yet the same men declare a liberty to all the freeborn men of the Nation whom they had thus enslaved and with the next breath promise to maintain a painfull Gospel-preaching Ministry to be incouraged by some other way less troublesome than that of Tithes Then they declare against a single person Kingship and House of Peers and that the Common Wealth shall not be governed in a Military way but by the Civil Government of the Committee of Safety who shal prepare such a Form of Government as shall best suit with a free State or Common Wealth then end with a long cant of godly and scriptural expressions of their sincerity and uprightness to Cajole the godly Party and to make them think well of their Saint like Actions This done in order to Government in the begining of November the Safety men nominate Fleetwood Lambert Vane Ludlow Desborow Hewson Holland Salaway and Tichburn to be a Committee to prepare a form of Governenmt in the way of a free State or Common Wealth and Whaly Goff Carill and Barker are dispatched to General Monk to seduce him to joyn with them and to do as they intended to tyrannize over a free born people and arbitrarily to murder them for the avoiding of effusion of blood and the Officers at London wrote to his Officers to the same purpose remonstrateing with much zeal how necessary brotherly Union was to uphold their Domination General Monk who had good Intelligence from England seeing the Northern forces were in a posture to resist him and Lambert comeing down to them with more Regiments out of the South thought it his best way to win time by procrastinations and therefore desires a Treaty which was readily accepted of by those in England and upon this he sends up as Commissioners Col. Wilks Leiut Col. Clobery and Major Knight to tranfact with the like number of Officers at London These had power only to treat but not to come to full agreement without orders but they exceeded their Commission By the way meeting Lambert at York they gave him so full satisfaction in hopes of concluding all things amicably by this Treaty that he advanced no farther northwards The Commissioners on both sides meet at London and Wilks not following his directions went beyond his Commission and being overforward to end the Treaty concluded upon certain Articles very distructive to Monks designs They were breifly these 1. That the pretended title of Charles Stewart or any other clameing from that family should be utterly renounced 2. That the Government of these Nations should be a free State or Common Wealth and not be a single Person King of House of Lords 3. That the Ministry should be mainteined and encouraged 4. That the Universities should be reformed and countenanced 5. That the Officers and souldiers and other persons on either side should be indemnified for things past and all unkindness between them buried in perpetual oblivion 6. That the Officers which were made pris'ners in Scotland should be forthwith set at liberty 7. That the Armies be presently dispersed into quarters 9. And a Committee of 19 whereof to make the Quorum should meet about qualifications for suceeding Parliaments 9. That the proportion of mony out of the Assessments of England formerly appointed for the supply of the forces in Scotland be duly paid The ratification of which Articles by Monk's Commissioners strangely amazed the City who had had private assurances from the General of other things and made them not to believe some later letters sent them to continue their Hopes but flung them away at fictitions and caused the messenger to be imprisoned Monk was also as much perplex'd when he had the news of it and when his Commissioners returned imprisoned Wilks for going beyond his Commission and by advice from his Officers demurred to one clause in the 6 Article which was That all the Officers displaced by General Monk might be in a capacity of being restored to their commands and all those put in by him in their places to be removed by which means he should ruine and disarm himself And therefore The treaty was not wholy disaprov'd of but wisely Monk desired that two more might be added to the former Commissioners to meet with the like number of theirs to put a more absolute period to their differences for that there were certain poynts to be treated on not yet agreed to and others wanted explanation This letter subscribed by Monk and many of his Chief Officers and sent to London put Fleetwood Lambert and the rest to much confusion seing Monk thus refuse to ratifie the Treaty and thereupon many expostulatory Letters passed between them which gained time the thing Monk intended he having sent letters and messengers into Ireland from whom he had favourable returns which encouraged him to proceed And this also put new life into the City who now began to revive their Hopes He also had privatly letters from the Lord Fairsax and other persons of quality in England of their resolutions of standing by him tho' upon all this he still kept himself reserv'd and very few knew his intenâ—ions which made many of his friends very doubtfull of him but by this artifice and closeness he effected his business and got into the opinion of the Rumpers whose quarrel only he seemed to espouse And
being thus encouraged by his actions nine of the old Council of State get privatly together viz Scot Morley Reignalds Wollop Nevill Hazlerig Walton Cooper and Berners who send a letter to Monk assuring him that his service was highly acknowledged by them in asserting their Liberties and also was extreamly well resented by all the sober and uninterested persons in the nation that love a Common Wealth assureing him they would adhere to him and stand and fall with him and that they would assist him with all their might for the removeing of the force was put upon them by the English Armie thIt they might sit in freedom praiseing his wisdom and conduct and the like This was no small incouragement to the Officers in Scotland for they might rationally conclude that their party was increased in England or else that they would not have so openly acted This before-mentioned Council of State framed a Commission wherein they constituted General Monk absolute Commander in Cheif of the Armies in England and Scotland dated 24 of November sealed with their seal and given to Clarges to send by a safe messenger to Monk And now General Monk upon Lamberts advance into Northumberland ordered a considerable part of his forces towards Berwick and then caused an Assembly of the Nobles and Gentry to convene at Edenburg to whom he made these proposals That he having a call from God and man to march into England they would therefore during his absence preserve and secure the peace of that Nation That they would supply him with some mony for his undertakeing which he engaged upon his honor should be to their satisfaction and that if any troubles should arise they would assist him in the suppressing thereof That they would advance and raise what mony they could for his entreprise before hand To these they returned answer by their chair-man the Earl of Glencarn that they were not in a condition to engage for preserving the peace of the Country in his absence because they wanted Armes Yet they would endeavour it with all faithfullness That they thought it not prudent to engage themselves in a war which if unsuccessfull would be their ruin or if prosperous they knew not what advantage should thereby accrew to them But to shew their good opinion of his fair intendment they were content to levy monies and to advance a year's Tax before-hand Hereupon the General impowred the Lords and Gentry to arme themselves and some of them he privately satisfied with his design and thankfully accepted the year's Tax But yet to win time he holds a second Treaty with Lambert's Commissioners at Newcastle upon Tine where he still insisted with a seeming zealousness upon the readmission of the Rumpers And this produced its wished effects For whilst Lambert trifles away his time unprofitably Monk posts himself at Cold-stream a notable pass upon the Tweed where he kept his head Quarters and being winter where Lambert could not without danger come to disturb him And on the other side Hazlerig Morly and Walton get into Portsmouth where they prevail with the Governour Col. Nathaniel Whetham and the Garison with the Town to declare for he Junto against the Safety men and Armie Officers and no Contribution could be gotten from the Country who armed themselvs with the late Act of the Rumpers before their exclusion by Lambert and the Counties every where bodly meet to draw Remonstrances but especially the City was so highly incensed that the Lord Mayor Allen was hardly able to restrain them from flying to armes which so perplexed him that not knowing whom to please and fearing bad effects if he should displease either he went to Wallingford House to represent the postures of affairs to the Gang to try if he could persuade them to reason But he was affronted all along as he past in his coach in the streets by the Common people who called him a deserter and told him he was not like Sir William Walworth in the time of King Richard the second which was a notable evidence of the inclination of the Generality In the mean time that we may see and be astonished at the impudence of these men or monsters called the Safety men they had ordered a Committee whom we nominated before as mad as themselves to sit at White-Hall to find out a new Government whose wits being not so accute as their swords were quickly confounded in the building of thir Babel Sometimes they would have a Senate and another time they were for Consâ—rvators which should be much like the Rumping Custodes to keep the Liberties from the people But at last to please the Nation this Mounthain brought forth its Mouse a Vote viz That a convention which they stiled a Parliament qualified according to their humors and elected by persons so qualified should be called and appoynted to sit in or before February next But in the first place 7 fundamental principles are agreed upon by the Walâ—ingssordians which must needs be as unalterable as the Laws of the Medes and Persians These are 1 That no Kingship shall be exercised in these Nations 2 That no single Person shall exercise the Office of Cheif Magistrate here 3 That an Armie be continued maintained and conducted so as it may secure that is imprison the peace of these Nations and by no means be disbanded nor the conduct thereof altered but by the consent of such Conservators as should be appoynted 4 That no imposition may be upon the consciences of any but the Cavaliers 5 That there be no House of Peers 6 That the legislative and executive power be distinct and not in the same hands 7 That the Assemblies of Parliament shall be elected by the people of this Common Wealth duly qualified But these Gimcraks would not satisfie at all But the Treaty still being in hand they were lulled into a security and began after the old manner of the Rumpers to share among themselvs the Cheifest Offices and places of Trust and proffit and to his end Fleetwood Desborow Sydenham Saloway Holland Clerk and Blakwell or any two of them are appointed Commissioners of the Treasurie and to manage the publique revenue with power as large as they could wish or desire But being disturbed with the peoples drawing up of several Petitions and getting Subscriptions issue forth a Proclamation against all such petitioning and call their petitions undue and dangerous papers and prohibit all persons to subscribe any such papers and if offered to suppress them and to cause all persons so endeavouring to get subscriptions to be apprehended upon account of being enemies and disturbers of the peace Thus you see these very men who had set examples of this nature so frequently by geting Subscriptions to Petitions and Remonstrances to the Autority then in Being could not endure it now it twarted their humors and interest and what in themselvs they indulg'd and pleaded for as their right they will abhor and will punish in others Mind therefore
fain to follow their fel-lows The Junto would have given the General a 1000. pounds a year out of Sir George Booths estate but he refused it and then they grant him St James's park dureing their pleasure General Monck Marching into London Monck his Soldiers pulling down the Citty Gates posts and chaines A free Parlyament Voted the King to be sent for The K 2 Dukes Riding in through London attended c. Arbitrary Government abolished The name of those joyned in the Commission with General Monk were Hazelrig Merley Walton and Alured 3 of which were to be a Quorum and when it was moved by Monk's friends that he might be always of the Quorum it was carried in the Negative which so exasperated the General that having tryed his Officers he secretly ordered all the Armie to be drawn up and having prepared a Letter signed by himself and the Cheifest Officers of his Armie in which they Complain of the Junto's Countenanceing Lambert and Vain and permitted Ludlow to sit with them tho accused by Sir C. Coot of high Treason they conclude that by Friday next they should issue out writs for the filling up the House when filled should rise at their appoynted time to give way to a free Parliament The Letter they sent to the Junto sitting and immediatly march into London to shake hands with the City on the 11 of February the Armie is drawn up into Finsbury feilds and the General being invited to dinner by the Lord Major who at first was very shie not knowing how to believe what some of Monks friends had told him of the General 's Letter to the Junto and of his resolving to declare for a free Parliament but before they parted the General himself gave him and the rest of the Citizens such satisfaction of his Integrity that overjoy'd they caused the souldiers to be feasted and Quarters in the City to be provided for them the Bells in all the Churches to ring and at night Bonfires to be made in every street declareing for a free Parliament In the mean time the Junto read the Generals and his Officers Letter which caused a very great disorder in the House however they thought it best to dissemble and secretly resolve to ruine Him if they can tho' openly they Vote him the thanks of the House and send away Scot and Robinson to give it him and to let him know they were about qualifications for members to be Chosen for the filling up their House But when they heard of what was done in the City the Rumpers gnashed at it and angry they were that they could not take revenge on the subscribers of the late Remonstrances for a free Parliament whose Estates they earnestly longed to be dealing with And now in the nick of Time comes a Declaration from Ireland where they had secured Sir Hardress Waller a Rumper which was of the same nature with those of the English Counties but more bold and resolute speaking their Minds freely the Lord Broughill being one of the Cheif promotors of it His Excellency having waited some days for an answer to his Letter and receiving none but what Scot and Robinson brought him who durst not stay in the City for fear of being stoned and finding nothing done in reference to the filling the House he set himself about considering some way to dissolve the Junto without force or violence In this juncture many of the secluded Members were in and about the City Some of whom addressed themselves to the General who procured a Conference between ten of them and ten of the Junto where the one party challenged admission as Members of the House unjustly forced from it before the others refused it unless they would confirm all that was done since by them or at least ingage as they had done against a single person and House of Lords but when they could not agree about these poynts Monk who was present both times for they had two meetings clearly discerning more of self-interested wilfulness than any Reason in what the Rumpers urged a day or two after sent for the Secluded and demanded if they were of the same mind and resolved not to engage against a single person to which they answering affirmatively and professing to be immoveable therein he got above fourscore of them together to Whitehall where recommending the care of Religion and the State to them and telling them how suteable Physick a full and free Parliament would be for the crazed body of this Natton he told them the House was open to them and prayed for their good success and so on the 21th of February they went and took their places in the House which was managed so secretly that the Junto knew nothing of their comming till they appeared which so surprised them that they could not tell whether they had best sit still or leave their places The moderate among them stayed but the grand sticklers for a Common Wealth knowing now they should be out-Voted and that they should be able to do no good or rather further mischeif quitted the House Whilst these things were transacting the Junto had endeavoured all ways possibly to have gotten Monk out of the City that they might have had him in their power inviteing him to fit in the Council of State and had sent Colonel Alured to persuade him but he was too wise to trust them for he had secret intelligence of their intentions of sending him to the Tower or of serving him worse for they foresaw their own ruine he excused himself by his care of secureing the City by his presence who were full of disturbance and ready to mutinee But now the secluded Members having gotten in eleven years after they had been kept out being double the number of the former sitters out-Voted them still so as there was no interruption They had long been standers by and had seen more than the Gamesters and now they mean to improve their animadversions and experience to the doeing of a great deal in a little time They fall to work presently where they were abruptly forced to break off December 1648 confirming their Vote made then by another now That the Concessions of his Late Maiesty were a sufficient Ground to proceed on for setling the peace of the Kingdom Hereby Vacateing all that had been done contrary thereunto dureing their Recess Brave Monk is by them constituted Captain General of all the forces in England Scotland and Ireland and He with General Mountague made Admirals at Sea Sir William Waller is made Leiutenant General of the land forces Colonel Edward Rossiter General of the Horse and Vice Admiral Lawson Continued in his Command Severel Gentlemen committed by the Rumpers order were then released and among others Sir George Booth who took his place in the House and the City Gates Portcullisses Posts and Chains were ordered to be repaired at the publique charge Then they provided to secure the Nation by two seasonable Acts
the Justice of these men But this Prohibition of theirs did but the more enrage the people and the Londoners especially the Apprentices were in an uproar and readye to mutine whereupon Hewosn the one ey'd cobler hath order with his Regiment of foot and some horse to march into the City where he â—â—lld a Cobler and one or two more and wounded several so that the Citizens shut up their shops yet rather madded than daunted thereat there were continuall bickerings between them and the souldiers neither could Desborows canting speech at Guild-Hall work upon them but that sometimes multitudes would flock together and affront the souldiers and tho' they were often dispersed yet they would gather head again And now the Common-Council in which at that time were many stout and honest men began to give ear to the Apprentices petitioning for a free Parliament being thereunto encouraged by an offer of 3000 valiant Seamen to aid them from Vice Admiral Lawson who in this juncture was come up the Thames and had surprized all the Forts and Blockhouses in the way Vaine and Salmon were sent to confer with him but nothing would prevail with him unless the Wallingfordians would readmit the Rumpers to sit again And besides all this Hazelrig Morley and Walton at Portsmouth had so wrought upon those Regiments which were sent against them that they all came over to their side The Safety men and Officers at White-Hall perceiving themselvs to be generally hated and slighted and wanting mony to pay their souldiers and uphold their interest being withall beset on every hand with enemies both City and Country being ready to rise upon them found a necessity of submiting to the Rumpers for fear lest while the two Currs strove for the bone of Goverment the Royal Lyon should come in and destroy them both they finding the pulse of the whole nation tyred with the various fits of arbitrary sway beating towards the return of the King and to their old and equal way of Government and the late reconciliation between France and Spain in which his Majesty was very instrumental seeming to presage some danger to them the Cheif of them then go to the Speaker Lenthal and cry peccavimus where tender-hearted Fleetwood meekly weeping gave a full testimony of his sorrow for his reiterated defection saying That the Lord had blasted their Councells and spit in their Faces 't is his own rhetoric and therefore desires him and the rest of the members to return to the exercise of their Trust for the Government of the Nation And the same day the souldiery being drawn up in Lincolns-Inn-feilds owned the Junto again for the supream authority now they saw thy could keep it no longer themselves The Speaker went presently to the Tower of London the care of which Government whereof he committed to Sir Antony Ashly-Cooper Mr. Weaver and Mr. Berners and two dayes after being the 26th of December this never dying Rump resumed their old places and thus ended the Government of the Armie which lasted only from the 13th of October to the 26th of December following And now almost tyred with relateing tho breifly the several sorts of Arbitrary and tyranical usurpations we are come to the last Act of our Tragedy or Trage-comedy since it ends happily and after the tryall of so many ways of Government almost to the ruin of the Nation they return to the good old way of Monarchy as the onely just equal and legal way of Government for these Nations and for the ease and free-dom of the people But let us pursue our story and see the last struggle gasp for life of this Monster or Dragon of a Common Wealth ruleing by their Arbitrary wills back'd by the power of the sword of a standing Armie who like the Turks Janizarie Keept both the people and their Masters in awe tho hey knew the one was not able to stand the other Soon after this revived Junto to their great joy had met Hazelrig Morley and Walton came to their Companions being attended from Portsmouth by those forces that were led by Desborow to reduce them who being then deserted by them hasted back to London and from thence to St. Albans whence he wrote an humble letter to his restored Masters craveing pardon and telling them that he had procured his own Regiment which was at that time quarter'd there to return to their Obedience From S. Albans Desborow went into Yorksheir to Lambert who was now in a declineing condition General Monk finding things goe to his mind in England now broke of the treaty he had yet continued at York and had planted his armie very advantageously along the River Tweed on the Scotch side in such a prudent manner that in a few hours he could have all his Forces together and lay so well posted that the enemie could not make their way to him without extraordinary disadvantage and if Lambert should have attempted to have got to him by the way of Carlile he would by that means have gained several days march before him towards London being also well assured the Country would come in a pace to him Lambert was about 13000 strong and far superior to General Monk in numbers especially in Horse which made that famous and experienced commander decline engageing The Rumpers as soon as got together order Popham Thomson Scot Okey Ashly-Cooper Alured and Markham or any 3 of them to be Commissioners to Order Direct and Conduct the forces of the armie these write to Lambert to disperse his forces but they were doeing that themselvs before and the Irish Brigade that came over to his assistance under Redman and Bret submitted to the Junto a pardon being sent to Lambert and for all others that should submit to them by the 9 th of the same month by the example of the Irish Regiments divers other Regiments also forsook Lambert who headed by the Lords Fairfax and Faulconbridg lately came to them seized York for the Junto Lambert upon this marches from the borders Southward his souldiers forsakeing him so fast that by such time as he came to North-Allerton he had not above 50 Horse remaining where upon both he and they concluded to lay hold on the offer of pardon and so dispersed which being done those at York likwise departed to their respective Quarters Windsor castle also was surrendred to them by the means of Col. Ingoldsâ—y all things thus prospering they fall upon the Oath of Abjuration or Renunciation of the whole line of King James which they had been hammering at before but now nominateing a Concil of State they order that none of them should Act till they had taken this oath which was now formed more strict than ever and it was also proposed that all the members of the House should take it but this was strongly opposed by many for that secretly divers of them had sought their pardons of the King and seeing that he would inevitably come in the wisest