Court at Bartholmew-Fair ther being all the essentiall parts of a true Parliament wanting in this as fairnesse of elections freedome of speech fulnesse of Members nor have they any head at all besides they have broken all the fundamental rules and Priviledges of Parliament and dishonoured that high Court more then any thing else They have ravish'd Magna Charta which they are sworn to maintain taken away our birth-right therby and transgressed all the laws of heaven and earth Lastly they have most perjuriously betrayed the trust the King reposed in them and no lesse the trust their Country reposed in them so that if reason and law were now in date by the breach of their Priviledges and by betraying the said double trust that is put in them they have dissolved themselves ipso facto I cannot tell how many thousand times notwithstanding that monstrous grant of the Kings that fatall act of continuance And truly my Lord I am not to this day satisfied of the legality though I am satisfied of the forciblenesse of that Act whether it was in his Majesties power to passe it or no for the law ever presupposeth these clauses in all concessions of Grace in all Patents Charters and Grants whatsoever the King passeth Salvo jure regio salvo jure coronae To conclude as I presume to give your Lordship these humble cautions and advice in particular so I offer it to all other of your rank office order and Relations who have souls to save and who by solemn indispensable Oaths have ingaged themseves to be tru and loyall to the Person of King Charls Touching his political capacity it is a fancy which hath bin exploded in all other Parliaments except in that mad infamous Parliament wher it was first hatched That which bears upon Record the name of Insanum Parliamentum to all posterity but many Acts have passed since that it shold be high and horrible Treason to separat or distinguish the Person of the King from His Power I believe as I said before this distinction will not serve their turn at the dreadful Bar of divine justice in the other world indeed that Rule of the Pagans makes for them Si Iusjurandum violandum est Tyrannis causâ violandum est If an Oath be any way violable 't is to get a Kingdom We find by woful experience that according to this maxime they have made themselves all Kings by violation of so many Oaths They have monopoliz'd the whole power and wealth of the Kingdom in their own hands they cut shuffle deal and turn up what trump they please being Judges and parties in every thing My Lord he who presents these humble advertisments to your Lordship is one who is inclin'd to the Parliament of Engl. in as high a degree of affection as possibly a free-born Subject can be One besides who wisheth your Lordships good with the preservation of your safety and honour more really then he whom you intrust with your secretest affaires or the White Iew of the Upper House who hath infused such pernicious principles into you moreover one who hath some drops of bloud running in his veins which may claim kindred with your Lordship and lastly he is one who would kiss your feet in lieu of your hands if your Lordship wold be so sensible of the most desperat case of your poor Country as to employ the interests the opinion and power you have to restore the King your Master by English waies rather then a hungry forrein people who are like to bring nothing but destruction in the van confusion in the rear and rapine in the middle shold have the honour of so glorious a work So humbly hoping your Lordship will not take with the left hand what I offer with the right I rest From the Prison of the Fleet 3. Septembris 1644. Your Lordships truly devoted Servant I. H. HIS Late MAJESTIES Royal DECLARATION OR MANIFESTO TO ALL FORREIN PRINCES AND STATES Touching his constancy in the Protestant Religion Being traduced abroad by some Malicious and lying Agents That He was wavering therin and upon the high road of returning to Rome Printed in the Year 1661. TO THE Unbiass'd REDER IT may be said that mischief in one particular hath somthing of Vertue in it which is That the Contrivers and Instruments thereof are still stirring and watchfull They are commonly more pragmaticall and fuller of Devices then those sober-minded men who while they go on still in the plaine road of Reason having the King and knowne Lawes to justifie and protect them hold themselfs secure enough and so think no hurt Iudas eyes were open to betray his Master while the rest of his fellow-servants were quietly asleep The Members at Westminster were men of the first gang for their Mischievous braines were alwayes at work how to compasse their ends And one of their prime policies in order thereunto was to cast asspersions on their King thereby to alienat the affections and fidelity of his peeple from him â—…notwithstanding that besides their pubâ—…ick Declarations they made new Oaths and protestations whereby they swore to make Him the best belov'd King that ever was Nor did this Diabolicall malice terminat only within the bounds of his own Dominions but it extended to infect other Princes and States of the Reformed Churches abroad to make Him suspected in his Religion that he was branling in his belief and upon the high way to Rome To which purpose they sent missives and clandestine Emissaries to divers places beyond the Seas whereof forren Authors make mention in their writings At that time when this was in the height of action the passage from London to Oxford where the King kept then his Court was so narrowly blockd up that a fly could scarce passe some Ladies of honor being search'd in an unseemly and barbarous manner whereupon the penner of the following Declaration finding his Royal master to be so grosly traduced made his Duty to go beyond all presumptions by causing the sayd Declaration to be printed and publish'd in Latin French and English whereof great numbers were sent beyond the seas to France Holland Germany Suisserland Denmark Swethland and to the English plantations abroad to vindicat his Majesty in this point which produc'd very happy and advantagious effects for Salmtisius and other forrin writers of great esteem speake of it in their printed works The Declaration was as followeth CAROLUS Singulari Omnipotentis Dei providentia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor c. Universis et singulis qui praesens hoc scriptum ceu protestationem inspexerint potissimum Reformatae Religionis cultoribus cujuscunque sint gentis gradus aut conditionis salutem c. CUM ad aures nostras non ita pridem fama pervenerit sinistros quosdam rumores literasque politica vel perniciosa potiùs quorundam industriâ sparsas esse nonnullis protestantium ecclesiis in exteris partibus emissas nobis
three things which are inalienable from the Person of the King They are 1. The Crowne 2. The Scepter 3. The Sword The one He is to carry on His Head the other in His Hand and the third at His Side and they may be termed all three the ensignes or peculiar instruments of a King by the first He Reignes by the second He makes Lawes by the third He Defends them and the two first are but bables without the last as was formerly spoken 1. Touching the Crown or royal Diadem of England ther is none whether Presbyterian Independent Protestant or others now in action but confess that it descends by a right hereditary Line though through divers Races and som of them Conquerours upon the Head of Charles the first now Regnant 't is His own by inherent birth-right and nature by Gods Law and the Law of the Land and these Parliament-men at their first sitting did agnize subjection unto Him accordingly and recognize Him for their Soveraign Liege Lord Nay the Roman Catholick denies not this for though there were Bulls sent to dispense with the English Subjects for their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth yet the Pope did this against Her as he took Her for a Heretick not an Usurpresse though he knew well enough that She had bin declared Illegitimate by the Act of an English Parliament This Imperial Crown of England is adorned and deckd with many fair Flowers which are called royal Prerogatives and they are of such a transcendent nature that they are unforfeitable individual and untransferrable to any other The King can only summon and dissolve Parliaments The King can only Pardon for when He is Crowned He is sworn to rule in Mercy as well as in Justice The King can only Coyn Money and enhance or decry the value of it The power of electing Officers of State of Justices of Peace and Assize is in the King He can only grant soveraign Commissions The King can only wage War and make Out-landish Leagues The King may make all the Courts of Justice ambulatory with His Person as they were used of old 't is tru the Court of Common Pleas must be sedentary in som certain place for such a time but that expired 't is removeable at His pleasure The King can only employ Ambassadours and Treat with forraign States c. These with other royal Prerogatives which I shall touch hereafter are those rare and wholsom flowers wherewith the Crown of England is embellished nor can they stick any where else but in the Crown and all confess the Crown is as much the King 's as any private man's Cap is his own 2. The second regall Instrument is the Scepter which may be called an inseparable companion or a necessary appendix to the Crown this invests the King with the sole Authority of making Lawes for before His confirmation all results and determinations of Parliament are but Bills or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are but abortive things and meer Embryos nay they have no life at all in them till the King puts breath and vigour into them and the ancient custome was for the King to touch them with His Scepter then they are Lawes and have a vertue in them to impose an obligation of universall obedience upon all sorts of people It being an undeniable maxime That nothing can be generally binding without the King 's royall assent nor doth the Law of England take notice of any thing without it This being done they are ever after styl'd the Kings Lawes and the Judges are said to deliver the King's judgments which agrees with the holy text The King by judgment shall stablish the Land nay the Law presumes the King to be alwaies the sole Judge Paramount and Lord chief Justice of England for he whom He pleaseth to depute for His chiefest Justice is but styl'd Lord chief Iustice of the Rings â—…ench not Lord chief Justice of England which title is peculiar to the King Himself and observable it is that whereas He grants Commissions and Patents to the Lord Chancellour who is no other then Keeper of His Conscience and to all other Judges He names the Chief Justice of his own Bench by a short Writ only containing two or three lines which run thus Regina Iohanni Popham militi salutem Sciatis quod constitutmus vos justiciarium nostrum Capitalem ad placita coram nobis terminandum durante beneplacito nostro Teste c. Now though the King be liable to the Laws and is contented to be within their verge because they are chiefly His own productions yet He is still their Protector Moderator and Soveraigne which attributes are incommunicable to any other conjunctly or separately Thus the King with His Scepter and by the mature advice of His two Houses of Parl. which are His highest Councel and Court hath the sole power of making Laws other Courts of judicature doe but expound them and distribute them by His appointment they have but Iuris dati dictionem or declarationem and herein I meane for the Exposition of the Lawes the twelve Iudges are to be believed before the whole Kingdom besides They are as the Areopagites in Athens the chief Presidents in France and Spaine in an extraordinary Iunta as the Cape-Syndiques in the Rota's of Rome and the Republique of Venice whose judgments in point of interpreting Lawes are incontroulable and preferred before the opinion of the whole Senate whence they received their being and who hath still power to repeal them though not to expound them In France they have a Law maxime Arrest donné en Rebbe rouge est irrevocable which is a Scarlet Sentence is irrevocable meaning when all the Judges are met in their Robes and the Client against whom the Cause goes may chafe and chomp upon the bit and say what he will for the space of twenty foure howers against his Judges but if ever after he traduces them he is punishable It is no otherwise here where every ignorant peevish Client every puny Barister specially if he become a Member of the House will be ready to arraign and vie knowledge with all the reverend Judges in the Land whose judgement in points of Law shold be onely tripodicall and sterling so that he may be truly call'd a just King and to rule according to Law who rules according to the opinion of his Judges therefore under favour I do not see how his Majesty for his part could be call'd injust when he leavied the Ship-money considering he had the Judges for it I now take the Sword in hand which is the third Instrument of a King and which this short discours chiefly points at it is as well as the two first incommunicable and inalienable from his Person nothing concernes his honor more both at home and abroad the Crown and the Scepter are but unweildy and impotent naked indefensible things without it There 's none so simple as to think there 's meant hereby an ordinary single sword
for his time play'd his Cards more cunning than ever Count Gondomar did knew well and therefore as I heard som French men say he got Letters of Revocation before his designed time but it seems strange to me that the King who is the Protectour of the Law and Fountain of Justice cannot have the benefit of the Law himself which the meanest of his vassals can claim by right of inheritance 'T is strange I say that the Law shold be a dead letter to him who is the Life of the Law but that for omission of some punctillio in the form of the Processe the charge of high Treason shold be so slightly wav'd specially Treason of so universall a concernment that it may be call'd a complication of many Treasons for if in every petty State it be High Treason to treat only with any Forrein Power without the privity of the Prince it must needs be Treason of a higher nature actually to bring them in And hereof I could alleadge you many pregnant instances ancient and modern but that I do not desire to interrupt you in your relation Patricius The Parliament as I told you before armed apace it was not fitting then His Majesty shold sit idle therfore he summons those Nobles and others who had an immediate relation unto him by Office or Service to attend him at York according to their particular obligation and oath But it seems the Parliament assumed power to dispence with those oaths and excuse their attendance which dispensation prevail'd with som tender consciences yet the Great Seal posted to Court and after it most of the Nobles of the Land with the flower of the Gentry and many of the prime Members of the Commons House so that were it not for the locall priviledge the Parliament for number of Members might be said to be ever since about the King These Nobles and Gentlemen resenting His Majesties case and what practices ther were on foot to alter the Government both of Church and State not only advised His Majesty to a royall war for defence of his Crown and Dignity but contributed very chearfully and have stood constant to the work ever since Peregrin They have good reason for it for the security of the Nobility and Gentry depends upon the strength of the Crown otherwise popular Government wold rush in like a torrent upon them But surely those Nobles and those Parliament Gentlemen and others som of whom I understand were reputed the wisest and best weigh'd men for experience and parts thorowout the whole Kingdom and were cryed up in other Parliaments to be the most zealous Patriots for the propriety and freedom of the Subject wold never have stuck so firmly to His Majesty had they not known the bottom of his designs that it was far from his thoughts to bring in the Pope or French Government for therby they shold have betrayed their own posterity and made their children slaves Patricius To my knowledge these Nobles and Gentlemen are still the very same as they were in former Parliaments wherin they were so cryed up for the truest lovers of their Country and best Common-wealths-men yet now they are branded and voted to be Seducers and Traytors because according to their oaths and consciences they adhere to the King their Master and Liege-Lord for maintenance of that Religion they were baptized and bred in Those most Orthodox and painfull Divines which till this Parliament began were accounted the precisest sort of Protestants are now cryed down for Papists though they continue still the very same men both for opinions and preaching and are no more Papists than I am a Pythagorean In fine a tru English Protestant is put now in the same scale with a Papist and made Synonyma's And truly these unhappy Schismaticks could not devise how to cast a greater infamy upon the English Protestant than they have done of late by these monstrous imputations they wold fasten upon him such opinions which never entred into his thoughts they wold know ones heart better than himself and so would be greater Kardiognosticks than God Almighty But to draw to a conclusion The Parliaments Army multiplyed apace in London the Kings but slowly in the North so that when he displayed his Royal Standard at Nottingham his Forces were not any thing considerable so that if the Parliaments Generall Essex had then advanced towards him from Northampton he had put him to a very great strait they encreased somthing at Derby and Stafford but when he was come to Shrewsbury the Welch-men came running down the mountains in such multitudes that their example did much animate the English so that his army in lesse than a month that the Court continued in Shrewsbury came to near upon twenty thousand Horse and Foot not long before the Nephew Princes came over and the first encounter Prince Rupert had with the Parliaments Forces was at Worcester where he defeated the flower of their Cavalry and gave them a smart blow At Shrewsbury His Majesty took a resolution to march with His whole Army towards London but after seven days march he understood the Parliaments Forces were within six miles side-long of him and so many miles he went out of His road to find them out and face them Upon Sunday morning he was himself betimes upon Edge-Hill wher the Enemies Colours plainly appear'd in vale before Keinton it was past two in the after-noon before all his Infantery could get to the bottom who upon sight of the Enemies Colours ran as merrily down the Hill as if they had gone to a Morris dance So His Majesty himself being Generalissimo gave command the great Ordnance shold flye for a defiance so the battell began which lasted above three hours and as some French and Dutch Commanders who were engag'd in the Fight told me they never remembred to have seen a more furious battail for the time in all the German wars Prince Rupert pursued the Enemies Horse like a whirl-wind near upon three miles and had ther bin day enough when he came back to the Infanterie in all probability a totall defeat had bin given them So that the same accident may be said to fall out here as happened in that famous battell at Lewis in Henry the thirds time where the Prince of Wales afterwards Edward the first was so eager and went so far by excesse of courage from the body of the Army in pursuance of the Londoners that it was the fatall cause of the losse of that mighty battail His Majesty to his deserved and never-dying glory comported himself like another Caesar all the while by riding about and encouraging the Souldiers by exposing his person often to the reach of a Musket-bullet and lying in the field all that bleak night in his Coach Notwithstanding that many lying Pamphlets were purposely printed here to make the world believe that he had retir'd himself all the time of the fight what partiall reports were made in the Guild-Hall to the
highly magnified in some of your publick Speeches who were at first brought in for Hirelings against the King for them offer themselves now to come in against them for the King Your Lordship cannot be ignorant of the sundry clashes that have bin 'twixt the City and their Memberships and 'twixt their Memberships and their men of War or Military Officers who have often wav'd and disobeyed their commands How this tatterdimallian Army hath reduc'd this cow'd City the cheated Country and their once all-commanding Masters to a perfect passe of slavery to a tru Asinin condition They crow over all the ancient Nobility and Gentry of the Kindom though ther be not found amongst them all but two Knights and 't is well known ther be hundreds of privat Gentlemen in the Kingdom the poorest of whom is able to buy this whole Host with the Generall himself and all the Commanders But 't is not the first time that the Kings and Nobility of England have bin baffled by petty companions I have read of Iack Straw Wat Tyler and Ket the Tanner with divers others that did so but being suppressed it tended to the advantage of the King at last and what a world of examples are ther in our story that those Noblemen who banded against the Crown the revenge of heaven ever found them out early or late at last These with a black cloud of reciprocall judgments more which have come home to these Reformers very doors shew that the hand of divine justice is in 't and the holy Prophet tells us When Gods judgments are upon earth then the inhabitants shall learn justice Touching your Lordship in particular you have not under favour escap'd without some already and I wish more may not follow your Lordship may remember you lost one Son at Bridgenorth your dear Daughter at Oxford your son-in-Son-in-Law at Newbury your Daughter-in-Law at the Charter-house of an infamous disease how sick your Eldest son hath bin how part of your house was burnt in the Country with others which I will not now mention I will conclude this point with an observation of the most monstrous number of Witches that have swarm'd since these Wars against the King more I dare say then have bin in this Island since the Devil tempted Eve for in two Counties only viz. Suffolk and Essex ther have bin near upon three hundred arraign'd and eightscore executed as I have it from the Clerks of the Peace of those Counties what a barbarous devilish office one had under colour of examination to torment poor silly women with watchings pinchings and other artifices to find them for Witches How others call'd spirits by a new invention of villany were conniv'd at for seizing upon young children and 〈◊〉 them on shipboard where having their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were so transform'd that their 〈◊〉 could not know them and so were carryed over for new schismaticall Plantations to New-England and other Seminaries of Rebellion My Lord ther is no villany that can enter into the imagination of man hath bin left here uncommitted no crime from the highest Treason to the meanest Trespasse but these Reformers are guilty of What horrid acts of prophanes have bin perpetrated up and down the Monuments of the dead have bin rifled Horses have bin watered at the Church Font and fed upon the holy Table Widows Orphans and Hospitals have bin commonly robb'd and Gods House hath bin plunder'd more then any with what infandous blasphemies have Pulpits rung one crying out that this Parliament was as necessary for our Reformation as the comming of Christ was for our Redempâ—…ion Another belching out that if God Almighty did not prosper this Cause 't were fitting he shold change places with the Devil Another that the worst thing our Savoour did was the making of the Dominical prayer and saving the Thief upon the Crosse. O immortal God is it possible that England shold produce such Monsters or rather such infernal fiends shap'd with humane bodies yet your Lordship sides with these men though they be enemies to the Cross to the Church and to the very name of Iesus Christ I 'le instance only in two who were esteem'd the Oracles of this holy Reformation Petrs and Saltmarsh The first is known by thousands to be an infamous jugling and scandalous villaine among other feats he got the Mother and Daughter with Child as it was offered to be publickly proved I could speak much of the other but being dead let it suffice that he dyed mad and desperate yet these were accounted the two Apostles of the times My Lord 't is high time for you to recollect your self to enter into the private closet of your thoughts and summon them all to counsel upon your pillow consider well the slavish condition your dear Country is in weigh well the sad case your liege Lord and Master is in how he is bereav'd of his Queen His Children His Servants His Liberty His Chaplains and of every thing in which there is any comfort observe well how neverthelesse God Almighty works in Him by inspiring Him with equality and calmnesse of mind with patience prudence and constancy How Hee makes His very Crosses to stoop unto Him when His Subjects will not Consider the monstrousnesse of the Propositions that are tendred him wherein no lesse then Crown Scepter and Sword which are things in-alienable from Majesty are in effect demanded nay they would have him transmit and resign his very intellectuals unto them not only so but they would have him make a sacrifice of his soul by forcing him to violate that solemne sacramentall Oath hee took at his Coronation when hee was no Minor but come to a full maturity of reason and judgement make it your own case My Lord and that 's the best way to judge of His Think upon the multiplicity of solemne astringing Oathes your Lordship hath taken most whereof directly and solely enjoyne faith and loyalty to his Person oh my Lord wrong not your soule so much in comparison of whom your body is but a rag of rottennesse Consider that acts of loyalty to the Crown are the fairest columns to bear up a Noblemans name to future ages and register it in the temple of immortality Reconcile your self therefore speedily unto your liege Lord and Master think upon the infinit private obligations you have had both to Sire and Son The Father kiss'd you often kisse you now the Sun lest he be too angry And Kings you will find my Lord are like the Sun in the heavens which may be clouded for a time yet he is still in his sphear and will break out againe and shine as gloriously as ever Let me tell your Lordship that the people begin to grow extream weary of their Physitians they find the remedy to be far worse then their former disease nay they stick not to call some of them meer Quacksalvers rather then Physitians Some goe further say they are no more a Parliament then a Pye-powder