made Levies either against him or the Law more than his own lawlesse Will and that the Parliament made no sooner Levies than it became them to oppose his Levies raised against them and the known Laws of the Land and that notwithstanding all those specious and umbragious Messages sent to the Parliament for Peace and Accommodation tending to no other end than to rocke the Parliament asleep and by his then frequent placentias to lull them into a slack and negligent remissnes in raising defensive arms against his Forces whilst himself by protracting of time might attract such an Army as would inable him to overpower both the Parliament and whatsoever Forces were as he sayes then in their march against him which he had no sooner drawn together but out of his confidence to have beaten the Parliaments Army to peeces not eight dayes before Edgehill fight he not onely utterly refused their Petion which would have been presented to him by the mediation of the Earl of Dorset for he had a good space before refused all accommodation but sent Rupert to the Commissary Generall who was to deliver it to tell the Earl of Essex then at Worcester that he would not receive any more Petitions from him or any of the Parliament Rebels of them all A known truth to many yet living and some of them sitting at present in Parliament whereby it manifestly appears that all his former and many Missives under the umbrage of Peace were mere dalliances both to mock the Parliament and to cosen the people into a belief of his reality and good meaning when he meant nothing more than to bob the Parliament by cunning and secret fraud untill he might ruine them by plaine and open force and then to pursue those naturalized appetites and arbitrary designes of his which so long before he had cherished in his heart which neither his Honour Reason and his Conscience whereof so often he talks could prevail with him to disgorge untill their over-growth inforced him to an untimely vomit 'T is most true that they which look on the first face of things and heed only the outside of objects without an intentive eye on their in-sides are easily deceived but such as will narrowly looke into all his Expresses compared with his deeds shall doutlesse soon finde that this unhappy King was one of the deepest and boldest dissemblers of any one Prince which the last Century hath produced and I am prone to beleeve that he took too much of the patterne of Lews th' eleventh of France who was wont to say that he desired to leave his Sonne no other Learning than Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare he that knows not to dissemble knowes not how to play the King and it hath been feared and by those which wisht him well that he was too much verst in the principles of Machiavill having in his life time practised and since his death left behind him so many eevidences thereof that many of the best heads have been induced to beleve that he came not behind any of the ITALIAN Polititians of this age But to take all these his three Messages together considered by any discreet man as their purport tends to one and the selfesame end and the time when they were sent to the parliament all of them whilst he was most busie and sedulously studious how and where to raise Forces both at home and abroad and it evidently shews that his intent in all his specious overtures of peace were to no other end than to befool the People and Parliament which he then began to know would not be cosened as having had sufficient experience of him practise indeed he might as he failed not to continue to delude the vulgar beleef and to keep in with the people but he then found there was no good to be done on a Court of Parliament for he perceived they meant not further to trust him than they saw him and to have yeelded to a treaty circumscribed with such large conditions and so unequally ballanced as so admit of such as he should send to treat with them out of Parliament which not unlikely would have been of those that had both deserted the Parliament and falsified their faith which to have indempnified and all other Delinquents as had repaired unto his assistance otherwise no peace with him what effects could a Treaty produce so much upbraided by his party on the Parliament for refusing it other than mockery when himself knew as well as themselves that they would not yeeld unto such a motion neither himself goe lesse than to take off all the Delinquents with impunity against all reason law and the antient president of all former Parliaments that alone being the greatest breach of privilege that ever was offered to a Court of Parliament and such a destructive project to the essence and being of Parliaments as in the future took away all power and privilege from them and necessarily conferr'd it on his own usurped Prerogative his negative claim being no more and scarce so much to enable him to doe in the future as he listed when as every vulgar spirit knowes it for Law that the King cannot neither ever durst any of our Kings rescue one Prisoner at the Bar out of the hands of Justice in any of the inferiour Courts of the Kingdome 'T is true that Henry of Monmouth being a rude Prince though after a tollerable King came openly and with violence to the Kings Bench in Westminster Hall and rescued Poynes his Servant arraigned for robbing and taking away the Kings Treasure at the Bar but the story tells us that the Judges laid the Prince by the heels for his pains and his Father the King thankt them for it much lesse then that this King should presume to rescue so many viperous Delinquents out of the justice of the great Judicature of the Nation which all of common reading know have acted sundry times in such a power as to depose severall of his Ancestors for their Tyrannies and hanged many of their chiefe Instruments Presidents which with good reason he might have more timely remembred and not have stood with his Sword in his hand to inforce so unjust senslesse and unreasonable a Proposition for a Treaty Observations on the Kings Pourtracture THe Kings Book which hath flown abroad and throughout the Kingdom as it were between the wings of Mercury and hath so much taken in the opinion of the vulgar beliefe and esteemed to be such an impregnable rampier incirculating his innocency that it hath been thought not assaultable I confesse at the first sight thereof it took for a while as his protestations formerly had done in many apprehensions but on a second consideration of the title The Kings Image with the dresse that is bestowed upon his Effigies in a posture of devotion in imitation of David in his ejaculations to Heaven surely I could not beleeve that such a peece of vanity was of the Kings designment
the charge of this second war how that Paper the results of that Councell after stiled The Juncto came to be preserved by the means of Sir Henry Vane the younger and Mr. Pym who imparted it the ensuing Parliament as the star which guided them to know the authors and projectors of this other wilfull designes what preparations the Scots made to defend themselves and how with a puissant Army they first entred the Kingdom under the Command of Lesley who made his way by force with some losse of blood on both sides at Newburn and after that marched peaceably to Newcastle which he fortifyed and from thence sent a Petition in the name of the whole Nation to the King that their cause might be heard before more bloud should be drawn which before was utterly denied them with contemptuous acerbity The particulars whereof shall God willing in all sincerity be anon amply declared together with such discoveries as are not yet publikely known and so particularly manifested in many points as in the following Reply and Animadversions may appear both for the generall satisfaction and such Royalists to whom I have heartily addrest them as well for their own conversion as also in vindication and farther manifestation of Truth and to the everlasting honour of this Parliament whom God hath visibly enabled with courage both to foresee and withstand the violences of a Prince who in all his Expresses Protestations and overtures for Peace and Accommodation with the Parliament were inseparably accompanyed with dissemblings fraud wiles and reservations may be further manifested by the evident proofs of his Letters under his own hand writing his Commissions Missives and many other authentick Testimonies though many of them noted and long since exposed and set out to the world and answered in the Parliaments Declarations especially manifested in that of No more Addresses yet not so vulgarly seen as they may be on a more exact veiw and a diligent perusall and comparing the Kings publick expresses with his private practises as may apparently be seen by any that wil but take the pains either to read them in his own Character or mine Whence ariseth the great wonder of the times how and with what face either the King himselfe living should with such boldnesse stand on his justification or that any since his death indued with common sense and reason can have the Impudence to defend him dead who living so willfully fraudulently and obstinately persevered in pursuance of his own lustfull and pernitious designes in invassalating the poor people which untill himselfe gave and prosecuted the occasion of their falling from him and were inforced to withstand his violent courses was more beloved honoured and obeyed than any of our Kings A Prince that raised and wasted more Treasure wilfully spilt more Innocent blood devasted more the lands and habitations of his Subjects ruined more families and more imbroyled three flourishing Kingdoms than all of his Progenitors and yet for all these his prodigious cruelties and misdemeanors to be inshrin'd dead for a martyr both alive and dead adored for a Saint We shal now close up the first part of our Breviary as it relates to his reign designs before he erected his Standard the manner managery of the hostile part of his life though both long since sufficiently known and felt by many thousands of the poor innocent people of three Kingdomes yet for avoiding of repetitions and some other motives I have taken the leave to insert a short description thereof in the subsequent reply leaving out the manner of his arraignment by his Judges all of them to be adjudg'd a new at the great Tribnnall of the King of Kings whether the one as his Vice-gerent hath ruled and judged the people committed to his protection for their defence and hath dealt uprightly with them or not and whether the others as ordained by divine providence to do justice on him for his cruelties have condemned this King for his Tyranny and unrighteous dealing with three nations to whose justice in feare and trembling we must all submit Where we may with good reason make this Quaere Whether the cutting off of our bloody and blood-thirsty Prince together with the exclusion of his whole posterity can be a sufficient expiation in the eye of heaven for the blood of a million of poor innocent soules slaughtered for the satiating of one Princes lustfull will and pleasure since he that repents not hath said it that the Land shall not be clensed until the blood of one murtherer be shed this we may say and safely believe that Almighty God for the sins of the Nations in his wrath and just indignation sent this most unhappy King as his rod of judgement to reign over us and in his justice hath likewise burnt it and brought that fatall end upon him and his Fathers house according to his owne and often Imprecations We shall conclude this first scene of our Narrative with the Kingdoms fate Iratus Deus dedit ijs Regem The Authors reply to an invective Remonstrance against the Parliament and present Government wherein the whole managery of the late War is exactly described SIR HAving diligently perused the replication you sent me I perceive that you are no changeling but one and the self same man in your opinion both in justifying the late Kings Actions and in aspersing the Parliament with raysing the late War against him as a premeditated Plot long since hatch't by a factious party amongst them and to change the Government and pull up Monarchy and Episcopacy by the roots Strange Chimaeras indeed that dropt lately out of the Clouds and Vapours of your own and your parties gyddy-braines neither doe you rest there but you proceed to charge those which now sit at Westminster with many other fowle Calumnies to all which in their proper place I shall not faile to give you a particular answer though I could have wisht that you had fixt your cogitations on some other subject suitable to truth and the ingenuity you pretend unto and not after ten years revolution of time to fall flat on a meer suggestion of your owne without any other proof than a bare allegatiou and that so destitute of possibility either of thought or intent in the Parliament to effect as that the affirmation seems to me a meer malicious fiction of your own rather than a simple verity and so unbecoming a Gentleman of your quality as that in plainnesse I take the boldnesse to tell you you might on better reason with Copernicus his Disciples have aver'd another world to be in the Moon thâ—n to have devised and broached so vaine and senselesse an untruth But since t is more of your will than chance to fall on so groundlesse a fable and on a theam so old and over-worne might I have advised you should have turn'd your tone which would have been much more for your honour and aver'd that the King even from the very first
soon after was it's greatest Enemy and not by the Kings choise and inclination as it is shamefully averr'd in his Pourtraicture whereas the bare name and mention of a Parliament was well known to be odious unto him and the very motion of calling any more prohibited by his own expresse charge to all of his Councell of State as that which he foresaw would be the onely impediment to the accomplishment of all his arbitrary designes so meerly brought to their ends but the summer before he waged the first warre against his native subjects the Scots an enterprise which the World knowes was the only Remora that checkt and choaked all his projections in the maturity of their birth which to recover on sight and his sense of the Parliaments proceedings he soon found he had no other way left him but by open War and force to suppresse them the mannagery whereof I shall now briefly present unto you The Parliament had its Summons from Yorke as all the Kingdom knows and the third of November 1640. sate downe at Westminster where according to the usuall Ceremonies the King in his own person in a set speech made a very gracious protestation viz. That he was fully resolved to put himself wholy on the love of his People and Parliament which if it proved not prosperous and a happy Parliament the fault should be none of his and that he was fully determined to commit the reformation of all things amisse to their regulation A profession which both took much with the House and all the Kingdom which had he been pleased to have performed and to have made good his word in not protecting the many delinquents questioned within a few moneths after the Parliaments first sitting downe as with justice honour and his Coronation oath he was obliged and in reference to his owne profit he might very well have forborne such tragicall issues could never have befallen himself and the 3. Kingdoms but having then entertained other designs and perceiving the Parliament to fly high and at his chief Ministers and woork-masters of his former arbitrary projects and on those which had fomented that unnecessary Warre against the Scots as the Earl of Straf ford and the Arch-bishop principally the Prelates and dissolute Clergy most of the Iudges and the Farmers of the Customes not for common faults but very high misdemeanours the King to crosse them most ignobly and against the justice of the Kingdome not only provoked but openly shewed himselfe both a defendor and protector of their Delinquencies and upon the distast he took on the commitment of Strafford was instantly known to have laid sundry plots and practises how he might dissolve the Parliament or utterly to destroy it which the Parliament perceiving and that the Queen under colour of accompanying the Princesse Mary into Holland was sent thither with the Crowne Jewels to buy Arms and procure forces to be sent him and Digby employed to the same purpose whereupon in prevention of the storme which they evidently then saw was like to fall on themselves and the Kingdom from beyond sea they moved his Majesty that the Kingdom might be put into a posture of defence and the militia deposited in such hands as they might confide in which he utterly refused to grant them as inseparables to the Crowne as he alleaged he was resolved to keep solely in his own power The Parliament in answer to this insist That the Kings power therein by the Law of the Land was only fiduciary allwayes in reference to trust the publik good safety of the Kingdō hence the contest by degrees grew to a separation and in furtherance of the dispute he also denyed the house to disband the Irish Army raised long before by Strafford and compos'd of Papists a storm which could not otherwise be expected but would if not timely prevented fall on them from Ireland whereof the Juncto at their very first sitting down had sufficiently informed them out of Straffords own mouth for what use and end that Army was raised viz. where he tels the King you have an Army in IRELAND to reduce this Kingdome when it was manifestly known to the world that it never was in a greater calm of peace and quietnes and the universall people in a more absolute obedience and as ready to be ridden as any slaves under the Grand Signior During this conflict the King would needs take a journey into Scotland notwithstanding the House by sundry petitions had earnestly moved him either to lay it aside or at least for some time to retard it but howsoever the King carried on his plots intentions in the dark with as much cunning as possibly could be devised yet they had then good reason to suspect that his journey Northward was to some other end than in leaving them to visit his Scotch Parliament as it after proved but on he would for Scotland and before he took his journey in a seeming providence to disburthen the Kingdome of the charge of the Scotch Army he first prest the house to disband with all their expedition that Army and to pay pay that of his own raising in the North but not a word of disbanding it upon this motion the House took it into their serious consideration apprehending it for a provident carefull and timely motion of the Kings and thereupon bethought themselves how first to disband and quit the Kingdome of the Scots untill Mr. Stroude standing up told the Speaker That they ought not in such haste to depart with the Scotch Army lest the sonnes of Zerviah in their absence would be too hard for them this speech the house soon apprehended and instantly resolved not to disband the one without the other army which the King perceiving being daily prest with Petitions of the Officers of his own Army fot their pay and himselfe not possibly able to content them as also that 25000 l. per mensem allowed to the Scots Army with 300000 l. by way of brotherly love given them by the Parliament in compensation of their losses through the Kings needlesse and unnecessary molesting them during the two Summers before amounted in the totall to so vast a sum as that neither himself was able to contribute a groat or the Parliament otherwise to discharge but by borrowing it on the Publique Faith It would amaze those which are happily ignorant of the managery of this work if I should tell them in what extremity of want the King was then reduced and how he durst adventure to struggle and after to trip up the heels of a Court of Parliament which without the least upraiding him with his profusions and irregular Regality were not only willing and ready to pay all those vast scores of debts contracted through his own wilful misgovernment but then had it in agitation how to improve his Revenues and to inable him to live of himself without squeezing his Subjects in honour splendour and plenty beyond any
play for raising of Treasure without consent of Parliament by arbitrary projects whereof amongst many which followed he begins with that of Knighthood and calls to account under colour of an old obsolete Law all such Gentlemen and others within the limitation of that Statute as attended not his Coronation though by his own Proclamation he had before forbidden their attendance Shortly after comes in to his service Sir Thomas VVentworth who to shew what he would be and how serviceable to the Kings designes he might be was imployed into the North where he rigorously levyed a very considerable summe on the Gentlemen and Yeomen of those parts VVeston another of these Arbitrary beagles as an overseer to the Earle of Pembroke and other Commissioners was imployed into the West the treasure which was by this lawlesse project raised being come together was a very vast sum but it was as soon issued as levyed and served not to defray the moity of the Court expences insomuch as being still necessitated very shortly thereupon another Parliament was thought fit to be summoned this was no sooner assembled but the House of Commons on the tenth of May 1626. Charged the Duke of Buckingham with the late Kings death and sent up their Charge to the Lords the King being well acquainted therewith comes into the Peers House and tels them that he could be a witnesse to clear the Duke in evry particular of that charge and thereupon in terrour to the lower House by his Warrant under his hand attacheth and sendeth to prison Sir Dudly Diggs and Sir John Elliot as those which had the managery of that affair notwithstanding the House of Commons having the proofes and examinations in preparation against the Duke the King to make all sure and in arrest of farther proceedings against his chief privado the 15 of Iune following in a great rage dissolves that Parliament and on dis-robing himself said in a very stern comportment That it should be the last time he would ever put them on And here we may take into observation the lamentable effects of that innated duritie that naturall obstinacy and perversnesse of the violent will of this most unhappy Prince who in affront and despight of the Iustice of a Court of Parliament would not suffer his own Fathers death to be called to accompt or any further examination thereof to be taken for clearing the Duke But Gods Iudgments may not be arested and it is he that mauger the teeths of all humane powers will in his own good time bring to light and to Iudgment that crying sinne of Blood and have we not seen this verified to our amazement the Duke shortly thereupon to have dyed by the stab of a knife with no other words or prayers in his mouth than Gods wounds I am slaine and this most unhappy Prince to have ended his dayes at his own Gates by the axe of Gods just judgment and as we may say in fear and trembling to have taken his leave and last farewell of this world with no other acknowledgment of his faults and of those crying sinnes of bloodshed throughout the three Kingdomes but that of a Pharasaicall justifying of himself and his innocency insisting to his last without any repentance or sensibilitie of so much innocent blood spilt through his only willfulnesse but only of one wicked mans having throughout the whole course of the late and lamentable contest between him and the Parliament evermore covered over that stubbornnesse of his naturall inclination with those false colours and delusive umbrages of his Conscience Constancy and Reason as if his Conscience by divine appointment had been the Master Conscience of all the Kingdom and his Reason that ipse dixit that must overballance and regulate the sense and Iudgment of a Court of Parliament And have we not seen those bold and principall instruments of his whom he imployed in all his arbitrary projects the Earl of Strafford and the Archbishop of Canterbury for the enslaving of the three Kingdoms condemned to the block as misleaders of their incorrigible Master and to have taken their leaves of the world in the same pharasaicall way of justifying their innocency and without so much as one word of the repentant Publican God be mercifull to me a sinner and yet all of them by the seduced Malignant party held still in a kind of veneration and I know not by what strange delusion reputed for innocents and martyrs would they but look upon them as they were the actors and known fomenters of all the miseries we have suffered yea the only ingines and instruments whereby to have wound up soveraignty to the highest pitch of Tyranny and to make their Master instead of a King over Gentlemen and Freemen a Tyrant over slaves But having brought the King and his young Queen neere to the metropolis of the Kingdom and the sicknesse decreasing I shall in a short narration describe the after deportmeut of this most unfortunate prince Instead of Prayers and humiliations to God for his great mercy in the miraculous stay of that raging pestilence whereby 3. 4. and 5000 weekly died that summer only in London the Court notwithstanding was instantly in Iolity Masques Dancings Playes and Banquets all in expencefull and sumptuous ostentations were the frequent and assiduall exercises of the Court on the one side as to devotion the Queene had her Masse and Masse-Priests on the other side the King with his Laodicean luke-warme and fawning Prelates in a meer formality in shew of Godlinesse God knowes without the power thereof and in as neer a complyance one to the other as possibly their different devotion could permit And here I must not omit neither exempt out of the scene that part which the Bishops and Prelates acted in this interlude Comicall we may call it as to the beginning thereof but God knowes tragicall enough in the close The Bishops which in the former reigne had for divers reasons of State been admitted to the old Kings privacies and had speciall Influence on his Counsells were likewise transmitted to the favour and indulgency of this King but more especially in reference to the Presbytery of Scotland so averse to absolute Soveraignty so much affected by either King A Generation of Vipers which on any terms would have eaten the way to preferment through the entrayls of either Church or State these were the men the better to ingratiate themselves into the Kings favour that spared not to insinuat how dangerous the Puritan party here in England was as of a fraternity with the Presbyterians of Scotland would be if not timely lookt unto to the advance of Soveraignty apprehensions which as they soon took fire with the father so as much if not more with the sonne hence it was that the most active of them were admitted either to his favour or Councel of State but especially Doctor Laud the Bishop of London after Archbishop of Canterbury a person of a very
men bewitched and as I may say besotted with an incapacity or hardnesse of heart not to be convinced by any force of reason or arguments though providence it selfe visibly shews it out unto you that not only Gods special hand is in this great change of affairs but that he hath yet some greater worke depending on this which in his own good time he will bring to passe in throwing down that proud papall Monarchy and utterly to confound that man of sin who sits in the temple exaulting himselfe above God Sir Here may you be pleased to take in your more serious consideration by whom Kings reigne and cease to reigne and soberly to observe for what sins almighty God usually striks down the prowd Septers of Kings and binds their Nobles in chains of Iron and you may without presumption say and find it most true throughout all the sacred Scriptures that where Idolatry Injustice Oppression and Bloodshed have had predominance there Gods wrath hath inseparably attended the Authors and favorers and most severely punished those sins above all others and what in these sins have been either permitted acted or connived at by the late King howsoever faced out and denyed by himselfe and most of your party and his cause shamefully defended yet I suppose you cannot but acknowledge that they have not only been winked at but backt and authorised cnm privilegio And here give me leave to tell you that I have stood amazed at the impudence of your royal bookmen I shall only instance amongst ma ny in a sew as Judge Jenkins his Lex Terrae and other of his jugling fragments the Regall Apologie the Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae but especially in that grand imposture of the Kings Pourtracture in all which that they should give the plain lye to truth conceale and smother the true intent of the lawes of the Land and contradict the Kings own Letters and expresses written with his own hand augments the admiration and much the more that they should with such acerbity exclaime against the ripping up of the faults of the dead when they themselves give the occasion in their frequent invective Pamphlets against the Parliament and in their justifications of a Prince whose inclinations lead him to the fulfilling of his own will though to the apparent losse of his Crowne and his dearest friends so violently were his inclinations driven on to the accomplishing of his designs when as neither the junctoes of France Spaine Denmarke the States of Holland or scarce any Prince Christian though most of them of his nearest allyes and solicited by all the artifices that man could invent would owne owne him when they understood the wayes and enterprises he most wilfully undertook and all of them upon due examination as unnecessarily undertaken and needlesly pursued with as much violence and craft as if they had some necessary dependence on his own salvation and the safety of his people when as God knowes they were most destructive the mishapen and illegitimat births of his own willful inclinations Now it would not be much impertinent to the subject you have sent me if I should tell you that I find not any one Nation in the world that hath had any great reason to be overmuch inamored with their Kings sure I am neither of us both how different soever in our principles have had any great cause given us to dote on our last considered as he raigned in blood and oppression and handled the matter both with his friends and foes whether forraigne or domestick witnesse those needlesse Warres he ingaged himselfe against Spayn and France in the entrance of his reigne afterwards with the Scots but espetially with this Parliament and the subjects of three Kingdoms not only to the beggering of them but the ruine of himselfe and his posterity and yet is this most willfull and bloudy Prince the only King which your party have so much admired defended and believed living and dead adored and esteemed for a Saint and a Martyr Sir You are a Gentleman well verst in History I shall therefore take the boldnesse to advise you to take the right demensions of all the Kings you have read of either in the sacred scriptures or prophane observe well all their actings and I dare be bold to say that you shall very rarely find any of them which have strictly tyed themselves to the duty of their office or to have executed their powers otherwise than to the extream detriment of their Subjects take them wheresoever they have been admitted either by the suffrage of the people as that hath been the best means to keep them within the bounds of moderation or permitted by the absurdity of succession whether wisemen or fools whether Children or of mature years or assuming their Soveraignties by the power of their Swords and doubtlesse you shall find few of them which have been over-mindfull of the good and welfare of their people neither to have had any due retrospect to the right ends of Government and that salus populi the safety and good of their Subjects for which all Kings had their powers originally ordained and given them from God never for their own private interests which most of the Kings of the World have evermore studied to advance and generally per fas et nefas right or wrong indeavoured to inforce as in this point we have all of us had a late and a lamentable experience where take this in the way that without all dispute all Kingly power and that despoticall domination of that great hunter Nimrod which was first by him usurped by force and from him as the first pattern of Royalty dispersed throughout most parts of the World yet we find not in all the Scriptures any vestigia or authentick proof that the succeeding Kings of the Nations came to their powers by any immediate institution from God but only permissive though it is most true that when such powers were in being and how usurpatiously soever obtained yet submission hath been by God himself enjoyned to those which lived under them untill for their injustice and extreme Tyranny God in his justice determined to transferre their powers to others as you may transparently see he hath done in our late change since then other powers than Kingly are now with us in being you and I both which live under them are bound in conscience to submit and obey them for all powers are of God And let me remember you for its worth your observation that the Israelites for a long time had no Kingly Government but in Egypt in the Wildernesse and after in the Land of Canaan for many hundred years together were no other than Ambulans Respublica a walking Common-wealth and onely governed by Judges and the Princes of their respective Tribes never by the absolute power of any one man Moses himself having his assistants even the Princes of the People untill through their own wantonnesse and contempt of that Government
more necessary than to be imployed in the slaughtering of the English with the hazard of their own lives and for no other end but to advance their own prodigious and bloody designs for observe it in the former Letter he manifestly declares his resolution to call them over to his assistance and heere he tells it that as to the Irish if the taking away of Poynings act and the penall Statutes against Papists by a Law will do it he shall not thinke it a hard bargaine provided they freely and vigorously engage against his English and Scotish Rebels for which no conditions can be too hard not being against Conscience and Honour here you may safely aver is one of the strangest Consciences and an Honour so illimitable as that I am confident the subtillest Logitian in his Oxford Garrison would be driven to his ne plus ultra to give either of them a right definition that close of not being against Conscience or Honour considered with his former commands to Ormond without doubt is one of the finest peeces of Non-sense that ever I have seen and surely had I been in the Marquesses place that very restriction in the close would have made me to forbear the putting in execution of any of his commands for there was not a syllable of them all but in due construction was or ought to have been against his Conscience and Honour sure it was point blank opposite to his many Protestations and that fearfull imprecation of his Damnation on his receiving the Sacrament at Christ-Church and doubtlesse in my understanding all parts of this Letter considered the very last clause of not being against Conscience or Honour would have been sufficient warrant for me to have sate still and done nothing towards the concluding of so Irreligious and dishonourable a Peace But I beseech you look upon the Kings ends and you shall find them to be no other than in a brutish manner to set all his Subjects together by the ears to kill and make havock of one anothea English against English Scots againt Scots and Irish against both so that he might thereby accomplish his own pernitious designes And in the mean time to make no manner of scruple or Conscience of spilling of Innocent bloud without the least remorse of that horrible Massacree of 200000 of the English Nation butchered by those barbarous Villains for whom he was so solicitous to defend them and to procure a happy peace for them whatsoever it cost and with so many wiles and fetches he had so often endeavoured to engage them to joyne with Ormond against Inchiquine and the Scots as that you may evidently see in the Postscript of his Letters to him number 24. 1644. from Oxford as also in his Commissions to Montrosse first to ruine the Scots and after to come for his assistance into England Now that you may further understand what Conscience he made of bloodshed and what care he had to preserve his Subjects in Peace and Prosperity I shall tell you another story from the mouth of one of his principall Commanders Gerrard by name who upon the rendition of his Oxford Garrison came to London and made his addresses to Sir John Merricke at Essex house desiring him that he might have the Honour to kisse my Lord of Essex his hands Sir John told him That he had not behaved himself worthy of the name and honour of a Soldier to be admitted to such a favour having barbarously burnt his Lordships house at Lamphey together with most of the Gentlemens houses of the County of Pembroke and destroyed the whole Country even to desolation Gerrard replies in his usuall Oath God damme me Uncle if I did more than the King from Cardiffe by two severall Letters strictly commanded me to doe and then to march to him with all my Army for which I have his Majesties owne Letters for my Warrant Here is an excellent Conscience and care in a King bound by his Oath to preserve his Subjects from violence and yet commanding to destroy them with fire and rapine Sir in a few words more would you be pleased on an exact perusall of all this most unhappy Kings Declarations and transactions considered as you shall alwayes finde them sweetned and gilded over with the plausible pretences and specious professions of his love and care towards all his Subjects when he meant nothing lesse and many of them confirmed with Imprecations I say compare them diligently with his actions and the Letters of his own hand writing which of other evidences are the best keyes to unlock the secrets of mans heart not leaving out that Posthumus Imposture of his Pourtraicture and I am confident that the contrariety dissimulation hypocrisie and juglings you shall every where finde in them interwoven with a Pharisaicall justifying of himself and defending all his actions will astonish you as they have done me For in all the late horrid War and bloudshed throughout the three Kingdomes you shall find it for an infallible truth that he who spake and insisted so much on his Honour and Coscience for many years together never made any Conscience or was truely sensible of all the blood spilt either in his own behalf or against him more than of one wicked Mans though condemned by Law and the just judgement of a Court of Parliament and this man also acknowledged by himself to be uttterly unworthy to bear any publick office in the Common-wealth and untill God in his Iustice turnd the power of his Sword to nothing then indeed and as I may judge really he ever now and anon deplores the sad condition of his Kingdomes but never sincerely as I am bound to beleeve till he had don his worst and all that possibly he could invent to ruine the Parliament and to destroy all those that stood up in their defence And towards his last his principall labour tended to little more than in pittying of himselfe and complaining of the hard measure offered him during his restraint that he was not admitted to a Personall Treaty with the Parliament for the procuring as he would have it beleeved of a happy peace when in all his Treatyes and specious overtures from the first to the last his hand was well known to be in one plot or other how to get himselfe out of that toyle and Labyrinth wherein he had wilfully intangled himselfe and the Kingdomes being still one and the self same man justifying himself and standing on his own innocency with the Pharisee but little of the Publican God be mercifull to me a sinner still in his wonted inflexibility to the last utterly refusing to signe onely Four Bils for the publick security continuing his usuall pretences that they were against his Conscience and Honour When as all the Kingdome long since knew him to be preingaged to the Queen and that by one word of her mouth both his Honour and Conscience would easily have been dispenc'd withall This I may truly
our blessed Saviours own oracle Mat. 12. 2. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither hid which shall not be knowne God knowes and so may you on your better consideration that I have made use of nothing but authentick authority or took up any passage on bare trust neither with the least intention to injure the memory of him who is at rest but only in vindication and manifestation of truth and to make that more visibly knowne to you which long since hath not been unknowne to many which happily if they would might speak more and that as this most unfortunate Prince was of all others most his owne enemy so had providence decreed it that he should be most injurious to his friends a most implacable enemy to Parliaments and utterly averse to all partnership in government other than Hers which was the principall instrument of his ruine the undoing of his posterity and the lamentable destruction of three flourishing Kingdoms As to the present Government and change of the Royalty or any other of your impetuous exclamations with the exceptions you take to the present Form different from the forms of ancient Parliament and as it was so lately altered without King Lords and the major part of the excluded Commons and that those which now sit at Westminster are no other than usurped powers acting in Tyranny as all of your party spares not to belch out both in private and publick I shall instantly give you both a short and satisfactory answer to every of them and first to the Government which you know to be gotten by Conquest and as heretofore I have told you by the same weapon wherewith the King intended to make it absolutely Monarchicall and A la Francoys As to the difference between the old and this new Form of Parliament I answer that the King himself was the first projector both in lessening altering and laming of the Parliament witnesse his taking into his Councell of State the Earles of Hartford Essex Bath the Lords Say St. Maur Falkland and Culpepper all of them known to be the most noted Common-wealths men of both Houses within two moneths of the Parliaments sitting down and within one year after to corrupt neer the moity of the Members of both Houses to make up his Mungrel Parliament at Oxford of set purpose to confuse and ruine all Parliaments by themselves As to the late purging of the Houses it is acknowledged that in the midst of such a confusion as was both raised cherished and fomented by the King himself and the Malignant party it was done by the power of the Army and as I take it on this ground that the major part of both Houses voted for the readmittance of the King on such condition which himself refused which the lesser and more foreseeing part well understood would in the end come to no other issue than the setting him up into his old power so to enable him a new to embroyle the Kingdomes having so long before engaged the Prince in his Quarrell and disciplin'd him in his designes in so much as no other hopes were then left the Parliament but either a perpetuating of the War and more bloodshed or the invassalage of the Nation which necessarily would be the consequence on the admittance either of the Father or the Sonne upon these grounds 't is confest that the Soldiery ended the controversie in assisting the weaker party in Parliament though doubtlesse the more able in judgement and foresight of the future evills and calamities which in all probability might and would befall the Nation which to prevent on the evidence of the Kings obstinacy it was resolved to remove the Effects by taking away the Cause in calling the principall Author of all the former bloodshed to his publick tryall to stop which issue it was farther resolved to cut him off together with his whole posterity and to cast that pilot overboard that not more out of ignorance than wilfulnesse would obstinately have sunke the Ship of the Publick in the vast Ocean of his Prerogative had it not been timely rescued and warp't into the safe Harbour of a Republick and in change the Regall Government into a Commonwealth as you now see it established by power and by the same power probable it is they will uphold it which as it is commonly conceived was the true state and managery of that businesse Where you may observe it as a very remarkeable event that even the major part of of both Houses which had stood so constant to the trust of their Countries to the very Vote of No more Addresses and were inclined to readmit the King as we may beleeve by Gods just judgement were taken away by force as the King himselfe by fraud had long before drawne away so many of the Members purposly to lame and weaken all Parliaments in the future Sir These are passages of a very transcendant nature and too high for our understanding and we know Gods ways and works are unsearchable yet as the Wise man tells us There is nothing new under the Sun and is there any thing whereof it may be said see this is new it hath been already fold time and was before us howsoever when you have spoken the worst you can of those which now sit in Parliament you cannot deny but the most of them are of the old legall Electron and the relicts of the old Form they which have been the cause of the maiming or lessening the number and quality of the old Form you may thanke them for it and not blame those that remaine faithfull to their trust for some kinde of Government the people must have and you evidently see that God hath given them both Courage to stand fast to the last and power to enable them to act as they do which as heretofore I have told you wil either bend you to obedience or breake you in your resistance As to the Injustice wherewith you charge them and the Tyranny you so much exclaim against I take not upon me to be so much their Champion as to defend every of their actions or any Injustice of which not unlikely some of them may be guilty for where power is invested faults there may be and foule ones too yet this much may be said in their defence that those of known integrity fail not to look into the demeanour of the faul ty and by severe punishment to make them examples of Justice I shall say no more but that should they faile in doing righteousnesse Judgement stands at their owne doores and the same God which gave them the power they now have will as soon devest them of it as he bequeathed it unto them and Samuel will tell them If you doe wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King Now Sir for a close I shall onely tell you that it sufficeth me and all sober spirits that having thus long lived free from bloodshed and plunder under this Government which so lately under the Kingly power the whole Nation felt to their great grief and sorrow it behoves us then that we all rest content with Gods good will and pleasure and leave this great change to him as a worke of his own which I may say with Gamaliel If it be not of God it will surely fall but if from him he will establish it in spite of all those which shall withstand it t is most true that the Contributions and Taxes which you urge to be Tyrannically imposed on the whole Nation are very heavy to which I have already given you an answer viz. that we may all thanke your party for it that they are not onely continued but increast through your partyes onely means which cease not by their assiduall plots to disturbe the present peace and Government to their owne losse and grief of such as would willingly bear the burthen so they might enjoy their peace and quietnesse as having learned the sweetnesse of that old Addage defend me and spend mâ— In a word more I shall advise you in particular to rest content with that Government which Providence hath allotted us under which you may as yet live both secure and plentifull if you please dispose your self therefore to yeeld that Obedience which becomes all those that love the publick and their own domestick peace If not I feare me you will kicke against the pricks hurt if not utterly ruine your self and Family as many thousands of perverse Fools have done and fail not to remember that there is a Court of Iustice that spares none which shall disturbe the publick peace and that Government which we may safely beleeve God hath and will establish This is the Counsell of him who really hath a care of your preservation and so rests Your well-wishing Friend if you so please to esteem him Loe this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthned himselfe in his wickednesse P. 52. 7. The words of his mouth were smoother than Butter but War was in his heart his words were softer than oyle yet were they drawn Swords Psalm 55. 21. But thou O Lord shalt bring them downe into the pit of destruction bloody and deceitfull men shall not live out halfe their dayes verse 23. FINIS * Balzack Sir Walter Raleigh * Barclay adver Monarch lib. 3. cap. 8. * Grotius de jure belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. * The Earl of STRAFFORD * â—1 Kings 11. 4 5 6 7. * Mountague * Vide the Juncto * Sir John Broke Sir Ralph Hopton Mr. Partridge and Mr. Green were of that Committee * Rom. â—â— * 1 Sam. 8. 3 4 5. * Rom. 13 4. * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Vide the Juncto quinto Maij 1649 * The first copy was supprest expunged by the Bishops and the old Knight committed by K. JAMES to the Tower by the instigation of the Prelates * The Militia * Sir Rob. Cotton in the life of H. 3. * Psal. 28 Proverbs 28. 13. * The Earl of Strafford * Eccl. â— 9. 10. * 1 Sam. 1â— 15.