Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	great_a	king_n	put_v	5,841	5	4.9400	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90657	Veritas inconcussa or, a most certain truth asserted, that King Charles the First, was no man of blood, but a martyr for his people. Together with a sad, and impartial enquiry, whether the King or Parliament began the war, which hath so much ruined, and undone the kingdom of England? and who was in the defensive part of it? By Fabian Philipps Esq;; King Charles the First, no man of blood: but a martyr for his people.	Philipps, Fabian, 1601-1690.	1660 (1660)	Wing P2020; Thomason E1925_2; ESTC R203146	66,988	269

the Kings Seal since it was carried away by the Lord Keeper Littleton should be Null and of no force in the Law and that a new Seal should be provided The King therefore seeing what He must trust to 19. September 1642. being at Wellington in Shrop-shire in the head of such small forces and friends as He could get together for the Parliament that very day had received letters That the King but the week before having a muster at Nottingham there appeared but about 3000. foot and 2000. horse and 1500. dragoons and that a great part of His men were not provided with Arms made His protestation and promise as in the presence of x Almighty God and as He hoped for His blessing and protection to maintain to the utmost of His power the true Reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England and that He desired to govern by the known Laws of the Land and that the Liberty and property of the Subject should be preserved with the same care as His own just rights and to observe inviolably the Laws consented to by Him in this Parliament and promised as in the sight of Almighty God if He would please by His blessing upon that Army raised for His necessary defence to preserve Him from that Rebellion to maintain the just priviledges and freedom of Parliament and govern by the known Laws of the Land In the mean while if this time of War and the great necessity and straights He was driven to should be get any violation of them He hoped it would be imputed by God and man to the Authors of the War and not to Him who had so earnestly desired and laboured for the Peace of the Kingdom and preservation thereof and that when He should fail in any of those particulars He would expect no aid or relief from any man nor protection from Heaven And now that the stage of War seems to be made ready and the Parliament party being the better furnished had not seldom shewed themselves and made several traverses over it for indeed the King having so many necessities upon him and so out of power and provision for it might in that regard onely if He had not been so unwilling to have any hurt come to his people by his own defending of himself be backward and unwillingly drawn unto it we may do well to stand by and observe who cometh first to act upon it 22. of September 1642. The Earl of Essex writeth from Warwick that he was upon his march after the King and before the 6. of October following had written to the County of Warwick with all speed to raise their Trained bands and Voluntiers to resist his forces if they should come that way and to the three Counties of Northampton Leicester and Darby to gather head and resist him if he should retire into those parts and by all that can be judged of a matter of fact so truely and faithfully represented must needs be acknowledged to have great advantages of the King by the City and Tower of London Navy Shipping Armes Ammunition the Kings Magazines all the strong Towns of the Kingdom most of the Kingdoms plate and money the Parliaments credit and high esteem which at that time the people Idolized the fiery Zeal of a Seditious Clergy to preach the people into a Rebellion and the people head-long running into the witchcraft of it When the King on the other side had little more to help him then the Laws and Religion of the Land which at that time every man began to mis-construe and pull in pieces had neither ammunition ships places of strength nor money nor any of his party or followers after the Parliament had as it were proclaimed a War against Him could come single or in small numbers through any Town or Village but were either openly assaulted or secretly betrayed no man could adventure to serve or own him but must expose himself and his Estate to be ruined either by the Parliament or people or such as for malice or profit would inform against him All the gains and places of preferment were on the Parliaments part and nothing but losses and mis-fortunes on the Kings No man was afraid to go openly to the Parliaments side and no man durst openly so much as take acquaintance of his Soveraign but if he had done a quarter of that which Ziba did to David when he brought him the 200. loaves of bread or old Barzillai or Ittai the Gittise when he went along with him when his son Absalom rebelled against him They should never have escaped so well as they did but have been sure to be undone and sequestred for it So much of the affections of the people had the Parliament cousened and stoln from them so much profit and preferment had they to perswade it and so much power to enforce those that otherwise had not a minde to it to fight against him Who thus every way encompassed about with dangers and like a Partridge hunted upon the Mountains marcheth from Shrewsbury towards Banbury perswading and picking up what help and assistance His better sort of Subjects durst adventure to afford Him in the way to which On Sunday the 23. of October 1642. for they thought it better to rob God of his Sabbath then lose an opportunity of murdering their Soveraign The Earl of Essex and Parliament army powring in from all quarters of the kingdom upon him had at Edge-hill compassed Him in on all sides and before the King could put His men in battel Array many of whom being young country fellows had no better Arms then Clubs and Staves in their hands cut out of the hedges and put His two young Sons the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York in the guard of a troop of horse at the further end of the field and had finished a short prayer a bullet of the Earl of Essex's Canon grazed at His heels as He was kneeling at His prayers on the side of a bank for Blague a villain in the Kings Army having a great Pension allowed Him for it had given notice in what part of the field the King stood that they might the better know how to shoot at him But God having a greater care of his Anointed then of their Rebellious pretences so ordered the hands of those that fought for the King as the Earl of Essex was so loaden with Victories as he left five of His men for one of the Kings dead behinde him lost his babbage and Artillery retired back to Warwick and left the King to bless God in the field where He supped with such Victuals as the more Loyal and better natured neighbours sent him when the worser sort refused to do it and lying there all night sent warrants out the next day to the neighbour Parishes to bury the dead drew off His Ordinance and marched to Banbury and yet he could not forget to pity those which were at such pains and hazard the

the Money Arms Ammunition and strength of the Kingdom in their hands and multitudes of deluded people to assist them and so hunted and pursued him from place to place as it was come to be a saying and a by-word among the apprentices and new levied men at London they would go a King-catching and were not likely therefore to be guilty of so much patience as the King who was so much in love with Peace and so thirsted after it as that and his often sending Messages and Propositions for it would not permit him to make use of any victories or advantages which God had given him But twice suffered the Earl of Essex to attempt to force Him from Oxford and Sir Thomas Fairfax once to beleager Him when He had power enough to have made London or the associate Counties the seat of the War and it would be something strange that He who when He had raised forces against His Scottish Rebels and found himself in the head of so gallant an Army as He had much ado to keep them from fighting and His enemies so ridiculously weak as He might have subdued them but with looking upon them but a fortnight longer could not be perswaded to draw a sword against them would now begin an offensive war without any power or strength at all against those that had before-hand ingrossed it Or what policy or wisdom could it be in Him to begin a War without Money or Men or Arms to go through with it Or to refuse the assistance of His Catholique Subjects and Forreign friends and forces or to spend so much time in Messages and offers of Peace to give them time and ability to disarm Him and arm themselves If He had not utterly abhorred a War and as cordially affected peace as He offered fair enough for it Or can any man think that the King did begin the War when what he did was but to preserve His Regality and the Militia and protection of His people which the Parliament in express terms as well as by Petitioning for it acknowledged to be His own being but that which every private man that had but money or friends would not neglect to do Did He any more in seeking to preserve His Regality then to defend and keep himself from a breach of trust they sought to make him break Or could there be a greater perjury or breach of trust in the Kingly Office then to put the sword which God had given him into the hands of mad-men or fools or such as would kill and slay and undo their fellow Subjects with it or to deliver up the protection of His people into the hands of a few of their ambitious fellow subjects who did as much break their own trust to those they represented in asking of it as the King would have done if He had granted it Or why shall it not be accounted an inculpata tutela in the King to preserve and defend that by a War which the Laws of God and Man His Coronation Oath Honour and Conscience and a duty to himself His Posterity as well as to His people would not permit Him to stand still and suffer to be taken away from Him But if the King by any maner of construction could be blamed or censured for denying to grant the Militia which was the first pretence of beginning of the War by those that sought to take it from him for till the besieging of Hull the 16. of July 1642. after many other affronts and attempts of as high a nature put upon Him the most malicious interpretation of the matter of Fact cannot find Him so much at all to have defended himself as to have done any one act of War or so much as like it who shall be in the fault for all that was done after when he offered to condescend to all that might be profitable for His people in the matter of Religion Laws and Liberties Was it not a just cause of War to defend himself and his people against those who would notwithstanding all He could do offer make a War against Him because He would not contrary to His Oath Magna Charta and so many other Laws which He had sworn to observe betray or deliver up his people into their hands to be governed or rather undone by a greater latitude of Arbitrary power then the great Turk or Crim Tartar ever exercised upon their enslaved people and put the education and marriage of his own Children out of his power which was never sought to be taken out of the hand of any father which was not a fool or a madman nor yielded to by any would have the Credit to be accounted otherwise or because he would not denude himself of the power of conferring honours or vilifie or discredit his great and lesser Seals and the Authority of them from which many mens Estates and Honours and the whole current of the Justice of the Kingdom had their Original or perjure himself by abolishing Episcopacy which Magna Charta and some dozens of other Laws bound him to preserve Or if that be not enough to justifie him in his own defence had he not cause enough to deny and they little enough to ask Liberty of Conscience and practise to Anabaptists Blasphemers of God deniers of the Trinity Scriptures and Deity of Christ when the Parliament themselves had taken a Covenant to root them out and made as many of the people as they could force to take it with them Or had He not cause enough to deny to set up the Presbyterian authority which would not only have taken away his own authority but have done the like also with the Laws and Liberties of the Nation and the ruling part of that which they now call the Parliament did utterly abhor Or if all that could not make the war which he made to be defensive lawfull had He not cause enough to deny and they none at all to ask that He should by Act of Parliament consent to make all those to be Traitors that took His part their Blood and Posterities attainted and their Estates forfeited when as some of the Parliaments own Members were heard to say when those Propositions were sent unto him That if he yielded unto them He was the unworthiest man living and not fit to be a King For certainly if the Laws of God and man and the understanding of all mankind be not changed there was never a juster more defensive unwilling and necessitated War then that of the Kings part since man came out of Paradise And if such a War should not be lawful after so many provocations and necessities for the defence of himself his people so many after generations which this War of the Parliament and the curse of it is like to ruine and leave in slavery under what censure and opinion may that of i Abrahams with Chederlaomer the King of Elam and Tidal King of the Nations be when he fought with

them to rescue his Brother Lot and his goods and was blessed by Melchisedec the Priest of the most high God for doing of it Or if the k War which the Tribes of Israel made against the Tribe of Benjamin and the men of Gibeah for committing lewdness and folly in Israel that of l David to rescue his wives that were carried away captive by the Amalekites or m to fetch home the Ark of God from the Philistines that which n Ahab made with Benhadad the king of Syria who was not half so Tyrannical in his Propositions as the Parliament were approved of in sacred Story or that which was made by Judas Maccabeus and his Brethren to rescue the decayed Estate of the people of the Jews or that which was used to be made by the heathen pro aris focis were never yet so much as suspected to be unlawful How shall this of the kings be condemned that had as much as Abraham David Ahab against Benhadad o Judas Maccabeus and the tribes of Israel or those heathens that made it pro aris focis put them all together to warrant it Or by what reason or Law is any man by the Laws of England excused for killing a man in his own defence when he is necessitated to it or for killing theeves that come to assault or rob him in his House or Castle If the King shall be hunted from his House through all the parts and corners of his Kingdom for his Life and not only for his Life but his Honour and not only for his Life and Honour but his Conscience and yet must never draw his sword or seek to defend himself or have any body else to do it for him Or how have all the Kings Princes and Magistrates of the world hitherto governed and defended themselves and their people or shall ever be able to give an account of the people committed to their charge if they may not be at liberty to make a Legal use of the sword power and reason which God hath given them Or how can those State riddles like those of Sphinx only made to destroy men withal that they fought for the King and Parliament as is alledged in many of their Orders and Declarations and that the war on the Kings part was a Rebellion raised against the King and Parliament as is expressed in the p Ordinance of Parliament for association of the Counties of Pembroke Cardigan and Caermarthen be ever understood by any rules of sense or reason if he had been as he was not on the offensive part of the war and had begun it against them Or how the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax could as there was Law and reason enough to perswade them to it believe that the war made by the King against the Scots wherein they served and took command under him was lawful and that a War in his own defence against the forces of the Parliament wherein they were shortly after successively one after the other Generals and Commanders against him should be unlawful or that they which seised the Town and Magazine of Hull and first began the war against the King who only defended himself and the people committed to his charge can possibly be understood to have done it in their own defence or that what they did could in the means and way which they used or took unto it and the sad and dire effects and consequences of it receive any other interpretation then that they began made a war against the King upon a colour only and pretence that they made it for him But if any shall be so in love with the sense of the House of Commons as to be out of their own senses and think that though there be no maner of evidence or proof to be had for love or money that the Parliament were constrained to defend themselves by a war yet the Kings admitting of the Preamble of the Parliaments Propositions presented to him at the Isle of Wight that the Parliament was necessitated to take up Arms in their just and lawful defence makes him who must needs be best acquainted with his own actions to be so clearly guilty of all the blood that hath been shed in these wars as it puts to silence all that can be now alledged or said in his behalf They that made the preamble and placed it in limine and the threshold of the Treaty on purpose to catch and insnare him for either he must have denied it at the very beginning and entrance into the Treaty and leave his Kingdoms and people to wallow in the blood and misery which their Parliament Idols had brought them to have all the blame laid upon him for hindring a Peace which he had so much longed and laboured for or put himself and all his Loyal Subjects that helped to defend him under the burden of those Sins and Shames which the Parliament themselves had all the right to can tell their undone and deluded Proselytes how much the King stuck at it how unwilling he was to break off the Treaty and was unwilling to wrong his own Innocency and that when the Parliament Commissioners had not any thing either in Law Truth Reason or Argument to perswade him to yield unto it but laid it only as a case of necessity before him though there was no such preamble at the Treaties of Oxford and Uxbridg nor any such necessity at those times insisted upon that unless he would take the guilt upon himself his two Houses of Parliament and the People had engaged with them must necessarily be guilty of Treason and could not have any security from the guilt and punishment of it The King bemoaning himself and people that must be thus shut out from any hopes of peace intreated some expedient or medium might be found out to reconcile the differences But Cains sins being greater then could be forgiven him unless Abel can be brought to say he killed Cain they that could afterward finde an expedient for 21. of their great Councel of State that refused to subscribe to the lawfulness of murdering the King after it was done could finde none at all for the King to purchase a Peace for the people though many kinds of ways and expedients as allowing Him to make a preamble to his own propositions that the war made by Him was made in his own defence or the like might have been easily contrived and thought upon For the truth was the Independent party desired no Peace at all the Presbyterian desired it only to get into their hands the Kings Power Authority lay the guilt of all the blood they had shed for it upon Him both of them were so well content to have Him allow of the preamble as the latter thought himself safe and out of controversie if the King took the blood upon Him and the former that it would prove no small advantage or colour to

accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every ●0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1● de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.

vvas ended and Shooting them to Death but for vvords or intentions And if this and many things more which might be said of it be not enough what means so many Sequestrations and the bleating and lowing of mens Sheep and Oxen taken away from them since the War was ended but for words spoken either for the King or against them husbands and fathers undone for what their wives or children did without their privity the Maior of London divers Aldermen Imprisoned but upon a suspicion of joyning with the Scots or acting in pursuance of the Covenant which they forced them to take or else would have undone them for refusing of it Garrisons and Armies with Free-quartering and Taxes kept up and the people like sheep devoured to maintain them so much complaining in our streets and the taking away from some all their lands from others what they pleased and enforced many thousands to compound for their lands estates for joyning with the Kings forces or for being forced to send provisions to them when they took up Arms some in pursuance of the Covenant and others of them to deliver the King out of prison causing the Souldiers not only to cut and kill divers of the County of Surrey in the very act of petitioning the Parliament for a Treaty of Peace with the King and Sequester many of them for putting their hands unto it with disabling the Citizens of London for bearing any Office in the Citty or Common-wealth for but putting their hands to the Petition for the Treaty though Cromwell himself had not long before set on some to petition for it and the ruine and undoing of two parts of three in the Kingdome very many of whom did nothing actually in the Wars but were only sacrified to their pretended reasons and jealousies of State do sufficiently proclaim and re●…ain the vvoful Registers to after generations of this lamentable assertion If the King could have gotten but so much leave of his mercy and tender-heartedness to his people as to have used but the five hundreth part of the Parliaments jealousies sharp and merciless authority in the managing of this war so much of his Kingdomes and people had not been undone and ruined nor the Parliament put to so much labour to coyne faults and scandals against him nor to wrest the Laws to Non-sense and the Scriptures to Blasphemy to justifie their most horrid act of Murdering him but for seeking to preserve the Laws and Liberties of his people who are now cleerly cheated out of them And here our miseries tels us we must leave them and in the next place shall remember for indeed it is so plain it needs no enquiry CHAP. VI Who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it THe abundant satisfaction wch the King had offered them from his first summoning of the late Parliament to their dissolving of themselves by dissolving Him who gave them all their Life and Being that which he did and all which he would have done So many Declarations Answers and Messages penned by himself intending as much as his words could signifie and were believed and understood by all at that time that were not interessed or engaged against him and by many of the eagrest of them also that had no hand or lookt to have any profit in the murthering of him for a Tryal of a King without either Warrant or Colour of Scripture or the Laws of the Kingdome or the consent of the major part of the people if that could have authorized it cannot nay will not by all the world and after ages be otherwise interpreted unless we shall say Ravillae might have justified his killing of Henry the Fourth of France if he had but had the wit to have framed or fancied a Supreme Court of Justice and have Sentenced him before he had done it will be as Pillars and lasting Monuments of this Truth The King was the only desirer of Peace and laboured and tugged harder for it then ever Prince or King Heathen or Christian since Almighty God did his first dayes work did ever do with Superiors Equals or Subjects and it will be no wrong certainly to David whose sufferings are so much remembred in all Christian Churches complayning so bitterly That he sought peace with those that refused it and in the mean time prepared for War against him Yo say the King did suffer more and offer more and oftner for peace then ever he did for any thing is extant or appearing to us for surely so many messages of peace as one and twenty in two years space from the 5 of December 1645. to the 25. of December 1647. sent to the Parliament after so many affronts and discouragements must needs excuse him that offered all could be imagined to be for the good and safety of his people and condemn those that not only from time to time refused it but adhered so much to their first intentions as all the blood and ruine of the people could not perswade them to depart with the least punctillio of it though the King before the Isle of Wight Treaty offered so much for the Olive-Branch as to part with the Militia for the terme of his life and in a manner to un-King himself and was afterwards content to do all that his Coronation Oath Honour and Conscience could possibly permit him to do and to purchase a peace for his people would have perswaded his Innocence to have born the shame reproach of what his enemies were only guilty of in so much as the Lord Say himself and most of his ever craving never safe enough Disciples confessed that the King had offered so much as nothing more could be demanded of him They therefore that can but tell how to divide or put a difference betwixt white and black night and day and the plainest contraries must needs also acknowledg That the King offered all and the Parliment refused all the King was willing to part almost with every thing and the Parliament would never part with any thing the King was willing for the good of his people to give away almost every thing of his own but the Parliament would never yeild to part with any thing was not their own And thus may the account be quickly cast up between the King and that Parliament who would have saved and kept the people from misery and who was most unwilling to make an end of it But that we may not too hastily give the Sentence and try the business as they use to do at the Council of War or the new invented way of Justice sitting with their wil or the Sword only in one hand and no Ballance at all in the other We shall in the next place examine CHAP. VII Who laboured to Shorten the War and who to Lengthen it THe odds vvas so great betvvixt what the Parliament laboured to get and the King to keep as that vvhich swayes the balance in most mens actions vvill