teach us how to steer our brittle Bark in this Worlds Tempest that we bear not too much sail but keep a moderate and even course betwixt the rocks of pride and shallows of contempt both which are equally dangerous Our King dedicated this Summer to the Northern Climate it is now fourteen years Revolution since the beams of Majesty appeared in Scotland He begins his Journey with the Spring warming the Country as he went with the Glories of the Court Taking such Recreations by the way as might best beguile the days and cut them shorter but lengthen the nights contrary to the Seasons For what with Hawking Hunting and Horse-racing the days quickly ran away and the nights with Feasting Masking and Dancing were the more extended And the King had fit Instruments for these Sports about his Person as Sir George Goring Sir Edward Zouch Sir Iohn Finnit and others that could fit and obtemperate the Kings Humour For he loved such Representations and Disguises in their Maskaradoeâ— as were witty and sudden the more ridiculous the more pleasant Edward Somerset Earl of Worcester But among all the Dances that these Times were guilty of none of the Maskaradoes presented so horrid a Vizard as the Churchmans For some of the Bishops pretending Recreations and liberty to servants and the common people of which they carved to themselves too much already procured the King to put out a Book to permit dancing about May-poles Church-ales and such debauched Exercises upon the Sabbath day after Evening Prayer being a specious way to make the King and them acceptable to the Rout which Book came out with a command injoyning all Ministers to read it to their Parishioners and to approve of it and those that did not were brought into the High Commission imprisoned and suspended This Book being only a trap to catch some conscientious men that they could not otherwise with all their cunning insnare For they would preach the Gospel in a Fools-coat as some of them exprest rather than be silenced for a Surplis And their Conjuring of them with the Cross in Baptism and the Circle of the Ring in Marriage could not make a well-composed Reason and a sound Conscience then start at it But when so frightful an Apparition as the dancing Book appeared some of the Ministers left all for fear others by force they were so terrified with it These and such like Machinations of the Bishops to maintain their Temporal Greatness Ease and Plenty made the stones in the Walls of their Palaces and the beam in the timber afterwards cry out moulder away and come to nothing Whereas if those in most Authority had not been so pragmatical but holy prudent and godly men as some others of the Function were their light might have shined still upon the Mount and not have gone out as it did offensive to the nostrils of the rubbish of the people The King in his return from Scotland made his Progress through the Hunting-countries his Hounds and Hunters meeting him Sherwood-Forrest Need wood and all the Parks and Forrests in his way were ransacked for his Recreation And every night begat a new day of delight till he brought Holyrood-day not Holyrood-house to White-hall This new incroachment upon the Sabbath gave both King and people more liberty to prophane the day with authority For if the Court were to remove on Monday the Kings Carriages must go out the day before All times were alike and the Court being to remove to Theobalds the next day the Carriages went through the City of London on the Sabbath with a great deal of clatter and noise in the time of Divine service The Lord Mayor hearing of it commanded them to be stopt and this carried the Officers of the Carriages with a great deal of violence to the Court and the business being presented to the King with as much asperity as men in authority crossed in their humors could express it It put the King into a great Rage Swearing he thought there had been no more Kings in England but himself yet after he was a little cooled he sent a Warrant to the Lord Mayor commanding him to let them pass which he obeyed with this Answer while it was in my power I did my duty but that being taken away by a higher power it is my duty to obey Which the King upon second thoughts took well and thanked him for it As Prophaneness crept in on one side so did Idolatry and Superstition on the other for there was more enmity against Ministers of the Gospel than Popish Priests they swarmed over the Kingdom working miraculous Projects in every corner One pack of them got into Stafford-shire among some of the Giffords in that County Gentlemen of good Estates where they practised their Artifices to seduce the people There must be a Ground-work Estates to keep them being like the Gout never troubling the poor and then there must be materials Correspondents to act for them Holiness and Piety must be confirmed by Miracle and these Miracles must be visible to the Peoples eyes that they may convey belief better to the heart If the Priests be holy and can subdue Satan the Religion they profess must be heavenly that triumphs over principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness bringing all to obedience These are finesses and subtilties of Mastring Wits calling them Piae Fraudes godly deceits Worms to bring Fish to the Net and this kind of frippery they are ever fraught with For about this time there was a Boy born at Bilson in that County whose father mother neighbours and many other people with admiration did absolutely think possest with a Devil for he had strange sudden violent distorting fits that appeared to all the beholders contrary to Nature and being not full fifteen years old it could not be imagined that any thing of Impostory could result from him and therefore the same of it was the more remarkable The Iesuits that are the best Physicians in such Distempers hearing of it visited the Boy prayed by him and used such other Charms and Exorcisms as are fit to make them to be admired giving his Parents good hope of dispossessing him of that foul spirit by which might palpably be discerned how much Gods power was exprest in their weakness and difference the truth and holiness betwixt the Catholick Religion and the Heresie professed among Protestants So that they that heard them as many resorted to the place must needs take them for very holy men by whom such Wonders were to be accomplished The Iesuits visited him often sometimes in private sometimes in Company but this kind of Spirit would not be commanded by them so that they grew almost desperate of the Cure The Boy in his fits would rave against an old woman dwelling near to his Father intimating by signs and ghastly behaviour that she had sent a Spirit to torment him and in plain terms when he was out of his fits
these Times young Dorothy the eldest Daugâ—teâ— married Robert Viscount Lisle after the death of his Father Eâ—â—l of Leicester by whom he had a numerous Issue like Clive branches aâ—out his Table The younger Daughter Lucy a Lady of â—â—â—ompâ—rable Beauty solemnized in the Poâ—â—s oâ—â—he most exquiâ—â—e Witsâ—f â—f her time married the Lord Hayes now made Viâ—count Doncaster against hâ—r Father's will â—ho aimed at higher â—xtractiâ—â—â— during his Imprisonment which the old Earâ—'s stubborn spirit not brooking would never give hâ—r any thing And Doncaster whose affection was abâ—ve money â—etting only a valuationâ—pon â—pon his much-admired Bride strove to make himselâ— meritorious and prevailed so with the King for his Fâ—ther-in 〈◊〉 that he got his Release But the old Earl would hâ—rdly be drawn to take a Release from his hand so that when he had liberty he restrained himself and with much importunity was wrought upon by such as knew the distempers of his body might best qualifie those of his mind peâ—â—uading him â—oâ—â—ome indisposition to make a journey to the Bath â—hich was one special motive to accept of his Son-in-laâ—'s respects HONORATISSâ—â—â—â— Dê° HENRICVS PERCEY COMâ—â—â—â— NORTHVMBERIANâ—… If Art could shewe the Spirit in the Face And in dead Sines expresse a Liuing Grace You might though wanting an Inscription sweare That this the shadowe of a PERCY were For when the Noblest Romane worthies Liud Though greater Fame their Fortunes have atcheiud No brauer Spiritts did in ROME command Then were the PERCYS of NORTHVMBERIAND But now War breaks in upon us following that blazing Fore-runner the House of Austria like Pyrrhus and Lysander extending their Dominions no further than the Sword could reach having long seat hered their Nests with the Eagles plumes grew formidable to the Princes and States of Germany And because they found the Popes had shrewdly plumed some of their Predecessors till they had wrested most parts of Italy from the Empire they were content to maintain their Grandure by the Popes power and to ingratiate themselves the more became great Persecutors of the Reformed Religion A little before this time Ferdinand Uncles Son to Matthias the Emperor was Crowned King of Bohemia with this Reservation that he should not exercise the Power of a King as long as the old Emperor lived This kind of Crowning of Kings one in the life of another was the great Chain that link by link held the Empire and the two Kingdoms of Hungaria and Bohemia together in the Austrian Family so that the State of either Kingdom could not or durst not put forth their Strength to shake them asunder The Emperor kept his Court at Vienna King Ferdinand at Gretz in Stiria so that the Government of Bohemia rested in such Counsellors as the Emperor Matthias left there for the management of Publick Affairs These Counsellors and Ministers with the Archbishop of Prague broke out about this time not only to demolish the Protestant Churches but by the help of the Iesuits their bitter Enemies strove to undermine the Religion it self The Protestant States and Nobles of the Country summoning an Assembly to redress their Grievances were opposed by some of them Emperor's Ministers of State the very day of their meeting which exasperated them to such a height of Passion being backt by some Forces they brought with them for their Security that they threw Slabata the Emperor's chief Justice Smesansius one of the Council of State and Fabricius a pragmatical Secretary from a high Window in the Castle down into the Court though some of them took little hurt and lived as reports go to this time This rash Action the Bohemians strive to palliate by Apologies to the Emperor but withal strengthned themselves making Leavies both of Horse and Foot the better to secure their own Peace and banishing those Firebrands the Iesuits out of Prague whose malicious and distemper'd Zeal first kindled the Flame The Emperor hearing of these mischiefs raises an Army under the command of Count Bucquoy and the Protestant States finding the Emperor exasperated raise two Armies one commanded by Count Thurne the other by Count Mansfeldt some bickrings past betwixt the Imperial Army and the Bohemians some Towns taken on both sides and in the heat of this stir the old Emperor dies Ferdinand King of Hungary and Bohemia and adopted heir of old Matthias meeting after summons at Frankford with the three Electors of Mentz Collen and Trevers and only with the Representatives of the other three Electors The Church carried it for him and he was chosen King of the Romans The States of Bohemia disclaimed the election as invalid because he could not be an Elector himself as King of Bohemia for that he had never been actually in possession of the Crown And though their dissent could not lessen Ferdinand's Election to the Empire yet they protested by oath never to acknowledge him for their King These eruptions made a noise all over Christendom and most knowing men looked on this heavenly Torch the late Comet as fit fuel to give fire to such a train Our King fearing the clap would fall heavy upon the Protestant party sent the Viscount Doncaster extraordinary Ambassador to mediate a Reconciliation betwixt the Emperor and the Bohemians But the asperity and bitterness was too great to find an allay by his sweet and candid Complements being sitter for the bosoms of Lovers than the armed breasts of Uprores and Tumults LOTHARIVS PAR LA GRACE DE DIEV ARCHEVESQVE DE TREVES B. Moucorneâ— excudit Our King that looked upon his own condition through the Optique of the peoples mutable and unstable affection would by no means countenance such a Precedent as should give them power to dispose of an established Royal dignity at their pleasure and upon every change of humor for so he might shake his own foundation which made the Barons addresses crude and nauseous to his Appetite till time had a little digested them And then he dispatched two Ambassadors into Bohemia One was Sir Richard Weston who was afterwards Lord high Treasurer of England and left to his posterity the Earldom of Portland a man of a haughty spirit yet knew how by suppling it to make his way to the height he arrived at For his Religion gave place to his Policy and mounted him till he became one of the great grievances of the Kingdom The other was Sir Edward Conwey a man of a grosser temper bred a Soldier being Governor of Bril when England gave over her interest in the cautionary Towns who was after made a Viscount and Secretary of State a rough impollished peice for such an imployment But the King that wanted not his Abilities would often make himself merry with his imperfect scrouls in writing and hacking expressions in reading so that he would break into laughter and say in a facetious way Had ever man such a Secretary that can neither Write nor Read These two were suited for the imployment happily upon
well cleared on both sides their Design which was the Prince's Perversion might mature and ripen For the Earl of Bristol confessed afterwards That it was a general received Opinion in the Spanish Court that the Prince came thither with intention to be a Roman Catholike And Gondemar pressed Bristol not to hinder so pious a work assuring him they had the Duke of Buckingham's assistance therein And it was evident enough their hopes were great by the Pope's letter to the Bishop of Conchen Inquisitor general in Spain Wherein he excites him not to slip the Opportunity providence had put into his hand of extending his Piety to the outtermost Nations The Prince of England being now in the Court of Spain that glorious Temple as it were that hath been a Bulwark to the Pontifical Authority and an Academy for propogation of Religion he desires he may not stay there in vain but that some of the impressions of the Piety of so many Catholick Kings as have lived there may be imprinted on him that he may be won with all sweetness as many of his noble Ancestors have been who have submitted their Crowned heads and Imperiall power to the Roman Obedience And to his glorious Victory and Eternal GREGORIVS XV alexander Luaouisuis Bononien creat die 9. Februarâ— an 1621. Sedit an 2. me â—s S. Obâ—t die 8. Iulij an 1623 Vac Triumph of Celestial Beatitudes the Treasures of Kings and Legions of Souldiers cannot contribute but the Weapons of Light that must come from Heaven whose Splendor inlightning the Prince's Eyes shall dazleâ— his Errors and establish his mind in meekness And he charges the Bishop and all his Fraternity to use the best strength and industry they can to this purpose So that the Prince was continually laid at by the insinuating Orations of cunning Iesuits the fained and cousening Miracles of reclused Holiness the Splendid and Specious Solemnities of their Formal Processions the rare and admirable Pictures of their reputed Saints besides many other painted devices and subtle Artifices brooded among them And the Pope used all the Rhetorick of his Cabalistical Consistory and Holy Chair to charm him to his Obedience as may be seen by this Letter which he writ to him himself MOst Noble Prince Health and Light of Divine Grace For asmuch as Great Britain hath always been fruitful in Vertues and Men of Merit having filled the one and the other World with the Glory of Her Renown She doth also very often attract the thoughts of the Holy Apostolical Chair to the consideration of her praises And indeed the Church was but then in her Infancy when the King of Kings did choose her for his Inheritance and so affectionately that it is thought the Roman Eagles prevailed not so much as the Banner of the Cross. Besides that many of her Kings instructed in the Knowledg of the true Salvation have preferred the Cross before the Royal Scepter and the Discipline of Religion before Covetousness leaving Examples of Piety to other Nations and to the Ages yet to come so as having Merited the principal and chief Places of Blessedness in Heaven they have obtained on Earth the Triumphant Ornaments of true Holiness And although now the State of the English Church be altered yet we see the Court of Great Britain adorned and furnished with Moral Vertues which might serve to support the Charity that We bear unto Her and be an Ornament to the name of Christianity if withal She could have for her defence and Protection the Orthodox and Catholike Truth Wherefore by how much the Glory of your most Noble Father and the apprehension of your Royal Disposition delights Us with so much more Zeal We desire that the Gates of the Heavenly Kingdom might be opened unto you and that you might purchase to your self the Love of the Universal Church Moreover it being Certain that Gregory the Great of most blessed Memory hath introduced to the English people and taught their Kings the law of the Gospel and the respect to Apostolical Authority We as inferior to him in Holiness and Virtue but equal in Name and Degree of Dignity it is very reasonable that We following his blessed Steps should endeavour the Salvation of those Provinces especially at this time when your Happy Design most Noble Prince elevates Us to the Hope of an extraordinary advantage And as you have taken a Iourney into Spain to the Catholike King with desire to allye your Self to the House of Austria so We do commend your Design and indeed do testifie openly in this present Business That you are he that takes principal Care of our Prelacy For seeing that you desire to take in Marriage the Daughter of Spain We may easily from thence conjecture That the ancient seeds of Christian Piety which have so happily flourished in the Hearts of the Kings of Great Britain May God prospering them revive again in your Soul And indeed it is not to be believed that he that loves such an alliance should hate the Catholike Religion and delight to oppress the Holy Chair To that purpose We have commanded to make continually most humble Prayers to the Father of Lights That he would be pleased to put you as a fair Flower of Christendom and the onely Hope of Great Britain in possession of that most noble Heritage that your Ancestors have purchased for you to defend the Authority of the Soveraign High Priest and to sight against the Monsters of Heresie Remember the dayes of old enquire of your Fathers and they will tell you the Way that leads to Heaven and what way Temporal Princes have taken to gain an Eternal Kingdom Behold the Gates of Heaven opened the most holy Kings of England who came from England to Rome accompanied with Angels did come to Honour and do Homage to the Lord of Lords and to the Prince of the Apostles in the Apostolical Chair their Actions and Examples being as so many Voices of God speaking and exhorting you to follow the course of the Lives of those to whose Empire you shall one day attain Great Brittaine is thy Birth right but the Earth Liâ—e then and conquer till victorious warre stoopes to the Vertues which exceede thy Birth Make thy Rule endles as thy Vertues are This Letter of the Pope's expresses not only the sleek and smooth waies that Soul-merchant takes to purchase his Proselytes but the end he proposes to himself which is to bring them under the Roman Obedience otherwise whatsoever they do or profess is Heresie And to build up the Towers of this great Babel the name of the most High God is brought down among them and used as a Master Builder Every Profession layes that name as a Foundation though the Superstructure be but straw and stubble of Hypocrisie which a whirl-wind shall scatter and the time is coming that her Lovers shall be destroyed and fiery-cloven tongues shall confound their Language The Prince was not slack in answering this
Letter which happily he might think would quicken the Pope to dispatch the Dispensation when he should find so little cause for Delayes by his closing so nearly with him Which whether out of Policy or Real intention cannot be asserted but the Letter was thus MOst Holy Father I received the Dispatch from your Holiness with great content and with that Respect which the Piety and care wherewith your Holiness writes doth require It was an unspeakable pleasure to me to read the Generous Exploits of the King 's my Predecessors to whose Memory Posterity hath not given those praises and Elogies of Honour that were due to them I do believe that your Holiness hath set their Example before my Eyes to the end that I might imitate them in all my Actions for in truth they have often exposed their Estates and Liâ—es for the Exaltation of the Holy Chair And the â—ouâ—â—ge with which they have assaulted the Enemies of the Cross of Iesus Christ hath not been less then the Care and thought which I have to the end that the Peace and Intelligence which hath hitherto been wanting in Christendom might be bound with a bond of true concord for like as the common Enemy of Peace watcheth alwayes to put Hatred and Dissention between Christian Princes so I believe that the Glory of God requires that we should endeavour to unite them And I do not esteem it a greater Honour to be descended from so great Princes then to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety In which it helps me very much to have known the Mind and Will of our Thrice Honoured Lord and Father and the Holy Intentions of his Catholick Majesty to give a happy Concurrence to so laudable a Design For it grieves him extreamly to see the great Evil that grows from the Division of Christian Princes which the Wisdom of your Holiness foresaw when it judged the Marriage which you pleased to design between the Infanta of Spain and my self to be necessary to procure so great a good For 't is very certain that I shall never be so extreamly affectionate to any thing in the World as to endeavour allyance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the true Religion with my self Therefore I intreat your Holiness to believe that I have been alwayes far from encouraging Novelties or to be a Partisan of any faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion But on the contrary I have sought all occassions to take away the suspicion that might rest upon me and that I will imploy my self for the Time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith seeing that we all believe in One Jesus Christ. Having resolved in my self to spare nothing that I may have in the World and to suffer all manner of Discommodities even to the hazarding of my estate and life for a thing so pleasing unto God It rests only that I thank your Holiness for the permission which you have been pleased to afford me and that I may pray God to give you a blessed Health here and his Glory after so much travel which your Holiness takes within his Church Signed CHARLES STUART It may well be a Quere Whether this profession of the Prince in suffering all discommodities even to the Hazarding of Estate and Life did not rest upon him at his Death as may be said hereafter But there is a long Race for him to run before he come to that End It seems he had either a good Will to write this Letter or a bad Council to indite it or both conjoyned that were as careful to please the Pope as they were hopeful it would never come to see the light till the flame of it would be too visible For if the Prince intended Really when he had power to introduce Popery into England this Letter in a bloody colour too apparently would have been discovered and if his intentions were formal and only to close with the Pope for his present accommodation how black would every Character of this letter look to the Roman Rubrick and what a Tincture of Scandal would it leave upon the true Religion for Fallere fallentem may be a fit Motto for a bad man not a good Christian so that whatsoever his Intentions were the Act was evill And I could suspect it is a forged Letter but that it hath been asserted by so many Authors both at home and abroad The Pope finding by this letter and some other private intimations the Princes good affections to the Roman See thought it high time to dally no longer but to draw him altogether with the Cords of Love therefore he dispatches the Dispensation to his Nuntio at Madrid six months after the Prince's arrival there with a little Bob at the Tail of it yet to amuse them Which was That the King of Great Britain and the Prince should give Caution to perform what was stipulated between them and the King of Spain especially in those Articles which were in favour of the Roman Catholicks in England and other his Majestie 's Dominions Requiring at least some Soveraign Catholick Prince should engage for them by oath This made some little demur for being sent into England the King answered That he could give no other Caution but his own and the Princes Royal Words and Oaths Confirmed by his Council of State and Exemplified under the great Seal of England But this would not satisfie Therefore the King of Spain undertook it and it was thought a Spanish Device That by undertaking such an engagement he might not only the more endear himself to the King of Great Britain and to the Prince his Brother but have a more colourable pretext to make War against England if the Roman Catholicks there had not full satisfaction and freedom according to the Articles and the King of Spain knowing or assureing himself that no Catholick Prince would take such an Oath offered himself to satisfie the Pope And a Committee of Ecclesiasticks in Spain were appointed to debate the Case in Relation to the King's conscience whether he might take such an Oath for them and they being doubtless resolved on it before concluded Affirmatively And that if the King of Great Britain and Prince should fail in the performance of these Capitulations the King of Spain might save his Oath by vindicating the Breach thereof upon them with his Sword And now this Monster-difficulty being overcome by the Spanish Bravery the very same time Articles that our King and Prince had signed as are before related were sent into England for our King and his privy Council to swear to and there was not a Rub left for either party to stumble at But whilst these things were in motion in Spain they were much regretted and badly resented in England The Spirit almost of the whole Nation being averse to this Union which made many vent their Passion by their Pens as well as their tongues Amongst the rest the Archbishop of
accused her to be a Witch and the Author of all his misery This old woman is sent to the Bishops Chancellor at Lichfield to be examined the Boy is brought thither to confront her and having his back towards her at her coming into the Room where the Chancellor was before she yet entred or appeared he falls into a most bitter Agony crying out Now she comes now my Tormentor comes wreathing and tearing himself in so horrid a manner that it did not only breed amazement but pity in the Spectators there being many with expectation attending the issue Which with some other probabilities were an inducement to the Chancellor to send the woman to Stafford Goal At the next Assizes for that County the Boy and his Parents appear as Witnesses against the Witch the Boy was placed in a conspicuous part of the Court with his face to the Bench eying the Judg continually in a very peaceable and quiet posture and as the woman was coming in when the Court thought it impossible the Boy should be sensible of her appearance he fell into a more raging fit than ever he was possest with before So stupendiously unnatural that it was deemed by all that saw it that nothing but a Diabolical Spirit could work such horrid effects This thus openly acted and the Relation of what was done at Lichfield and other probabilities evidencing the old woman that had no good Reputation among her Neighbours being of a tetrical and froward temper incident to old age found few Friends to plead her Cause so that being indicted for Witchcraft she was found guilty by the Iury and Condemned to die Doctor Morton Bishop of that Diocess a great Father of the Anglicane Church and happily then on the Bench about Secular Affairs hearing that some Romish Priests had been tampering with their Exorcisms to the undevilling of the Boy and finding little reason produced why or for what cause the Witch should use the Child so ill was perswaded this might be some jugling trick in them for effecting their miraculous ends He therefore besought the Iudg to reprieve the woman till the next Assizes and he would take the Boy home with him have him carefully and strictly looked to and doubted not before than time to find out the Bottom of some secret and hidden â—â—â—rivance The Iudg assented to the Bishop's request and so the Boy was carried to Eccleshal Castle the Bishops House whither his fits followed him with a great deal of violence For being put out of his râ—ad having formerly all sorts of people come to admire him and now being more carefully looked to he grew sâ—llen and would not eat sometimes in two or three days so that his belly was almost clung and grown to his back and he had a new swelling about his throat which never appeared before lay in his Bed sometimes as it were senseless sometimes stâ—ring with his eyes and foaming at the mouth sometimes striking those that stood near him his own careful mother being one whom he made all black about the arms and breasts never spoke but in his fits and then a strange gibbrish at other 〈◊〉 he only muttered and made signs The Bishop visited him often striving sometimes to soften him with gentleness at other times he handled him roughly with objurgations and threatnings but his ill Spirit is capable of neither He spoke to him one time some of the Greek Testament to see how that would work and it brought him into his fit At another time he uttered some Verses out of the Greek Poets which his Devil was not so learned as to distinguish for that put him into a fit again so that the Bishop was confirmed that he was an Impostor of a most pernicious and pernicious Spirit but how to Conjure it out of him was the difficulty And finding words and menaces made no impression in him he fell to blows for taking him out of his Bed and having one to hold him the Bishop gave him six very smart lashes with a Rod which moved the Boy no more than if he had been an insensible stock They also thrust needles into his toes and fingers betwixt the nails clapt burning candles to his eye-lids till they sing ed the hair off to divert him when he was in his fits but with all their persecutions he neither winch'd nor stirred so that the Actors were more troubled to execute than he to suffer And in this condition growing almost desperate he would make signs for knives or any other instrument to do himself a mischief therefore strict care was taken and many watchful eyes set over him to prevent any such danger Thus he continued almost a quarter of a year at last his Vrine grew so black that the Physicians thought Nature had left her usual operations having never found in any Human Body so much Adust matter to give so deep and deadly a tincture This struck the good Bishop very near For he was certain the Priests had been Hammering about him and now if he should miscarry under his hand those Mini-masters of mischief would in their dark shops coin such scandals against him as might pass current in the Worlds opinion therefore he used all the means he could possible as well to preserve him as to discover him But finding the Boy indure so many Trials with patience so much tough hardship and robustness in tender years he resolved if his water continued black to sitâ— the matter no further To find out which he set a trusty servant to watch him through a hole that looked into the Chamber upon the Bed which the Boy knew not of The Bishop going that morning with his Family to a Lecture all things were very still in the house and the Boy finding all quiet no noise about him he lifts himself up stares and listens and at length gets out of his Bed and in the straw or mat under it takes out an Ink-horn and makes water in the Chamber-pot through a piece of the Cotton in his hand another little piece of the Cotton he puts into his Prepuce covering it with the skin and that was for a Reserve if he should be forced to make water when company is by Thus having cunningly put himself in order he hides the Ink-horn again and returns to his Bed The man that was appointed to watch him seeing all this discovered it to the Bishop at his coming home who came to him presently and askt him how he did He according to his usual manner pointed to his water looked ghastly on it and mutter'd out his old howling tone The Bishop that meant now to deal roundly with him said Sirrah you have Ink in your bed-straw which you make use of to black your water and your knavery is found out and calling in his man he took out the Ink-horn where the Boy had hid it and the man justified that he saw him make water through the Cotton Which with the Bishops