his Majesty his Council and proceedings or to meddle in the Affairs of his Highness under pain of treason And lastly an Act was paâ—s'd for calling in of Buchanans History that Master-piece of Sedition intituled De jure Regni apud Sootos and that most infamous Libel which he called The Detection by which last Acts his Majesty did not onely take care for preventing the like scandalous and seditious practices for the time to come but satisfied himself by taking some revenge upon them in the times foregoing 63. The Ministers could not want intelligence of particulars before they were passed into Acts. And now or never was the time to bestir themselves when their dear Helena was in such apparent danger to be ravished from them And first it was thought necessary to send one of their number to the King to mediate either for the total dismissing of the Bills prepared or the suspending of them at the least for a longer time not doubting if they gained the last but that the first would easily follow of it self On this Errand they imploy Mr. David Lindsay Minister of the Church of Leith a man more moderate then the rest and therefore more esteemed by the King then any other of that body And how far he might have prevailed it is hard to say But Captain Iames Stewart commonly called the Earl of Arran who then governed the Affairs of that Kingdom having notice of it caused him to be arrested under colour of maintaining intelligence with the Fugitive Ministers in England imprisoned him for one night in Edenborough and sends him the next day to the Castle of Blackness where he remained almost a year Upon the news of his commitment Lawson and Belcanqual two of the Ministers of Edenborough forsake their Churchâ—s and joyn themselves unto their Brethren in England first leaving a Manifest behind them in which they published the Reasons of their sudden departure Iohn Dury so often before mentioned had lately been confined at Montross so that no Preacher was now left in Edenborough or the Port adjoyning to intercede for themselves and the Kirk in that present exigent By means whereof the Acts were passed without interruption But when they were to be proclaimed as the custom is Mr. Robert Pont Minister of St. Cutberts and one of the Senators of the Colledge of Justice for the good Ministers might act in Civil Matters though the Bishops might not took Instruments in the hands of a publick Notary and openly protested against those Acts never agreed to by the Kirk and therefore that neither the Kirk nor any of the Kirk-men were obliged to be obedient to them Which having done he fled also into England to the rest of his Brethren and being proclaimed Rebel lost his place in the Sessions 64 The flying of so many Ministers and the noise they made in England against those Acts encreased a scandalous opinion which themselves had raised of the Kings being inclined to Popery and it began to be so generally believed that the King found himself under a necessity of rectifying his reputation in the eye of the world by a publick Manifest In which he certified as well to his good subjects as to all others whatsoever whom it might concern as well the just occasion which had moved him to pass those Acts as the great Equity and Reason which appeared in them And amongst these occasions he reckoneth the justifying of the Fact at Ruthen by the publick suffrage of the Kirk Melvins declining of the judgement of the King and Council the Fast indicted at the entertainment of the French Ambassadors their frequent general Fasts proclaimed and kept in all parts of the Realm by their Authority without his privity and consent the usurping of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a certain number of Ministers and unqualified Gentlemen in the Presbyteries and Assemblies the alteration of the Laws and making new ones at their pleasure which must binde the Subject the drawing to themselves of all such Causes though properly belonging to the Courts of Justice in which was any mixture of scandal On which account they forced all those also to submit to the Churches Censures who had been accused in those Courts for Murther Theft or any like enormous crimes though the party either were absolved by the Court it self or pardoned by the King after condemnation But all this could not stop the Mouthes and much less stay the Pens of that Waspish Sect some flying out against the King in their scurrilous Libels bald Pamphlets and defamatory Rythmes others with no less violence inveighing against him in their Pulpits but most especially in England where they were out of the Kings reach and consequently might rail on without fear of punishment By them it was given out to render the King odious both at home and abroad That the King endeavoured to extinguish the light of the Gospel and to that end had caused those Acts to pass against it That he had left nothing of the whole ancient Form of Justice and Polity in the Spiritual Estate but a naked shaddow That Popery was immediately to be established if God and all good men came not in to help them That for opposing these impieties they had been forced to flee their Country and sing the Lords Song in a strange Land with many other reproachful and calumnious passages of like odious nature 65. But loosers may have leave to talk as the saying is and by this barking they declared sufficiently that they could not bite I have now brought the Presbyterians to their lowest fall but we shall see them very shortly in their resurrections In the mean time it will be seasonable to pass into England that we may see how things were carried by their Brethren there till we have brought them also to this point of time and then we shall unite them all together in the course of their story The end of the fifth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB VI. Containing The beginning progress and proceedings of the Puritan-Faction in the Realm of England in reference to their Innovations both in Doctrines and Forms of Worship their Opposition to the Church and the Rules thereof from the beginning of the Reign of King Edward VI. 1548 to the Fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1572. 1. THE Reformation of the Church of England was put into so good a way by King Henry the Eighth that it was no hard matter to proceed upon his beginnings He had once declared himself so much in favour of the Church of Rome by writing against Martin Luther that he was honored with the Title of Defensor Fidei or the Defender of the Faith by Pope Leo X. Which Title he afterwards united by Act of Parliament to the Crown of this Realm not many years before his death But a breach hapning betwixt him and Pope Clement VII concerning his desired Divorce he first prohibits all appeals and other occasions of resort to
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
adds more Fewel to the former flame and he resolves to give the Queen as little comfort of that Crown as if it were a Crown of Thorns as indeed it proved For taking England in his way he applies himself to some of the Lords of the Council to whom he represents the dangers which must needs ensue to Queen Elizabeth if Mary his own Queen were suffered to return into her Country and thereby lay all passages open to the powers of France where she had still a very strong and prevailing party But when he found that she had fortunately escaped the Ships of England that the Subjects from all parts had went away extremely satisfied with her gratious carriage he resolved to make one in the Hosanna as afterwards he was the Chief in the Crucifige he applies himself unto the Queens humour with all art and industry and really performed to her many signal services in gratifying her with the free exercise of her own Religion in which by reason of his great Authority with the Congregation he was best able to oblige both her self and her servants By this means he became so great in the eyes of the Court that the Queen seemed to be governed wholly by him and that he might continue always in so good a posture she first conferred upon him the Earldom of Murray and after married him to a Daughter of Keith Earl-Marshal of Scotland Being thus honoured and allyed his next care was to remove all impediments which he found in the way to his aspiring The Ancient and Potent Family of the Gourdons he suppressed and ruined though after it reflourished in its ancient glory But his main business was to oppress the Hamiltons as the next Heirs unto the Crown in the common opinion the Chief whereof whom the French King had created Duke of Chasteau-Herald a Town in Poictou he had so discountenanced that he was forced to leave the Court and suffer his eldest Son the Earl of Arrane to be kept in prison under pretence of some distemper in his brain When any great Prince sought the Queen in Marriage he used to tell her that the Scots would never brook the power of a stranger and that whensoever that Crown had fallen into the hands of a Daughter as it did to her a Husband was chosen for her by the Estates of the Kingdom of their own Language Laws and Parentage But when this would not serve his turn to break off the Marriage with the young Lord Darnley none seemed more forward then himself to promote that Match which he perceived he could not hinder Besides he knew that the Gentleman was very young of no great insight in business mainly addicted to his pleasures and utterly unexperienced in the affairs of that Kingdom so that he need not fear the weakning of his power by such a King who desired not to take the Government upon him And in this point he agreed well enough with David Risio though on different ends But when he found the Queen so passionately affected to this second Husband that all Graces and Court-favours were to pass by him that he had not the Queens ear so advantagiously as before he had and that she had revoked some Grants which were made to him and others during her minority as against the Law he thought it most expedient to the furthering of his own concernments to peece himself more nearly with the Earls of Morton Glencarne Arguile and Rothes the Lords Ruthen Vchiltry c. whom he knew to be zealously affected to the Reformation and no way pleased with the Queens Marriage to a person of the other Religion By whom it was resolved that Morton and Ruthen should remain in the Court as well to give as to receive intelligence of all proceedings The others were to take up Arms and to raise the people under pretence of the Queens Marriage to a man of the Popish Religion not taking with her the consent of the Queen of England But being too weak to keep the Field they first put themselves into Carlisle and afterwards into New-castle as before was said and being in this manner fled the Kingdom they are all proclaimed Traytors to the Queen a peremptory day appointed to a publick Tryal on which if they appeared not at the Bar of Justice they were to undergo the sentence of a condemnation 4. And now their Agents in the Court begin to bustle the King was soon perceived to be a meer outside-man of no deep reach into Affairs and easily wrought on which first induced the Queen to set the less value on him nor was it long before some of their Court-Females whispered into her ears that she was much neglected by him that he spent more of his time in Hawking and Hunting and perhaps in more unfit divertisements if Knox speak him rightly then he did in her company and therefore that it would be requisite to lure him in before he was too much on the Wing and beyond her call On these suggestions she gave order to her Secretaries and other Officers to place his name last in all publick Acts and in such Coyns as were new stamped to leave it out This happened as they would have wished For hereupon Earl Morton closeth with the King insinuates unto him how unfit it was that he should be subject to his Wife that it was the duty of women to obey and of men to govern and therefore that he might do well to set the Crown on his own head and take that power into his hands which belonged unto him When they perceived that his ears lay open to the like temptations they then began to buz into them the Risio was grown too powerful for him in the Court that he out-vied him in the bravery both of Clothes and Horses and that this could proceed from no other ground then the Queens affection which was suspected by wise men to be somewhat greater then might stand with honour And now the day draws on apace on which Earl Murray and the rest were to make their appearance and therefore somewhat must be done to put the Court into such confusion and the City of Edenborough into such disorder that they might all appear without fear or danger of any legal prosecution to be made against him The day designed for their appearance was the twelfth day of March and on the day before say some or third day before as others the Conspirators go unto the King seemed to accuse him of delay tell him that now or never was the time to revenge his injuries for that he should now finde the fellow in the Queens private Chamber without any force to make resistance So in they rush findâ— David sitting at the Queens Table the Countess of Arguile onely between them Ruthen commands him to arise and to go with him telling him that the place in which he sate did no way beseem him The poor fellow runs unto the Queen for protection and clasps his arms
concernment to the Church were then also moved but they were onely promised without any performance It was also then agreed between them that all Noblemen Barons and other Professors should imploy their whole Forces Strength and Power for the punishment of all and whatsoever persons that should be tryed and found guilty of that horrible Murther of late committed on the King And further that all the Kings and Princes which should succeed in following times to the Crown of that Realm should be bound by Oath before their Inauguration to maintain the true Religion of Christ professed then presently in that Kingdom Thus the Confederates and the Kirk are united together and hard it is to say whether of the two were least execusable before God and man But they followed the light of their own principles and thought that an excuse sufficient without fear of either 14. The news of these proceedings alarms all Christendom and presently Ambassadors are dispatched from France and England to mediate with the Confederates they must not be called Rebels for the Queens Delivery Throgmorton for the Queen of England presseth hard upon it and shewed himself exceeding earnest and industrious in pursuance of it But Knox and self-interest prevailed more amongst them then all intercessions whatsoever there being nothing more insisted upon by that fiery spirit then that she was to be deprived of her Authority and Life together And this he thundred from the Pulpit with as great a confidence as if he had received his Doctrine at Mount Sinai from the hands of God at the giving of the Law to Moses Nor was Throgmorton thought to be so Zealous on the other side as he outwardly seemed For he well knew how much it might concern his Queen in her personal safety and the whole Realm of England in its peace and happiness that the poor Queen should be continued in the same or a worse condition to which these wretched men had brought her And therefore it was much suspected by most knowing men that secretly he did more thrust on her deprivation with one hand then he seemed to hinder it with both Wherewith incouraged or otherwise being too far gone to retire with safety Lindsay and Ruthen are dispatched to Lochlevin-house to move her for a resignation of the Crown to her Infant-Son Which when she would by no means yeild to a Letter is sent to her from Throgmorton to perswade her to it assuring her that whatsoever was done by her under that constraint would be void in Law This first began to work her to that resolution But nothing more prevailed upon her then the rough carriage of the two Lords which first made the motion By whom she was threatned in plain terms that if she did not forthwith yeild unto the desires of her people they would question her for incontinent living the murther of the King her tyranny and the manifest violation of the Laws of the Land in some secret transactions with the French Terrified wherewith without so much as reading what they offered to her she sets her hand to three several Instruments In the first of which she gave over the Kingdom to her young Son at that time little more then a twelve Month old in the second she constituted Murray Vice-Roy during his minority and in the third in case that Murray should refuse it she substitutes Duke Hamilton the Earls of Lenox Arguile Athol Morton Glencarne and Marre all but the two first being sworn Servants unto Murray and the two first made use of onely to discharge the matter 15. Thus furnished and impowered the Lords return in triumph to their fellows at Edenborough with the sound of a Trumpet and presently it was resolved to Crown the Infant-King with as much speed as might be for fear of all such alterations as might otherwise happen And thereunto they spurred on with such precipitation that whereas they extorted those subscriptions from her on St. Iame's day being the 25 of Iuly the Coronation was dispatched on the 29. The Sermon for the greater grace of the matter must be preached by Knox but the superstitious part and ceremony of it was left to be performed by the Bishop of Orknay another of the natural Sons of Iames the Fifth assisted by two Superintendents of the Congregation And that all things might come as near as might be to the Ancient Forms the Earl of Morton and the Lord Humes took Oath for the King that he should maintain the Religion which was then received and minister Justice equally to all the Subjects Of which particular the King made afterwards an especial use in justifying the use of God-fathers and God mothers at the Baptizing of Infants when it was questioned in the Conference at hampton-Hampton-court Scarce fifteen days were past from the Coronation when Murray shewed himself in Scotland as if he had dropt down from Heaven for the good of the Nation but he had took England in his way and made himself so sure a party in that Court that he was neither affraid to accept the Regencie in such a dangerous point of time nor to expostulate bitterly with his own Queen for her former actions not now the same man as before in the time of her glories For the first handselling of his Government he calls a Parliament and therein ratifies the Acts of 1560 for suppressing Popery as had been promised to the last general Assembly and then proceeds to the Arraignment of Hepbourne Hay and Daglish for the horrible murther of the King by each of which it was confessed at their execution that Bothwel was present at the murther and that he had assured them at their first ingaging that most of the Noble-men in the Realm Murray and Morton amongst others were consenting to it 16. And now or never must the Kirk begin to bear up bravely In which if they should fail let Knox bear the blame for want of well-tutoring them in the Catechism of their own Authority They found themselves so necessary to this new Establishment that it could not well subsist without them and they resolved to make the proudest he that was to feel the dint of their spirit A general Assembly was convened not long after the Parliament by which the Bishop of Orknay was convented and deposed from his Function for joyning the Queen in Marriage to the Earl of Bothwel though he proceeded by the Form of their own devising And by the same the Countess of Arguile was ordained after citation on their part and appearance on hers to give satisfaction to the Kirk for being present at the Baptism of the Infant-King because performed according to the Rites of the Church of Rome the satisfaction to be made in Stirling where she had offended upon a Sunday after Sermon the more particular time and manner of it to be prescribed by the Superintendent of Lothian And this was pretty handsome for the first beginning according whereunto it was thought fit by the Chief Leaders to
v. 28. The second was Dr. Buckeridg then Master of St. Iohn's Colledg in Oxon and afterwards preferred to the See of Rochester who no less learnedly evinced the King's Supremacy in all Concernments of the Church selecting for his Text the words of same Apostle Rom. 13. v. 1. Next followed Dr. Andrews then Bishop of Chichester who taking for his Text those words of Moses viz. Make thee two Trumpets of silver c. Numb 10. v. 2. convincingly demonstrated out of all Antiquity That the calling of all General and National Councils had appertained unto the Supreme Christian Magistrate Dr. King then Dean of Christ-Church brings up the Rear and taking for his Text those words of the Canticles Cap. 8. v. 11. disproved the calling of Lay-Elders as men that had no Power in governing the Church of Christ nor were so much as heard of in the Primitive times But neither the Learned Discourses of these Four Prelates nor the Arguments of the Scottish Bishops nor the Authority and Elocution of the King could gain at all on these deaf Adders who came resolved not to hear the voice of those Charmers charmed they never so wisely Thus have we seen them in their Crimes and now we are to look upon them in their several Punishments And first the Ministers which had been summoned into England were there commanded to remain until further The six which were condemned for Treason were sentenced by the King to perpetual banishment and never to return to their Native Countrey upon pain of death And as for those which had acknowledged their offence and submitted to mercy they were confined unto the Isles and out-parts of the Kingdom where they may possibly work some good but could do no harm After which Andrew Melvin having made a Seditious Libel against the Altar and the Furniture thereof in His Majesty's Chappel was brought into the Starr-Chamber by an Ore tenus where he behaved himself so malepertly toward all the Lords and more particularly towards the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London and there remained till he was begged by the Duke of Bouillon and by him made Professor of Divinity in the School of Sedan 21. During the time that all men's Eyes were fastned on the issue of this great Dispute the King thought fit to call a Parliament in Scotland which he managed by Sir George Hume his right trusty Servant not long before created Earl of Dunbar and made Lord Treasurer of that Kingdom His chief Work was to settle the Authority of the King and the Calling of Bishops that they might mutually support each other in the Government of the Church and Stateâ—punc It was supposed that no small opposition would be made against him by some Puritan Ministers who repaired in great numbers to the Town as on their parts it was resolved on But he applyed himself unto them with such Art and Prudence that having taken off their edg the Acts passed easily enough with the Lords and Commons By the first Act the King's Prerogative was confirmed over all Persons and in all Causes whatsoever Which made Him much more Absolute in all Affairs which had relation to the Church than he had been formerly And by the next entituled An Act for Restitution of the Estate of Bishops the Name of Bishops was conferred upon such of the Ministers as by the King were nominated unto any of the Bishop-Sees and thereby authorized to have place in Parliament A course was also taken by it to repossess the Bishops of the Lands of their several Churches as well as their Titles and Degree not that a Plenary re-possession of their Lands was then given unto them but that by a Repeal of the late Act of Annexation the King was put into a capacity of restoring so much of the Rents as remained in the Crown and otherwise providing for them out of his Revenues And that the like distraction might not be made of their Estates for the time to come an Act was passed for restraining such Dilapidations as had impoverish'd all the Bishopricks since the Reformation After which and the dooming of the greater Zealots to their several Punishments he indicts a general Assembly at Linlithgow in December following at which convened One hundred thirty six Ministers and about Thirty three of the Nobility and principal Gentry In this Assembly it was offered in behalf of his Majesty That all Presbyteries should have their constant Moderators for whose encouragement his Majesty would assign to each of them a yearly stipend amounting to One hundred pounds or Two hundred Marks in the Scots account That the Bishops should be Moderators of all Presbyteries in the Towns and Cities where they made their residence as also in Provincial and Diocesan Synods and that the Bishops should assume upon themselves the charge of prosecuting Papists till they returned to their obedience to the King and the Church In the obtaining of which Acts there was no small difficulty but he obtained them at the last though not without some limitations and restrictions super-added to them under pretence of keeping the Commissioners hereafter to be called Bishops within their bounds 22. The Presbyterians notwithstanding were not willing to forgo their Power but strugling like half-dying men betwixt life and death laid hold on all advantages which were offered to them in opposition to the Acts before agreed on Gladstanes Arch-bishop of St. Andrews taking upon him to preside as Moderator in the Synod of Fife being within his proper Diocese and Jurisdiction was for a while opposed by some of the Ministers who would have gone to an Election as at other times The Presbyteries also in some places refused to admit the Bishops for their Moderators according to the Acts and Constitutions of the said Assembly Which though it put the Church into some disorder yet the Bishops carried it at the last the stoutest of the Ministers suâ—mitting in the end unto that Authority which they were not able to contend with In which conjuncture the King gives order for a Parliament to be held in Iune in which He passed some severe Laws against the Papists prohibiting the sending of their Children to be educated beyond the Seas and giving order for the choice of Pedagogues or Tutors to instruct them there as also against Jesuits and the Sayers and Hearers of Mass. The cognizance of several Causes which anciently belonged to the Bishops Courts had of late times been setled in the Sessions or Colledg of Justice But by an Act of this Parliament they are severed from it and the Episcopal Jurisdiction restored as formerly the Lords of the Session being in lieu thereof rewarded with Ten thousand pounds yearly which must be understood according to the Scottish account out of the Customs of that Kingdom It was enacted also That the King from thenceforth might appoint such Habit as to him seemed best to Judges Magistrates and Church-men Which
fearing nor having cause to fear the least disturbance With those of the Catholick Party they were grown so intimate by reason of their frequent inter-marriages with one another that in few years they might have been incorporated with them and made of the same Family though of different Faiths The exercise of their Religion had been permitted to them since the passing of the Edict of Nants 1598 without interruption And that they might have satisfaction also in the Courts of Justice some Courts were purposely erected for their ease and benefit which they called Les Chambres d' l' Edict wherein there were as many Judges and other Officers of their own Perswasions as there were of the contrary In a word they lived so secure and happy that they wanted nothing to perpetuate their Felicities to succeeding Ages but Moderation in themselves Gratitude to Almighty God and good Affections towards their King 44. Such were the Fortunes and Successes of the Presbyterians in the rest of Christendom during the last ten years of the Reign of K. IAMES and the beginnings of K. CHARLES By which both Kings might see how unsafe they were if men of such Pragmatical Spirits and Seditious Principles should get ground upon them But K. IAMES had so far supported them in the Belgick Provinces that his own Calvinists presumed on the like Indulgence which prompted them to set nought by his Proclamations to vilifie his Instructions and despise his Messages Finally they made tryal of his patience also by setting up one Knight of Broadgates now called Pembroke Colledg to preach upon the Power of such popular Officers as Calvin thinks to be ordained by Almighty God for curbing and restraining the Power of Kings In which though Knight himself was censured the Doctrines solemnly condemned execution done upon a Book of Pareus which had misguided the unfortunate and ignorant man yet the Calvinians most tenaciously adhered to their Master's tendries with an intent to bring them into use and practise when occasion served So that K. IAMES with all his King-craft could find no better way to suppress their Insolencies than by turning Mountague upon them a man of mighty Parts and an undaunted Spirit and one who knew as well as any how to discriminate the Doctrines of the Church of England from those which were peculiar to the Sect of Calvin By which he galled and gagged them more than his Popish Adversary but raised thereby so many Pens against himself that he might seem to have succeeded in the state of Ismael 45. In this conjuncture of Affairs K. IAMES departs this life and K. CHARLES succeeds who to ingratiate himself with this powerful Faction had plunged his Father in a Warr with the House of Austria by which he was brought under the necessity of calling Parliaments and gave those Parliaments the courage to dispute his Actions For though they promised to stand to him with their Lives and Fortunes in prosecution of that Warr yet when they had engaged him in it they would not part with any money to defray that Charge till they had stripped him of the Richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem But he was much more punished in the consequence of his own Example in aiding those of Rochel against their King whereby he trained up his own Subjects in the School of Rebellion and taught them to confederate themselves with the Scots and Dutch to seize upon his Forts and Castles invade the Patrimony of the Church and to make use of his Revenue against himself To such Misfortunes many Princes do reduce themselves when either they engage themselves to maintain a Party or govern not their Actions by the Rules of Justice but are directed by self-ends or swayed by the corrupt Affections of untrusty Ministers These things I only touch at here which I reserve for the Materials of another History as I do also all the intermediate passages in the Reign of K. CHARLES before the breaking out of the Scottish Tumults and most of the preparatives to the Warr of England AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XIII Containing The Insurrections of the Presbyterian or Puritan Faction in the Realm of Scotland The Rebellions raised by them in England Their horrid Sacriledges Murders Spoils and Rapines in pursuit thereof Their Innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline And the greatest Alteration made in the Civil Government from the year 1636 to the year 1647 when they were stript of all Command by the Independents 1. THE Presbyterian-Scots and the Puritan-English were not so much discouraged by the ill successes of their Brethren in France and Germany as animated by the prosperous Fortunes of their Friends in Holland Who by Rebellion were grown Powerful and by Rapine Wealthy and by the Reputation of their Wealth and Power were able to avenge themselves on the opposite Party To whose Felicities if those in England did aspire they were to entertain those Counsels and pursue those courses by which the others had attained them that is to say They were by secret practises to diminish the King's Power and Greatness to draw the people to depend upon their Directions to dissolve all the Ligaments of the former Government and either call in Forreign Forces or form an Army of their own to maintain their doings And this had been the business of the Puritan Faction since the death of Bancroft when by the retirements of K. IAMES from all cares of Government and the connivance or remisness of Arch-bishop Abbot the Reins were put into their hands Which gave them time and opportunity to grow strong in Parliaments under pretence of standing for the Subjects Property against the encroachments of the Court and for the preservation of the true Religion against the practises of the Papists By which two Artifices they first weakned the Prerogative Royal to advance their own and by the diminution of the King's Authority endeavoured to erect the People's whom they represented And then they practised to asperse with the Name of Papist all those who either join not with them in their Sabbath-Doctrines or would not captivate their Judgments unto Calvin's Dictates Their actings in all which particulars either as Zealots for the Gospel in maintaining Calvinism or Patriots for the Common-wealth in bringing down the Power and Reputation of the two last Kings shall be at large delivered in the Life of the late Arch-bishop and consequently may be thought unnecessary to be here related And therefore pretermitting all their former practises by which their Party was prepared and the Design made ready to appear in publick we will proceed to a Relation of the following passages when they had pulled off their Disguise and openly declared themselves to be ripe for Action 2. The Party in both Kingdoms being grown so strong that they were able to proceed from Counsel unto Execution there wanted nothing but a fair occasion for putting themselves into a posture of defence and from that posture breaking
the conduct of the Cause and had befooled themselves and others with the flattering hopes of gaining the Free exercise of their Religion It cannot be denyed but that they were resolved so to act their parts that Religion might not seem to have any hand in it or at the least might not suffer by it if the plot miscarried To which end they procured the chief Lawyers of France and Germany and many of the reformed Divines of the greatest eminence to publish some Writings to this purpose that is to say that without violating the Majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful Magistrate they might oppose with Arms the violent Domination of the House of Guise who were given out for Enemies to the true Religion hinderers of the course of Justice and in effect no better then the Kings Jaylors as the case then stood But this Mask was quickly taken off and the design appeared bare faced without any vizard For presently upon the routing of the Forces in the Woods of Amboise they caused great tumults to be raised in Poictou Languedock and Provence To which the Preachers of Geneva were forthwith called and they came as willingly their Followers being much increased both in courage and numbers as well by their vehemency in the Pulpit as their private practices In Daulpheny and some parts of Provence they proceeded further seized upon divers of the Churches for the Exercise of their Religion as if all matters had succeeded answerable to their expectation But on the first coming of some Forces from the Duke of Guise they shrunk in again and left the Country in the same condition wherein first they found it Of this particular Calvin gives notice unto Bullenger by his Letters of the 27 of May Anno 1560 complaining much of the extreme rashness and fool-hardiness of some of that party whom no sober counsels could restrain from those ingagements which might have proved so dangerous and destructive to the cause of Religion Which words of his relate not onely to the Action of Daulphine and Provence but to some of the attempts preceding whatsoever they were by him discouraged and disswaded if we may believe him 8. But though we may believe him as I think we may the Pope and Court of France were otherwise perswaded of it Reinadoes going from Geneva to unite the party was as unlikely to be done without his allowance as without his privity But certainly the Ministers of Geneva durst not leave their Flocks to Preach Sedition to the French of Provence and Languedock if he had neither connived at it or advised them to it and such connivings differ but little from commands as we find in Salvian Once it is sure that the Pope suggested to the French King by the Bishop of Viterbo whom he sent in the nature of a Legate that all the mischief which troubled France and the Poyson which infected that Kingdom and the Neighbouring Countries for so I finde in my Authoâ— came from no other Fountain then the Lake of Geneva that by digging at the very Root he might divert a great part of that nourishment by which those mischiefs were fomented and that by prosecuting such a Forraign War he might evacuate those bad humours which distempered his Kingdom and therefore if the King be pleased to engage herein his Holiness would not onely send him some convenient Aids but move the Scotch King and the Duke of Savoy to assist him also But neither the Queen-Mother nor the Guise for the King acted little in his own affairs could approve the motion partly for fear of giving offence unto the Switzers with whom Geneva had confederated thirty years before and partly because none being like to engage in that War but the Catholicks onely the Kingdom would thereby lye open to the adverse party But nothing more diverted the three Princes from concurring in it then the impossibility of complying with their several interesses in the disposing of the Town when it should be taken The Duke of Savoy would not enter into the War before he was assured by the other Princes that he should reap the profit of it that belonging anciently to his jurisdiction But it agreed neither with the interest of France nor Spain to make the Duke greater then he was by so fair an addition as would be made to his Estate were it yeilded to him The Spaniard knew that the French King would never bring him into France or put into his hands such a fortified pass by which he might enter when he pleased As on the other side the Spaniards would not suffer it to fall into the power of the French by reason of its neer Neighbour-hood unto the County of Burgundy which both then was and ever since hath been appendant on the Crown of Spain By reason of which mutual distrusts and jealousies the Pope received no other answer to his motion in the Court of France but that it was impossible to apply themselves to matters abroad when they were exercised at home with so many concernments 9. This answer pinched upon the Pope who found as much confusion in the State of Avignion belonging for some hundreds of years to the See of Rome as the French could reasonably complain in the Bowels of France For lying as it did within the limits of Provence and being visited with such of the French Preachers as had been studied at Geneva the people generally became inclined unto Calvins Doctrines and made profession of the same both in private and publick nay they resolved upon the lawfulness of taking up of Arms against the Pope though their natural Lord partly upon pretence that the Country was unjustly taken from the Earls of Tholouse by the Predecessors of the Pope partly because the present Pope could prove no true Lineal Succession from the first Usurper but chiefly in regard that persons Ecclesiastical were disabled by Christs Commandments from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction over other men Being thus resolved to rebel they put themselves by the perswasion of Alexander Guilatine a professed Civilian into the protection of Charles Count de Mont-brun who had then taken Arms against the King in the Country of Daulphine Mont-brun accepts of the imployment enters the Territory of Avignion with three thousand Foot reduceth the whole Country under his command the Popes Vice-Legate in the City being hardly able for the present to make good the Castle But so it happened that the Cardinal of Tournon whose Niece the Count had married being neer the place prevailed with him after some discourse to withdraw his Forces and to retire unto Geneva assuring him not onely of his Majesties pardon and the restitution of his Goods which had been confiscated but that he should have liberty of Conscience also which he prized far more then both the other By which Action the people were necessitated to return to their old obedience but with so many fears and jealousies on either side that many
was also condescended to in favour of particular persons that all Lords of free Mannors throughout the Kingdoms might in their own Houses lawfully celebrate Marriage and Baptism after their own manner provided that the Assembly exceeded not the number of ten and that there should be no inquisition upon mens Consciences Liberty being given to such as had no minde to abide in the Kingdom that they might sell their Lands and Goods and live where they pleased 32. Such were the Actings of the French Calvinians as well by secret practices as open Arms during the troublesome Reign of Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth and such their variable Fortunes according to the interchanges and successes of those broken times in which for fifteen years together there was nothing to be heard but Wars and rumours of Wars short intervals of Peace but such as generally were so full of fears and jealousies that they were altogether as unsafe as the Wars themselves So that the greatest calm of Peace seemed but a preparation to a War ensuing to which each party was so bent that of a poyson it became their most constant Food In which distraction of affairs dyed King Charles the Ninth in the â—ive and twentieth year of his age and fourteenth of his Reign leaving this life at Paris on the 30 of May Anno 1574. He had been used for some months to the spitting of bloud which brought him first into a Feaver and at last to his grave not without some retaliation of the Heavenly Justice in punishing that Prince by vomiting up the bloud of his Body natural which had with such prodigious cruelty exhausted so much of the best bloud of the body Politick After whose death the Crown descended upon Henry the new King of Poland who presently upon the news thereof forsook that Kingdom and posted with all speed to Venice and from thence to France where he was joyfully received by all loyal Subjects At his first coming to the Crown he resolved to put an end to those combustions which had so often inflamed his Kingdom and extinguish all those heats which had exasperated one party against another that he might sit as Umpire or Supreme Moderator of the present differences and draw unto himself an absolute Soveraignty over both alike which to effect he resolves to prosecute the War so coldly that the Hugonots might conceive good hopes of his moderation but still to keep the War on foot till he could finde out such a way to bring on the peace as might create no suspition of him in the hearts of the Catholicks By which means hoping to indulge both parties he was perfectly believed by none each party shewing it self distrustful of his inclinations and each resolving to depend on some other Heads 33. About this time when all men stood amazed at these proceedings of the Court the State began to swarm with Libels and Seditious Pamphlets published by those of the Hugonot Faction full of reproach and fraught with horrible invectives not onely against the present Government but more particularly against the persons of the Queen and all her Children Against the Authors whereof when some of the Council purposed to proceed with all severity the Queen-mother interposed her power and moderated by her prudence the intended rigors affirming as most true it was that such severity would onely gain the greater credit to those scurrilous Pamphlets which would otherwise vanish of themselves or be soon forgotten Amongst which Pamphlets there was none more pestilent then that which was composed in the way of a Dialogue pretending one â—usebius Philadelphus for the Author of it Buchanan buildinâ— first upon Calvins Principles had published his Seditious Pamphlet De jure Regni apud Scotos together with that scurrilous and infamous Libel which he called The Detection repleat with nothing but reproaches of his lawful Soveraign But this Eusebius Philadelphus or whosoever he was that masked himself under that disguise resolved to go beyond his pattern in all the acts of Malice Slandering and Sedition but be out gone by none that should follow after him in those ways of wickedness Two other Tracts were published about this time also both of them being alike mischievous and tending to the overthrow of all publick Government but wanting something of the Libel in them as the other had Of these the one was called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos or the rescuing of the people from the power of Tyrants published under the name of Stephanus Brutus but generally believed to be writ by Beza the chief surviving Patron of the Presbyterians In which he prostitutes the dignity of the Supreme Magistrate to the lusts of the people and brings them under the command of such popular Magistrates as Calvin makes to be the Conservators of the publick Liberty The other was intituled De jure Magistratos in subditos built on the same grounds and published with the same intention as the others were A piece so mischievous in it self and so destructive of the peace of Humane Society that each side was ashamed to own it the Papists fathering it upon Hottoman a French Civilian the Presbyterians on Hiclerus a Romish Priest But it appears plainly by the Conference at Hampton-Court that it was published by some of the Disciplinarians at whose doors I leave it 34. But for Eusebius Philadelphus he first defames the King and Queen in a most scandalous manner exposes next that flourishing Kingdom for a prey to strangers and finally lays down such Seditious Maximes as plainly tend to the destruction of Monarchical Government He tells us of the King himself that he was trained up by his Tutors in no other qualities then drinking whoring swearing and forswearing frauds and falsehoods and whatsoever else might argue a contempt both of God and Godliness that as the Court by the Example of the King so by the Example of the Court all the rest of the Kingdom was brought into a reprobate sence even to manifest Atheism and that as some of their former Kings were honoured with the Attributes of fair wise debonaire well-beloved c. so should this King be known by no other name then Charles the treacherous The Duke of Anjou he sets forth in more ugly colours then he doth the King by adding this to all the rest of his Brothers vices that he lived in a constant course of Incest with his Sister the Princess Margaret as well before as after her Espousal to the King of Navar. For the Queen-mother he can finde no better names then those of Fredegond Brunechild Iezabel and Messalina of which the two first are as infamous in the stories of France as the two latter in the Roman and Sacred Histories And to expose them all together he can give the Queen-mother and her Children though his natural Princes no more cleanly title then that of a Bitch-wolfe and her Whelps affirming that in Luxury Cruelty and Perfidiousness they had exceeded all the
Haynalt for the Marquess of Bergen they were compelled in the end to submit to mercie which was so intermixed with justice that thirty six of the principal Incendiaries were beheaded some of their Preachers hanged and some Souldiers executed the Liberties of the City being seized and declared to be forfeit till the King should be pleased to restore them Those of Valenciennes had been animated by the Consistories of some other Cities to make good the Town against Norcarmius as long as they could assuring them that he must shortly raise the Siege to quench the fire that would be kindled in another Province Accordingly it was contrived that some Foot-Companies which lay in Armentieres should waste the Country about Lisle in Flanders Gallicant and that whilst Rassinghen the Governour of Lisle drew out of the City to suppress them the Calvinists of Tournay by the aid of their Brethren within that City should possess themselves of it And so far it succeeded as they had projected that the Armenterians being conducted by one Cornelius who of a Smith became a Preacher and would needs make himself a Commander also acted their part in the designe but easily were subdued by Rassinghen at the first assault The news whereof not onely terrified the Consistorians within Lisle it self but so disheartned those of Tournay who hoped to have made themselves Masters of it that they thought it best for them to retire but being set upon by Norcarmius who had drawn some Forces from his Camp before Valenciennes to perform this service they were utterly routed most of their men amounting to four thousand either killed or taken two Barrels of Powder twenty Field-peeces and nine Colours falling into the hands of the Conquering Army with which Norcarmius marching on directly to the Gates of Tournay commands them in the name of the Governess to receive a Garrison entred the Town disarms the people imprisoned the Incendiaries restored the Bishop and Clergy to their former power and finally imposed such a Governour over them as was like to give a good account of them for the times ensuing 37. The taking of these Towns to mercy the like success in other places and a report that Ferdinand of Toledo Duke of Alva was coming forwards with an Army to make way for the King did so deject the Heads of the Gheuses and the rest of the Covenanters that most of them began to droop whereof the Governess did not need to be advertised and was resolved to make some present use of the Consternation She therefore causes a new Oath or Protestation to be forthwith made and to be taken by all Magistrates and Officers both of Peace and War by which they were to bind themselves without exception to obey any who should be appointed in the Kings name for their Supreme Governour And this she was resolved upon against all disswasions not that she meant to use it for a discrimination by which she might discover how they stood affected to his Majesties Service but that she might with less envy displace all such as wilfully refused the Oath or punish them with death and confiscation if they brake their Faith Being propounded to the Council it was cheerfully approved and subscribed by some and resolutely opposed by others under pretence that they had formerly took the Oath of Allegiance to the King himself and that Oaths were not to be multiplyed without just necessity But none more pertinaciously refused it then the Prince of Orange who devised many plausible reasons in his justification but such as were of little weight when they came to the ballance Count Egmont for a while demurred but at last submitted and took the Oath as others of the Council had done before the falling off of which great man so amazed the rest that every one thought it now high time to provide for himself The Prince of Orange with his Family retireth unto his County of Nassaw but leaves his Ministers behinde him to maintain his Interest Count Brederode departs for Germany where he dyed soon after Count William de la March commonly called the Baron of Lume takes Sanctuary in the Realm of England Bomberg not finding any safety to be had in the Bosch abandoneth it to the Regents Empire by whom it was not onely forced to receive a Garrison but also to redeem their priviledges for a sum of money After which most of the revolted Cities came in so speedily that there was nothing to be seen of the late Rebellion 38. And here the Country might have been resetled in its firm obedience if either the King had gone in person to confirm the Provinces or had imployed a Minister less odious then the Duke of Alva the cruelty of whose nature was both known and feared or rather if the Prince of Orange and the rest of that Faction had not preserved themselves for an aftergaâ—e But the King stays behinde and the Duke comes forward And coming forward with an Army of experienced Souldiers entreth the Provinces assumes the Government imprisoneth many of the Nobility the Counts of Horn and Egmont amongst the rest whom he after executed The news whereof being brought unto Cardinal Granvel he is reported to have said That if one Fish by which he meant the Prince of Orange had escaped the Net the Duke of Alva 's draught would be nothing worth And so it proved in the event for the Prince being strong in Kindred and Alliances in the Higher Germany made use of all his interest in them for the securing of his life and the recovery of his Lands and Honours of which he was judicially deprived by the Duke of Alva who caused the sentence of condemnation to be passed upon him confiscates his Estate proâ—cribes his person placeth a Garrison in Breda entreth on all the rest of his Towns and Lands and finally seizeth upon Philip Earl of Buren his eldest Son whom he seâ—t prisoner into Spain The news whereof gave little trouble to the Prince because it made his taking Arms the more excusable in the sigâ—t of men For now besides the common quarrel of his Country and the cause of Religion he might pretend an unavoidable necessity of fighting for his Life Lands Honours and Posterity unless he would betray them all by a wilful sluggishness Besides he was not without hope that if he should miscarry in the present enterprise his Eldest Son being brought up in the Court of Spain might be restored to those Estates which himself had lost but if he prospered in his work and that the King should still think fit to detain him Prisoner he had another Son by the Daughter of Saxonie who might succeed him as he did in his power and greatness 39. But first he thought it most agreeable to his present condition to employ other hands and heads besides his own to which end he had so contrived it that whilst his brother Lodowick invaded Friesland and Count Hostrat out of Iuliers and the Lower
and in his own Patrimonial Right was Lord of the strong Towns and goodly Signories of Breda Grave and Diest in the Dukedom of Brabant In the right of which last Lordship he was Burgrave of Antwerp He was also Marquess of Vere and Vlushing with some jurisdiction over both in the Isle of Walcheren by Charles the Fifth made Knight of the Golden Fleece and by King Philip Governour of Holland Zealand and the County of Burgundy All which he might have peaceably enjoyed with content and honour as did the Duke of Areschot and many others of the like Nobility if he had aimed onely at a personal or private greatness But it is possible that his thoughts carryed him to a higher pitch and that perceiving what a general hatred was born by the Low Country-men against the Spaniard he thought it no impossible thing to dispossess them at the last of all those Provinces and to get some of them for himself And he had put fair for it had not death prevented him by which his life and projects were cut off together For compassing which projects he made use of that Religion which best served his turn being bred a Lutheran by his Father he profest himself a Romanist under Charles the Fifth and after finding the Calvinians the more likely men to advance his purposes he declared himself chiefly in their favour though he permitted other Sects and Sectaries to grow up with them in which respect he openly opposed all Treaties Overtures and Propositions looking towards a peace which might not come accompanied with such a liberty of Conscience both in Doctrine and Worship as he knew well could never be admitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King But the Calvinians of all others were most dear unto him By his encouragement the Belgick Confession was drawn up and agreed upon 1567. By his countenance being then Burgrave and Governour of Antwerp as before is said they set up their Consistory in that City as afterwards in many others of the Dukedome of Brabant and by his favour they attained unto such Authority and took such deep root in Holland Zealand and the rest of the Provinces under his command that they prevailed in fine over all Religious Sects and Sectaries which are therein tolerated 57. And that they might the better be enabled to retain that power which under him they had acquired they were resolved not to return again to their first obedience which they conceived so inconsistent with it and destructive of it To this end they commit the Government to some few amongst them under the name of the Estates who were to govern all affairs which concerned the publick in the nature of a Common-wealth like to that of the Switzers so much the more agreeable to them because it came more neer to that form or Polity which they had erected in the Church And in this posture they will stand as long as they can which if they found themselves unable to continue with any comfort and that they needs must have a Prince they will submit themselves to the French and English or perhaps the Dane to any rather then their own And to this point it came at last for the Prince of Parma so prevailed that by the taking of Gaunt and Bruges he had reduced all Flanders to the Kings obedience brought Antwerp unto terms of yeilding and carried on the War to the Walls of Vtrecht In which extremity they offered themselves to the French King but his affairs were so perplexed by the Hugonots on the one side and the Guisian Faction on the other that he was not in a fit capacity to accept the offer In the next place they have recourse to the Queen of England not as before to take them into her protection but to accept them for her Subjects and that the acceptance might appear with some shew of justice they insist on her descent from Philip Wife to King Edward the Third Sister and some say Heir of William the Third Earl of Holland Haynalt c. Which Philip if she were the Eldest Daughter of the said Earl William as by their Agents was pretended then was the Queens Title better then that of the King of Spain which was derived from Margaret the other Sister Or granting that Philip was the younger yet on the failer or other legal interruption of the Line of Margaret which seemed to be the case before them the Queen of England might put in for the next Succession and though the Queen upon very good reasons and considerations refused the Soveraignty of those Countries which could not without very great injury to publick justice be accepted by her yet so far she gave way to her own fears the ambition of some great persons who were near unto her and the pretended Zeal of the rest that she admitted them at the last into her protection 58. The Earl of Leicester was at that time of greatest power in the Court of England who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction and eagerly affecting to see himself in the head of an Army sollicited the affair with all care and cunning and it succeeded answerably to his hopes and wishes The Queen consents to take them into her protection to raise an Army of five thousand Foot and one thousand Horse to put it under the Command of a sufficient and experienced General and to maintain it in her pay till the War were ended And it was condescended to on the other side that the Towns of Brill and Vlushing with the Fort of Ramekins should be put into the hands of the English that the Governour whom the Queen should appoint over the Garrisons together with two other persons of her nomination should have place and suffrage in the Council of the States United that all their own Forces should be ranged under the Command of the English General and that the States should make no peace without her consent By which transaction they did not onely totally withdraw themselves from the King of Spain but suffered the English to possess the Gates of the Netherlands whereby they might imbar all Trade shut out all Supplies and hold them unto such conditions as they pleased to give them But any Yoke appeared more tolerable then that of the Spaniard and any Prince more welcome to them then he to whom both God and Nature had made them subject According unto which agreement Vlushing is put into the hands of Sir Philip Sidney the English Army under the Command of the Earl of Leicester and which is more then was agreed on an absolute Authority over all Provinces is committed to him together with the glorious Titles of Governour and Captain-General of Holland Zealand and the rest of the States United which how it did displease the Queen what course was took to mitigate and appease her anger what happened in the war betwixt him and the Prince of Parma and what cross Capers betwixt him and the States themselves is not
but that to wait at her Chamber-door or elsewhere and then to have no further liberty then to whisper in her ear what he had to say or to tell her what others did speak of her was neither agreeable to his vocation nor could stand with his Conscience 38. At Midsummer they held a general Assembly and there agreed upon the Form of a Petition to be presented to the Queen in the name of the Kirk the substance of it was for abolishing the Mass and other superstitious Rites of the Romish Religion for inflicting some punishment against Blasphemie Adultery contempt of the Word the Profanation of Sacraments and other like vices condemned by the Word of God whereof the Laws of the Realm did not take any hold for referring all actions of Divorce to the Churches judgement or at the least to men of good knowledge and conversation for excluding all Popish Church-men from holding any place in Council or Session and finally for the increase and more assured payment of the Ministers Stipends but more particularly for appropriating the Glebes and Houses unto them alone This was the sum of their desires but couched in such irreverent coarse and bitter expressions and those expressions justified with such animosities that Lethington had much ado to prevail upon them for putting it into a more dutiful and civil Language All which the Queen knew well enough and therefore would afford them no better answer but that she would do nothing to the prejudice of that Religion which she then professed and that she hoped to have Mass restored before the end of the year in all parts of the Kingdom Which being so said or so reported gave Knox occasion in his preachings to the Gentry of Kyle and Galloway to which he was commissioned by the said Assembly to forewarn some of them of the dangers which would shortly follow and thereupon earnestly to exhort them to take such order that they might be obedient unto Authority and yet not suffer the Enemies of Gods 〈◊〉 to have the upper-hand And they who understood his meaning at half a word assembled themselves together on the 4 of September at the Town of Air where they entred into a common Bond subscribed by the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Boyd and Vâ—hiliry with one hundred and thirty more of Note and Quality besides the Provost and Burgesses of the Town of Air which made forty more The tenour of which Bond was this that followeth 39. We whose names are under written do promise in the presence of God and in the presence of his Son our Lord Iesus Christ that we and every one of us shall and will maintain the Preaching of his holy Evangel now of his mercy offered and granted to this Realm and also will maintain the Ministers of the same against all persons Power and Authority that will oppose themselves to the Doctrine proposed and by us received And further with the same solemnity we protest and promise that every one of us shall assist another yea and the while Body of the Protestants within this Realm in all lawful and just occasions against all persons so that whosoever shall hurt 〈◊〉 or trouble any of our bodies shall be reputed enemies to the whole except that the offender will be content to submit himself to the Government of the Church now established amongst us And this we do as we desire to be accepted and favoured of the Lord Iesus and accepted worthy of credit and honesty in the presence of the Godly 40. And in pursuance of this Bond they seize upon some Priests and give notice to others that they would not trouble themselves of complaining to the Queen of Council but would execute the punishment appointed to Idolaters in the Law of God as they saw occasion whensoever they should be apprehended At which the Queen was much offended but there was no remedy All she could do was once again to send for Knox and to desire him so to deal with the Barons and other Gentlemen of the West that they would not punish any man for the cause of Religion as they had resolved To which he answered with as little reverence as at other times That if her Majesty would punish Malefactors according to the Laws he durst assure her that she should finde peace and quietness at the hand of those who professed the Lord Iesus in that Kingdom That if she thought or had a purpose to illude the Laws there were some who would not fail to let the Papists understand that they should not be suffered without punishment to offend their God Which said he went about to prove in a long discourse that others were by God intrusted with the Sword of Justice besides Kings and Princes which Kings and Princes if they failed in the right use of it and drew it not against Offenders they must not look to finde obedience from the rest of the Subjects 41. It is not to be doubted but that every understanding Reader will be able to collect out of all the premises both of what Judgement Knox and his Brethren were touching the Soveraignty of Kings or rather the Supreme Power invested naturally in the people of a State or Nation as also from what Fountain they derived their Doctrine and to whose sentence onely they resolved to submit the same But we must make a clearer demonstration of it before we can proceed to the rest of our History that so it may appear upon what ground and under the pretence of what Authority so many Tumults and Discords were acted on the Stage of Scotland by the Knoxian Brethren It pleased the Queen to hold a Conference with this man in the pursuit whereof they fell upon the point of resisting Princes by the Sword the lawfulness whereof was denyed by her but maintained by him The Queen demands whether Subjects having power may resist their Princes Yea Madam answered Knox if Princes do exceed their bounds and do against that wherefore they should be obeyed there is no doubt but that they may be resisted even by power For said he there is neither greater honour nor greater obedience to be given to Kings and Princes then God hath commanded to be given unto our Fathers and Mothers and yet it may so happen that the Father may be stricken with a Phrensie and in some fit attempt the slaying of his Children In which case if the Children joyn themselves together apprehend their Father take the Sword out of his hand and keep him in Prison till his Phrensie be over-past it is not to be thought that God will be offended with them for their actings in it And thereupon he doth infer that so it is with such Princes also as out of a blind Zeal would murther the Children of God which are subject to them And therefore to take the Sword from them to binde their hands and to cast them into Prison till that they may be brought to a more sober minde is not
run on till they came to the end of the Race of which in general King Iames hath given us this description in a Declaration of his published not long after the surprising of his person by the Earl of Gowry 15â—2 where we finde it thus The Bishops having imbraced the Gospel it was at first agreed even by the Brethren with the consent of Regent that the Bishops estate should be maintained and authorized This endured for sundry years but then there was no remedy the Calling it self of Bishops was at least become Antichristian and down they must of necessity whereupon they commanded the Bishops by their own Authority to leave their Offices and Iurisdiction They decreed in their Assemblies That Bishops should have no vote in Parliament and that done they desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and Council might from thenceforth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate They also directed their Commissioners to the Kings Majesty commanding him and the Council under pain of the Censures of the Church Excommunication they meant to appoint no Bishops in time to come because they the Brethren had concluded that State to be unlawful And that it might appear to those of the suffering party that they had not acted all these things without better Authority then what they had given unto themselves they dispatched their Letters unto Beza who had succeeded at Geneva in the Chair of Calvin from whence they were encouraged and perswaded to go on in that course and never re-admit that plague he means thereby the Bishops to have place in that Church although it might flatter them with a shew of retaining unity 17. But all this was not done at once though laid here together to shew how answerable their proceedings were to their first beginnings To cool which heats and put some Water in their Wine the Queen by practising on her Keepers escapes the Prison and puts her self into Hamilton Castle to which not onely the dependants of that powerful Family but many great Lords and divers others did with great cheerfulness repair unto her with their several followers Earl Murray was at Stirling when this news came to him and it concerned him to bestir himself with all celerity before the Queens power was grown too great to be disputed He therefore calls together such of his Friends and their adherents as were near unto him and with them gives battail to the Queen who in this little time had got together a small Army of four thousand men The honour of the day attends the Regent who with the loss of one man onely bought an easie Victory which might have proved more bloudy to the conquered Army for they lost but three hundred in the fight it he had not commanded back his Souldiers from the execution The Queen was placed upon a Hill to behold the battail But when she saw the issue of it she posted with all speed to the Port of Kerbright took Ship for England and landed most unfortunately as it after proved at Wirckington in the County of Cumberland From thence she dispatched her Letters to Queen Elizabeth full of Complaints and passionate bewailings of her wretched fortune desires admittance to her presence and that she might be taken into her protection sending withal a Ring which that Queen had given her to be an everlasting token of that love and amity which was to be maintained between them But she soon found how miserably she had deceived her self in her Expectations Murray was grown too strong for her in the Court of England and others which regarded little what became of him were glad of her misfortunes in relation to their own security which could not better be consulted then by keeping a good Guard upon her now they had her there And so instead of sending for her to the Court the Queen gives order by Sir Francis Knollis whom she sent of purpose to remove the distressed Lady to Carlisle as the safer place until the equity of her cause might be fully known She hath now took possession of the Realm which she had laid claim to but shall pay dearly for the purchase the Crown whereof shall come at last to her Posterity though it did not fall upon her person 18. Now that the equity of her cause might be understood the Regent is required by Letters from the Court of England to desist from any further prosecution of the vanquished party till that Queen were perfectly informed in all particulars touching these Affairs Which notwithstanding he thought fit to make use of his Fortune summoned a Parliament in which some few of each sort noble and ignoble were proscribed for the present by the terrour whereof many of the rest submitted and they which would not were reduced by force of Arms. Elizabeth not well pleased with these proceedings requires that some Commissioners might be sent from Scotland to render an account to her or to her Commissioners of the severity and hard dealing which they had shewed unto their Queen And hereunto he was necessitated to conform as the case then stood The French being totally made against him the Spaniards more displeased then they and no help 〈◊〉 be had from any but the English onely At York Commissioners attend from each part in the end of September From Queen Elizabeth Thomas Duke of Norfolk Thomas Earl of Sussex and Sir Ralph Sadlier Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster For the unfortunate Queen of Scots Iohn Lesly Bishop of Ross the Lords Levington Boyd c. And for the Infant King besides the Regent himself there appeared the Earl of Morton the Lord Lindsay and certain others After such protestations made on both sides as seemed expedient for preserving the Authority of the several Crowns an Oath is took by the Commissioners to proceed in the business according to the Rules of Justice and Equity The Commissioners from the infant-Infant-King present a Declaration of their proceedings in the former troubles to which an answer is returned by those of the other side Elizabeth desiring to be better satisfied in some particulars requires the Commissioners of both sides some of them at the least to repair unto her where after much sending and proving as the saying is there was nothing done which might redound unto the benefit of the Queen of Scots 19. For whilst these matters were in agitation in the Court of England Letters of hers were intercepted written by her to those which continued of her party in the Realm of Scotland In which Letters she complained that the Queen of England had not kept promise with her but yet desired them to be of good heart because she was assured of aid by some other means and hoped to be with them in a short time Which Letters being first sent to Murray and by him shewed to Queen Elizabeth prevailed so much for his advantage that he was not onely dismissed with favour but waited
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
Starr-Chamber which was then at hand 7. It was expected that the Censure would have passed upon them on the last day of Easter-Term of which Coppinger gives Hacket notice and sends him word withall That he meant to be at the hearing of it and that if any Severity should be used towards them he should be forced in the Name of the Great and Fearful God of Heaven and Earth to protest against it The like expectation was amongst them in the Term next following at what time Coppinger was resolved on some desperate act to divert the Sentence For thus he writes to Lancaster before-remembred That if our Preachers in Prison do appear to morrow in the Starr-Chamber and if our great men deal with them so as it is thought they will and that if then God did not throw some fearful Iudgment amongst them c. that is to say for so we must make up the sense let him give no more credit unto him or his Revelations But the Hearing being deferred at that time also and nothing like to be done in it till after Michaelmas the Conspirators perceived they had time enough for new Consultations And in these Consultations they resolve amongst them to impeach the two Arch-bishops of High-Treason that so they might be made uncapable of proceeding in a Legal way against the Prisoners or otherwise to assassinate both together with the Lord Chancellor Hatton whom they deadly hated if any severe Sentence was pronounced against them But Hacket was for higher matters The Spirit of Infatuation had so wrought upon him that he conceived himself to partake of the same Divine Nature with Almighty God That he was appointed by his God to be King of Europe and therefore looked upon all Kings but the Queen especially as the Usurpers of the Throne which belonged unto him And against her he carried such a bitter hatred that against her he often cast forth dangerous speeches That she had lost her Right to the Crown and spared not to do execution upon her in her Arms and Pictures by stabbing his Dagger into both whensoever he saw them Thâ— people also must be dealt with to make use of their Power according unto that Maxim of the Disciplinarians That if the Magistrate will not reform the Church and State then the People must And that he might wind them to this height he scatter'd certain Rhimes or Verses amongst them by which it was insinuated That a true Christian though he were a Clown or poor Countrey-man which was Hacket's own case might teach Kings how to manage their Scepters and that they might depose the Queen if she did not zealously promote the Reformation 8. Finding to what an admiration he had raised himself in the esteem of Coppinger and his Fellow Arthington he looks upon them as the fittest Instruments to advance his Treasons perswading them That they were endued not only with a Prophetical but an Angelical Spirit And they believing what he said performed all manner of obedience to him as one that was appointed to reign over them by God himself setting themselves from that time forward to raise some Sedition in which the people might be moved unto what they pleased Being thus possest they intimate to Wiggington fore-mentioned That Christ appeared to them the night before not in his own body as He sits in Heaven but in that especial Spirit by which he dwelt in Hacket more than in any other They added also That Hacket was the very Angel which should come before the Day of Judgment with his Fan in the one hand and his Shepherds Crook in the other to distinguish the Sheep from the Goats to tread down Satan and ruine the Kingdom of Antichrist What Counsel they received from Wiggington is not certainly known though it may be judged by the event For presently on their going from him which was on the sixteenth of Iuly they repair to Hacket whom he found lazing in his bed in a private House at Broken-wharf and casting themselves upon their knees as if they were upon the point of Adoration Arthington suddenly ariseth and adviseth Coppinger in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to annoint their King But Hacket cunningly declines it telling them that he was already annointed by the Holy Ghost and therefore that they were to do what he should command them Which said he ordains Coppinger to be his Prophet of Mercy and Arthington to be his Prophet of Justice and gives them their Mission in this manner Go now saith he and tell up and down the City That Jesus Christ is come with his Fan in his hand to judg the World if any ask you where he is direct them to this place if they will not believe you let them come and see if they can kill me As sure as God is in Heaven no less assuredly is Christ now come to judg the World With this Commission flye the two new Prophets from one street to another till they came to Cheapside crying out Christ is come Christ is come all the way they went and adding with as loud a voice Repent Repent In Cheapside they mount into a Cart a proper Pulpit for such Preachers proclaiming thence that Hacket participated of Christ's glorified Body by his especial Spirit and was now come with his Fan to propagate the Gospel to settle the Discipline for that was the impulsive to all this madness and to establish in England a new Commonwealth They added further That themselves were two Prophets the one of Mercy and the other of Justice the truth whereof they took upon their salvation That Hacket was the only Supreme Monarch of the World and That all the Kings of Europe held of him as his Vassals That therefore he only ought to be obeyed and the Queen deposed and That Vengeance should shortly fall from Heaven not only on the Arch-bishop of Canterbury but the Lord Chancellor Hatton 9. Infinite were the throngs of people which this strange Novelty had drawn together to that place but they found none so mad as themselves none so besotted as to cry God save King Hacket so that not able to be heard by reason of the Noise nor to go forward in their Mission because of the Throng they dismounted their Chariot and by the help of some of their Friends conveyed themselves to Hacket's Lodging They had not staid there long when they were all three apprehended and brought before the Lords of the Council to whom they showed so little reverence that they never moved their Hats unto them and told them that they were above all Magistrates of what rank soever Hacket is afterward arraigned Iuly 26. and two days after drawn to his Execution which was to be done upon him in that part of Cheapside in which his two Prophets had proclaimed him Neither the Sentence past upon him nor the fear of death mitigated any thing of that Spirit of Infatuation with which the Devil had possest him Insomuch that he exclaimed most
but not unlawful That therefore they endeavoured to perswade the Ministers rather to conform themselves than to leave their Flocks the people rather to receive the Communion kneeling than not to receive the same at all but that the Authors of that Book and some other Pamphlets pronounced them to be simply unlawful neither to be imposed nor used some of them thinking it a great part of godliness to cast off the Surplice and commanded their Children so to do This made the Bishops far more earnest to reduce them to a present Conformity than otherwise they might have been though by so doing they encreased those discontentments the seeds whereof were sown at the end of the Conference All this the Papists well observed and rejoyced at it intending in the carrying on of the Gun-powder Treason to lay the guilt thereof on the Puritans only But the King and his Council mined with them and undermined them and by so doing blew them up in their own Invention the Traytors being discovered condemned and executed as they most justly had deserved But this Design which was intended for a ruin of the Puritan Faction proved in conclusion very advantagious to their Ends and Purposes For the King being throughly terrified with the apprehension of so great a danger turned all his thoughts upon the Papists and was content to let the Puritans take breath and regain some strength that they might serve him for a counterpoise against the other as afterwards he gave some countenance to the Popish Party when he perceived the opposite Faction to be grown too head-strong Nor were the Puritans wanting to themselves upon this occasion but entertained the Court and Countrey with continual fears of some new dangers from the Papists and by appearance of much zeal for the true Religion and no less care for the preserving of their common Liberty against the encroachments of the Court came by degrees to make a Party in the House of Commons And hereunto K. IAMES unwittingly contributed his assistance also who being intent upon uniting the two Kingdoms by Act of Parliament suffered the Commons to expatiate in Rhetorical Speeches to call in question the extent of his Royal Prerogative to embrue many Church-concernments and to dispute the Power of the High-Commission By means whereof they came at last to such an height that the King was able in the end to do nothing in Parliament but as he courted and applyed himself to this popular Faction 13. Worse fared it with the Brethren of the Separation who had retired themselves unto Amsterdam in the former Reign than with their first Founders and Fore-fathers in the Church of England For having broken in sunder the bond of peace they found no possibility of preserving the spirit of unity one Separation growing continually on the neck of another till they were crumbled into nothing The Brethren of the first Separation had found fault with the Church of England for reading Prayers and Homilies as they lay in the Book and not admitting the Presbytery to take place amongst them But the Brethren of the second Separation take as much distaste against retaining all set-forms of Hymns and Psalms committing their Conceptions both in Praying and Prophesying to the help of Memory and did as much abominate Presbytery as the other liked it For first They pre-suppose for granted as they safely might that there be three kinds of Spiritual Worship Praying Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and then subjoyn this Maxim in which all agreed that is to say That there is the same reason of Helps in all the parts of Spiritual Worship as is to be admitted in any one during the performing of that Worship Upon which ground they charge it home on their fellow-Separatists That as in Prayer the Book is to be laid aside by the confession of the ancient Brethren of the Separation so must it also be in Prophesying and Singing of Psalms and therefore whether we pray or sing or prophesie it is not to be from the Book but out of the heart For Prophesying next they tell us that the Spirit is quenched two manner of ways by Memory as well as Reading And to make known how little use there is of Memory in the Act of Prophesying or Preaching they tell us That the citing of Chapter and Verse as not being used by Christ and his Apostles in their Sermons or Writings is a mark of Antichrist And as for Psalms which make the Third part of Spiritual Worship they propose these Queries 1. Whether in a Psalm a man must be tyed to Meeter Rythme and Tune and Whether Voluntary be not as necessary in Tune and Words as well as Matter And 2. Whether Meeter Rythme and Tune be not quenching the Spirit 14. According to which Resolution of the New Separation every man when the Congregation shall be met together may first conceive his own Matter in the Act of Praising deliver it in Prose or Meeter as he lists himself and in the same instant chant out in what Tune soever that which comes first into his own head Which would be such a horrible confusion of Tongues and Voices that hardly any howling or gnashing of teeth can be like unto it And yet it follows so directly on the former Principles that if we banish all set-forms of Common-Prayer which is but only one part of God's Publick Worship from the use of the Church we cannot but in Justice and in Reason both banish all studied and premeditated Sermons from the House of God and utterly cast out all King David's Psalms whether in Prose or Meeter that comes all to one and all Divine Hymns also into the bargain Finally as to Forms of Government they declared thus or to this purpose at the least if my memory fail not That as they which live under the Tyranny of the Pope and Cardinals worship the very Beast it self and they which live under the Government of Arch-bishops and Bishops do worship the Image of the Beast so they which willingly obey the Reformed Presbytery of Pastors Elders and Deacons worship the shadow of that Image To such ridiculous Follies are men commonly brought when once presuming on some New Light to direct their Actions they suffer themselves to be mis-guided by the Ignis fatuus of their own Inventions And in this posture stood the Brethren of the Separation Anno 1606 when Smith first published his Book of the present differences between the Churches of the Separation as he honestly calls them But afterwards there grew another great dispute between Ainsworth and Broughton Whether the colour of Aaron's Linnen Ephod were of Blew or a Sea-water Green Which did not only trouble all the Dyers in Amsterdam but drew their several Followers into Sides and Factions and made good sport to all the World but themselves alone By reason of which Divisions and Sub-divisions they fell at last into so many Fractions that one of them in the end became a Church of himself and
those out-rages Doubly affronted and provoked the King resolves to right Himself in the way of Arms. But at the instant request of Des Diguiers before remembred who had been hitherto a true Zealot to the Hugonot Cause he was content to give them Four and twenty days of deliberation before he drew into the Field He offered them also very fair and reasonable Canditions not altogether such as their Commissioners had desired for them but far better than those which they were glad to accept at the end of the Warr when all their strengths were taken from them But the Hugonots were not to be told that all the Calvinian Princes and Estates of the Empire had put themselves into a posture of Warr some for defence of the Palatinate and others in pursuance of the Warr of Bohemia Of which they gave themselves more hopes than they had just cause for In which conjuncture some hot spirits then assembled at Rochel blinded with pride or hurried on by the fatality of those Decrees which they maintained to be resolved upon by God before all Eternity reject all offers tending to a Pacification and wilfully run on to their own destruction For presently upon the tendry of the King's Proposals they publish certain Orders for the regulating of their Disobedience as namely That no Agreement should be made with the King but by the consent of a General Convocation of the Chiefs of their Party about the payment of their Soldiers Wages and intercepting the Revenues of the King and Clergie toward the maintenance of the Warr. They also Cantoned the whole Kingdom into seven Divisions assigned to each of those Divisions a Commander in Chief and unto each Commander their particular Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and other Officers with several Limitations and Directions prescribed to each of them for their proceeding in this service 38. This makes it evident that the King did not take up Arms but on great necessities He saw his Regal Authority neglected his especial Edicts wilfully violated his Gracious Offers scornfully slighted his Revenues Feloniously intercepted his whole Realm Cantoned before his face and put into the power of such Commanders as he could not trust So that the Warr being just on his part he had the more reason to expect such an issue of it as was agreeable to the Equity of so good a Cause He had besides all those Advantages both at home and abroad which in all probability might assure him of the End desired The Prince Elector Palatine had been worsted in the Warr of Bohemia and all the Princes of the Union scattered to their several Homes which they were hardly able to defend against so many Enemies so that there was no danger to be feared from them And on the other side the King of Great Britain whom he had most cause to be afraid of had denied assistance to his own Children in the Warr of Bohemia which seemed to have more Justice in it than the Warr of the Hugonots and therefore was not like to engage in behalf of strangers who rather out of wantonness than any unavoidable necessity had took up Arms against their Lawful and Undoubted Soveraign At home the Rochellers were worse befriended than they were abroad I mean the Common-wealth of Rochel as King LEWIS called it The whole Confederacy of the Hugonots there contrived and sworn to they had Cantoned the whole Realm into seven Divisions which they assigned to the Command of the Earl of Chastillon the Marquess De la Force the Duke of Soâ—bize the Duke of Rohan the Duke of Trimoville the Duke Des Diguer and the Duke of Bouillon whom they designed to be the Generalissimo over all their Forces But neither he nor Des Diguers nor the Duke of Trimoville nor Chastillon would act any thing in it or accept any such Commissions as were sent unto them Whether it were that they were terrified with the ill success of the Warr of Bohemia or that the Conscience of their duty did direct them in it I dispute not now So that the Rochellers being deserted both at home and abroad were forced to rely upon the Power and Prudence of the other three and to supply all other wants out of the Magazine of Obstinacy and Perversness with which they were plentifully stored Two instances I shall only touch at and pass over the rest The town of Clerack being summoned the 21 of Iuly 1621 returned this Answer to the King viz. That if he would permit them to enjoy their Liberties withdraw his Armies and leave their Fortifications in the same estate in which he found them they would remain his faithful and obedient Subjects More fully those of Mount Albon on the like occasion That they resolve to live and dye not in obedience to the King as they should have said but in the Vnion of the Churches Most Religious Rebels 39. Next let us look upon the King who being brought to a necessity of taking Arms first made his way unto it by his Declaration of the second of April published in favour of all those of that Religion who would contain themselves in their due obedience In pursuance whereof he caused five persons to be executed in the City of Tours who had tumultuously disturbed the Hugonots whom they found busied at the burial of one of their dead He also signified to the King of Great Britain the Princes of the Empire and the States of the Netherlands That he had not undertook this Warr to suppress the Religion but to chastise the Insolencies of Rebellious Subjects And what he signified in words he made good by his deeds For when the Warr was at the hottest all those of the Religion in the City of Paris lived as securely as before and had their accustomed Meetings at Charenton as in times of peace Which safety and security was enjoyed in all other places even where the King's Armies lodged and quartered Nay such a care was taken of their preservation that when some of the Rascality in the City of Paris upon the first tydings of the death of the Duke of Mayenne who had been slain at the Siege of Mont-albon amongst many others breathed nothing but slaughter and revenge to the Hugonot Party the Duke of Mounbazon being then Governour of the City commanded their Houses and the Streets to be safely guarded so that no hurt was done to their Goods or Persons And when the Rabble being disappointed of their Ends in Paris had run tumultuously the next day to Charenton and burned down their Temple an Order was presently made by the Court of Parliament for the re-edifying it at the King 's sole Charges and that too in a far more beautiful Fabrick than before it had But in the conduct of the Warr he governed not his Counsels with like moderation suffering the Sword too often to range at liberty as if he meant to be as terrible in his Executions as he desired to be accounted just in his Undertakings But
further Order And it was then resolved also That if any person whatsoever should offer to arrest or detain the person of any Member of their House without first acquainting the House therewith and receiving further Order from the House that then it should be lawful for such Member or any person to resist him and to stand upon his or their guard of defence and to make resistance according to the Protestation taken to defend the Liberties of Parliament This brings the King on Tuesday morning to the Commons House attended only by His Guard and some few Gentlemen no otherwise weaponed than with Swords where having placed Himself in the Speaker's Chair He required them to deliver the Impeached Members to the hands of Justice But they had notice of His Purpose and had retired into London as their safest Sanctuary to which the whole House is adjourned also and sits in the Guild-Hall as a Grand Committee The next day brings the King to the City also where in a Speech to the Lord Mayor and Common-Council He signified the Reasons of His going to the House of Commons That He had no intent of proceeding otherwise against the Members than in a way of Legal Tryal and thereupon desired That they might not be harboured and protected in despite of Law For answer whereunto He is encountred with an insolent and sawcy Speech made by one Fowk a Member of the Common-Council concerning the Impeached Members and the King's proceedings and followed in the Streets by the Rascal-Rabble by some of which a Virulent and Seditious Pamphlet entituled Every man to his Tents O Israel is cast into His Coach and nothing sounded in His Ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament with most horrible out-cries The same night puts them into Arms with great fear and tumult upon a rumour that the King and the Cavaliers for so they called such Officers of the late Army as attended on him for their Pay had a design to sack the City who were then sleeping in their beds and little dreamed of any such Seditious practises as were then on foot for the enflaming of the people 15. And now comes Calvin's Doctrine for restraining the Power of Kings to be put in practise His Majesty's going to the House of Commons on the fourth of Ianuary is voted for so high a breach of their Rights and Priviledges as was not to be salved by any Retractation or Disclaimer or any thing by Him alledged in excuse thereof The Members are brought down in triumph both by Land and Water guarded with Pikes and Protestations to their several Houses and the forsaken King necessitated to retire to Windsor that he might not be an eye-witness of his own disgraces The Lord Digby goes to Kingston in a Coach with six Horses to bestow a visit upon Collonel Lundsford and some other Gentlemen each Horse is reckoned for a Troop and these Troops said to have appeared in a warlike manner Which was enough to cause the prevailing-party of the Lords and Commons to declare against it and by their Order of the 13 th of Ianuary to give command That all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom assisted by the Iustices and Trained-Bands of the Countrey should take care to suppress all unlawful Assemblies and to secure the Magazines of their several Counties The King's Attorney must be called in question examined and endangered for doing his duty in the impeachment of their Members that no man might hereafter dare to obey the King And though His Majesty had sent them a most Gracious Message of the twentieth of Ianuary in which He promised them to equal or exceed all Acts of Favour which any of His Predecessors had extended to the People of England yet nothing could secure them from their fears and jealousies unless the Trained-bands and the Royal Navy the Tower of London and the rest of the Forts and Castles were put into such hands as they might confide in On this the King demurrs a while but having shipped the Queen for Holland with the Princess Mary and got the Prince into his power he denies it utterly And this denial is reputed a sufficient reason to take the Militia to themselves and execute the Powers thereof without His consent 16. But leaving them to their own Councils he removes to York assembleth the Gentry of that County acquaints them with the reasons of His coming thither and desires them not to be seduced by such false reports as had been raised to the dishonour of His Person and disgrace of His Government By their Advice he makes a journey unto Hull in which he had laid up a considerable Magazine of Cannon Arms and Ammunition intended first against the Scots and afterwards designed for the Warr of Ireland but now to be made use of in his own defence And possibly He might have got it into His possession if He had kept His own Counsel and had not let some words fall from Him in a Declaration which betrayed His purpose For hereupon Hotham a Member of their House and one of the two Knights for the County of York is sent to Garrison the Town who most audaciously refused to give him entrance though he was then accompanied with no more than his private Guards and for so doing is applauded and indempnified by the rest of the Members This sends him back again to York and there he meets as great a Baffle as he did at Hull For there he is encountred with a new Committee from the House of Commons consisting of Ferdinand Lord Fairfax Sir Henry Cholmnly Sir Hugh Cholmnly and Sir Philip Stapleton sent thither on purpose to serve as Spies upon his actions to undermine all his proceedings and to insinuate into the people that all their hopes of peace and happiness depended on their adhering to the present Parliament And they applied themselves to their Instructions with such open Confidence that the King had not more meetings with the Gentry of that County in his Palace called the Mannor-house than they had with the Yeomanry and Free-holders in the great Hall of the Deanry All which the King suffered very strangely and thereby robbed himself of the opportunity of raising an Army in that County with which he might have marched to London took the Hen sitting on her Nest before she had hatched and possibly prevented all those Calamities which after followed 17. But to proceed during these counter-workings betwixt them and the King the Lords and Commons plied him with continual Messages for his return unto the Houses and did as frequently endeavour to possess the people with their Remonstrances and Declarations to his disadvantage To each of which his Majesty returned a significant Answer so handsomely apparelled and comprehending in them such a strength of Reason as gave great satisfaction to all equal and unbyassed men None of these Messages more remarkable than that which brought the Nineteen Propositions to his Majesty's hands In which it was desired