widow and died without issue and having sworn all the Nobility especially Stephen to her ordained her her issue to be his successors in Englands Throne and married her again to Jeoffrey Plantagenet the son and heir apparent of Fulk then Earl of Anjou by whom she had three sons Henry Jeffrey and William to Henry the Crown belonged as next heir after his mother by the usurped title of his father yet Stephen Earl of Mortain and Bulloign son to Adelincia the third daughter of William the Conqueror by Maud his wife notwithstanding his oath to the last King gets the Crown set on his own head and excludes her and her issue for the present yet after he died Henry called the second sirnamed Shortmantle though his mother was alive enjoys it This Henry had six sons William Henry Richard Jeoffrey Philip John the two first dying Richard the third son the first of that name Sirnamed Ceur de Lyon succeeded his father this Richard dying without issue his yongest brother John usurps the Crown notwithstanding Jeoffrey his elder brother had left a young son named Arthur Plantaganet King of Brittain who was heir apparant to the Crown and after he dyed Henry his son the third of that name succeedes him though Arthurs sister was then alive though in prison who was next to the title such as it was after him Edward sirnamed Longshankes called Edward the first layes hold on the Crown and wore it with much majesty and after him Edward the second his son goes on but still on the old account and on the ruine of the most proper heirs this Edward was deposed by the Parliament for his ill government as anon shall be more fully related and his son Edward the third of that name set up in his room after him followed Richard the second son to the black Prince who was also deposed after whose dethroning Henry called the fourth son to John of Gant Duke of Lancaster and uncle to the former King snatcheth up the Crown though of right it was to discend to Edmund Mortimer Earle of March the son and heir of Lionel Duke of Clarence the third son of Edward the third and an elder brother of John Duke of Lancaster and thus we have nothing hitherto but interruption and usurpation and those which in their own reigns can pretend a divine title by succession which must not be altered can for their advantage put by the succession of the issue of others But to go on Here now began the bloody wars and contests between the house of Lancaster and York which made the world to ring of the misery of the civill wars of England and all about a title and neither of them if seriously weighed had a right title by succession if the first title of their Ancestors were to be the originall But that custome might be the best right he got in his son Henry who was the fifth of that name to succeed and his son Henry the sixt though an infant takes his place untill Edward Duke of York overthrew his Army in the battle at Towton Field and got him deposed and was proclaimed King by the name of Edward the fourth though the title had been carried on in the House of Lancaster thorow three discents thus favor and fortune not lineall succession alwayes gave the best title this Edward left two sons behind him to maintain the succession of the House of York Edward and Richard Duke of York and five daughters His eldest Son Edward who was the fifth of that name succeeded him in claim title but rather lived then raigned being an infant had never any actuall exercise of his government for Ric. Duke of Glocester and Uncle to this Infant and made his Protector that he might set up himself causeth both the young titular King his Brother these two Royall Infants to be barbarously murthered in their beds and so wears the Crown himself by the name of Richard the Third untill Henry Earl of Richmond a twigg of a Bastard of John of Gaunt by his valour at Bosworth field having overthrown his Army slew the Tyrant himself and created by his sword for other he had none a new title to himself and was Crowned King by the name of Henry the Seventh who what by his power and by a marriage of the Lady Eliz. the eldest daughter of Ed. the Fourth confirmed his succession from him do all our later Princes derive their Title as Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth King James and our last Tyrant Charls This Henry the foundation of our great ones was himself but a private man who as Speed says had scarce any thing of a just title or of a warrantable intention but to remove an Usurper besides there were many naturall heirs of the house of York which were children of Edward the Fourth and George Duke of Clarence Richards elder brother who had better right but when once a title is made it must be maintained and if it can but get thorow two or three Successors it s presently proclaimed to be jure divino and pleaded as the onely just title and right Thus you have a faithfull and true account of the succession of our Norman Monarchs we can onely say we have had so many persons raigning and as Kings of England but for a title by lineal succession there is none but what every man may make aswell as any man and what is as proper to a stranger as to an heir power and favour murther and deceit being the most common principles of the right of most of our Kings to their government over us If it be asked as Speed doth What right had William the Conqueror then it must follow What right had all the rest but supposing his right What right had these who so many times cut off the line and made themselves the Stock of future succession and what misery is it that this broken and usurped title must still be forced on us even by an Ecclesiasticall and Divine Institution who have now a way of redeeming our liberties and bettering our conditions and following the direct line of just and true titles the Election and choice of the people Is not five or six hundred year enough for England to be under the succession of a Norman Bastard pardon the expression its true though plain and to be sold with all its liberties from usurpation to usurpation as well as from generation to generation I need not be very zealous in application the history is enough to make all wise men consider by whom we have all this while been governed and upon what terms How tyranny and usurpation comes to be adored if it have but a royall name added to it Shall the Parliament of England be now blamed for cutting off that race of usurpers and tyrants and reducing affairs to their first naturall and right principle or will the people of England after all their experiences centre
a little back to those which preceded the Norman race especially among the Saxons and Danes the ancient competitors for the Government of this Nation and it will appear that the right Heir hath been commonly past by and Strangers or Usurpers preferred to go no further back then to Alfred King of the West Saxons and the twenty fourth Monarch of the Englishmen as soon as he died Athelstan his Bastard was preferred before his legitimate son Edmond after him got his own brother Edmond to succeed him and though this Edmond left two sons Edwin and Edgar yet as he his former brother had usurped the Goverment so Edred his brother stept into the Throne and put them by until he had finished his Raign then they took their turns Edwin first and Edgar after him this Edgar had two wives Ethelfled his first and Elfrida the second by the first he had issue Edward sirnamed the Martyr who succeeded his father in title but having hardly felt the Crown warm and fast on his head was cruelly murthered to make way for the second wives son Ethelred who succeeded him as Daniel well expresseth it whose entrance into his Raign was blood the middle misery and the end confusion and though he left his son Edmond sirnamed Ironside to succeed him yet Canutus the Dane by compact got half of the Kingdom from him and soon after the whole setting up his Danish title and murthering the two sons Edmund had left with his brother Edwin that no further pretence might be made by them of their title and now come the Danes to convey their title by Canutus and yet Harold his bastard gets the Crown before Hardicanute who was his legitimate son and among these three Kings for the Government under the Danes continued but twenty six years and only under these three was aone Usurper immediatly interrupted the right of succession And the Danes Government being ended which was but an intervall of conquest the Saxons regain their title and Edward called the Confessor the seventh son of Elthelred who came in with the murther of the right heir being kept as a reserve in Normandy is elected King and the Saxons title now begins to revive but soon it s extinguished not onely by the Norman pretence but by the next successor Harold the second son to Goodwin Earl of Kent who came in with the expulsion of Edgar Athlings the proper successor And with Harold ended the Saxon race which had lasted about five hundred years after the coming in of Hengist and their Plantation in this Kingdom and yet you see what have been the titles successively of these former Kings wherein the Line hath not onely been now and then through force and violence cut off and discontinued but usurpation solemnized with as much ceremony as any natural pretence but these Instances are but as representations of objects afar off which may seem otherwise then they are we will go on and review the title of our Kings from William the Norman Sirnamed the Conqueror and by whom not onely the line but all the whole fram of Laws and Liberties were not onely curtail'd but changed for though in the raigns of the former Kings every Conqueror made his impression and drew his Picture in England yet never was the whole Scene of State changed untill now and a new Modell so peremptorily and without repeal introduced as by him The first jus or right of his title the onely foundation of all the rest of our latter Kings we all know was by meer Conquest which as it is a disseisin in Law so an unjust title in Reason and common to one as unto another yet he though a Bastard and so had less title to his Dukedom then to England which he won by the Sword made himself the principal of that divine Succession we now stand upon and all our Kings have no other pretence then by the succession of his Sword and certainly if the Fountain and Head-Spring be corrupt the stream cannot be Christall and pure and yet as Baron Thorpe declares in his Charge given at the Assizes holden at Yorke the twentieth of March 1648. and now in Print of all these twenty four Kings which have King'd it amongst us since that William there are but seven of them that could pretend legalty to succeed their former predecessors either by lineal or collaterall title and he might have contracted that number and have been modest enough But that the Reader may not be prejudiced or wrap up his understanding in any expression let him but follow the discents of the Kings of England in the line and pardon the first strange and exotick way of right and he will discover that as the first title was created by force so the succession hath been continued by usurpation Speed too Royall a Writer gives us a hint to go on upon in the Life of Henry the Fourth page 746. asketh by way of Interrogation What right had Will the Conqueror the Father of all our glorious Tyrants What right we speak saith he of a right of equity had his son William Rufus and Henry the first while their elder brother lived and so he goes on But to give a more particular account to the Reader how every King came to his Crown Let us begin with the first of the first After that the first William who laid the foundation of his right in the blood of the English had left this world as well as his Kingdom great strivings there were who should succeed and though he left three sons Robert William and Henry yet could leave but one Heir which was Robert yet William surnamed Rufus gets the crown set on his head notwithstanding the elder brothers title and though Robert fights for his right yet being too weak in the field is fore't to a composition on these terms that he should injoy it after his decease if he hapned to survive and yet notwithstanding Henry the youngest brother called Henry the first steps in and makes use of his brothers absence to set up himself in his place and Robert yet surviving he weares it in his stead and however he strove to regain his right he at last was fain to yield up not only his title but his person to Henry who not only unjustly excluded him from the succession to the Kingdom but cruelly put out his eyes that he might only feel his misery and never see his remedy The line male of the Conqueror is now extinct as well as it was irregularly diverted as William got his right by his Sword so all his successors maintained it in imitation of him rather then by any legal pretence they could derive from him But Henry the first though he had come in over the back of his elder brother that he might make more sure work for a succession wanting issue male living pitcheth on Maud his daughter formerly married to the Emperor Henry the fourth who left her a
the rack let them down and give them cordials and spiritfull liquors that they may be the longer and more sensibly tormented which was made good in the next Kings raign viz. Richard the Second who presently dashes and utterly nips these blossoms that sprung out in the former Kings raign devoting himself to all uncivill and lewd courses and to enable him the better unto it layes on sad and miserable taxes on the people without so much as a mention or hint of their liberties and as the parallel of Edward the second both lived and died It s enough to decypher his raign by his end for he was deposed by the universal consent of the people in Parliament as a tyrannical and cruel Governor and not a good word spoken of him to commend him in his Government and its pitty to aggravate his misery after his death and yet as we say Seldom comes a better when one is cut off another like the Hidra's head springs up in his place Henry the fourth who overthrew him in battel and was made King in his stead though by a wrong title at first promised the new modelling of Laws to the peoples ease and did as in a complement rather to secure his title then out of affection to the people or sense of his relation redress many grievances which were more gross and less concerning the Common-wealth and as he did strive by these common acts to engage the people to him so as one that had continuall sence of guilt on him he got the deposed King to be barbarously murthered in the Castle of Pomfret that no competition might endanger his title by his life He spent most of his raign incontinuall wars about his title and was often opposed as both a Tyrant and Usurper but he still got ground on both the liberties and laws formerly granted yet not so sensibly as in the former Kings raigns that the people may be said to have a little respite from the violence heighth of Prerogative by him but they may thank the unjustness and brittleness of his title for that he being more in fear of of loosing it then out of love with the excess of his ancestors I shall only add one story to conclude this Kings raign which is universally reported by most of our Historians worth observation because it hath much of ingenuity in it and because they were his dying words Being cast into an Apoplexie and nigh his end he caused his Crown to be placed by him on his Pillow least in the extremity of his sickness it might have been delivered to some other who had better right thereunto then he had But when his attendants through the violence of his distemper supposed him to be dead the young Prince of Wales seised on his Crown whereat the King started up raising himself on his arms demanded who it was that had so boldly taken away the Crown the Prince answered that it was he the King fell back into his bed and fetching a deep sigh and sending forth many a pensive groan replyes thus my son what right I had to this Crown and how I have enjoyed it God knows and the world hath seen But the Prince ambitious enough of a Diadem answered him thus Comfort your self in God good Father the Crown you have and if you die I will have jt and keep it with my Sword as you have done and so he did soon after maintaining his Fathers injustice by his own And now comes up his Son Henry the Fifth as the next heir who though while a Prince was given to many wicked practises yet when a King became moderate and hath better commendation then most of his Ancestors the people had two advantages and comforts by him first that his reign was short and that he was much imployed in the war with France for regaining a title to that Crown which he accomplished and so they were free of Civil wars though they had still heavie taxes yet they thought it better to pay for maintaining war abroad then at home and truly the people thought themselves very happy in this Kings reign though their priviledges were laid asleep that they had a little breathing time from Domestick and Civil wars and had hopes to regain by degrees a reviving of their Spirits But the next King Henry the sixth makes up what was wanting of Tyranny and Oppression in his fathers raign He was Crowned King about the eighth or ninth moneth of his age and so had not present oppertunity to shew his royalty Until he came to age the Kingdom was well governed by his three Uncles Humphrey Duke of Glocester John Duke of Bedford Thomas Duke of Excester who by their wisdom and justice kept up the flourishing estate of the English Nation but when his years of nonage were expired and he came to weld the Scepter with his own hands what as some favorably think out of weakness for he was no Solomon all things went presently out of order and Prerogative breaks forth beyond bounds which gave occasion to Edward Duke of York to try conclusions for his title against the House of Lancaster and making use of the discontents of the people through his evil Government opposed him and afterwards deposed him and raigned in his stead by the name of Edward the Fourth and so by Conquest he got the title to run through the House of York having cut it off by his Sword from the house of Lancaster notwithstanding actuall possession of three descents many overtures of war were yet between them for Henry was not yet dead though for the present outed but as a dying man strove for life but being quite overthrown was imprisoned and afterwards murthered to secure the Title there was in these two Kings raign but meerly for a title fought ten bloudy Battles besides all lesser skirmishes wherein many thousands of Lords Gentlemen and Commons were slain and yet not one jot of advantage gotten by it for the peoples liberties It being the misery and folly of the people to venture all they have to set up those over them who afterwards prove most tyranni call and to sow seeds of future misery by spilling their bloods for a usurped title In this Kings reign as in the former the whole land was miserably rent by unnaturall divisions against his title and government and though neither or these two had a just title if we will begin from the root yet all the bloud of the Nation is thought too little to be spilt to maintain their pretences yet we may not reckon this King among the worst had it not faln out that his title must be kept up with expence of so much blood and ruin of the English Nation yet in his last five yeers he laid on such extraordinary taxes and changed the form of Laws that he lost the love of all his Subjects For Edward the Fifth his Son who succeeded him in title we need but mention him for he had but
their liberties and freedoms in a customary usurpation of succession and lose their Common-wealth for the personall glory of a young Pretender especially when they have fought against the Father and cut him off as a Tyrant endeavour to set up the Son to follow on both the first cause and revenge meerly because he was supposed to be proceeded of his polluted loyns this blindness will be our misery and endear us to a more perfect and more tyrannicall slavery then ever yet England felt But to go on the Reader hath seen what a line we have had in England and how pure a title our Kings have had to their Crowns Le ts now but have patience to view their actings successively and yet shortly and we shall better guess of their right by their raigns for though one would think that they should endeavour to make good a bad title by a good raign yet it hath been far otherwise every man having made his right by force maintained it by tyranny and when they have gotten power never remembered how or to what end they attained it if we look back again and make a new and strict survey of their severall actings in their Government and go over every Kings head since Willam the Conqueror we shall not much mistake if we pass by Turkie Russia the Moors and yet call Englands Kings Tyrants and their Subjects Slaves and however in the theory and System it have been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing Laws yet in the exercise and practique part almost of every Kings Raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute for the Laws and Priviledges which this poor Nation hath enjoyed as they have been but complementally granted for the most part and with much design so they have ever upon any occasion proved but weak and low hedges against the Spring-tides and Land floods of the Prerogative of the Prince which hath always gained more on the priviledges of the people then ever the Sea by all its washing and beatings of its boysterous and unmerciful waves hath gained on the Land for if at any time the poor Commons through much strugling and a good and present necessitous mood of the Prince have got off any present oppressions and forced out the promise for enacting of any good and seasonable Laws yet either the next advantage or at least the next successor hath been sure either to silence or diannul it and incroached upon it and never was Priviledge or good Law enacted or gained to the people but by hard pressure of the Subject and with a predominant ingredient of the Kings advantage and still rather out of courtesie then right We shall finde also that England for three or four hundred years together some lucida intervalla excepted hath been a stage of blood and the astonishment of all Nations in civil wars and that meerly either for the clearing of the title to the Crown which yet at last was onely made lawfull by the prevailing power and as soon made illegall when another side got the better or else by the Subject and Barons taking up arms to defend themselves and make Rampiers if possible against the inundation of Prerogative and rather preserving then obtaining any additions of liberties and yet they were commonly defeated at last for if for the present by some eminent advantage they got a little ground they soon lost it again by royal stratagems and were either forced or complemented into their old miseries with a worse remembrance of former actings But to enter into the particulars of this sad Story All men know or may the tyrannical domination of that first William who behaved himself as a Conqueror indeed and a most perfect tyrant since whom we have never had an English man but one who hath been naturalized by the succession of his Conquest as King of England he presently changed most of our Laws especially those wherein the English liberties were most transparent and preserved and made new Laws and those which he left writ them all in French disweaponed all the Natives sent the children of the best and most faithful of the Nobility into Normandy as Hostages and the most gallant of the English were transported by him into France to serve his wars that he might extinguish their Families he advanced his Normans into all places of the Nation and kept them as a guard over the English brought in the cruel Forrest Laws and dispeopled for thirty miles together in Hampshire pulling down many Towns and Villages with Churches Chappels and Gentlemens Houses making it a Forrest for wilde beasts which is ever since named the New Forrest but was the old ensign of our misery and slavery he laid on innumerable taxes and made Laws royal very severe and in an unknown Language that the English offending might forfeit their states and lands to him which they often did through ignorance But alas what need I mention these who ever reads but our Histories and the most favorable and fawning Royalist will see more then now can be expressed and yet here is the first fruits of our Kings and of their righteous title whose succession hath been as much in tyranny after him as in title and yet we must by a sacred obligation be bound to maintain with our blood and lives the branches of this rotten root notwithstanding all the providential and divine opportunities of casting off that miserable yoak which our forefathers so sadly groaned under and would have triumphed in the pouring out their blood which they shed freely but to little purpose but to have foreseen their childrens children might have but the hopes of attaining to But although William the first made sure his Conquest to his own person yet by his tyranny he gave ground of designs and hopes of recovery after his death therefore the people who but murmured and mourned in secret formerly consider now their condition and that Robert the right heir was wanting and his second son endeavored to be set up begin to capitulate and repeat their former grievances and to stand upon their terms with the next Successors But William Rufus who longed for the Crown and saw what advantage he had by his brothers absence through the mediation of Lanke-Frank the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a man for his vertue and learning in great esteem with the people got himself to be accepted and crowned King with exclusion of his elder brother by fair promises and engagements to repeal his fathers Laws and of promoting the liberties of the English any probability being then taking to the poor people But no sooner had he got the Crown fastned on his head and defeated his brother in battle but he forgat all his own promises follows directly his fathers steps grows excessive covetous lays on intolerable taxes and merciless exactions returns their longings and hopes after their just libertie into a sad bondage and slavery The poor people having thus
man this is the misery of depending on royal promises and engagements which are usually nothing else but complementall engins to move up the peoples affections while they more easily and insensibly drain out their blood and purses this was the end of this Rough and Lionlike King who reigned nine years and nine months wherein he exacted and consumed more of this Kingdom then all his Predecessors from the Norman had done before him and yet less deserved it then any having neither lived here nor left behind him monument of piety or any publike work or ever shewed love or care to this Common-wealth but onely to get what he could from it we see hitherto what a race of Kings we have had and what cause we have to glory in any thing but their Tombs and yet if we expect better afterwards we shall be as much mistaken of their actings as they were of their right The next that raigned though without any hereditary title was King John Stephens Brother whose government was as unjust as his title for he having by Election out of fear and policy of State got the Crown with expulsion of Arthur the right heir ut supra embarked the State and himself in these miserable incumberances through his violence and oppression as produced desperate effects and made way to those great alterations in the government which followed the whole reign of this King was a perfect tyranny there is in History hardly one good word given him the Barons and Clergy continually opposed him strugling for a confirmation of their long desired liberties but were most commonly either cluded or defeated by promises which were never intended to be performed until at last being more entirely united with the Commons and stoutly resolved and confirmed by an Oath taken at St. Edmunds-Burie in a general Assembly they then swore on the high Altar never to lay down arms if King John refused to confirm and restore unto them these liberties the rights which this Kingdom was formerly blest with and which all the late Kings had cheated them of the King knowing their power and considering their engagements makes use of policy and desired time to answer them entertaining them with smooth and gentle language and courtesie untill he had got strength and then he began anew to try experiments of securing himself and frustrating their desires But the Lords continuing their resolution and knowing nothing was to be obtained but by strong hand assemble themselves with a great Army at Stamford from whence they marched towards the King who was then at Oxford sent him a Schedule of their claimed liberties with an Appendix of their absolute resolutions in case of his denyal this Tyrant having heard them read with much passion replies Why do they not demand the Kingdom as wel and swore he would never grant these liberties whereby himself should be made a servant The Barons upon his Answer being as Daniel saith as hasty as he was averse resolve to seaze on his Castles and Possessions and repairing to London being welcomed by the Citizens who had too long groaned under the same tyranny they get a great access of strength by new confederates and renew their spirits oaths for the thorow prosecution of the war the King seeing himself in a strait which by no ordinary strength he could evade by gentle and teeming Messages sent to the Barons he obtained a Conference in a Medow called Running-mead between Windsor and Staâ—es where armed multitudes came from all places crying nothing but Liberty Liberty so sweet was that tone to them then After many hard Conferences the King seeing it no time to dally that they would not trust him with any complemental expressions whom they looked on as formerly perjured grants their desires not only saith Speed for Liberties specified in Magna Charta Charta Forrestae but also for a kind of sway in the Government by five and twenty selected Peers who were to be as a check over the King and his chief Justiciar and all his Officers to whom any appeal might be made in case of breach of any article or priviledge confirmed by that Charter And now one would think the people were secure enough but though they seem now to have the livery yet they had not the seisin for presently the King having got now credit by the largeness of his grants gets liberty with less suspicion to undo all and in a short time pretending these grants to be acts of force having got power renounceth his engagement by them and afterwards repeals them and dispoiled all these of their lands and possessions who had any hand or heart in procuring the former grants and by new and additionall Laws made them more perfect slaves then ever they were before untill at last he was poysoned by a Monk instead of being deposed But though he be dead yet the miseries of this Nation ended not with him for his son Henry the third who succeeded him though he could not at first follow on his Fathers designs being an Infant yet at last did not onely imitate but outstrip him yet the English Nation who are much given to credulity and apt to be won by fair and plausible promises notwithstanding all the fathers iniquity imbrace the son having taken an oath of him to restore and confirm the liberties they propounded to his father which he had often granted and as often broken but for all his first oath they were fain not onely to remember him of it by petitions but oftentimes by arms and strength And though there was in this Kings Raign twenty one Parliaments called and many great Subsidies granted in confirmation of their liberties yet every Parliament was no sooner dissolved but the ingagement ceased a hint of two or three special Parliaments and their success will not be amiss to be set down in this place This King not being able to suppress the Barons and people by his own strength they having gotten not onely heart but power sends to forraign Nations for aid and entertains Poictovines Italians Almains Provincioes to subdue his own people and set them in great places which dangerous and desperate design the Barons much resenting raised their spirits and ingaged them in opposition to his Government and set them on with more courage to look after their liberties therefore they several times stand up against the violence of Prerogative but what through want of strength or caution they were commonly disappointed yet rather if we may speak truly from the unfaithfulness of the King then any other defect except it were their easiness to believe Kings when their Prerogative and the peoples liberties came in competition for after they had many times got or rather extorted many promises and confirmed them by oaths the best humane security they were put to new designs through either the suspention or breach of them witness these Instances after many foiles and tedious and various delusions by this King whose
end her raign with this Character That she was the best Queen that ever England had and the glory of her Sexe to all Ages The English Line is now ended we must go into Scotland to seek for a King because a daughter of Henry the seventh was married to James the fourth King of Scotland but I will not question his title King James the sixth of Scotland and first of England succeeded on the English Throne A Prince that had many advantages to set up Prerogative which he improved he was too timorous to act but most subtile in Councel and designs and no King did more insensibly and closely undermine the Liberties of England then himself he gave us cause to remember from whence he came but his peaceable raign was the rail to his design and did choak suspition we were brought by him very nigh Rome and Spain and yet knew it not he had an inveterate hatred against Puritans as he had a fear of Papists and made more of Bishops then ordinary by remembrance of the Scots Presbytery He had as much of Royalty in his Eye as any Prince could have but had not so much courage to prosecute it the Puritan alwayes lay in his Spleen the Papist on his Lungs that he durst not that he could not breath so clearely and strongly against them but the Bishops lay in his heart I will not rip up his personal failings after his death he was the most profane King for oaths and blasphemies that England had besides c. He now grows old and was judged only fit to lay the Plot but not to execute it the design being now ripe and his person and life the only obstacle and Remora to the next Instrument he is conveyed away suddenly into another world as his son Henry was because thought unsuteable to the Plot it being too long to waite untill Nature and Distemper had done the deed We are now come to our last Charls who is like to end both that race and its tyranny the perfect Idea of all the rest and the most zealous prosecutor of the designs of all his ancestors who if Divine Providence had not miraculously prevented had accomplished the utmost of their intentions and for ever darkned the glory of the English Sun so much I must say of him that he got more wisedom by action then could possibly be expected by his nature experience that teacheth fools made him wise he endeavoured to act what others designed he dissembled as long as he could and used all parties to the utmost But his zeal and hardiness brought him to his death He needed no physick for his body had he remembred his soul But what need I mention him he is the last of English Monarchs and the most absolute monument of Monarchy and example of tyranny and injustice that ever was known in England he would have been what other Kings are and endeavoured to attain what others would be he lived an enemy to the Common-wealth and died a martyr to Prerogative Thus you have seen a faithfull representation of the Norman race under which we have groaned for about six hundred years the first Title made onely by the Invasion and Conquest of a Stranger and Bastard continued by usurpation and tyranny that take away but two or three persons out of the list and yet these bad enough if we consider all things and all this while England neither had a right heir or good King to govern it and yet by delusion and deceit we must be bound to maintain that Title as Sacred and Divine which in the beginning was extorted and usurping as if gray hairs could adde reverence to injustice England hath now an advantage more then all its Ancestors of freeing it self from this successive slavery and interrupting that bloody line and after an apprentiship to bondage for so many hundred yeers Providence hath given us our own choice If we take it we are made if not the old judgement of God lies on us for our stupidity and blindness For my part as I do not give much to that Monkish Prophecy from Henry the Seventh times Mars Puer Alecto Virgo Vulpes Leo Nullus yet I wonder how the Devil could foresee so far off and must needs say that it hath yet been literally fulfilled both in the Characters of the persons and the issue yet I must so far give way to the power of divine actings on my faith as to think that either we shall never have a King more or else we shall have one sent of God in wrath as the Israelites had seeing we are not contented that way which God hath from Heaven led us to As for the Title of this Prince who would fain be accounted the right heir Let us but remember from whence he had it and how it s now tainted were it never so just the Treason of the Father hath cut off the Son and how unwise an act besides all other considerations will it be for England to set up the Son to propagate both his Fathers design and death We may prophecy soon what a Governor he is like to be which hath both suck't in his Fathers principles and his Mothers milk who hath been bred up under the wings of Popery and Episcopacy and doubtless suckt both brests one who was engaged from the beginning in the last war against this Parliament who hath the same Counsellors his Father had to remember him both of the design and the best wayes of effecting it one who hath never yet given any testimony of hopefullness to this Nation who was in Armes when a Subject against the Libertyes which England and Scotland spilt much blood for to maintain one who hath both his Fathers and his own scores to cleer and is fain to make use of all Medium's though never so contrary attended with all the crew of Malignants of three Nations who is so relatively and personally engaged that both old and new reckonings are expected to be payd only by him To his Father He is endebted for His Crown and bound to pay His Debts both Ecclesiastical and Civil which will amount to no small summe To the Papists He is engaged for their old affections and hopes of new besides the obligation of duty to his Mother and freeing her from her Monastry and Hermitage To the Prince of Orange he owes more then his ransom besides the States courtesies to Ireland he is in more arrears then his Kingdom of Scotland will be able to pay and to Scotland for his entertainment and enstalment more then England for present or in many years can repay without a morgage or community of lands and liberties besides what he owes England for helping his Father to make the Parliament spend so many millions of treasure besides blood which would have weighed down all expences besides and helping as a prime Agent the utter destruction of England all which must be reckoned for with much seriousness and if men have so
much charity and generousness to forgive all yet we have a reckoning with heaven to be discharged which debt is yet unpaid without we think the Fathers blood be sufficient satisfaction to divine Justice and if that death should be a satisfaction for himself yet not for his Son who joyned with him now continues the same fault and guilt and intends to follow on with more violence and intention then ever Can we think retain our memories and reasons that Charls the Second can forget Charls the First that custom and education can easily be altered that the true and reall engagers with him and his Father shall be razed out of his heart or that he can heartily love his opposers but as he may make use them or that when some Banks and Rocks are out of the way the waters and floods of Royalty will not run in its wonted Channel will Episcopacy dye in England when Kingship is set up Can reason think or dream that Majesty will not eat out sincerity or that Presbytery can flourish in that state where Prerogative is the ascendant or is that person fit to be the medium of peace and the glory of this Nation who was the conjunct instrument of the war the survivor both of the war and peace a person that durst not stay in his own Nation to plead his right because of his guilt whose youth and wilfulness is most unapt for the setling the storms and tempests of a distracted Nation But no more untill we feel the misery of such an attempt It was said of Tiberius Caesar in a Satyricall expression yet it proved true Regnabit sanguine multo Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exilio Who first exil'd is after Crown'd His reign with blood will much abound When this poor Nation after all neglects of providences hath spent its blood and treasure to set up this Prince in the Throne which it may be they shall never effect yet at the last they must stand to his courtesy for all their Liberties which they can never expect and make him a Monarch The patience and long suffering of God hath permitted usurpation and tyranny in England this long time for the hardness of our hearts and sottishness of our natures and it may be may lengthen it out to the utmost which will be a misery with a witness and yet a just punishment of God on those who were born free but will sell away their inheritances for nothing to a stranger Did ever King since the world began seting aside some who were Priests and Prophets also naturally and ingenuously with a royall affection devote himself to the propagating of the pure and reall liberties of the people Let him be shown forth as a miracle but that ever any one that hath been all his dayes both in the Fathers time and his own engaged in wars against the Liberties of the people solemnly proclaimed in Parliament and to set up Prerogative either intended or managed his raign that way how ever he was brought into his Government I durst affirm to be a Paradox and the utmost contradiction I am sure it s as impossible to be fouud in England as the Philosophers Stone among the Peripatecicks But a word more to the Title between the now present Power and this Charls what reason is there and equity that the Parliament of England take them in what qualification you will following to the utmost the first principles for the liberty of the people should not be esteemed as just heirs and their Parliamentary successors as this young Confident shal William the Norman only having a better Sword a stranger one who by nature was never born heir of any thing create himself a title to Enland and a succession for many score of years meerly on that account and shall every one after him break the line as they please and take their opportunities to make themselves roots of Kings though springing in the Wilderness Shall Henry the Seventh the Father of us all who was little less then a Bastard being the son of an illegitimate son of John a Gaunt a forraigner and private man by fortune and power give himself a title to this Crown and all our Kings since acknowledging Right by that Root Must those Pretences be Sacred which have only the Ordination of a more keen and glittering sword and a confirmation by Custome be thus Divine and shall not the Parliament of England cloathed with the Authority of all the People and carrying all the Libertyes of England with them backt with the power of a faythfull Army be thought in the utmost Criticisme of reason to have as much title to propagate their Successe for our freedoms as they have had to convey both their usurpation and tyranny that a private claym by a better Sword should be jure Divino and a publique Title both by reason success and providence of a solemn Assembly who have been many years opposing the former oppressions and now have gained it should not be accounted valid nor of equall right with a successive illegall claim Let all the world be judge who consider the premises and let the violentest reason unroyalis'd speak its utmost It is high time now to end that line that was never either well begun or directly continued Charls the Father is gone to his own place and so is Charls the Son likewise he being in his own proper Nation Scotland Let us keep him there if we be wise and intend to be happy and let England disdain to be under the domination any more of any forraign power for the future and seeing we have conquered the Conqueror and got the possession of the true English title by justice and gallantry Let us not lose it again by any pretence of a particular and debauched person FINIS Dan. Hist. p. 14. Speed Speed William Rufus Dan. life of Henry the first Dun. Pryn. Mat. Paris p. 961 Dan. Hist. p. 179. Mat. Paris p. 8 9. Master Prin the Parliaments interest in the Militia second part p. 38. 39. Sir Francis Bacon Martin Suet. lib 3. c. 59.