the Planetts much favour him the next two yeares Nam Medium coeli in Genitura Caroli Secundi Regis Angliae juxta axiomata Astrologiae Genethliacae dirigitur ad radios Sextiles Lunâ—… Anno Domini 1660. significat accâ—…ssum ad Dominum For the Medium coeli in the Geniture of Charles the Second according to the axiomes of Genethliacall Astrology is directed to the Sextile rayes of the Moon and signifies an accesse to Dominion Adde hereunto that a most lucky conjunction followes the same year in the very Centre of the said Kings horoscope betwixt Iupiter and Sol in the moneth of September When I was employed by this State in Paris not many years agoe I had occasion to make my addresse to your young King and when I observed His Physiognomy and the Lineaments of his face I seemed to discern in it something extraordinary above vulgar countenances and that he carryed a Majesty in His very looks and noting besides the goodly procerity and constitution of His body he seemed to be cut out for a King Now in point of extraction and lineage it cannot be denyed but he is one of the greatest born Princes that ever was in the world for whereas His Grand-Father and Father were allyed onely if you regard Forraigne Consanguinity to the House of Denmark and the Guyses this King bears in his veines not onely that bloud but also the blouds of all the great Princes of Christendom being nearly linked to the House of Bourbon and France to the House of Austria and consequently to the Emperour and Spaine as also to the Duke of Savoy and our Grand-Duke Moreover he is nearly allyed to all the greatest Princes of Germany as the Saxe Brandenburg Bavaria the Palsgrave and to the Duke of Lorain who descends in the directest line from Charlemain Adde hereunto that the young Prince of Orenge is his Nephew and which is considerable he is a pure Englishman born whereas your two former Kings were Forreigners The Queen His Mother is of as Glorious an Extraction which makes me admire the frontlesse impudence of some of your poor Pamphletors who call Her ever and anon the Little Queen notwithstanding that the World knowes Her to be the Daughter of Henry the Great and Queen of Great Britain which Title and Character is indelible and must die with Her Hereunto may be adjoyn'd that this young King is now mounted to the Meridian of his Age and maturity of judgement to govern and doubtlesse hee is like to make a rare Governour having this advantage of all other Soverain Princes in the world to have been bredd up in the Schoole of Affliction so long to have Travelled so many strange Countreys and observed the humors of so many Nations But to come to the Cardinall point of our Communication after divers debates and alterations how England might be brought to a stable condition of tranquility and perfect peace to her former lustre and glory the finall result of all ended in this that there was no other imaginable meanes to do it then for you to make a timely and fitting humble addresse unto your own King and without question it is in his power to grant you such an absolute pardon such an abolition of all things pass'd such a gracious Amnestia such Royall concessions that may extend to the security of every person for the future that was engaged in these your revolutions both touching his life and fortunes Unlesse their guilt of Conscience be such that like Cain or Iudas they thinke their Sinne is greater then can be forgiven them Now the mode of your application to Him may avail much for if you chopp Logique with him too farr and stand upon Puntillios and too rigid termes if you shew your selfs full of feares jealousies and distrusts it will intangle and quite marr the businesse for in a Soveraign Prince ther must be an Implicit unavoidable necessary trust repos'd by his peeple which all the Laws that mans brain can possibly invent cannot provide against Therefore if you proceed in a frank and confident tru English way you may work upon his affections more powerfully and overcome him sooner so then by any outward Arms This way will make such tender impressions upon that he will grant more then you can possibly expect Some Forein Historians as the French Comines and our Guicciardin do cry up the English Nation for using to love their King in a more intense degree then other peeple and to regard his honour in a higher strain to support which they have bin alwayes so ready and cheerful both with their persons and purses There is now a fair opportunity offered to rake up the embers of these old affections and to recover the Reputation of tru Englishmen There is no peeple but may sometimes stand in their own light go astray and err for Error was one of the first frailties that were entayled upon man and his posterity as soon as he was thrust out of Paradis 'T is a human thing to err but to persevere in an error is diabolicall You shall do well and wisely to follow the example of the Spanish Mule who out of a kind of wantonesse being gone out of the high beaten road into a by path which led her to a dirty narrow lane full of pitts and holes at last she came to the top of a huge hideous Rock where she could go no farther for before her ther was inevitable destruction and the lane was so narrow that she could not turn her body back therupon in this extremity she put one foot gently after an other and Crablike went backward untill she came again to the common road This must be your course by a gentle retrogradation to come into the Kings high road again and ther is no question but he will meet you more than three parts of the way If you do not truly in our opinions you will precipitat your selfs down a Rock of inevitable destruction For Heaven and Earth are conspir'd to restore him and though all the Spirits of the Air shold joyn with you you shall not be able to oppose it I presume you are not ignorant how â—…he two great Monarks of Spain and France which may be said to be the main Poles wheron Europe doth move have comprehended him within the private capitulations of peace The Emperour hath promised to wed his quarrell and there is no Prince or State in Christendom but would gladly reach a frendly hand to restore him being depriv'd of his birth-right and his Royal indubitable Inheritance as you your felfs confesse for observing the fifth commandement for obeying his Father and Mother From which Birth-right he may be said to have been thrust out when he was in the state of Innocency being but in a manner a Child and very young then Now touching your selfs I will not flatter you but plainly tell you that you have not one friend any where beyond the Seas nay your great Confederate the
subject The Parliament sends out clean countermands for executing the said Militia so by this clashing 'twixt the Commission of Array and the Militia the first flash of this odious unnaturall war may be said to break out The pulse of the Parliament beats yet higher they send an Admirall to the Sea the Earl of Warwick not only without but expresly against the Kings special command They had taken unto them a Military gard from the City for their protection without His Majesties consent who by the advice of the Lord Keeper and others had offered them a very strong gard of Constables and other Officers to attend them which the Law usually allows yet the raising of that gard in York-shire for the safegard of His Majesties person was interpreted to be leavying of war against the Parliament and so made a sufficient ground for them to raise an Army to appoint a Generall the Earl of Essex with whom they made publick Declarations to live and die And they assumed power to confer a new Appellation of honour upon him Excellency as if any could confer Honour but the King And this Army was to be maintain'd out of the mixt conâ—…ribution of all sorts of people so a great masse of money and plate was brought into the Guild hall the Semstresse brought in her silver Thimble the Chamber-maid her Bodkin the Cook his Spoons and the Vintner his Bowles and every one somthing to the advancement of so good a work as to wage war directly against the Sacred person of their Soverain and put the whole Countrey into a combustion Peregrin Surely it is impossible that a rationall Christian people shold grow so simple and sottish as to be so far transported without some colourable cause therfore I pray tell me what that might be Patricius The cause is made specious enough and varnished over wonderfull cunningly The people are made to believe they are in danger and a prevention of that danger is promised and by these plausible ways the understanding is wrought upon and an affection to the cause is usher'd in by aggravation of this danger as one wold draw a thred through a needles eye This huge Bugbear Danger was like a monster of many heads the two chiefest were these That ther was a plot to let in the Pope And to 〈◊〉 the civil Government into a French frame It is incredible to think how the Pulpits up and down London did ring of this by brainsick Lecturers of whom som were come from New-England others were pick'd out of purpose and sent for from their own flock in the Countrey to possesse or rather to poison the hearts of the Londoners to puzzle their intellectualls and to intoxicat their brains by their powerfull gifts It was punishable to preach of Peace or of Caesars Right but the common subject of the pulpit was either blasphemy against God disobedience against the King or incitements to sedition Good Lord what windy frothy stuff came from these fanatick brains These Phrenetici Nebulones for King Iames gives them no better Character in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who may be said to be mad out of too much ignorance not knowledg who neverthelesse are come to that height of prophaness and pride that they presume to father all their doctrines all their non-sense raptures and ravings upon the holy Spirit Nor did the Pulpit only help to kindle this fire but the Presse also did contribute much stubble What base scurrilous Pamphlets were cryed up and down the streets and dispersed in the 〈◊〉 What palpable and horrid lies were daily printed How they multiplied in every corner in such plenty that one might say tâ—…er was a superfaetation of lies which continue unto this day One while the King of Denmark was comming over from the Sound Another while the King of France had a huge Army about Calais design'd for England Another while ther was an Army of Irish Rebels comming over with the privity of the King Another while a plot was cryed up and down to burn London Another while ther were subterranean invisible troups at Ragland Castle mustered under ground in Wales and thousands of Papists armed in Lancashire and divers reports of this nature were daily blown up and though the Authors of them were worthlesse and mean futilous persons yet the reports themselves had that credit as to be entertain'd and canvas'd in the High Court of Parliament But these false rumors produc'd one politick effect and it was the end indeed for which they were dispers'd they did intimidat and fill the peoples hearts with fears and dispose of them to up roars and so to part with money Peregrin I know ther be sundry sorts of Fears ther are Conscientious Fears and ther are â—…annick Fears ther are Pusillanimous Fears and ther are Politick Fears The first sort of Fear proceeds from guilt of Conscience which turns often to Phreâ—…cy The second sort of Fear may be call'd a kind of Chymera 't is som sudden surprizall or Consternation arising from an unknown cause Pusillanimous Fear makes a mountain of a mole-hill and proceeds from poverty of spirit and want of courage and is a passion of abject and degenerous minds and may be call'd Cowardise and this Fear is always accompanied with jealousie Politick fear is a created forg'd Fear wrought in another to bring som design about And as we find the Astronomers the comparison is too good do imagin such and such shapes and circles in the Heavens as the Zodiak Equinoctiall Colures Zones and Topiques with others though ther be no such things really in nature to make their conclusions good So the Polititian doth often devise and invent false imaginary Fears to make his proceedings more plausible amongst the silly vulgar and therby to compasse his ends And as the Sun useth to appear far bigger to us in the morning then at noon when he is exalted to his Meridian and the reason the Philosophers use to give is the interposition of the vapours which are commonly in the lower Region through which we look upon him as we find a piece of silver look bigger in a bucket of water then elsewhere so the Polititian uses to cast strange mists of Fear and fogs of jealousie before the simple peoples eyes to make the danger seem bigger But truly Sir this is one of the basest kinds of policy nor can I believe ther be any such Polititians amongst the Cabalists of your Parliament who pretend to be so busie about Gods work a Glorious Reformation for you know ther is a good Text for it that God needeth not the wicked man he abominats to be beholding to liers to bring about his purposes But I pray Sir deal freely with me do you imamagin ther was a design to bring in the Massâ—… again Patricius The Masse You may say ther was a plot to bring in Mahomet as soon to bring in the Alchoran or Talmud as soon For I dare pawn my soul the King is as
That the Churchman was the Lawyer is and the Souldier shall be I am afraid the English have seene their best dayes for I find a generall kind of infatuation a totall Eclipse of reason amongst most of them and commonly a generall infatuation precedes the perdition of a people like a fish that putrifieth first in the head Therefore I will trusse up my baggage and over again after I have enjoyed you some dayes and received your commands Patricius Dear Sir If you seriously resolve to crosse the Seas againe so soon I may chance beare you company for as you have since the short time of your sojourn here judiciously observed a national defection of reason in the people of this Island which makes her so active in drawing on her own ruine so by longer experience and by infallible Symptomes I find a strange kind of Vertigo to have seized upon her which I feare will turne to the falling sicknesse or such a frenzie that will make her to dash out her own braines Nor are her miseries I feare come yet to the full It is the method of the Almightie when he pleases to punish a people to begin with roddes to goe on with scourges and if they will not do he hath Scorpions for them Therefore I will breath any where sooner then here for what securitie or contentment can one receive in that Countrey where Religion and Iustice the two grand Dorique Columnes which support every State are fallen down which makes all conditions of men all professions and trades to go here daylie to utter ruine The Churchman grows every day more despicable as if he had no propertie in any thing nor is there any way left him to recover his Tithe but by costly troublesome sutes The Civilian a brave learned profession hath already made his last Will And the Common Lawyers case is little better The Courtier cannot get his Pension The Gentleman cannot recover his rents but either they are sequestred by a high hand of unexampled power or else the poor tenant is so heavily assess'd or plundred that he is disabled to pay them in All kind of Comerce both domestick and forrein visibly decayes and falls more and more into the hands of strangers to the no small dishonour of the wisedome of this Nation nor can the Tradesman recover his debts Parliamentary Protections continue still in such numbers so that it is a greater priviledge now to be a footman to the meanest of the Lower House then to be of the Kings Bed chamber Prentiâ—…es run away from their masters and against their fathers intent turn souldiers and for money which is the soul of trade I beleeve since the beginning of this Parliament above one half of the treasure of the Kingdome is either conveyed to'ther side of the Sea or buried under ground whence it must be new digg'd up againe Moreover all things are here grown Arbitrary yet that word took off the Earle of Straffords head Religion Law and Allegiance is growne Arbitrary nor dares the Iudge upon the Tribunall according to his oath do justice but he is over-awed by Ordinance or els the least intimation of the sense of the lower House is sufficient to enjoyne him the contrary so that now more then ever it may be said here Terras Astraea reliquit peace also hath rov'd up and downe this Island and cannot get a place to lay her head on she hoped to have had entertainment in York-shire by the agreement of the best Gentlemen in the Countrey but an Ordinance of Parliament beat her out of doores Then she thought to rest in Cheshire and by a solemne Covenant she was promis'd to be preserv'd ther the principal Agents of that Covenant having protested every one upon the word of a Gentleman and as they did desire to prosper both themselves their tenants and friends shold strictly observe it but the like Ordinance of Parliament battered down that Agreement Then she thought to take footing in the West and first in Dorcetshire then in Cornwall and Devonshire and by the holy tie of the blessed Sacrament she was promised to be preserved ther but another Ordinance of Parliament is pursuing her to dispense with the Commissioners of the said Agreement for their Oaths Lastly His Majesty is mainly endeavouring to bring her in again thorowout the whole Land but the furious phrentique Schismaticks will have none of her for as one of them besides a thousand instances more preach'd in one of the most populous Congregations about the City It were better that London streets ran with bloud and that dead carkasses were piled up as high as the battlements of Pauls than peace should be now brought in And now that Peace is shut out Learning is upon point of despair her Colledges are become Courts of Gard and Mars lieth in Mercuries bed Honour also with her Court lieth in the dust the Cobler may confront the Knight the Boor the Baron and ther is no judicial way of satisfaction which makes Monarchy fear she hath no long time of abode here Publick Faith also though she had but newly set up for her self is suddenly become Bankrupt and how could she choose for more of the Kingdoms treasure hath bin spent within these thirty moneths than was spent in four-score yeares before but she hopes to piece up her self again by the ruines of the Church but let her take heed of that for those goods have bin fatall to many thousand families in this Kingdom yet she thinks much that those publick summs which were given to suppresse one rebellion in Ireland shold be employed to maintain another rebellion in England And lastly methinks I see Religion in torn ragged weeds and with slubber'd eyes sitting upon Weeping-Crosse and wringing her hands to see her chiefest Temple Pauls Church where God Almighty was us'd to be serv'd constantly thrice a day and was the Rendezvouz and as it were the Mother Church standing open to receive all commers and strangers to be now shut up and made only a thorow-fare for Porters to see those scaffolds the expence of so many thousand pounds to lie rotting to see her chiefest lights like to be extinguished to see her famous learned Divines dragg'd to prison and utterly depriv'd of the benefit of the Common Law their inheritance Methinks I say I see Religion packing up and preparing to leave this Island quite crying out that this is Countrey fitter for Atheists than Christians to live in for God Almighty is here made the greatest Malignant in regard his House is plunder'd more than any Ther is no Court left to reform heresie no Court to punish any Church Officer and to make him attend his Cure not Court to punish Fornication Adultery or Incest Methinks I hear Her cry out against these her Grand Reformers or Refiners rather that they have put division 'twixt all degrees of persons They have put division 'twixt husband and wife 'twixt mother and child The son seeks his fathers
their croaking 't is to make him a King of clouts or as the Spaniard hath it Rey de Havas a Bean King such as we use to choose in sport at Twelfnight But my hopes are that the two present Houses of Parliament for now they may be call'd so because they begin to parley with their King will be more tender of the honour of their Soveraign Liege Lord which together with all his Rights and Dignities by severall solemn Oaths aud by their own binding instruments of Protestation and Covenant not yet revok'd they are sworne to maintaine and that they will demand nothing of him which may favour of Aspertè or force but what may hold water hereafter But now touching the Militia or Sword of the Kingdom I think under favour the King cannot transfer it to any other for that were to desert the protection of his people which is point blank against his Coronation Oath and his Office What forren Prince or State will send either Ambassador Resident or Agent to him when they understand his Sword is taken from him What reformed forein Church will acknowledg Him Defendor of the Faith when they hear of this Nay they who wish England no good will will go near to paint him out as not long since another King was with a fair velvet Scabbard a specious golden hilt and chape but the blade within was of wood I hope that they who sway now will make better use of their successes Many of them know 't is as difficult a thing to use a victory well as to get one ther is as much prudence requir'd in the one as prowesse in the other they will be wiser sure then turn it to the dishonor of their King it being a certain rule that the glory of a Nation all the world over depends upon the glory of their King and if he be any way obscur'd the whole Kingdom is under an eclipse I have observed that among other characters of gallantry which forein Writers appropriat to the English Nation one is that they use to be most zealous to preserve the Honor of their King I trust that they who are now up will return to the steps of their Progenitors both in this particular and divers other that their successes may serve to sweeten and moderat things and suppress the popular Sword which still rages And it had bin heartily wished that a suspension of Arms had preceded this Treaty which useth to be the ordinary fore-runner and a necessary antecedent to all Treaties for while acts of hostility continue som ill-favour'd newes may intervene which may imbitter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor can it be expected that the proceedings will go on with that candor and confidence while the old rancor is still in action 't is impossible a sore shold heal till the inflamation be taken away To cast water into a wound instead of oyle is not the way to cure it or to cast oyle upon a fire instead of water is not the way to quench it poor England hath had a consuming fire within her bowels many years she is also mortally wounded in all her members that she is still in a high Fever which hath made her rave and speak idle a long time and 't is like to turn to a Hectic if not timely prevented I pray God she may have no occasion to make use of the same complaint as Alexander the Great made when he was expiring his last Perii turba Medicorum too many Physitians have undon me To conclude in a word ther is but one only way under favor to put a period to all these fearful confusions it is to put the great Master-wheel in order and in its due place again and then all the inferior wheels will move regularly let the King be restor'd and ev'ry one will come to his own all interests will be satisfied all things quickly rectified till this be done 't is as absurd to attempt the setling of peace as if one shold go about to set a Watch by the gnomen of an horizontall Diall when the Sun is in a cloud I. H. AN ITALIAN PROSPECTIVE Through which GREAT BRITAIN Without any MULTIPLYING ART May cleerly See Her present DANGER And foresee Her future DESTRUCTION If not timely prevented Perditio tua ex Te Anglia Paraenesis Angliae O England specially thou besotted City of London if Thou be'st not quite past cure or grown careless and desperat of thy self if the least spark of Grace or ray of Reson be yet remaining in Thee be warn'd be warn'd by this stranger who having felt thy pulse and cast thy water very exactly discovers in Thee symptoms of inevitable Ruine if thou holdst on this cours Divers of thy own children oftentimes admonish'd Thee with tears in their eyes and terror in their hearts to recollect thy self and return to thy old road of obedience to thy Soverain Prince But They have bin little regarded Let a Foreiners advice then take place and make som impressions in Thee to prevent thy utter destruction From the prison of the Fleet 2. Aug. 1647. I. H. AN ACCOUNT OF THE Deplorable and Desperat condition THAT ENGLAND stands in Sent from LONDON Anno 1647. To the LORD FRANCISCO BARBERINI Cardinal of the most holy Apostolick See and Protector of the English Nation at his Palaces in Rome MY last to your Eminence was but short in regard I had been but a short time in this Countrey I have now made a longer sojourn here and taken a leisurely information of all matters therefore I shall give your Eminence an account proportionably For by conversation with the most indifferent and intelligenc'd men and by communication with the Ambassadors here resident I have taken some paines to pump out the truth of things and penetrat the Interest of all parties And truly I find that That angry star which hath lowr'd so long upon Europe in generall hath been as predominant and cast as direfull aspects upon this poor Iland as it hath done upon any other part Truly my Lord in all probability this peeple have pass'd the Meridian of their happinesse and begin to decline extreamly as well in Repute abroad as also in the common notions of Religion and indeed in the ordinary faculty of Reason I think verily the Ill Spirit never reign'd so much in any corner of the earth by those inhumane aud horrid things that I have observ'd among them Nor is it a petty Spirit but one of the greatest Cacodâ—…mons that thus drives them on and makes them so active in the pursuance of their own perdition To deduce matters from their Originall Your Eminency may please to understand that this King at his accesse to the Crown had deep debts to pay both of His Fathers and his own he was left ingaged in a fresh warre with Spain and had another presently after which France and both at one time but he came off well enough of those Afterwards never any Countrey flourished in that envied
upon his affections then I beleeve they will ever do hereafter But to proceed the King having bin a good while prisoner to the Parlement the Army snatch'd him away from them and som of the chiefest Commanders having pawn'd their soules unto him to restore him speedily in lieu thereof they tumbled him up and down to sundry places till they juggled him at last to that small Ile where now he is surrounded with a gard of strange faces and if happly he beginns to take delight in any of those faces he is quickly taken out of his sight These harsh usages hath made him become all gray and oregrown with hair so that he lookes rather like som Silvan Satyr then a Soverain Prince And truly my Lord the meanest slave in St. Marks gallies or the abjects Captif in Algier bannier is not so miserable as he in divers kinds for they have the comfort of their wifes children and frends they can convey and receive Letters send Messengers upon their errands and have privat discours with any all which is denied to the King of great Britain nay the young Princes his children are not permitted as much as to ask him blessing in a letter In so much that if he were not a great King of his passions and had a heart cast in on extraordinary Mould these pressures and those base aspersions that have bin publiquely cast upon him by the Parlement it self had bin enough to have sent him out of the world e're this and indeed 't is the main thing they drive at to torture his braine and tear his very heart strings if they could so that whereas this foolish ignorant peeple speak such horrid things of our Inquisition truly my Lord 't is a most gentle way of proceeding being compar'd to this Kings persecutions As the King himselfe is thus in quality of a captif so are all his Subjects becom perfect slaves they have fool'd themselfs into a worse slavery then Iew or Greek under the Ottomans for they know the bottom of their servitude by paying so many Sultanesses for every head but here people are put to endless unknown tyrannical Taxes besides plundering and Accize which two words and the practise of them with storming of Towns they have learnt of their pure Brethren of Holland and for plundrings these Parliamenteer-Saints think they may robb any that adheres not to them as lawfully as the Iewes did the Egyptians 'T is an unsommable masse of money these Reformers have squandred in few years whereof they have often promis'd and solemnly voted a publick account to satisfie the Kingdom but as in a hundred things more so in this precious particular they have dispens'd with their Votes they have consumed more treasure with pretence to purge one Kingdom then might have served to have purchas'd two more as I am credibly told then all the Kings of England spent of the public stock since the Saxon Conquest Thus have they not only begger'd the whole Island but they have hurld it into the most fearfull st Chaos of confusion that ever poor Countrey was in they have torn in pieces the reines of all Government trampled upon all Lawes of heaven and earth and violated the very Dictamens of nature by making Mothers to betray their Sons and the Sons their Fathers but specially that Great Charter which is the Pandect of all the Laws and Liberties of the free-born Subject which at their admission to the House they are solemnly sworn to maintain is torn in flitters besides those severall Oaths they forg'd themselfs as the Protestation and Covenant where they voluntarily swear to maintain the Kings Honour and Rights together with the established Laws of the Land c. Now I am told that all Acts of Parlement here are Lawes and they carry that Majesty with them that no power can suspend or repeal them but the same power that made them which is the King sitting in full Parlement these mongrell Polititians have bin so notoriously impudent as to make an inferiour Ordinance of theirs to do it which is point-blanck against the very fundamentals of this Government and their own Oaths which makes me think that there was never such a perjur'd pack of wretches upon earth never such Monsters of mankind Yet this simple infatuated peeple have a Saint-like opinion of these Monsters this foolish Citie gards them daily with Horse and Foot whereby she may be sayd to kisse the very stones that are thrown at her and the hand whence they came which a dogg would not do But she falls to recollect her self now that shee begins to be pinch'd in Trade and that her Mint is starv'd yet the leading'st men in her Common-Councell care not much for it in regard most of them have left traffiquing abroad finding it a more easie and gainefull way of trading at home by purchasing Crown or Church lands plunder'd goods and debts upon the Publick Faith with Soldiers debenters thus the Saints of this Iland turne godlinesse into gaine Truly my Lord I give the English for a lost Nation if they continue long thus never was ther a more palpable oblaesion of the brain and a more visible decay of Reason in any race of men It is a sore judgment from heaven that a people shold not be more sensible how they are become slaves to Rebells and those most of them the scumm of the Nation which is the basest of miseries how they suffer them to tyrannize by a meer arbitrary extrajudicial power o're their very souls and bodies o're their very lifs and livelihoods how their former freedom is turn'd to fetters Molehills into Mountains of grievances Ship-money into Accize Justice into Tyranny For nothing hath bin and is daily so common amongst them as imprisonment without charge and a charge without an accuser condemnation without apparance and forfeitures without conviction To speak a little more of the King if all the infernal fiends had ligu'd against him they could not have design'd or disgorged more malice They wold have laid to his charge his Fathers death as arrand a lie as ever was forg'd in hell they wold make him fore-know the insurrection in Ireland wheras the Spanish Ambassador here and his Confessor who is a very reverend Irish-man told me that he knew no more of it then the grand Mogor did they charge him with all the bloud of this civil war wheras they and their instruments were the first kindlers of it and that first prohibited trade and shut him out of his own Town They have intercepted and printed his privat Letters to his Queen and Hers to him Oh barbarous basenesse but therin they did him a pleasure though the intent was malitious their aim in all things being to envenom the hearts of his people towards him and this was to render him a glorious and well-belov'd Prince as likewise for making him rich all which they had vow'd to do upon passing the Act of Continuance But now they have made
him poorer then the meanest of all his vassals they have made him to have no propriety in house goods or Lands or as one may say in his wife and children 'T was usual for the father to hunt in his Park while the son hunted for his life in the field for the wife 〈◊〉 lie in his bedds while the husband layed wait to murther him abroad they have seiz'd upon and sold his privat Hangings anâ—… Plate yea his very Cabinets Jewels Pictures Statues and Books Nor are they the honorablest sort of peeple and men nobly extracted as in Scotland that do all this for then it were not so much to be wondred at but they are the meanest sort of Subjects many of them illiterat Mechaniques wherof the lower House is full specially the subordinat Committees who domineer more o're Nobles and Gentry then the Parliament Members themselfs their Masters use to do Touching those few Peers that sit now voting in the upper House they may be said to be but meer Cyphers they are grown so degenerat as to suffer the Commons to give them the Law to ride upon their backs and do most things without them Ther be many thousand Petitions that have bin recommended by these Lords to the lower House which are scornfully thrown into corners and never read their Messengers have us'd to dance attendance divers hours and days before they were vouchsafed to be let in or heard to the eternal dishonour of those Peers and yet poor spirited things they resent it not The Commons now command all and though as I am inform'd they are summon'd thither by the Kings Original Writ but to consent to what the King and his Great Counsel of Peers which is the tru Court of Parlement shall resolve upon The Commons I say are now from Consenters become the chiefest Counsellors yea Controulers of all nay som of this lower House fly so high as to term themselfs Conquerors and though in all conferences with the Lords they stand bare before them yet by a new way of mix'd Committees they carry themselfs as Collegues These are the men that now have the vogue and they have made their Priviledges so big swoln that they seem to have quite swallowed up both the Kings Prerogatives and those of the Lords These are the Grandees and Sages of the times though most of them have but crack'd braines and crazy fortunes God wot Nay som of them are such arrand Knaves and coxcombs that 't is questionable whether they more want common honesty or common sense nor know no more what belongs to tru policy then the left leg of a joynt-stool They are grown so high a tiptoes that they seem to scorn an Act of Amnestia or any grace from their King wheras som of them deserve to be hang'd as oft as they have haires upon their heads nor have they any more care of the common good of England then they have of Lapland so they may secure their own persons and continue their Power now Authority is sweet though it be in Hell Thus my Lord is England now govern'd so that 't is an easie thing to take a prospect of her ruine if she goes on this pace The Scot is now the swaying man who is the third time struck into her bowels with a numerous Army They say he hath vow'd never to return till he hath put the Crown on the Kings head the Sceptâ—…r in his hand and the sword by his side if he do so it will be the best thing that ever he did though som think that he will never be able to do England as much good as he hath done her hurt He hath extremely out-witted the English of late years And they who were the causers of his first and last coming in I hold to be the most pernicious Enemies that ever this Nation had for t is probable that Germany viz. Ponterland and Breme will be sooner free of the Swed then England of the Scot who will stick close unto him like a bur that he cannot shake him off He is becom already Master of the Englishmans soul by imposing a Religion upon him and he may hereafter be master of his body Your Eminence knows there is a periodicall fate hangs over all Kingdoms after such a revolution of time and rotation of fortunes wheele the cours of the world hath bin for one Nation like so many nailes to thrust out another But for this Nation I observe by conference with divers of the saddest and best weighdst men among them that the same presages foretell their ruine as did the Israelites of old which was a murmuring against their Governors It is a long time that both Iudges Bishops and privy Counsellors have bin mutter'd at whereof the first shold be the oracles of the Law the other of the Gospell the last of State-affaires and that our judgments shold acquiesce upon theirs Here as I am inform'd 't was common for evry ignorant client to arraign his Iudg for evry puny Curat to censure the Bishop for evry shallow-brain home-bred fellow to descant upon the results of the Councell Table and this spirit of contradiction and contumacy hath bin a long time fomenting in the minds of this peeple infus'd into them principally by the Puritanicall Faction Touching the second of the three aforesaid I mean Bishops they are grown so odious principally for their large demeanes among this peeple as the Templers were of old and one may say it is a just judgment fallen upon them for they were most busy in demolishing Convents and Monasteries as these are in destroying Cathedralls and Ministers But above all it hath bin observ'd that this peeple hath bin a long time rotten-hearted towards the splendor of the Court the glory of their King and the old establish'd Government of the land 'T is true there were a few small leakes sprung in the great vessel of the Stâ—…te and what vessel was ever so â—…ite but was subject to leakes but these wise-akers in stopping of one have made a hundred Yet if this Kings raign were parallell'd to that of Queen Elizabeth's who was the greatest Minion of a peeple that ever was one will find that she stretch'd the Prerogative much further In her time as I have read in the Latin Legend of her life som had their hands cut off for only writing against her matching with the Duke of Aniou others were hang'd at Tyburn for traducing her government she pardon'd thrice as many Roman Priests as this King did she pass'd divers Monopolies she kept an Agent at Rome she sent her Sergeant at Armes to pluck out a Member then sitting in the House of Commons by the eares and clapt him in prison she call'd them sawcy fellowes to meddle with her Prerogative or with the government of her houshold she mannag'd all forren affaires specially the warrs with Ireland soly by her privy Counsell yet there was no murmuring at her raign and the reason I conceave to be
that there was neither Scot or Puritan had then any stroke in England Yet for all their disobedience and grumblings against their Liege Lord the King this peeple are exactly obedient to their new Masters of the House of Commons though they sit there but as their Servants and entitle themselfs so and also though in lieu of the small scratches which England might happily have receiv'd before all which the King had cur'd these new masters have made such deep gashes in her and given her such deadly wounds that I believe are incurable My Lord I find by my researches that there are two great Idolls in this Kingdom the greatest that ever were they are the Parliament and the Pulpit t is held High treson to speak against the one and the whole body of Religion is nailed unto the other for there is no devotion here at all but preaching which God wot is little better then prating The abuse of these two hath bin the source of all the distempers which now raign touching the latter it hath serv'd as a subvervient Engin to prop up the power and popularity of the first these malicious Pulpit-men breath out nothing thence but either sedition schisme or blasphemy poor shallow brain'd Sciolists they wold question many things in the old Testament and find Apocrypha in the New And such is the violence wherewith the minds of men and women are transported towards these Preachmen and no other part of devotion besides that in all probability they will in time take a surfet of them so that give this giddy peeple line enough ther will be no need of Catholique Arms to reduce them to the Apostolick Church they will in time pave the way to it themselves and be glad to return to Rome to find out a Religion again There was here before as I am informed a kind of a face of a Church there were some solemnities venerations and decencies us'd that a man might discover som piety in this peeple there was a publick Lyturgie that in pithy Pathetical prayers reach'd all occasions the Sacraments were administred with som reverence their Churches were kept neat and comly but this nasty race of miscreants have nothing at all of sweetnesse of piety and devotion in them 't is all turn'd to a fatuous kind of zeal after more learning as if Christianity had no sobriety consistence or end of knowledg at all These silly things to imitat the Apostles time wold have the same form of discipline to govern whole Nations as it did a chamberfull of men in the infancy of the Church they wold make the same coat serve our Savious at 30. yeers which fitted him at three 'T is incredible how many ugly sorts of heresies they daily hatch but they are most of them old ones newly furbish'd they all relate to Aerius a perfect hater of Bishops because he could not be one himself The two Sectaries which sway most are the Presbyterians and Independents the Presbyterian is a spawn of a Puritan and the Independent a spawn of the Presbyterian there 's but one hop 'twixt the first and a Iew and but half a hop 'twixt the other and an Infidell they are both opposit to Monarchy and Hierarchy and the latter wold have no Government at all but a parity and promiscuous confusion a race of creatures fit only to inhabit Hell and one of the fruits of this blessed Parlement and of these two Sectaries is that they have made more Jewes and Athiests then I think there is in all Europe besides but truly my Lord I think the judgments of Heaven were never so visible in any part of the Earth as they are now here for there is Rebell against Rebell House against House Cittie against Army Parlement against Scot but these two Sectaries I mean the Presbyterian and Independent who were the fire-brands that put this poor Iland first in a flame are now in most deadly feud one against the other though they both concur in this to destroy government And if the King had time enough to look only upon them they would quickly hang draw and destroy one another But indeed all Christian Princes shold observe the motions and successes of these two unlucky Incendiaries for if they shold ligue together again as they have often plaid fast and loose one with another and prevail here this Iland wold not terminat their designs they wold puzzle all the world besides Their Preachmen ordinarily cry out in the Pulpit ther is a great work to be done upon earth for the reforming all mankind and They are appointed by Heaven to be the chief Instruments of bringing it about They have already bin so busie abroad that with vast sommes of money they brought the Swed upon the Dane and the very Savages upon the English Cavaliers in Virginia and could they confederat with Turk or Tartar or Hell it self against them they wold do it they are monstrously puff'd up with pride that they stick not to call themselfs Conquerors and one of the chief ringleaders of them an ignorant home bred kind of Brewer was not ashamed to vant it publiquely in the Commons House that if he had but 20000. men he wold undertake to march to Constantinople and pull the Ottoman Emperour out of the Seralio Touching the other grand Idoll the Parlement 't is true that the primitive constitution of Parlement in this Iland was a wholesom piece of policy because it kept a good correspondence and clos'd all ruptures 'twixt the King and his peeple but this thing they call Parlement now may rather be term'd a cantle of one or indeed a Conventicle of Schismatiques rather than a great Counsell 't is like a kind of headless Monster or som estropiated carkas for ther is neither King nor Prelat nor scarce the seventh part of Peers and Commons no not the twelfth part fairly elected nevertheless they draw the peeple specially this City like so many stupid animalls to adore them Yet though this institution of Parlement be a wholsom thing in it self there is in my judgment a great incongruity in one particular and I believe it hath bin the cause of most distempers it is That the Burgesses are more in number than the Knights of the Shires for the Knights of the Shires are commonly Gentlemen well born and bred and vers'd in the Laws of the Land as well as forren Governments divers of them but the Burgesses of Towns are commonly Tradesmen and being bred in Corporations they are most of them inclining to Puritanism and consequently to popular Government These Burgesses exceeding the Knights in number carry all before them by plurality of Voices and so puzzle all And now that I have mentioned Corporations I must tell your Lordship that the greatest soloecism in the policy of this Kingdom is the number of them especially this monstrous City which is compos'd of nothing els but of Corporations and the greatest errors that this King specially his Father
of this Iland they say that Winter here hath too many teares in his eyes Helas Sir 't is impossible he shold have too many now to bewaile the lamentable base slavery that a free-born peeple is com to and though they are grown so tame as to kisse the rod that whips them yet their Taskmasters will not throw it into the fire Truly Sir as my tongue is too feeble to expresse our miseries so the plummet of the best understanding is too short to fadom the depth of them With this the grave Venerable Bishop giving me his benediction fetcht such a sigh that would have rended a rock asunder and suddenly vanish'd methought out out of my sight up towards Heaven I presently after awoke about the dawnings of the day when one could hardly discern Dog from Wolf and my soul my Arimula vagula blandula being re-entred through the Horn gate of sleep into her former mansion half tyr'd after so long a Peregrination and having rub'd my eyes distended my limms and return'd to a full expergefaction I began to call my self to account touching those world of objects my fancy had represented unto me that night and when by way of reminiscence I fel to examinâ—… and ruminate upon them Lord what a masse of Ideas ran in my head but when I call'd to mind the last Countrey my soul wandred in methought I felt my heart like a lump of lead within me when I considered how pat every circumstance might be applyed to the present condition of England I was meditating with my self what kind of dream this might be wherupon I thought upon the common division that Philosophers make of dreams that they are either Divine Diabolicall Naturall or Humane For the first they are Visions more properly or Revelations wherof ther are divers examples in the holy Oracles of God but the puddled cranies of my brain are not rooms clean enough to entertain such Touching the second kind which come by the impulses of the Devil I have heard of divers of them as when one did rise up out of his sleep and fetcht a poyniard to stab his bed-fellow which he had done had he not bin awake Another went to the next chamber abed to his mother and wold have ravish'd her but I thank God this dream of mine was not of that kind Touching the third species of dreams which are naturall dreams they are according to the humor which predominats if Melancholy sway we dream of black darksom devious places if Phlegm of waters if Choler of frayes fightings and troubles if Sanguin predominat we dream of green fields gardens and other pleasant representations and the Physitian comes often to know the quality of a disease by the nocturnal objects of the patients fancy Humane dreams the last sort relate to the actions of the day past or of the day following and som representations are clear and even others are amphibious mongrell distorted and squalid objects according to the species of trees over troubled waters and the object is clear or otherwise accorning to the tenuity or grossenesse of the vapors which ascend from the ventricle up to the brain Touching my Dream I think it was of this last kind for I was discoursing of and condoling the sad distempers of our times the day before I pray God som part of it prove not propheticall for although the Frenchman sayeth Songes sont Mensonges dreames are delusions and that they turn to contraries yet the Spaniard hath a saying Et ciego sonnava que via Yera lo que querria The blind man dreamt he did see light The thing he wish'd for happen'd right Insomuch that some Dreams oftentimes prove tru as S. Austin makes mention of a rich Merchant in Milan who being dead one of his Creditors comes to his son to demand such a sum of money which he had lent his father the son was confident 't was paid but not finding the Creditors Receipt he was impleaded and like to be cast in the Sute had not his fathers Ghost appeared to him and directed him to the place where the Acquittance was which he found the next day accordingly Galen speaks of one that dreamt he had a wooden leg and the next day he was taken with a dead Palsie in one whole side Such a Dream was that of William Rufus when he thought he had felt a cold gust passing through his bowels and the next day he was slain in the guts by the glance of an arrow in new Forrest a place where he and his Father had committed so many Sacrileges I have read in Artimedorus of a woman that dreamt she had seen the pictures of three faces in the Moone like her self and she was brought to bed of three daughters a little after who all died within the compas of a moneth Another dreamt that Xanthus water ran red and the next day he fell a spitting of blood To this I will add another fore-telling Dream whereof I have read which was thus two young Gentlemen being travelling abroad in strange Countreyes and being come to a great towne the one lay far in the Citie the other in an Hostry without the wall in the Suburbs he in the City did dream in the dead of night that his friend which he had left in the Suburbs rush'd into his chamber panting and blowing being pursued by others he dreamt so againe and the third time he might see his friends Ghost appearing at his beds side with bloud trickling down his throat and a Poyniard in his brest telling him Dear friend I am come now to take my last farewell of thee and if thou rise betimes thou shalt meet me in the way going to be buryed the next morning his friend going with his Host towards the Inn in the Suburbs wher he left his friend they met with a Cart laden with dung in the way which being staid and search'd the dead body was found naked in the dung I will conclude with a notable Dream that Osman the Great Turk had not many years since a few days before he was murthered by his Janizaries 1623. He dreamt that being mounted upon a huge Camel he could not make him go though he switch'd and spur'd him never so much at last the Camel overthrew him and being upon the ground only the bridle was left in his hand but the body of the Camel was vanished the Mufti not being illuminated enough to interpret this Dream a Santon who was a kind of Idiot told him the Camel represented the Ottoman Empire which he not being able to govern he shold be o'rethrown which two dayes after proved tru By these and a cloud of examples more we may conclude that Dreams are not altogether impertinent but somthing may be gathered out of them though the application and meaning of them be denyed to man unless by special illumination Somnia venturi sunt praescia saepe diei By Dreams we oft may guesse At the next dayes successe THus have you