had composed and used this motive because it was a small matter He answered Though it seem to you a small thing it is not so to Me I had rather give you one of the Flowers of My Crown than permit your Children to be corrupted in the least point of their Religion Thus though He could not infuse Spiritual Graces into the minds of His Subjects yet He would manage their Reason by Pious Arts and what the Example of a King which through the Corruptions of men is more efficacious to Impiety than to Vertue could not do that His Law should and He would restrain those Vices which He could not extirpate Religion was never used by Him to veil Injustice for this was peculiar to His Adversaries His Justice who when they were plotting such acts as Hell would blush at they would fawn and smile on Heaven and they used it as those subtle Surprisers in War who wear their Enemies Colours till they be admitted to butcher them within their own Fortresses But His Majesty consulted the Peace of His Conscience not only in Piety to God but also in Justice to Men. He was as a Magistrate should be a speaking Law It was His usual saying Let Me stand or fall by My own Counsels I will ever with Job rather chuse Misery than Sin He first submitted His Counsels to the Censure of the Lawyers before they were brought forth to Execution Those Acts of which the Faction made most noise were delivered by the Judges to be within the Sphere of the Prerogative The causes of the Revenue were as freely debated as private Pleas and sometimes decreed to be not good which can never happen under a bad Prince The Justice of His Times shewed that of His Breast wherein the Laws were feared and not Men. None were forced to purchase their Liberty with the diminution of their Estates or the loss of their Credit Every one had both security and safety for His Life Fortune and Dignity and it was not then thought as afterwards to be a part of Wisdom to provide against Dangers by obscurity and Privacies His Favours in bestowing Great Offices never secured the Receivers from the force of the Law but Equity overcame His Indulgences For He knew that Vnjust Princes become Odious to them that made them so He submitted the Lord Keeper Coventrey to an Examination when a querulous person had accused him of Bribery He sharply reproved one whom He had made Lord Treasurer when he was petitioned against by an Hampshire Knight on whose Estate being held by Lease from the Crown that Treasurer had a design and He secured the Petitioner in his Right The greatest Officer of His Court did not dare to do any the least of those injuries which the most Contemptible Member of the House of Commons would with a daily Insolency act upon His weaker Neighbour In the Civil Discords He bewailed nothing more than that the Sword of Justice could not correct the illegal Furies of that of War Though by His Concessions and Grants He diminished His Power yet He thought it a Compensation to let the World see He was willing to make it impossible for Monarchy to have an unjust Instrument and to secure Posterity from Evil Kings Although He proved to a Leading Lord of the Faction That a People being too cautious to bind their King by Laws from doing Ill do likewise fetter Him from doing Good and their fears of Mischief do destroy their hopes of Benefit And that such is the weakness of Humanity that he which is intrusted only to Good may pervert that Power to the extremest Ills. And indeed there is no security for a Community to feel nothing in Government besides the Advantages of it but in the Benignity of Providence and the Justice of the Prince both which we enjoyed while we enjoyed Him Though He was thus in Love with Justice yet He suffered not that to leven His Nature to Severity and Rigour His Clemency but tempered it with Clemency especially when His Goodness could possibly find out such an Interpretation for the Offence that it struck more at His Peculiar than the Publick Interest He seemed almost stupid in the Opinion of Cholerick Spirits as to a sense of His own Injuries when there was no fear lest His Mercy should thereby increase the Miseries of His People And He was so ambitious of the Glory of Moderation that He would acquire it it in despight of the Malignity of the times For the Exercise of this Vertue depends not only on the temper of the Prince but the frame of the People must contribute to it because when the Reverence of Majesty and fear of the Laws are proscribed sharper Methods are required to form Obedience Yet He was unwilling to cut off till He had tryed by Mercy to amend even guilty Souls Thus He strove to oblige the Lord Balmerino to peaceful practices by continuing that Life which had been employed in Sedition and forfeited to the Law Soon after His coming into the Isle of Wight by which time He had experienced the numerous Frauds and implacable Malice of His Enemies being attended on by Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Hammond for they were the earliest in their Duties at that time a Discourse passed betwixt His Majesty and the Governour wherein there was mention made of the fears of the Faction that the King could never forgive them To which the King immediately replyes I tell thee Governour I can forgive them with as good an appetite as ever I eat My Dinner after an hunting and that I assure you was not a small one yet I will not make My self a better Christian than I am for I think if they were Kings I could not do it so easily This shewed how prone His Soul was to Mercy and found not any obstruction but what arose from a sense of Royal Magnanimity He sooner offered and gave life to His captive Enemies than their Spirits debauched by Rebellion would require it and He was sparing of that blood of which their fury made them Prodigal No man fell in battel whom He could save He chose rather to enjoy any Victory by Peace and therefore continually sollicited for it when He seemed least to need it than make one triumph a step to another and though He was passionate to put all in Safety yet He affected rather to end the War by Treaty than by Conquest The Prisoners He took He used like deluded men and oftner remembred that God had made them His Subjects than that the Faction had transformed them to Rebels He provided for them while in His Power and not to let them languish in Prison sent them by Passes to their own homes only ingaging them by Oath to no more injuries against that Sovereign whom they had felt to be Gracious for so He used those that were taken at Brainford But yet the Casuists of the Cause would soon dispense with their Faith and send them forth to die
Consciences too while they carried on unreasonable demands first by Tumults after by Armies Nothing makes mean spirits more cowardly-cruel in managing their usurped Power against their lawfull Superious than this the Guilt of their unjust Vsurpation notwithstanding those specious and popular pretensions of Justice against Delinquents applyed only to disguise at first the monstrousness of their designs who despaired indeed of possessing the power and profits of the Vineyard till the Heir whose right it is be cast out and slain With them my greatest Fault must be that I would not either destroy My self with the Church and State by my Word or not suffer them to do it unresisted by the Sword whose covetous Ambition no Concessions of Mine could ever yet either satisfie or abate Nor is it likely they will ever think that Kingdom of Brambles which some men seek to erect at once weak sharp and fruitless either to God or Man is like to thrive till watered with the Royal Blood of those whose right the Kingdom is Well God's will be done I doubt not bu◠my Innocency will find him both my Protector and my Advocate who is my only Judge whom I own as King of Kings not only for the eminency of His Power and Majesty above them but also for that singular Care and Protection which he hath over them who knows them to be exposed to as many Dangers being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth as there be either Men or Devils which love Confusion Nor will he suffer those men long to prosper in their Babel who build it with the Bones and cement it with the Blood of their KINGS I am confident they will find Avengers of my Death among themselves the Injuries I have sustained from them shall be first punished by them who agreed in nothing so much as in opposing Me. Their impatience to bear the loud cry of my Blood shall make them think no way better to expiate 〈◊〉 than by shedding theirs who with them most thirsted after Mine The sad Confusions following my Destruction are already presaged and confirmed to Me by those I have lived to see since my Troubles in which God alone who only could hath many wayes pleaded my Cause not sustering them to go unpunished whose Confederacy in Sin was their only Security who have cause to fear that God will both further divide and by murual Vengeance afterward destroy them My greatest conquest of Death is from the Power and Love of Christ who hath swallow'd up Death in the Victory of his Resurrection and the glory of his Ascension My next Comfort is that he gives Me not only the honour to imitate his Example in suffering for Righteousness sake though obscured by the foulest charges of Tyranny and Injustice but also that Charity which is the noblest Revenge upon and Victory over my Destroyers by which I thank God I can both forgive them and pray for them that God would not impute my Blood to them further than to convince them what need they have of Christs Blood to wash their Souls from the guilt of shedding Mine At present the Will of my Enemies seems to be their only rule their Power the measure and their Success the exactor of what they please to call Justice while they flatter themselves with the fancy of their own Safety by My Danger and the security of their Lives and Designs by My Death forgetting that as the greatest temptations to Sin are wrapped up in seeming Prosperities so the severest Vengeances of God are then most accomplished when men are suffered to compleat their wicked purposer I bless God I pray not so much that this bitter cup of a Violent Death may pass from Me as that of his Wrath may pass from all those whose hands by deserting me are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to my Death are embrued with my Blood The Will of God hath confined and concluded Mine I shall have the pleasure of dying without any pleasure of desired Vengeance This I think becomes a Christian toward his Enemies and a King toward his Subjects They cannot deprive Me of more than I am content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from Me whose Mercy I believe will more than infinitely recompence whatever by Mans Injustice he is pleased to deprive me of The Glory attending my Death will far surpass all I could enjoy or conceive in Life I shall not want the heavy and envied Crowns of this world when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his Graces with Glory and exchanged the shadows of my Earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that Heavenly Kingdom with Himself For the censures of the world I know the sharp and necessary Tyranny of my Destroyers will sufficiently confute the Calumnies of Tyranny against Me I am perswaded I am happy in the judicious Love of the ablest and best of my Subjects who do not only pity and pray for Me but would be content even to die with Me or for Me. These know how to excuse my Failings as a Man and yet to retain and pay their Duty to Me as their KING there being no Religious necessity binding any Subjects by pretending to punish infinitely to exceed the faults and errours of their Princes especially there where more than sufficient Satisfaction hath been made to the publick the enjoyment of which private Ambitions have hitherto frustrated Others I believe of softer tempers and less advantaged by my Ruine do already feel sharp Convictions and some remorse in their Consciences where they cannot but see the proportions of their evil dealings against Me in the measure of God's retaliations upon them who cannot hope long to enjoy their own thumbs and toes having under pretence of paring others nails been so cruel as to cut off their chiefest strength The punishment of the more insolent and obstinate may be like that of Korah and his Complices at once mutining against both Prince and Priest in such a method of Divine Justice as is not ordinary the Earth of the lowest and meanest People opening upon them and swallowing them up in a just disdain of their ill-gotten and worse-used Authority upon whose support and strength they chiefly depended for their building and establishing their Designs against Me the Church and State My chiefest comfort in Death consists in my Peace which I trust is made with God before whose exact Tribunal I shall not fear to appear as to the Cause so long disputed by the Sword between Me and my causless Enemies where I doubt not but his Righteous Judgement will confute their Fallacy who from worldly Success rather like Sophisters than sound Christians draw those popular Conclusions for God's Approbation of their actions whose wise Providence we know oft permits many events which his revealed Word the only clear safe and fixed Rule of good Actions and good Consciences in no sort approves I am confident the Justice of my
causers themselves can do so that of all wonders yet this is the greatest to Me. But it may be easily gathered how those men intend to govern who have used Me thus And if it be My hard Fate to fall together with the Liberty of this Kingdom I shall not blush for My self but much lament the future Miseries of My People the which I shall still pray to God to avert whatever becomes of Me. CHARLES R. Meditations upon DEATH after the Votes of Non-Addresses and His MAJESTIES closer Imprisonment in Carisbrook Castle AS I have leisure enough so I have cause more than enough to meditate upon and prepare for my Death for I know there are but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes It is God's indulgence which gives Me the space but Mans Cruelty that gives Me the sad occasions for these thoughts For besides the common burthen of Mortality which lies upon Me as a Man I now bear the heavy load of other mens Ambitions Fears Jealousies and cruel Passions whose Envy or Enmity against Me makes their own lives seem deadly to them while I enjoy any part of Mine I thank God my Prosperity made Me not wholly a stranger to the contemplations of Mortality Those are never unseasonabble since this is alwayes uncertain Death being an Eclipse which oft happeneth as well in clear as cloudy dayes But my now long and sharp Adversity hath so reconciled in Me those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that I thank God the common terrours of it are dispelled and the special horrour of it as to My particular much allayed for although my Death at present may justly be represented to Me with all those terrible aggravations which the policy of Cruel and Implacable enemies can put upon it affairs being drawn to the very dregs of Malice yet I bless God I can look upon all those stings as unpoisonous though sharp since my Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given Me the Antidote of his Death against them which as to the Immaturity Unjustice Shame Scorn and Cruelty of it exceeded whatever I can fear Indeed I never did find so much the Life of Religion the Feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious Integrity and Constancy as since I came to these closer conflicts with the thoughts of Death I am not so old as to be weary of Life nor I hope so bad as to be either afraid to dye or ashamed to live true I am so afflicted as might make Me sometime even desire to dye if I did not consider that it is the greatest glory of a Christians life to dye daily in conquering by a lively Faith and patient Hopes of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill us as it were by piece-meals and make us overlive our own fates while we are deprived of Health Honour Liberty Power Credit Safety or Estate and those other Comforts of dearest Relations which are as the Life of our lives Though as a KING I think My self to live in nothing temporal so much as in the Love and good will of my People for which as I have suffered many deaths so I hope I am not in that point as yet wholly dead notwithstanding my Enemies have used all the poison of Falsity and violence of Hostility to destroy first the Love and Loyalty which is in my Subjects and then all that content of Life in Me which from these I chiefly enjoyed Indeed they have left Me but little of Life and only the husk and shell as it were which their further Malice and Cruelty can take from Me having bereaved Me of all those worldly Comforts for which Life it self seems desirable to men But O my Soul think not that Life too long or tedious wherein God gives Thee any opportunities if not to do yet to suffer with such Christian Patience and Magnanimity in a good Cause as are the greatest Honour of our Lives and the best improvement of our Deaths I know that in point of true Christian Valour it argues Pusillanimity to desire to dye out of weariness of life and a want of that heroick greatness of spirit which becomes a Christian in the patient and generous sustaining those Afflictions which as shadows necessarily attend us while we are in this Body and which are lessened or enlarged as the Sun of our Prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompenced with the dew of Heaven The assaults of Affliction may be terrible like Sampson's Lion but they yield much sweetness to those that dare to encounter and overcome them who know how to overlive the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God That I must dye as a Man is certain that I may dye a King by the hands of my own Subjects a violent sudden and barbarous death in the strength of my years in the midst of my Kingdoms my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators my Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over Me living dying and dead is so probable in humane reason that God hath taught Me not to hope otherwise as to mans Cruelty however I despair not of God's infinite Mercy I know my Life is the object of the Devils and Wicked mens Malice but yet under God's sole custody and disposal whom I do not think to flatter for longer Life by seeming prepared to die but I humbly desire to depend upon him and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he is pleased to lay them out to Me. I confess it is not easie for Me to contend with those many horrors of Death wherewith God suffers Me to be tempted which are equally horrid either in the suddenness of a barbarous Assassination or in those greater formalities whereby my Enemies being more solemnly cruel will it may be seek to add as those did who crucified Christ the Mockery of Justice to the Cruelty of Malice That I may be destroyed as with greater Pomp and Artifice so with less Pity it will be but a necessary policy to make my Death appear as an act of Justice done by Subjects upon their Soveraign who know that no Law of God or Man invests them with any power of Judicature without Me much less against Me and who being sworn and bound by all that is Sacred before God and Man to endeavour my Preservation must pretend Justice to cover their Perjury It is indeed a sad fate for any man to have his Enemies to be his Accusers Parties and Judges but most desperate when this is acted by the insolence of Subjects against their Soveraign wherein those who have had the chiefest hand and are most guilty of contriving the publick Troubles must by shedding My Blood seem to wash their own hands of that innocent blood whereof they are now most evidently guilty before God and Man and I believe in their own
THE Royal Martyr OR THE LIFE and DEATH OF KING Charles I. ROMANS 8. more than Conquerour Bona agere mala pati Regium est LONDON Printed by J. M. for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty MDCLXXVI BEATAM ETEâ—NAâ— CLARIOR E TENEBRIS CAELI SPECTO ASPERAM AT LEVEM â—â—Râ—STI TRACTâ— In Verbo â—uo Spes mea MUNDI CALCO SELENDIDAM AT GRAVEM 〈◊〉 sculp Alij diutius Imperium tenuerunt nemo tam fortiter reliquit Tacit. Histor Lib. 2. c. 47 p. 4.17 TO THE KINGS most Excellent MAJESTY CHARLES II. By the Grace of God KING of Great Britain France and Ireland c. May it please Your MAJESTY SO Clear and Indisputable is Your Majesties Title to the following Papers that to prefix any other name before them were a boldness next door to sacriledge They had the honour when first published to attend the Works of Your Majesties Royal Father of blessed Memory the greatest part of which Impression collected with great Cost and Care having in the late Conflagration perished in the common flames I was ambitious by reviving this Piece to do some honour to the Memory of so Great a Prince and that the world might see how far Truth and Justice and a better Cause is able to hold out under the most prosperous Triumphs of violence and oppression and that when Villains may be suffered so far to prevail as to despoil Majesty of all advantages of Power and Greatness it can at the same time be secure in the comforts of its own innocence and vertue That Heaven would bless Your Majesty with a long Life and a prosperous Reign with all the blessings of this and a better world is the hearty and incessant prayer of Your Majesties most humbly devoted Subject and Servant Richard Royston CHARLES R. CHARLES the Second by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all Our loving Subjects of what Degree Condition or Quality soever within Our Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland or any of Our Dominions greeting Whereas We have received sufficient Testimony of the Fidelity and Loyalty of Our Servant Richard Royston of Our City of London Book-seller and of the great Losses and Troubles he hath sustained for his Faithfulness to Our Royal Father of blessed Memory and Our Self in the Printing and Publishing of many Messages and Papers of Our said Blessed Father especially those most Excellent Discourses and Soliloquies by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know ye That it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure and We do by these presents Grant unto the said Richard Royston his Executors Administrators and Assigns the sole Printing and Publishing of the said Messages Papers and Discourses contained in the Book Intituled Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae and of all or any other the Works of Our said Royal Father with other Papers and Declarations concerning Our said Royal Father in any Volume or Volumes whatsoever Of which Our Grant and Royal Pleasure We will and require all Our loving Subjects to take notice And that none of them presume to print or cause to be printed vended or put to sale the said Book Intituled Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae or any part of the said Papers or Works of Our said Royal Father within these Our Realms and Dominions or any of them whether Printed within these Our Dominions or Imported from Forein Parts contrary to Our express Pleasure herein declared without the Licence and Consent of the said Richard Royston his Executors Administrators or Assigns under such Penalties as are by the Lawes and Statutes of this Our Realm imposed upon such Persons as Imprint Import Vend or Put to sale unlicensed and prohibited Books Any Privilege Custome or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding In witness c. Given at Our Court at White-Hall the nine and twentieth day of November in the twelfth year of Our Reign TO THE READER IN these Papers READER thou hast a short Account how this best of PRINCES Lived and Died a Subject that was fit to be writ only with the point of a Scepter none but a Royal Breast can have Sentiments equal to His Vertues nor any but a Crowned Head can frame Expressions to represent His Worth He that had nothing Common or Ordinary in His Life and Fortune is almost profaned by a Vulgar Pen. The attempt I confess admits no Apologie but this That it was fit that Posterity when they read His Works for they shall continue while these Islands are inhabited to upbraid Time and reproach Marble Monuments of weakness should also be told that His Actions were as Heroick as His Writings and His Life more Elegant than His Style Which not being undertaken by some Noble hand that was happy in a near approach to Majesty and so could have taken more exact measures of this Great Example for Mighty Kings rendred it in more full proportions and given it more lively Colours I was by importunity prevailed upon to imitate those affectionate Slaves who would gather up the scattered limbs of some great Person that had been their Lord yet fell at the Pleasure of his Enemies burn them on some Plebeian Pyle and entertain their ashes in an homely Vrn till future times could cover them with a Pyramid or inclose them in a Temple by making a Collection from Writers and Persons worthy of Credit of all the Remains and Memoires I could get of this Incomparable Monarch Whose Excellent Vertues though they often tempted the Compiler to the Liberty of a Panegyrick yet they still perswaded him to as strict an observance of Truth as is due to an History For he praises this King best who writes His Life most faithfully which was the Care and Endeavour of Thine Rich. Perrinchief MAJESTY IN MISERY OR An Imploration to the KING of KINGS MAJESTY in MISERY OR An Imploration to the KING of Kings Written by his late Majesty King CHARLES the First during His Captivity at Carisbrooke Castle Anno Dom. 1648. GREAT Monarch of the World from whose Power springs The Potency and Power of Kings Record the Royal Woe my Sufferings sings And teach my tongue that ever did confine Its faculties in Truths Seraphick Line To tract the treasons of thy foes and mine Nature and Law by thy Divine Decree The only Root of Righteous Royaltie With this dim Diadem invested me With it the sacred Scepter Purple Robe The Holy Vnction and the Royal Globe Yet am I level'd with the life of Job The fiercest Furies that do daily tread Vpon my Grief my Gray Dis-crowned head Are those that owe my Bounty for their Bread They raise a War and Christen it The Cause Whilest sacrilegious hands have best applause Plunder and Murder are the Kingdoms Laws Tyranny bears the Title of Taxation Revenge and Robbery are Reformation Oppression gains the name of Sequestration My Loyal Subjects who in this bad season Attend me by the Law of God and Reason They dare
Relations of His Gallantry when She was told of His passing through Paris She answered as it is reported That if He went to Spain for a Wife He might have had one nearer hand and saved Himself a great part of the labour Anno 1625. In the midst of these Preparations for War and Love King James died at Theobalds Sunday March 27. Anno 1625. and Prince CHARLES was immediately proclaimed at the Court-Gate King of Great Britain France and Ireland and so throughout all the Three Kingdoms with insinite Rejoycings The people expecting all the benefits of the happiest Government under Him whose private and vouthful part of Life had been so spent that it had nothing in it to be â—â—â—used and where the eager inquisitors for matter of Reproach met with no satisfaction An Argument of a solid Vertue that could hold out against all the Vices of Youth that are rendred more impetuous by Flatteries and Plenty which are contâ—nuâ—lly resident in great Courts For had any debauchery polluted His earlier days it had been onblished by those who in scarcity of just Accusations did invent unimaginable Calumnies Nor could it have been hid for in a great Fortune notâ—ing is concealed but Curiosity opens the Closeâ—â—â—nd Bed chambers especially of Princes and discovers their closest retirements exposing all their Actions to Fame and Censure Nor did the King deceive their hopes they being the happiest people under the Sun while He was undistuibed in the administration of Justice His first publick Act was the Celebrating His Fathers Funeral whereat He Himself was Chief Mourner contrary to the Practice of His Royal Predecessors and not conformable to the Ceremonies of State Either preferring Piety to an unnatural Grandeur or urged by some secret Decree of Providence that in all the ruines of His Family He should drink the greatest draught of Tears or His Spirit presaging the Troubles of the Throne He would hallow the Ascent to it by a pious act of Grief When He had pay'd that debt to His deceased Father He next provided for Posterity and therefore hastened the coming over of His dearest Consort Whom the Duke of Chevereux had in His Name espoused at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris and He receiving Her at Dover the next day after Trinity-Sunday at Canterbury began His Conjugal Embraces A Lady of most excellent Endowments who assumed to Her self nothing in His Good Fortune but the Joy and in His Evil bore an equal share for She reverenced Him not his Greatness Thus having dispatched the affairs of His Family He applyes Himself to those of His Kingdoms which too much Felicity had made unmanageable by a moderate Government And He seemed not so much to ascend a Throne as enter upon a Theatre to wrestle with all the difficulties of a corrupted State whose long Peace had softned almost all the Nobless into Court-pleasures and made the Commons insolent by a great Plenty The Rites and Discipline of Religion had been blotted out by a long and uninterrupted Prosperity and Factions crept from the Church into the Senate which were made use of by those that endeavoured the alteration of Government and the Resolves of that Council were the dictates of some heady Demagogues who fed the Vulgar with hopes of Novelty under the name of Liberty so that the King could not endure their Vices nor they His Vertues whence came all the Obstructions to His Designs for Glory and the Publick good The Treasury had been exhausted to satiate the unquiet and greedy Scots and the people were taught not to supply it unless they were bribed with the blood of some Minister of State or some more advantages for Licentiousness Each of these single would have ennobled the Care of an Ordinary Prudence to have weathered out but when all these conspired with the traitorous Projects of men of unbounded and unlawful hopes they took from Him His Peace and that which the World calls Happiness but yet they made Him Great and affording Exercises for His most excellent Abilities rendred Him Glorious The different states of these Difficulties when like Clouds they were gathering together and when they descended in showres of Blood divide the King's Reign into two parts The first could not be esteemed dayes of Peace but an Immunity from Civil War The other was when He was concluded by that Fatal Necessity either to part with his Dignity and expose His Subjects to the injuries of numerous Tyrants or else to exceed the calmer temper of His peacefull Soul and make use of those necessary Arms whereby He might hope to divert if possible the Ruine of Church and State which He saw in projection In the first Part He had no Wars at home but what was in the Houses of Parliament which though their first Institution designed for the production of just Counsels and assistances of Government yet through the just Indignation of Heaven and the practises of some unquiet and seditious persons became the wombs wherein were first conceived and formed those monstrous Confusions which destroyed their own Liberty caused our Miseries and the King's Afflictions His First Parliament began June 18. At the opening of which the King acquainted them with the necessity of Supplies for the War with Spain which they importunately had through His Mediation engaged His Father in and made it as hereditary to Him as the Crown His Eloquence gave powerful Reasons for speedy and large summs of Money did also audit to them the several disbursements relating both to the Army and Navy that He might remove all Jealousies of mis-imployment and give them notice how well He understood the Office He had newly entred upon and how to be a faithful Steward of the Publick Treasure But the Projectors of the alteration of Government brought into debate two Petitions one for Religion the other for Grievances formed in King James's time which delayed the Succours and increased the Necessities which at last they answered but with two Subsidies too poor a stock to furnish an Army with yet was kindly accepted in expectation of more at the next Session For the Infection seising upon London the Parliament was adjourned till August when they were to meet at Oxford and at that time He passed such Acts as were presented to Him At the next Session He gave a complying and satisfactory answer to all their Petitions and expected a Retribution in larger Subsidies towards the Spanish War But in stead of these there were high and furious debates of Grievances consultations to form and publish Remonstrances Accusations of the Duke of Buckingham Which the King esteeming as reproaches of His Government and assaults upon Monarchy dissolves that Aslembly hoping to find one of a less cholerick complexion after His Coronation This inauspicious Meeting drew aster it another Mischief the Miscarriage of the Designs upon Spain For the supplies of Money being scanty and slow the Fleet could not go forth till October 8. an unseasonable time in the British Seas
and their first contest was with Winds and Tempests which destroying some seattered all the Ships When they met a more dangerous storm fell among the Soldiers and Seamen where small Pay caused less Discipline and a contempt of their General the Lord Wimbleton rendred the attempt upon Cades vain and fruitless This was followed by a Contagion to which some conceive discontented minds make the bodies of men more obnoxious in the Navy which forced it home more empty of Men and less of Reputation The Infection decreasing at London the King performed the Solemnities of His Coronation February 2. with some alterations from those of His Predecessors for in the Civil He omitted the usual Parade of Riding from the Tower through the City to White-Hall to save the Expences that Pomp required for more noble undertakings In the Spiritual there was restored a Clause in the Prayers which had been pretermitted since Henry VI. and was this Let Him obtain favour for this People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the waters Zacharias in the Temple give Him Peter 's Key of Discipline Paul 's Doctrine Which though more agreeing to the Principles of Protestantism which acknowledgeth the Power of Princes in their Churches and was therefore omitted in the times of Popery yet was quarrelled at by the Factious party who take advantages of Calumny and Sedition from good as well as bad circumstances and condemned as a new invention of Bishop Laud and made use of to defame both the King and him After this He began a Second Parliament February 2. wherein the Commons voted Him Four Subsidies but the Demagogues intended them as the price of the Duke of Buckingham's blood whom Mr. Cooke and Dr. Turner with so much bitterness inveighed against as passing the modesty of their former dissimulation they taxed the King's Government Sir Dudley Digges Sir John Elliot and others carried up Articles against him to the Lord's House in which to make the Faction more sport the Duke and the Earl of Bristol did mutually impeach each other By these contrasts the Parliament were so highly heated that the Faction thought it fit time to put a Remonstrance in the forge which according to their manner was to be a publick Invective against the Government But the King having notice of it dissolves the Parliament June 18. Anno 1626. and the Bill for the Subsidies never passed This misunderstanding at home produced another War abroad For the King of France taking advantage of these our Domestick embroilments begins a War upon us and seiseth upon the English Merchant Ships in the River of Bourdeaux His pretence was because the King had sent back all the French Servants of the Queen whose insolencies had been intolerable But the world saw the vanity of this pretext in the Example of Lewis himself who had in the like manner dimitted the Spanish attendants of his own Queen and that truly the unhappy Counsels in Parliament had exposed this Just Prince to foreign injuries Which He magnanimously endeavoured to revenge and to recover the goods of His abused Subjects and therefore sent the Fleet designed for Justice upon Spain to seek it first in France But the want of Money made the Preparations slow and therefore the Navy putting out late in the year was by Storms forced to desist the enterprize So that what was the effect only of the malice of His Enemies was imputed by some to a secret Decree of Heaven which obstructed His just undertakings for Glory Anno 1627. The next year the King quickned by the Petitions of the Rochellers who now sued for His Protection as well as by the Justice of His own Cause more early prosecuted His Counsels and sent the Duke of Buckingham to attach the Isle of Rhee which though alarmed to a greater strength by the last year's vain attempt yet had now submitted to the English Valour had not the Duke managed that War more with the Gayeties of a Courtier than the Arts of a Souldier And when it was wisdom to forsake those attempts which former neglects had made impossible being too greedy of Honour and to avoid the imputation on of fear in a safe retreat he loaded his overthrow with a new Ignominy and an heavier loss of men the common fate of those Who seek for glory in the parcels lose it in the gross Which was contrary to the temper of his Master who was so tender of humane blood that therefore He raised no Wars but found them and thought it an opprobrious bargain to purchase the fruitless Laurels or the empty name of Honour with the lives of men but where the Publick Safety required the hazard and loss of some particulars This Expedition being so unhappy and the Miseries of Rochel making them importunate for the King's Assistance His Compassionate Soul was desirous to remove their Dangers but was restrained by that necessitous condition the Faction had concluded Him under To free Himself from which that He might deliver the oppressed He doth pawn His own Lands for 120000 pounds to the City and borrows 30000 pounds more of the East-India Company but this was yet too narrow a Foundation to support the charges of the Fleet and no way so natural to get adequate supplies as by a Parliament which He therefore summons to meet March 17 intending to use all Methods of Complacency to unite the Subjects Affections to Himself Which in the beginning proved successful for the modesty of the Subjects strove with the Piety of the King and both Interests contended to oblige that they might be obliged The Parliament granted the King Anno 1628. five Subsidies and He freely granted their Petition of Right the greatest Condescension that ever any King made wherein He seemed to submit the Royal Scepter to the Popular Fasces and to have given Satisfaction even to Supererogation These auspicious beginnings though full of Joy both to Prince and People were matter of envy to the Faction and therefore to form new Discontents and Jealousies the Demagogues perswaded the Houses that the King 's Grant of their Petition extended beyond their own Hopes and the Limits themselves had set and what He had expresly mentioned and cautioned even to the taking away His Right to Tonnage and Poundage Besides this they were again hammering a Remonstrance to reproach Him and His Ministers of male-administration Which Ingratitude He being not able to endure on June 26. adjourns the Parliament till Octob. 20. and afterward by Proclamation till Jan. 20. following In the interim the King hastens to send succours to Rochel and though the General the Duke of Buckingham was at Portsmouth Assassinated by Felton armed as he professed with the publick hatred yet the Preparations were not slackned the King by His personal industry doing more to the necessary furnishing of the Fleet in ten or twelve dayes than the Duke had done in so many months before But in the mean while Rochel was barricadoed to an impossibility of Relief
Eloquence that he whom the mercenary Tongues of their Lawyers had rendred as a Monster of men could not be found guilty of Treason either in the particulars or the whole So that his Enemies were filled with madness that their Charge of Crimes appeared no other than a Libel of Slanders and the dis-interessed Hearers were besides the pleasure they received to find so great Endowments polluted with no hainous Crimes sensible of the unhappiness of those who are Ministers of State among a Factious people where their prosperous Counsels are not rewarded and unsuccessful though prudent are severely accused when they err every one condemns them and their wise Advices few praise for those that are benefited envy and such as are disappointed hate those that gave them And such seemed the Fate of this Excellent Counsellour whom nothing else but his great Parts his Master's Love and Trust had exposed to this Danger The Faction being obstructed this way by the Earl's Innocency and Abilities from taking away his Life move the House to proceed by a Bill of Attainder to the making a Law after the Fact whereby they Vote him guilty of High Treason yet add a Caution that it should not be drawn into a Precedent seeking to secure themselves from a return of that Injustice upon themselves which they acted on him intending to prosecute what they falsly charged him with the Alteration of Government Which yet passed not without a long debate and contention for many that had none but honest hopes disdained to administer to the Interest of the Faction in the blood of so much Innocent Gallantry and those that were prudent saw how such an Example opened the avenues to ruine of the best Persons when once exposed to publick hatred Therefore they earnestly disswaded such a proceed And fifty nine of the most eminent openly dissented when it came to the Vote whose Names were afterwards posted and marked for the fury of the Rabble that for the future they might not oppose the designs of the Factious unless they desired to be torn in pieces In two dayes the Lower House past the Bill so swift were the Demagogues to shed blood but the Lords House was a little more deliberative the King having amongst them declared His sense of the Earl's Innocency of whose slow Resolves the Faction being impatient there came a seditious rabble of about 5 or 6000 of the dregs of the people armed with Staves and Cudgels and other Instruments of Outrage instigated by the more unquiet Members both of the House of Commons and the City to the Parliament doors clamouring Justice Justice and the next day to raise their Fury there was a report spred among them of some endeavours to prepare an Escape for the Lieutenant of Ireland therefore with more fierceness they raised their clamours some objecting Treason to him others their Decay of Trade and each one either as he was instructed for some of the House of Commons would be among them to direct their Fury and to give some order to their Tumult that it might appear more terrible or the sense of his own necessities and lusts led him urged his different motives for Justice and at last heated by their own motion and noise they guard the doors of the House of Peers offer insolencies to the Lords especially the Bishops as they went in and threaten them if their Votes disagree from their clamours And when they had thus made an assault on the Liberty of the Parliament which yet was pretended to be so Sacred they afterward set upon the neighbouring Abby-Church where forcing open the doors they brake down the Organs spoiled all the Vestments and Ornaments of the Worship from thence they fly to Court and disturb the Peace of it with their undecent and barbarous clamours and at last were raised to that impudency as to upbraid the King who from a Scaffold perswaded them as they passed by to a modest care of their own private affairs with an unfitness to reign When some Justices of the Peace according to the Law endeavoured to suppress those Tumults by imprisoning the most forward and bold Leaders they themselves were imprisoned by the Command of the Commons upon pretext of an injury offered to the Liberties of the Subject of which one was as they then dictated That every one might safely petition the Parliament yet when the Kentish men came to Petition for something contrary to the Gust of the Faction they caused the City Gates to be shut upon them and when other Counties were meditating Addresses for Peace by threatnings they deterred them from such honest undertakings And when some prudent Persons minded the Demagogues how dishonourable it was for the Parliament not to suppress such Mutinies they replyed that their friends ought rather to be thanked and caressed By these and other Arts having wholly overthrown the freedom of that Council and many with-drawing themselves from such Outrages when scarce the third part of the Peers were present the Faction of that House likewise passed the Bill the Dissenters being out-voted only by seven Voices Yet all this could not prevail upon the King though the Tumults were still high without and within He was daily solicited by the Lords of His Palace who now looked upon the Earl as the Herd doth on an hurt Deer and they hoped his Blood would be the Lustration of the Court to leave the Earl as a Sacrifice to the Vulgar Rage Nor did the King any ways yield till the Judges who were now obsequious to the pleasures of the Parliament declared He might do it by Law and the Earl by his own Letters devoted himself as a Victim for the publick Peace and His Majesties Safety and then overcome with Importunities on all hands and being abused by bad dealing of the Judges as Himself complained to the Bishops whom He consulted in that Case and the Bishop of London who was one of them answered That if the King in Conscience found him not guilty He ought not to pass the Bill but for matter of Law what was Treason he referred Him to the Judges who according to their Oath ought to carry themselves indifferently betwixt Him and His Subjects The other four Bishops that were then consulted Durham Lincoln Carlisle and the Arch-Bishop of Armagh were not so free as the Bishop of London was and therefore the King observed a special blessing of God upon him He at last with much reluctancy signed a Commission to some Lords to pass that Bill of Attainder and another for Continuation of the Parliament during the pleasure of the Two Houses The passing of these two Bills as some thought wounded the King's Greatness more than any thing He ever did The first because it cut off a most exquisite Instrument of Empire and a most faithful Servant and none did more make use of this to pollute His Honour than those who had even forced Him to it like those malignant and damned Spirits who upbraid
Arts of the Irish Rebels who to dishearten the English from any resistance bragged that the Queen was with their Army That the King would come amongst them with Auxiliary Forces That they did but maintain His Cause against the Puritans That they had the Kings Commission for what they did shewing indeed a Patent that themselves had drawn but thereto was affixed an Old broad Seal that had been taken from an obsolete Patent out of Farnham Abby by one Plunckett in the presence of many of their Lords and Priests as was afterwards attested by the Confession of many That the Scots were in confederacy with them to beget a faith of which they abstained from the lives and fortunes of those of that Nation among them On the other side to encourage the Natives of their own party they produce fictitious Letters wherein they were informed from England that the Parliament had passed an Act that all the Irish should be compelled to the Protestant Worship that for the first offence they should forfeit all their Goods for the second their Estates and for the third their Lives Besides they present them with the hopes of Liberty That the English Yoke should be shaken off that they would have a King of their own Nation and that the Goods and Estates of the English should be divided among the Natives And with these hopes of Spoil and Liberty the Irish were driven to such a Fury that they committed so many horrid and barbarous acts as scarce ever any Age or People were guilty of In the mean while nothing was done for the relief of the poor English there but only some Votes passed against the Rebels till the King returned to London which was about the end of November where He with the Queen and the Prince were magnificently feasted by the Citizens and the Chief of them afterwards by Him at Hampton-Court For he never neglected any honest Arts to gain His Peoples love to which they were naturally prone enough had not His Enemies methods and impulses depraved their Genius But this much troubled the Faction who envied that Reverence to Majesty in others which was not in themselves and they endeavoured to make these loves short and unhappy for they discountenanced the prime advancers of this Honour to the King and were more eager to render Him odious For having gotten a Guard about them they likewise insinuated into the people dangerous apprehensions as the cause of that Guard and every day grew more nice and jealous of their Priviledges and Power The King's advices to more tenderness of His Prerogative or His Advertisements of the scandalous Speeches that were uttered in their House they interpret as encroachments upon their Grandeur and upbraided the King for them in their Petitions to Him But their greatest effort upon Majesty was the Remonstrance after which they took all occasions to magnifie the apprehensions of those Fears which they had falsly pretended to in it This the Faction had before formed and now brought into the House of Commons where it found a strong opposition by those wise men that were tender of the publick Peace and Common Good though those who preferred their Private to the General Interest and every one that was short-sighted and improvident for the future were so fierce for it that the Debates were continued all night till ten a clock the next morning so that many of the more aged and persons of best fortunes not accustomed to such watchings were wearied out and many others not daring to provoke the Faction in this their grand Design left the House so that at last they carried it yet but by eleven Votes Which they presented with a Petition to take away the Votes of Bishops in the House of Lords and the Ceremonies in the Church and to remove those Persons from His Trust which they could not confide in yet named none but only accused all under the name of a Malignant Popish Party Which they had no sooner delivered than they caused it to be published in Print To which the King answers in another publick Declaration but so much to the discontent of the Demagogues to find their Methods of Ruine so fully discovered as they were in His Majesties Answer that they had recourse to their former sovereign Remedy which sober men accounted a crime and an indignity to Government the Tumults of the Rabble Who in great numbers and much confusion came up to Westminster some crying out against Bishops others belching their fury against the Liturgy and a third party roaring that the Power of the Militia should be taken out of the King's hands To their Clamours they added rude Affronts to those Lords whom their Leaders had taught them to hate and especially to the Bishops at their going in or coming out of the House and afterwards drawing up to White-Hall they appeared so insolent as it was evident they wanted only some to begin for there were enough to prosecute an Assault upon the King in His own Palace The Bishops thus rudely excluded from their Right and Liberty of coming to the Parliament Twelve of them afterwards protest against the Proceedings of it during their so violent Exclusion Which Protestation the Commons presently accused of High Treason and caused their Commitment to the Tower where they continued them till the Bill against their Votes in the Lords House was past that they might not produce their Reasons for their Rights and against the Injustice offered unto them and then afterwards released them The King also saw it necessary to take a Guard of such Gentlemen as offered their Service for His Safety and to prevent the prophaning of Majesty by the rude fury of the People who used to make their Addresses acceptable at Westminster by offering in their passage some base Affronts at White-Hall But when the terrour of this Guard had reduced them to some less degree of Impudency they then instructed by their Heads laboured to make it more unsafe to the King by seeking to raise the Rage and Jealousie of the whole City against Him For at midnight there were cries out in the Street that all People should arise to their defence for the King with His Papists were coming to fire the City and cut their throats in their beds Than which though nothing was more false yet it found the effects of truth and the People by such Alarms being terrified from sleep the impressions of those nightly fears lay long upon their Spirits in the day and filled them almost with Madness The King therefore not alwaies to incourage these Violences with Patience but at last by a course of Justice to take off those whom He had found to be the Authors of these destructive Counsels the grand Movers of these Seditious practices and which was more the Inviters of a Foreign Force the Scotch Army into this Nation commands His Atturney General to accuse Five Members of the House of Commous and one of the Lords upon Articles of
High Treason to be tried according to the Laws of the Land and He also sends some other Officers to seal up their Trunks and Cabinets in their several Lodgings and to secure their Persons This being related to the House of Commons wherein the Faction was now grown more powerful and with whom did joyn many men of Integrity in this Occurrence being too careful of the Priviledges of their House which yet secure none of the Members against Justice for Murder Felony or Treason they were so far from admitting the King's Charge against them that they accused the King of breach of Priviledge and Vote all those guilty of Enmity to the Common-wealth that shall obey the King in any of His Commands concerning them This Obstruction of Justice so far moved the King together with the Advice of some of His Council that were also of the House of Commons as also an hope of rooting up the Faction this way that none through the hope of Concealment should be incouraged to conspire the publick Ruine that He Himself with about an hundred Lords and Gentlemen and their followers went to the House of Commons Where commanding His Attendants to move no further than the Stairs to offer no violence nor return any uncivil language to any although provoked Himself with the Paltzgrave only enters the House and demands that the Incendiaries might be delivered into His hands with whom He promises to deal no otherwise than according to the Law But they whom he sought being before informed as it is reported of the King 's coming by the secret Intelligence of Marquess Hamilton and a Court Lady who having lost the Confluence of Servants with her Beauty sought now to prevent a solitude by politick ministeries had forsook the place and withdrawn themselves into the Sanctuary of the City Wherefore the King having renewed His Charge without injury to any immediately departs But the Faction would not let Him so rest but prosecuted this attempt of His with all the Clamours that they possibly could raise spread the sparks of Dissention far and wide make the common people mad with Fears and Distractions stir up some in several Counties to bring Petitions for the impeached Members and their Violated Priviledges and at last prepare an armed Rabble disposed into Order to bring the accused Demagogues to the House from their Coverts in London This coming to the knowledge of the King although many Gallant and faithful Persons proffered their Service by mingling with the Rout or by being as Spectators to curb any Insolencies that should be attempted on Him yet was He resolved to withdraw Himself with the Queen and their Children to Windsor that He might permit their Fury to languish when it had no opposition and to give time for their jealousies and rumours to wax old and perish For the first Indignation of a mutinous Multitude is most fierce and a small delay breaks their consent and Majesty would have a greater Reverence if any at a distance The King's Wisdom was perceived by His Enemies and therefore to counterwork it and not to let the people sleep without fear lest they should come to be sober and return to the love of Obedience strange reports were every day brought of dangers from the King That troops of Papists were gathered about Kingston upon the Thames where the County Magazine was lodged under the Command of the Lord George Digby who was then famed to be a Papist though at that time he was an elegant Assertor of the Protestant Faith and Col. Lunsford who was characterised to be of so monstrous an appetite that he would eat Children And parties were sent to take them both which found no such dreadful Preparations At other times when the People on the Lord's dayes were at Divine Worship they were distracted from it by Alarms that the Papists who and from whence none could tell were up in Arms and were just then about to fire their Houses and mix their Blood with their Prayers That there were Forces kept in Grotts and Caves under ground that should in the night break out into the midst of the City and cut all their throats And what was more prodigious and though ridiculous yet had not a few believers in London That there were designs by Gunpowder to blow up the Thames and choak them with the water in their beds Thus were the people taught to hate their Prince and by bloody news from every Quarter they were instructed to that Cruelty which they vainly feared and to adore those by whose Counsels they were delivered from so unexpected Dangers By all this the Faction gained the repute of Modesty inferiour to their supposed Trust when they demanded nothing else but the Command of the Tower and the Militia of all the Counties in England together with the Forts and Castles of the same For all which they moved the House of Commons of petition who desiring the Conjuncture of the Lords in the same were wholly refused by them Therefore stemmed by the Faction they petition alone Which unlimited Power the King absolutely refused to grant unto them who He foresaw would use that as they had all His other Concessions to the ruine of the Author of their Power Yet was pleased to consent after He had demonstrated the prejudice they required to the English Nation that they might send over an Army of 10000 Scots into Ireland and deliver unto them the strong Town and Port of Carick fergus one of the Chief Keys of that Kingdom which was done to oblige the Scots to them in their future designs And also He was pleased to wave the Prosecution of the Impeached Members and was willing to grant a Free and General Pardon for all His Subjects as the Parliament should think convenient But all this could not content them who had immoderate desires and they were more discontented that they could not usurp the King 's Rights than if they had lost their own Priviledges therefore to bring the Lords to a concurrence with them the hitherto prosperous Art of Tumultuous Petitions was again practised and great Numbers from several Counties were moved to come as Earthquakes to shake the Fundamental Constitutions of their House and to require that neither the Bishops nor the Popish Lords should continue in their Ancient Right to Vote among the Peers By this means they should weaken the King in the Voices of that House and whosoever they could not confide in they could fright him from Voting against them by exposing him as Popish to the Popular Fury For this was the mothod of using the Petitions The most common Answer was with Thanks and that the House of Commons were just now in consideration thereof The Petitioners were taught to reply that They doubted not of the care of the Commons House but all their distrust was in the House of Lords where the Popish Lords and Bishops had the greatest Power and there it stuck whose names they desired to know
the Ancient and undoubted Right of the Crown by many Proclamations Charges all Men under the Crime and Penalties of Treason to forbear the Execution of those Ordinances which were published to Licence their Rebellion and Answers with a wonderful Diligence and Eloquence all the fictitious Pretensions of the Parliament to that Power in their several Remonstrances But though the King had in the judgment of all understanding and uninteressed persons the Juster Cause and the more powerful Pen yet the Faction's Haste which is most efficacious in Civil Discords the Slanders they had raised of Him and impressed in the minds of the People the terrours of that Arbitrary Power which the House of Commons had a long while exercised in the vexatious prosecution of all such as did oppose their imperious Resolves for they would by their Messengers send for the Great Earls and Prime Barons of the Kingdom as Rogues and Felons and weary them and others with a tedious and chargeable Attendance oppress them with heavy and unproportionable Censures and restrain them by Illegal Imprisonments and the hopes of licence and spoil in the ruine of Church and State had so preoccupated the Minds of the inferiour Multitude that neither Law nor Religion could have the least consideration in their practices and those Persons whom His Majesty appointed as Commissioners of Array in few places found that Obedience which was due to the just Commands of a Gracious Prince who vainly expected that Reverence to Justice in others which Himself gave After the experience of their Power in these their Successes at Land and having gotten the whole Navy at Sea being made Masters of the most and greatest Strengths of the Kingdom they then thought it might be safe for them to publish the aims and ends of their most destructive designs which if sooner manifested when the King by His Message of 20. of January from Windsor Castle advised them to prescribe the limits of their Priviledges give full Boundaries to His own Power and propose what was in their judgements proper to make the People happy and most religiously promised an equal tenderness of theirs and the Peoples Rights as of His own and what was for the Publick Good should not be obstructed for His Particular emolument they had justly drawn upon themselves all that popular hatred which they endeavoured to fling upon the King and had been buried under those ruines which they projected for the Grave of Majesty But then the Faction confided not so much in their own force nor were the Vulgar then so blinded with fury as to chuse their own Destruction and therefore to that Message of Peace nothing was returned but Complaints That by such Advisoes their Counsels were disturbed that it was contrary to their unbounded Privileges to be minded of what was necessary But now they were furnished with a Power equal to their Ambition they thought it expedient to confirm their newly-gotten Empire with some pretensions to Peace but with a great deal of Caution that the affectation of it might not disappoint them of their hopes which were all built upon War and Confusion Therefore they formed the Conditions such as the King could not in Honour or Conscience grant them nor expect Peace by them Or if He did they should be instated in such a Grandeur that they might reap for themselves all the reproachful Honours and unlawful gains of an Arbitrary Power the thing they aimed at and leave the King overwhelmed with shame and contempt for their miscarriages in Government These Conditions were digested into Nineteen Propositions which when presented to the King He saw by an assent to them He should be concluded to have deposed Himself and be but as an helpless and idle Spectator of the Miserie 's such Tyrants would bring upon the People whom God had committed to His Trust Therefore He gave them that denial which they really desired and expected and adjusts His refusal in a Declaration wherein He sets forth the Injustice of each Proposition His Answer He sent by the Marquess of Hertford and Earl of Southampton Persons of great Integrity and Prudence with Instructions to Treat in the House of Peers upon more equal Conditions But it behoved the Faction not to let the Kingdom see any way to Peace therefore denying any admittance to those Lords before ever the King's Answer could publickly discover who were the obstructours of the Peoples quiet they Ordered a Collection to be made of Money and Plate to maintain Horse Horse-men and Arms for the ensuing War The specious Pretences for which were the Safety of the King's Person and the taking Him out of the hands of Evil Counsellors the Defence of the Priviledges of Parliament the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the maintenance of the Ancient Laws of the Land Such inviting causes as these inflamed the Minds of the Multitude and filled them with more airy hopes of Victory than the noise of Drums and Trumpets But that which was most powerful were the Sermons of such who being displeased with the present Ecclesiastical Covernment were promised the richest Benefices and a partage of the Revenues which belonged to Bishops Deans and Chapiters These from their Pulpits proclaimed War in the Name of Christ the Prince of Peace and whatsoever was contributed to the spilling of the blood of the Wicked was to build up the Throne of the meekest Lamb and besides the satisfaction they were to expect from the Publick Faith which the Parliament promised there was a larger Interest to be doubled upon them in the Kingdom of Saints that was now approaching Deluded by these Artifices and Impostures People of all Conditions and all Sexes some carried by a secret Instinct others hurried by some furious Zeal and a last sort led by Covetousness cast into this Holy Treasury the Banck for Blood all the Ornaments of their Family all their Silver Vessels even to their Spoons with the Pledges of their first Love their Marriage-rings and the younger Females spared not their Thimbles and Bodkins the obliging Gifts of their Inamorato's from being a part of the Price of Blood But while these Preparations were made at London the King at York Declares against the Scandal that He intended to Levy War against the Parliament calling God to witness how far His desires and thoughts were from it and also those many Lords who were witnesses of His Counsels and Actions do publish to the World by a Writing subscribed with all their Names to the number of Forty and odd that they saw not any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such Design and were fully perswaded that He had no such intention But all was in vain for the Faction chose that the People should be rather guilty of committing Rebellion than only of favouring the Contrivers of it and decreed to try whether by a prosperous Success they could change their Crimes to Vertue Therefore they hastened all
assistance For though they pretended so highly to God's Cause as if they had the certainty of some Divine Revelation yet they would not trust Him for their Preservation notwithstanding their pretences to his Cause had furnished them with so vast a Treasure and so mighty a Strength but would invite others to the Violation of most sacred Oaths to sin against all Laws and every Rule of Justice that themselves might be secure in their Usurpations And that Perfidious Party that then ruled in Scotland hoping for as great advantages as their former Wickedness had yielded contrary to all Obligations which the King's Goodness had laid on them and their free and Voluntary Execrations as was that of Alexander Lesley who lifting up his arms and hands to Heaven wished they might rot to his body before he died if ever he should heave them up hereafter or draw his sword against so gude a King drew that People once more into Rebellion against their Prince and to make them more eager and think the Enterprise easie they first raised a report that the King was deserted by most of His Nobility The Parliament at Oxford having by a Letter moved the Earl of Essex to endeavour Peace did also declare against this Invasion of the Scots by another Letter sent to them in which also they acquaint them with the falsness of their officious Lie and shew how inconsiderable a Number of Lords were with those that invited them in The King Himself writes also to put them in mind of their several Ingagements to be Quiet But with an Insolencie fit for most perjured Souls they Commanded the Letters to be burned by the hand of the Hangman A more secret falshood He also found in the Marquess Hamilton whose Treasons now came to be more suspected For His Majesty having written to him to use all his Power and Interest to keep his Country-men at home which had not been difficult for one of his Grandeur in that unquiet Nation he by some secret Arts doth more inflame them and to cover his Perfidiousness flies from Scotland to Oxford as seeking a shelter for his Loyalty but indeed to be a Spy in the King's Counsels But his Treasons had out-stripp'd him and his Brother the Earl of Lanerick who came with him therefore they were both forbidden the Court. Lanerick not willing to tarry till a further Discovery gets out of Oxford flies to those at London and by them was imployed in the Scotch Army which made Hamilton's Treachery more evident and he was sent Prisoner to Pendennis Castle But the dishonour of that Nation was in a great measure repaired by the Gallantry and Faithfulness of the Marquess Montross who being commission'd by the King with an incredible Industry by small numbers of men won many Battels and overthrew well-formed Armies and had not the Fate of his Master which was to be betrayed by those He trusted been likewise common to him he had forced that Nation to Justice and Quiet But e're Montross could get his Commission the Scots were entred England whose coming that it might be less odious to the People who now grew cold in their zeal to the Cause and saw themselves deluded into so continued dangers the Faction make use of such frauds as should make the People either think them necessary assistances or might divert their thoughts from apprehending the Miseries they brought with them to this Nation therefore they invent new Slanders of the King and His Party That His Majesty did intend to translate Monarchy into a Tyranny that He would seise upon all their Estates who had any way opposed Him and make their persons Slaves that there was no hope of Pardon from Him who was so merciless that He would take away all their Liberties and Privileges as forfeited destroy the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery which at Oxford He did practise Himself and that all men must be forced to go to Mass As for His Party they set them out to be such Monsters that the lower sort of People doubted whether the Cavaliers had the shapes of men For sad Relations were printed and published of their inhumanity and barbarous murders that they did feast upon the Flesh of Men and that they fed their Dogs and their Horses with the same Diet to make them more fierce for the blood of the Godly Party that no mans house was so poor and mean that a Cavalier would think beneath his rapine Thus they wrought upon the melancholy spirits of some by fear For those of a morose and cholerick temper they had proper divertisements they permitted to them a tumultuary Reformation to pull down the Pictures and Images of Christ the Virgin Mary and the Saints which with great Solemnity they committed to the flames that they might suffer as it were another Martyrdom All Crosses though set up for Ornament and Use in the Streets of London and other places they pulled down they invade the Churches and there deface what their Humour or Rapine would call Superstition pull down the Organs tear the Surplices and all this was suffered to please the Rabble who delight in violences and such ostentations of their fury and to make them in something or other guilty that they might despair of Pardon For others who were to be wrought upon by Religion they entertain them with Fasts publick Thanksgivings for slight Victories and solemn Spiritual meetings as they called them where whatsoever the Faction dictated was commended by the Speakers to their unwary hearers as the Oracles of Heaven and being thus wrapp'd up in those true delights which accompany the Worship of God they were securely swallowed by them as Poison when it is offered in a Sacramental Chalice To please their Ministers whom hitherto they had used as their Properties and Instruments of their Arts Presbytery is set up that they also might have an Imaginary Empire but it was not intended they should exercise it For the pretensions of that to a Divine Right did so terrifie them who were resolved against all Government that was not subject unto or dependent on theirs that they presently raised all the other Sects Independents Erastians who for the most part were Lawyers that could not endure to hear of any Thunderbolts of Excommunication but what was heated in their own forges Anabaptists Seekers and Atheists of which there were many sprung up who seeing how Religion was abused to carnal and unjust Ends began first to despise that and afterwards to deny God to write and declaim against this new Politie as the most severe and absolute Tyranny under the Sun and the tenth Persecution But this seeming modesty of admitting a Church-Government served their ends for the present till they could acquire a greater strength in confidence of which they might slight the Terrours of the Law and the Anathema's of the Church The Liturgy also was abolished under pretence of a Spiritual Liberty for it was accused of putting a restraint upon the Spirit
Death and to murder Him while He was in the Scotch Camp so at once to satisfie their own Revenge and Load their Enemies with the Infamy of the Murder yet could not then perform it were now fiercefor a speedy and secret Assassination by Pistol or Poison Others would have Him tryed and condemned by their Council of War But the Chiefs thought fit to proceed more artisicially in their Crime and when they should get more Authority destroy Him by a Parliamentary way of Justice To bring this about they must proceed to make Him more odious that the People might be patient while they kill Him and undo them To proceed therefore to their Impiety Cromwell and his Creatures stickle fiercely in the House of Commons and cause the Parliament to send not Conditions of Peace to be treated on but Propositions like Commands that admitted no dispute which if the King had yielded unto He had despoiled Himself of Majesty and been thought guilty of so much want of Spirit as would conclude an unfitness for Empire besides such a voluntary Diminution would have been equally unsafe as unglorious And if He did not then He was to be esteemed the only Obstacle of the Universal Peace And lest the King should put them to more tedious Arts by signing them they themselves to divert Him privately procure more soft Articles and professed to be sorry the Presbyterian Sowreness and Rigour did yet leaven the House which made these Propositions so unpleasant The King could not but perceive the practices of the Army yet being resolved that no Dangers whatsoever should make Him satisfie those unreasonable Demands of the Parliament which granted would have been the heaviest oppression on His Subjects and the greatest injury to His Posterity He could possibly be guilty of For to good Princes the Safety of their People and their own Memory which is built upon the Happiness of Posterity through their Counsels are more pretious than Life and Power and although Providence and the Malice of His Enemies had obstructed His way to Glory by Victories and Success yet He would trace it in the unenvied and unquestionable paths of Constancy and Justice Therefore to make His denial of them advantageous to Himself by a seeming confidence in the Army's profers thereby to oblige if it were possible those that had no sense either of Faith or Honour or at least to injealous those two Rivals for His Power and commit them the King absolutely rejects the Parliaments Propositions and requires the Demands of the Army as more equal and fit for a Personal Treaty and that the Army also should nominate Commissioners Cromwell and His Complices seemed to be joyful for this Answer of His Majesty which had preferred them before their Competitors to the Honour of Justice and Moderation in the Eyes of the People but yet secretly did they exasperate the minds of the more short-sighted Commons against the King for this Affront And to the King they profess a shame and trouble upon their Spirits for so they loved to speak that they could not now perform their Promises sometimes they excused themselves by a Reverence to the Parliament at other times by the fierceness of the Adjutators and when by these excuses they had coloured their delayes to some length they began to interpret their sayings otherwise than the King apprehended them to forget what they had assured Him of and at last openly to refuse any performance To all these Perfidies they add other Frauds to beget a fear in Him of the Adjutators and the Levellers who they informed Him meditated His Murder professed they could not for the present moderate their bloody and impetuous Consultations but when they should recover the lost Discipline of their Army then they might easily and speedily satisfie their engagements to Him To give credit to their words the Fury of the Adjutators was blown to a more conspicuous Flame their Papers were published for a change of Government call'd The Case of the Army and The Agreement of the People the animations of Peters and another of the same Diabolical spirit saying His Majesty was but a dead Dog were divulged and all were communicated to some Attendants about the King with an Advice from the Chiefs of the Army to escape for His Life for they were unwilling He should be killed while they helplesly look'd on The fury and threatnings of men of such destructive and bloody Principles who accounted all things lawfull that they could do that Providence administring Opportunity did invite and licence their impieties and who imputed all their lusts that had no colour from Justice to the Perswasions of the Holy Spirit were not to be despised nor was the King to abandon His Life if He could without sin preserve it to a longer waiting upon God Therefore with three of His most trusted Attendants in the dark tempestuous and ominous night of Novem. 11. He leaves Hampton-Court some say uncertain where to seek safety others that He intended to take Ship but being disappointed in His Expectation He was at last fatally led into the Power and when He could not escape committed Himself to the Loyalty and Honour of Col. Hammond a Confident of Cromwell's who had been but a little before made Governour of the Isle of Wight for this very purpose and was by him conveyed to Carisbrook-Castle the very Pit His Enemies had designed for Him For it was discoursed in the Army above a fortnight before that the King e're long would be in the Isle of Wight and the very night He departed from Hampton-Court the Centinels were withdrawn from their usual Posts on purpose to facilitate His flight The all-wise God not permitting Him to fly from those greater Trials and more Glorious Acts of Patience He had designed for Him Being here in this false Harbour He minds that business which lay most on His Heart the Settlement of the Nation He sends Concessions to the Parliament more benign and easie than they could desire or hope together with His Reasons why He could not assent to their Demands and earnestly solicites them to pity the Languishing Kingdom and come to a Personal Treaty with Him on His Concessions and the Army's Demands But the Conspirators to cut off all hopes of a Treaty take this Occasion to send four Preliminary Articles which if He would pass as Acts they would treat of the rest These were so unjust that the Scotch Commissioners in the Name of their Kingdom declare against them in publick Writings and following the Messengers of Parliament to the Isle of Wight do in the presence of His Majesty protest against them as contrary to the Religion the Crown and Accords of both Kingdoms The King according to His wonted Wisdom and Greatness of Mind presently returns them an Answer to shew the Injustice of having Him grant the chief things before the Treaty which should be the Subject of it and to give them such an Arbitrary Power to the ruine
all and those the reproach of that Assembly For besides those that were violently excluded others that did abhor the Conditions of sitting there withdrew themselves to their own homes And many of those who formerly deluded by their pretensions to Religion Justice and Liberty had hitherto been of the Faction yet now awakened by these clamorous Crimes sorsook their bloody Confederacy Yet did not this contemptible Number of which in most Votes there were Twenty Dissenters blush to assume the Authority of managing the weightiest Assairs of the English Empire to alter and change the Government to expose His Majesty to a violent Murder and to overthrow the Ancient Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom For being wholly devoted to the service of the Army they communicated counsels with them and whatsoever was resolved at the Council of War pasled into a Law by the Votes of this Infamous Remnant of the House of Commons who now served the Souldiers in hopes of part of the Spoil and a precarious Greatness which being acquired by so much Wickedness could not be lasting In order therefore to the Army's design they revive those Votes of No Addresses to the King which had at first but surreptitiously and by base practices passed and had been afterwards Repealed by a full House Those Votes of a Treaty with the King and of the Satisfactoriness of His Concessions with scorn they rased out of the Journal-Book And then proceeded to Vote 1. That the People under God are the Original of all Just Power 2. That the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament being Chosen by and Representing the People have the Supreme Authority of this Nation 3. That whatsoever is enacted and declared for Law by the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament by which they understood themselves hath the sorce of a Law 4. That all the People of this Nation are concluded thereby although the Consent and Concurrence of the King and House of Peers be not had thereunto 5. That to raise Arms against the People's Representative or Parliament and to make War upon them is High Treason 6. That the King Himself took Arms against the Parliament and on that account is guilty of the blood shed throughout the Civil War and that He ought to expiate the crime with His own blood Those that were less affected with the common Fears and Miseries could not temper their mirth and scorn at such ridiculous Usurpers that thought to adjust their Crimes by their own Votes that in one breath would adorn the People with the Spoils of Monarchy and in the next rob the People to invest themselves And it is said that even Cromwell who intended to ruine our Liberty was ashamed and scorned their so ready Slavery and afterwards did swear at the Table of an Independent Lord that he knew them to be Rascals and he would so serve them Others of more melancholy Complexions considering the baseness of these servile Tyrants and the humours of their barbarous Masters the Souldiers all whose inhumanities they were to establish by a Law and that Power gotten by Wickedness cannot be used with the Modesty that is fit for Just Magistrates justly feared that as under the King they had enjoyed the height of Liberty so under these men they were to be overwhelmed in the depth of Slavery and that these Votes which overturned the very Foundation of our Laws could not be designed but for some horrid Impiety and our lasting Bondage which came so to pass For in their next Consultations they Constitute a Tribunal to Sentence their Sovereign which afterwards they used as a Shambles for the most Loyal and Gallantest of the Nobless and People of the most abject Subjects and to procure a Reverence to the Vilest of men they give it the specious name of The High Court of Justice For which they appoint One hundred and fifty Judges that the Number might seem to represent the whole Multitude of the most violent and heady of all the Faction To whom they give a Power of Citing Hearing Judging and Punishing CHARLES STVART King of England To make up this Number they had named six Peers of the Upper House and the twelve Judges of the Land But the greatest part were Officers of the Army who having confederated against His Majesty and publickly required His Blood could not without a contempt to the light of Reason be appointed His Judges and Members of the Lower House who were most violent against Monarchy and indeed all Government wherein themselves had no share The rest were Persons pick'd out of the City of London and Suburbs thereof who they imagined would be most obsequious to their Lusts Those that surveyed the List and knew the Men deemed them most unfit for a Trust of Justice and proper Instruments for any wicked undertaking for of these Judges one or two were Coblers others Brewers one a Goldsmith and many of them Mechanicks Such among them as were descended of Ancient Families were men of so mean worth that they were only like the Statues of their Ancestors had nothing but their Names to make them known unto the World Some of them were Spend-thrifts Bankrupts such as could be neither safe nor free unless the Kingdom were in Bondage and most notorious Adulterers whose every Member was infamous with its proper Vice Vain and Atheistical in their Discourse Cowardly and Base in Spirit Bloody and Cruel in their Counsels and those Parts that cannot honestly be named were most dishonest One of them was accused of a Rape Another had published a Book of Blasphemies against the Trinity of the Deity Some of them could not hope to get impunity for their Oppressions of the Country and Expilations of the publick Treasure but by their Ministry to this Murther Others could not promise themselves an advancement of their abject or declining Fortune but by this Iniquity Yet all these by the Faction were inrolled in the Register of Saints though fitter to stand as Malefactors at the Bar than to sit upon Seats of Judgement And notwithstanding their diligent search for such a Number of men who would not blush at nor fear any guilt some of those whom they had named in abhorrency of the Impiety refused to fit and some that did yet met there in hopes of disturbing their Counsels All this while the House of Peers were not Consulted and it was commonly supposed that most of them terrified with those Preparations against the King the only defence of the Nobless against the Popular Envie would absent themselves from that House except four or five that were the Darlings of the Faction and they deemed the Names and Compliance of those sew were enough to give credit and Authority to their bloody Act. But in them they were disappointed also for some of the Peers did constantly meet and on that day wherein the Bill for Tryal of the King was carried up to that House there were Seventeen then present a greater Number than usual who all
Unanimously even the Democratick Lords not dissenting did reject the Bill as Dangerous and Illegal This so highly provoked the Fury of the Faction that they meditated a severe revenge and for the present blotted out those Peers whose Names they had before put into their Ordinance to make their Court more splendid After this they did also rase out the names of the Judges of the Land for they being privately Consulted concerning these Proceedings against the King although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other Artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hert ford shire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Army's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with Thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Politie wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hopes raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Hardress Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetrated their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely prosecuted those that endeavoured it In considence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these Publick Abhorrencies and detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they Enacted their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment A Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecuter of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's Cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same Metal John Cooke A needy man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a tedious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhor These were their Chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steele another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clerks and Cryer were so obscure that the world had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the Publick Preparations In private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter of their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensignes of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared to confirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Society it is reported upon the King's offering to give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council of theirs did decree to use their whole Interest and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second Debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traitor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgement of Considering men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined from the safest Arts of Empire it was in the neglect of a just Severity on Seditious persons whom the Laws
had condemned to die And in the War it was known how often His Lenity had clipped the wings of Victory But it appeared that these men as they had broken all Rights of Peace so they would also those of Conquest and destroy that which their Arms pretended to save How little credit their Accusation found appeared by the endeavours of all Parties to preserve the King's Person from Danger and the Nation from the guilt of His Blood For while they were thus engaged to perpetrate their intended Mischiefs all Parties declare against it The Presbyterian Ministers almost all those of London and very many out of the several Counties and some though few also of the Independents did in thâ—â—â— Sermons and Conferences as also by Monitory Letters Petitions Protestations and Remonstrances publickly divulged adjure the Assassinates not to draw so great a guilt upon themselves and the whole Nation by that Murther For it was contrary to those numerous and fearful Obligations of their many Oaths to the Publick and Private Faith which was exprest in their Protestations and many Declarations to the Laws of the Land those of Nature and Nations and the Commands of Scripture That is was to the dishonour of our Religion and against the publick good of the Kingdom But all was fruitless for they had lost their Ministerial Authority by serving the Faction so long till they needed not their Assistance and despised their admonitions Besides the very same Principles they preached to kindle the War were now beat back into their faces and made use of against them to adjust the Murther The People also contemned them for their short-sightedness in that they would be the heady and indiscreet Instruments of such men and in such practices as must of necessity at last ruine them and all Ministers as well as the King and Bishops The Scots also by their Commissioners declare and protest against it The States of Holland by their Ambassadors if they were faithfull in their trust did intercede and deprecate it as most destructive to the Protestant Interest Some of the most eminent of the Nobility as the Earl of Southampton the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hertford the Earl of Lindsey and others neglect no wayes either by Prayers or Ransom to save the King Yea they offered themselves as being the prime Ministers of the King's Commands as Hostages for Him and if the Conspirators must needs be fed with blood to suffer in His stead for whatsoever He had done amiss The Prince piously assaies all wayes and means to deliver His Father from the danger For besides the States Ambassadours whom He had procured both He and the Prince of Orange did daily send as Agents the Kindred Relations and Allies of Cromwell Ireton and the other Conspirators with full power to propose any Conditions make any Promises and use all Threatnings to divert them if it were possible from their intended Cruelty or at least to gain some time before the Execution But all was in vain for no Conditions of Peace could please them who were possessed with unlawful and immoderate desires their Ambition that is more impetuous than all other affections had swallowed the hopes of Empire therefore they would remove the King to enthrone themselves Some thought that their despair of Pardon had hardened them to a greater Inhumanity for if after all these attempts they continued the King's Life they must beg their own which they knew Justice would not and they resolved Mercy should not give for this is reckoned among the benefits which we hate to receive and Men are usually ashamed to confess they deserved death Whatsoever it was that truly made them thus cruel they publickly pretended no other Motive than the Calls and Ducts of Providence and the Impulses of the Blessed Spâ—â—â—â— To carry on this Cheat Hugh Peters the Pulpit-Buffoon of a luxuriant Speech skill'd â—o move the Rabble by mimical Gestâ—â—â—â— Impudent and Prodigal of his own and others fame Ignominious from his Youth for then suffering the contumely of Discipline being publickly whipt at Cambridge he was ever after an Enemy to Government and therefore leagued himself with unquiet Sectaries preaches before these fictitious Judges upon that Text Psal 149.8 To hind their Kings in chains and their Nobles in fetters of iron He assures them undoubtedly that this was prophesied of them that they were the Saints related to in that Scripture that they should judge the Kings of the Earth often calling them in his profane Harangue the Saint-Judges Then he professed that he had for a certain found upon a strict Scrutiny that there were in the Army 5000 Saints no less holy than those that now in Heaven conversed with God Afterwards kneeling in his Pulpit weeping and lifting up his hands he earnestly begs them in the name of the People of England that they would execute Justice upon that Wretch CHARLES and would not let Benhadad escape in Safety Then he inveighs against Monarchy and wrests the Parable of Jotham to his purpose wherein when the Trees would chuse a King the Vine and the Olive refused the Dignity but the Bramble received the Empire and he compared Monarchy to the Bramble And all the while of contriving and executing this Murther he preached to the Souldiers and in some places about the City bitterly and contemptuously railing against the King Others also of the Congregational perswasion acted their parts in this Tragedie but more closely and not so much in the face of the Sun The Conspirators taking heat from their infamous Preachers whom they themselves had first kindled and somewhat doubting that these several strong Applications from all Parties to save the King and the Universal Discontents might take some advantage from their delay with more speed hasten the Assassination In order to which they send a Serjeant of Arms with a guard of Horse lest the People should stone him for his Employment into Westminster-Hall and other places in London to summon all that could lay any crime to the King 's charge to come and give in their evidence against Him Having proclaimed their wicked purposes and dress'd up a Tribunal at the upper end of Westminster-Hall with all the shapes of terrour where the President with his abject and bloody Assistants were placed thither afterwards they bring this most Excellent Monarch whom having despoiled of three Great Kingdoms they now determined also to deprive of Life Into which Scene the King enter'd with a generous Miene shewing no signs of discomposure nor any thing beneath His former Majesty but as if He were to combate for Glory the Monsters of Mankind He undauntedly took the Seat which was set for Him with scorn looking upon the fictitious Judges and with pity upon the People who crouding in the great Gates of the Hall being flung open did bewail in Him the frailty of our Humane condition whose highest Greatness hath no Security A sad Spectacle even to those that were not in danger He
being set the Charge against Him was read with all those reproachful terms of Tyrant Traitor and Murtherer after which He was impleaded in the name of the People of England This false Slander of the People of England was heard with Impatience and Detestation of all and stoutly attested against by the Lady Fairfax Wife of the Lord Fairfax who by this act shewed her self worthy of her Extract from the Noble Family of the Veres for from an adjoyning Scaffold where she stood she cryed out with a loud voice but not without danger that It was a Lie not the Tenth part of the People were guilty of such a Crime but all was done by the Machinations of that Traitor Cromwell But the King after the Charge was read with a countenance full of Majesty and Gravity demands by what Authority they proceeded with Him thus contrary to the Publick Faith and what Law they had to try Him that was an absolute Sovereign Bradshaw replying that of the Parliament His Majesty shewed the detestable Falshood in pretending to what they had not and if they had it yet it could not justifie these Practices To which reply when they could not answer they force Him back to the place of His Captivity The Magnanimity of the King in this dayes contest with these inhumane Butchers did much satisfie the People and they were glad while they thought not of His Danger that He wanted not either Speech or Courage against so powerfull Enemies that He had spoken nothing unworthy of Himself and had preserved the Fame of His Vertues even in so great Adversities For He seemed to triumph over their Fortune whose Arms He was now subject to The Parricides sought to break His Spirit by making His appearances frequent before such contemptible Judges and often exposing Him to the contempt of the armed Rabble therefore four dayes they torture Him with the Impudence and Reproaches of their Infamous Sollicitor and President But He still refused to own their Authority which they could not prove lawful and so excellently demonstrated their abominable Impiety that He made Col. Downes one of their Court to boggle at and disturb their Proceedings They therefore at last proceeded to take away that Life which was not to be separated from Conscience and Honour and pronounced their Sentence of Death upon their Lawful and Just Sovereign Jan. 27. not suffering Him to speak after the Decree of their Villany but hurrying Him back to the place of His Restraint At His departure He was exposed to all the Insolencies and Indignities that a phanatick and base Rabble instigated by Peters and other Instructors of Villany could invent and commit And He suffer'd many things so conformable to Christ His King as did alleviate the sense of them in Him and also instruct Him to a correspondent Patience and Charity When the barbarous Souldiers cryed out at His departure Justice Justice Execution Execution as those deceived Jews did once to their KING Crucifie Him Crucifie Him this Prince in imitation of that most Holy King pitied their blind fury and said Poor Souls for a piece of Money they would do as much for their Commanders As He passed along some in defiance spit upon His Garments and one or two as it was reported by an Officer of theirs who was one of their Court and praised it as an evidence of His Souldiers Gallantry while others were stupified with their prodigious baseness polluted His Majestick Countenance with their unclean spittle the Good King reflecting on His great Exemplar and Master wiped it off saying My Saviour suffer'd far more than this for me Into his very face they blowed their stinking Tobacco which they knew was very distastefull to Him and in the way where He was to go just at His feet they flung down pieces of their nasty pipes And as they had devested themselves of all humanity so were they impatient and furious if any one shewed Reverence or Pity to Him as He passed For no honest Spirit could be so forgetful of humane frailty as not to be troubled at such a sight to see a Great and Just King the rightful Lord of three flourishing Kingdoms now forced from His Throne and led captive through the streets Such as pull'd off their Hats or bowed to Him they beat with their Fists and Weapons and knock'd down one dead but for crying out God be mercifull unto Him When they had brought Him to His Chamber even there they suffered Him not to rest but thrusting in and smoaking their filthy Tobacco they permitted Him no privacy to Prayer and Meditation Thus through variety of Tortures did the King pass this day and by His Patience wearied His Tormentors nothing unworthy His former greatness of Fortune and Mind by all these Affronts was extorted from Him though Indignities and Injuries are unusual to Princes and these were such as might have forced passion from the best-tempered meekness had it not been strengthned with assistance from Heaven In the Evening the Conspirators were acquainted by a Member of the Army of the King's desire that seeing His death was nigh it might be permitted Him to see His Children and to receive the Sacrament and that Doctor Juxon then Lord Bishop of London now Arch-Bishop of Canterbury might be admitted to pray with Him in His private Chamber The first they did not scruple at the Children in their power being but two the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Glocester and they very young The second they did not readily grant Some would have had Peters to undertake that employment for which the Bishop was sent for But he declined it with some Scoffs as knowing that the King hated the Offices of such an unhallowed Buffoon So that at last they permitted the Bishops access to the King to whom his eminent Integrity had made him dear For with so wonderful a prudence and uprightness he had managed the envious Office of the Treasury that that accusing age especially of Church-men found not matter for any impeachment nor ground for the least reproach The next day being Sunday the King was removed to St. James's where the Bishop of London read Divine Service and preached before Him in private on these words In the day when God shall judge the secrets of all men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel While the King and the Bishop at this time and also at other times were performing the Divine Service the rude Souldiers often rushed in and disturbed their Offices with vulgar and base Scoffs vain and frivolous Questions The Commanders likewise and other impertinent Anabaptists did interrupt His Meditations who came to tempt and try Him and provoke Him to some unnecessary disputations But He maintained His own Cause with so irrefragable Arguments that He put some to silence the petulancy of others He neglected and with a modest contempt dissembled their Scoffs and Reproaches In the narrow space of this one day and under so continued Affronts and Disturbances
Shirts But said He I scorned to give them that pleasure as to tell them I wanted Thus all the strokes of Fortune upon His Magnanimous Soul were but like the breaking of Waves upon a Rock of Diamonds which cannot shake but only wash it to a greater Brightness But though He knew not how to submit to the Power of Men His Patience yet He would tremble under the Frowns of God His great Spirit made Him not unquiet or furious under the Corrections of the Almighty But with a wonderful Patience a Vertue not usual with Kings to whom the bounds of Equity seem a restraint and therefore are more restless in Injuries He did submit to the Will of His eternal Sovereign He never murmured nor repined at that Providence which had given Him plenty of tears to drink But His Meditations still breath the Justice of God and the Holiness of all His wayes with Him He would take Occasions from displeasing Occurrences to thank God that had sitted Him for the Condition he had brought Him unto For when He marched after His Carriage in pursuit of Essex into the West one of them broke in a very narrow Lane which made Him stop till an intolerable Shower of Rain came pouring upon Him from which that He might seek for a Shelter in the Neighbouring Village His Courtiers offered to hew Him out a way through the Hedge with their Swords but He refused and when they wondred at it He lifting up His hat and Eyes to worship the Fountain of All Grace said As God hath given me Afflictions to exercise My Patience so He hath given me Patience to bear My Afflictions The Indignity He received from Hotham provoked no Curse from Him nor could the Injuries from Scotch and English move Him to any thing more than Prayers for God's sanctifying them to Him He wanted not Temptations to Passion from His own Party for in a Letter to the Queen He tells Her that She could not but Pity Him in His Condition as to them yet He so managed their several Humours and so cherished their Expectations with Patience and Meekness that they quietly waited for a return of His Fortune When He was in His Captivity at Carisbrook under the strictest Restraint those that attended Him never almost observed Him but chearfull and pleasant in His Discourses and sometimes breaking out into pleasing Reparties and Jests When in the Treaty at Newport where He had occasions of Passion daily administred by the Perverseness to Peace of the Party He was to deal with one of the Commissioners was importunate with Him for more Concessions and minded Him of His saying That if there were another Treaty it should not lie in the power of the Devil's Malice to hinder Peace the King answered It would be so when there was a Treaty but as for this it could not be thought a Treaty but He was like the man in the Play that cryed out he had been in a Fray and when they asked him what Fray he replyed there was a Fray and no Fray for there were but three blows given and he took them all So this is a Treaty and not a Treaty for there be many Concessions but I have made them all Another time when He met one of the Presbyterian Ministers near His Chamber enquiring for Captain Titus who then waited on Him and had been faithful to Him in that Service the King told him He wondred he would have any more to do either with Titus or Timothy since he fared so ill in medling with them in his Disputes about Episcopacy the day before These shewed how free His Soul was and uncontrolled in the greatest and most displeasing perplexities He would never take any indirect courses to avoid the Cross nay He scrupled at such expedients as some deemed most conducing to His great end For at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight there being offered to Him an expedient to secure His Conscience and satisfie the Commissioners in the Propositions about the Church and it being urged by a great and faithful Counsellour that He must grant what possibly He could to preserve His own Life for the good of the Church for it was said her safety depended on His with a present and pious indignation He replyed Tell not Me what I should do for saving of My Life but what I may do with a safe Conscience God forbid that the Life or Safety of the Church should depend upon My Life or upon the Life of any mortal man and I thank God I have a Son whom I have reason to believe will love the Church as well as I do Another time a little after the Treaty was ended Dr. Morley shewing to Him a billet he had received by the Lady Wheeler the King's Laundress who often conveyed much Intelligence from an Officer of the Army that the King's Death was resolved on His Majesty answered I have done what I can to save My Life without losing of my Soul I can do I will do no more God's will be done In the Pomp of His Murther wherein He was made a Spectacle to the World Angels and Men no Tryals were ever greater nor ever were any better born the Parricides found it was easie to take away His Life but impossible His Honour and Patience His Passions being then so low and quiet that the natural Insirmity of His Speech did not in the least measure appear which uses to be most evident in the smallest discomposure of the Spirit After the Regicides had passed their Decree for His Assassination and caused Him to be persecuted with all the Indignities of the fanatick Souldiers there fell from Him nothing like Passion or Indignation but that He gave the Authors of those Impieties the title that was due to them for when my Lord of London came to Him which was not till eight a Clock on Saturday Night He told him My Lord that you came no sooner I believe was not your fault but now you are come because these Rogues pursue My Blood you and I must consult how I may best part with it Yet even this was spoken without any Fury or Violence for though all about Him was tumultuous with Horror Destruction and Contempt His Soul seemed unconcerned enjoyed a Calm Serenity and was full of its own Majesty This Vertue made Him forget He was a Prince born to Command and only consider that He was a Christian whose Calling obliges to Suffer He had found out a way to Glory by Humility For the supreme Power to which nothing can be added His Humility hath no better way to encrease than when secured of its own Greatness it humbleth it self And the Dignity of Princes is in nothing farther from Envy and Danger than in Humility He despised the converse of none though poor if honest He shewed to Sir Philip Warwick who had much of His Trust and Affections in the Isle of Wight a poor ragged Old Man and told him he was
Vertue took care they should not be gluttonous for He delighted not in Sawces or Artifices to please the Palate and raise the Lust but all was sincere and solid and therefore He never was subject to a Surfeit He alwayes mingled Water with His Wine which He never drank pure but when He eat Venison and He was so nice in observing the bounds of Sobriety that most times Himself would measure and mingle both together He did usually at every Meal drink one Glass of Beer another of Wine and a third of Water and seldom drank between His Meals These though Ordinary Vertues were yet eminent in Him since they could not be corrupted by the Power not the Flatteries of Fortune And they are therefore mentioned to gratifie Posterity for men are curious to know all even the minute Passages of Great and Vertuous Persons Being free from Incontinency and Intemperance the gulphs of Treasure and Drayners of the Largest Exchequer His Frugality He had no other Vice to exhaust the Publick Stock and so necessitate Him to sill it up by Oppressions but He would by Frugality make His Revenue sufficient for the Majesty of the Crown and the Necessities of the State His own Nature indeed inclined Him to Magnificence but the Vices of others did instruct Him to moderate Expences For He had found the Treasury low and the Debts great in His beginnings He was assaulted with two expensive Wars from the two great Potentates of Furope and the Faction had obstructed the usual way of Supplies by Parliaments Therefore He was to find a Mine in Vertue and by sparing from Vanities make provisions for necessary and glorious Enterprises which He did effect for in that short time of Peace which He enjoyed He satisfied all the Publick Debts so furnished and increased His Navy that it was the most considerable in the whole World supported His Confederate the King of Sweden and by Money inabled him for the Victories of Germany and so fill'd His own Treasury that it was able of it self to bear the weight of the first Scotch Expedition without the Aids of the Subject who were never more able to contribute to their own safety nor ever had more reason the swellings of that Nation breaking all the Banks and Fences of their Liberty and Happiness But the King would let them see that as by His Government He had made them rich He would also keep them so by His Frugality But those whose first care was to make Him necessitous and the next odious did brand it with the name of Covetousness which was as False as malicious For He never spared when Just Designs call'd for Expences and was magnificent in Noble Undertakings as in the Repair of Paul's He was alwayes Gratefull although those men who measured their Services not by their Duties or their Merits but by their Expectations from His Fortune thought Him not Liberal He chose rather not to burthen His People by Subsidies than load particular Servants with unequal Bounties For Good Princes chuse to be loved rather for their Benefits to the Community than for those to private persons And it may be Vanity and Ostentation but not Liberality when the gifts of the Prince are not proportioned to the Common Necessity His sparings were like those of Indulgent Fathers that His Subjects as Children might have the more He never like subtle and rapacious Kings made or pretended a Necessity for Taxes but was troubled when He found it The Contributions of Parliament He esteemed not the increase of His peculiar Treasure but the Provisions for the Common Safety of which He would rather be accounted a Steward than a Lord. When Faction and Sedition so deluded the People that they could not see the preservation of the whole consisted in contributing some small part He freely parted with His own Inhertance to preserve intire to them the price of their Sweat and Labour As He had these Moral Vertues which are both the signatures of Majesty His Intellectual Abilities and the Ornaments of a Royal Spirit so He was no less compleat in the Intellectual His Understanding was as Comprehensive as His Just Power and He was Master of more sorts of Knowledge than He was of Nations How much He knew of the Mysteries and Controversies of Divinity was evident in His Discourses and Papers with Henderson and those at the Isle of Wight where He singly Disputed for Episcopacy one whole day against Fifteen Commissioners and their Four Chaplains the most experienced and subtle members of all the Opposite Party with so much Acuteness and Felicity that even His Opposers admired Him He so dexterously managed His Discourse with the Ministers that He made it evident they perswaded Him to that which they themselves judged unlawfull and had condemned as Sacriledge when they pretended to satisfie the Scruples of His Conscience and to assure Him He might safely alienate the Church-Lands And the Commissioners sensible how unequal their Ministers were to discourse with Him for ever after silenced them and permitted no Disputes but by Papers At that time He exceeded the opinion of His friends about Him One of them said in astonishment that Certainly God had inspired Him Another that His Majestly was to a Wonder improved by His Privacies and Afflictions But a third that had had the Honour of a nearer Service assured them that the King was never less only He had now the opportunity of appearing in His full Magnitude In the Law of the Land He was as knowing as Himself said to the Parricides yet was no boaster of His own Parts as any Gentleman in England who did not profess the Publick Practice of it especially those Parts of it which concerned the Commerce between King and People In that Art which is peculiar to Princes Reason of State He knew as much as the most prosperous Contemporary Kings or their most exercised Ministers yet scorned to follow those Rules of it which lead from the Paths of Justice The Reserves that other Princes used in their Leagues and Contracts to colour the breaches of Faith and those inglorious and dark Intrigues of subtle Politicians He did perfectly abhor but His Letters Declarations Speeches Meditations are full of that Political Wisdom which is consistent with Christianity He had so quick an Insight into these Mysteries and so early arrived to the Knowledge of it that when He was young and had just gotten out of the Court and Power of Spain He censured the weakness of that Mysterious Council For He was no sooner on Shipboard but the first words He spake were I discovered two Errors in those great Masters of Policy One that they would use Me so Ill and another that after such Vsage they permitted Me to Depart As those former parts of Knowledge did inable Him to know Men and how to manage their different humours His Skill in all Arts. and to temper them to a sitness for Society and make them serviceable to
Cause and Clearness of my Conscience before God and toward my People will carry Me as much above them in God's decision as their Successes have lifted them above Me in the Vulgar Opinion who consider not that many times those undertakings of men are lifted up to Heaven in the prosperity and applause of the world whose rise is from Hell as to the Injuriousness and Oppression of the Design The prosperous winds which oft fill the sails of Pirats do not justifie their Piracy and Rapine I look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of Soul to have been worsted in my enforced Contestation for and Vindication of the Laws of the Land the Freedom and Honour of Parliaments the Rights of my Crown the just Liberty of my Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrine Government and due Encouragements than if I had with the greatest advantages of Success over-born them all as some men have now evidently done what-ever Designs they at first pretended The Prayers and Patience of my Friends and loving Subjects will contribute much to the sweetning of this bitter Cup which I doubt not but I shall more chearfully take and drink as from God's hand if it must be so than they can give it to Me whose hands are unjustly and barbarously lifted up against Me. And as to the last event I may seem to owe more to my Enemies than my Friends while those will put a period to the Sins and Sorrows attending this miserable Life wherewith these desire I might still contend I shall be more than Conquerour through Christ enabling Me for whom I have hitherto suffered as he is the Author of Truth Order and Peace for all which I have been forced to contend against Errour Faction and Confusion If I must suffer a Violent Death with my Saviour it is but Mortality crowned with Martyrdom where the debt of Death which I owe for Sin to Nature shall be raised as a gift of Faith and Patience offered to God Which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept and although Death be the wages of My own Sin as from God and the effect of others Sins as men both against God and Me yet as I hope My own Sins are so remitted that they shall be no ingredients to imbitter the cup of my Death so I desire God to pardon their Sins who are most guilty of my Destruction The Trophees of my Charity will be more glorious and durable over them than their ill-managed Victories over Me. Though their Sin be prosperous yet they had need to be penitent that they may be pardoned Both which I pray God they may obtain that my Temporal Death unjustly inflicted by them may not be revenged by God's just inflicting Eternal Death upon them for I look upon the Temporal Destruction of the greatest King as far less deprecable than the Eternal Damnation of the meanest Subject Nor do I wish other than the safe bringing of the Ship to shore when they have cast Me over-board though it be very strange that Mariners can sind no other means to appease the Storm themselves have raised but by drowning their Pilot. I thank God my Enemies Cruelty cannot prevent my Preparation whose Malice in this I shall defeat that they shall not have the satisfaction to have destroyed my Soul with my Body of whose Salvation while some of them have themselves seemed and taught others to despair they have only discovered this that they do not much desire it Whose uncharitable and cruel Restraints denying Me even the assistance of any of my Chaplains hath rather enlarged than any way obstructed my access to the Throne of Heaven Where Thou dwellest O King of Kings who fillest Heaven and Earth who art the fountain of Eternal Life in whom is no shadow of Death Thou O God art both the just Inflicter of Death upon us and the merciful Saviour of us in it and from it Yea it is better for us to be dead to our selves and live in Thee than by living in our selves to be deprived of Thee O make the many bitter aggravations of my Death as a Man and a King the opportunities and advantages of thy special Graces and Comforts in my Soul as a Christian If Thou Lord wilt be with Me I shall neither fear nor feel any evil though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death To contend with Death is the work of a weak and mortal man to overcome it is the Grace of Thee alone who art the Almighty and Immortal God O my Saviour who knowest what it is to die with Me as a man make Me to know what it is to pass through Death to Life with Thee my God Though I die yet I know that Thou my Redeemer livest for ever though Thou slayest Me yet Thou hast incouraged Me to trust in Thee for Eternal Life O withdraw not thy Favour from Me which is better than Life O be not far from Me for I know not how near a violent and Cruel Death is to Me. As thy Omniscience O God discovers so thy Omnipotence can defeat the Designs of those who have or shall conspire my Destruction O shew Me the goodness of thy Will through the wickedness of theirs Thou givest Me leave as a man to pray that this Cup may pass from Me but Thou hast taught Me as a Christian by the example of Christ to add Not My will but Thine be done Yea Lord let our wills be one by wholly resolving Mine into Thine let not the desire of Life in Me be so great as that of doing or suffering thy Will in either Life or Death As I believe Thou hast forgiven all the Errours of my Life so I hope Thou wilt save Me from the Terrours of my Death Make Me content to leave the Worlds Nothing that I may come really to enjoy All in Thee who hast made Christ unto Me in Life Gain and in Death Advantage Though my Destroyers forget their Duty to Thee and Me yet do not Thou O Lord forget to be merciful to them For what profit is there in my Blood or in their gaining my Kingdoms if they lose their own Souls Such as have not only resisted my just Power but wholly usurped and turned it against My self though they may deserve yet let them not receive to themselves Damnation Thou madest thy Son a Saviour to many that crucified Him while at once He suffered violently by them and yet willingly for them O let the voice of his Blood be heard for My Murtherers louder than the Cry of Mine against them Prepare them for thy Mercy by due Convictions of their Sin and let them not at once deceive and damn their own Souls by fallacious pretensions of Justice in destroying Me while the conscience of their unjust Vsurpation of power against Me chiefly tempts them to use all extremities against Me. O Lord Thou knowest I have found their Mercies to Me as very false so very cruel who
pretending to preserve Me have meditated nothing but my Ruine O deal not with them as blood-thirsty and deceitful men but overcome their Cruelty with Thy Compassion and My Charity And when Thou makest inquisition for my Blood O sprinkle their polluted yet penitent Souls with the Blood of thy Son that thy destroying Angel may pass over them Though they think my Kingdomes on Earth too little to entertain at once both them and Me yet let the capacious Kingdom of thy infinite Mercy at last receive both Me and my Enemies When being reconciled to Thee in the Blood of the same Redeemer we shall live far above these Ambitious desires which beget such mortal Enmities When their hands shall be heaviest and cruelest upon Me O let Me fall into the arms of thy tender and eternal Mercies That what is cut off of my Life in this miserable moment may be repayed in thy ever-blessed Eternity Lord let thy Servant depart in Peace for my eyes have seen thy Salvation Vota dabunt quae bella negârunt M. S. Sanctissimi Regis Martyris CAROLI Primi Siste Viator Luge Obmutesce Mirare Memento CAROLI ILLIUS Nominis pariter insignissimae Pietatis PRIMI MAGNAE BRIT ANNIAE ILLIUS Qui Rebellium Perfidiâ primò deceptus Dein Perfidorum Rabie percussus Inconcussus tamen LEGUM FIDEI DEFENSOR Schismaticorum Tyrannidi succubuit Anno Salutis Humanae MDCXLVIII Servitutis Britannicae Primo Felicitatis Suae Primo Coronâ Terrestri spoliatus Coelesti donatus Sed Sileant periturae Tabellae Perlege RELIQUIAS verè Sacras CAROLINAS In Queis Ipsa Sui Iconem Aere perenniorem vivaciùs exprimit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLI Primi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitaphium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SIstas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Nè forsan temeres sacros sepulchri Augusti Cineres Repôstus hîc est In Terrae Gremio Decor Stupórque Humani Generis Senex Infans Prudens scilicet Innocén sque Princeps Regni praesidium Ruina Regni Vitâ Praesidium Ruina Morte Quem Regem potiùs Patrém ve dicam O Patrem priùs deinde Regem Regem quippe Suî Patrémque Regni Hic Donúmque Dei DeÃque Cura Quem Vitáque refert refértque Morte Ringente Satanâ Canente Coelo Diro in Pegmate Gloriae Theatro Et Christi Cruce Victor Securi Baptistae emicuit Ruina Felix Quâ Divum Carolus secutus Agnum Et postliminio domum vocatus Primaevae Patriae fit Inquilinus Sic Lucis priùs Hesperus Cadentis Resplendet modò Phosphorus Reversae Hic Vindex Fidei sacer Vetustae Cui par est nihil nihil secundum Naturae Typus absolutioris Fortunae Domitor ferendo suae Qui quantum Calicis bibit tremendi Tantundem sibi Gloriae reportat Regum Maximus unicúsque Regum In quo Res minima est fuisse Regem Solus qui superâ locatus Arce Vel Vitâ poterit frui priore Quum sint Relliquiae Cadaver Umbra Tam sacri Capitis vel ipsa sacra Ipsis Eulogiis coinquinata Quaeque ipsum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prophanat Sistas sacrilegum Pedem Viator Tho. Pierce D. D. Coll. Magd. apud Oxon. Praeses An EPITAPH upon KING CHARLES SO falls that stately Cedar while it stood That was the onely glory of the Wood Great CHARLES thou earthly God celestial Man Whose life like others though it were a span Yet in that span was comprehended more Than Earth hath waters or the Ocean shore Thy heavenly virtues Angels should rehearse It is a the am too high for humane Verse He that would know thee right then let him look Vpon thy rare incomparable Book And read it o're and o're which if he do Hee 'l find thee King and Priest and Prophet too And sadly see our loss and though in vain With fruitless wishes call thee back again Nor shall oblivion sit upon thy Herse Though there were neither Monument nor Verse Thy Suff'rings and thy Death let no man name It was thy Glory but the Kingdoms Shame J. H. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE CONTENTS Anno MDC KIng CHARLES His Lineage and Birth Page 1. MDCII A presage of His Succession to the Crown p. 3. MDCIV. He is Created Duke of York His proficiency in his Studies p. 4. MDCXII His Succession in the Dukedom of Cornwall His Juvenile Exercises p. 5. MDCXVI He is Created Prince of Wales p. 6. MDCXVIII The Death of Queen Anne His great improvement in Theological Controversies p. 9. MDCXXII His Journey into Spain and the success of it p. 10. MDCXXIII His Return The Proposal of a Match with France p. 14. MDCXXV King James his death His Succession in the Kingdom The State of it at his first coming to it His Coronation p. 15. MDCXXVII The Expedition to the Isle of Rhee Assistance afforded to Rochel p. 23. MDCXXX The Birth of Prince CHARLES p. 29. MDCXXXII Tumults in Ireland Lord Strafford sent Deputy thither p. 32. MDCXXXIII His Journey into Scotland and Coronation there p. 33. MDCXXXIV The business of Ship-money p. 36. MDCXXXVII Troubles began in Scotland and upon what pretence p. 40. MDCXXXIX An agreement made with the Scots p. 44. MDCXL An Army raised against the Scots A Parliament called p. 45. MDCXLI The Arraignment and Execution of the Earl of Strafford The Factious Designs of the Zealots in the Parliament p. 50. The Rebellion in Ireland p. 64. The Queens departure out of England p. 80. The Kings withdrawment from London p. 83. His repulse at Hull by Hotham p. 88. Armiesraised on both sides p. 97. The Battel at Edge-hill p. 102. MDCXLIII The Queens return into England The Kings Successes p. 105. MDCXLIV The Kings Victories over the Rebels p. 113. The Tryal and Execution of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury p. 118. His Character p. 120. MDCXLV The Battel at Naseby and its ill influence upon the Kings Party p. 128. MDCXLVI The Kings withdrawment to the Scottish Army p. 133. MDCXLVII The King removed from Holmby to Hampton-Court His flight into the Isle of Wight p. 139. MDCXLVIII The Treaty in the Isle of Wight p. 164. A Court Erected for the Tryal of the King p. 179. His Tryal and Carriage there p. 192. His Martyrdom and Burial p. 201. His Incomparable Book p. 208. His Character His Religion p. 212. His Justice p. 223. His Clemency p. 225. His Fortitude p. 229. His Patience p. 232. His Humility p. 237. His choice of Ministers of State p. 239. His Affection to his People p. 240. His obliging Converse p. 243. His Fidelity p. 244. His Chastity p. 246. His Temperance p. 247. His Frugality p. 248. His Intellectual abilities p. 250. His skill in all Arts. p. 252. His Eloquence p. 254. His Political Prudence p. 255. The censure of his Fortune p. 257. A presage of His Fall and the future State of the Royal Family p. 259. His Recreations p. 260. The features of His Body p. 262. His Children p. 263. An Appendix p. 267. His Select Meditations upon the denial of the Attendance of His Chaplains p. 268. Penitential Meditations and Vows in His Solitude at Holmby p. 281. His Declaration after the Votes of no further Address p. 287. Meditations upon Death after the Votes of Non-Address and His Majesties closer Imprisonment in Carisbrook Castle p. 293. His Epitaph 312. His Epitaph by Doctor Pierce p. 313. Another Epitaph by J.H. p. 315. THE END Lately Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner THE Estate of the EMPIRE or an Abridgement of the Laws and Government of GERMANY farther shewing what Condition the EMPIRE was in when the Peace was Concluded at Munster Also the several Fights Battels and Desolation of Cities during the War in that EMPIRE And also of the GOLDEN BVLL In 8º The Sicilian Tyrant Or The Life and Death of AGATHOCLES With some Reflections on our Modern Usurpers 8º The ROYAL MARTYR and the Dutiful Subject in two SERMONS By Guilbert Burnet 4º