notwithstanding his great good Fortunes as to see his Glory unravel'd as well as his Happiness in great part there being nothing left him of all his great Gettings abroad purchased with so much Travel Expence and Bloodshed but only the poor Town of Calais which signified no more then a Gate of a City left open when all the rest is possest by too potent an Enemy But we must look on 't as a Curse that he inherited with his Crown not to be permitted to dye till he saw himself as his Father was forsaken of every Body but a poor Priest that only tarried to torment him with the remembrance of his Sins and left him at last as he left the World in such a state of uncertainty that our Historians are yet to seek whether to place him amongst the rank of our fortunate or unfortunate Princes the fatal divisions of his Posterity which took their first rise from his weakness being so pernicious to the whole Kingdom as well as to themselves that if the Dead know any thing of what is done amongst the Living he needed no other Hell to torture his guilty Spirit then the vision of those murthered Princes of his own Blood whose Ghosts just led one another where ere they met HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Now as it is easie to kindle a great Fire with very little blowing when the matter is fitly dispos'd to burn so it happen'd very unluckily that from the casual Rudeness of an inconsiderable Tax-gatherer that came into the House of a poor Tiler of Deptford and would have turn'd up the Coats of his young Daughter to see whether she were of Age to pay her Poll-mony there was occasion'd so over-grown a Riot as bearing down all respect of Laws Order or Government was not to be appeas'd with the Blood of three of the principal'st Ministers of State that is to say the Chancellor although he were Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Treasurer and the Lord Chief Justice and came at last so near to Majesty it self for some of the Rebels were little less rude with the Kings own Mother then his Officer had been with their Captains Daughter that 't was thought nothing could deliver the King himself from the approaching Danger but meeting it half way which he did with so well temper'd a Courage as never King before him shew'd except Caesar and he but once or his own Father at the Battel of Poctiers when begirt with as many perhaps but not so insolent nor unworthy Foes This being as much beyond the expectation of his Years as of his Enemies charmed them into a Submission for a while but the Distemper being universal and raging and the Contagion spread insensibly through so many parts of the Kingdom it was not possible to heal the Evil with a Touch only However one would have thought so hopeful a Prince as this was the Son of so brave a Father and fortified with so unpregnable a Title could not likely have miscarried but must have stood firm as a Mountain whose top was above all Storms but the same Stars ruling at his Birth that govern'd his Great-grand-fathers Nativity 't is no marvail being of the same temper he should fall under the same fate to be kept by Flatterers from the knowledge of himself till being not himself he too late saw his Error in the experience of their Falshood The first ten years of his Government which were the better though not the longer part of it he reign'd with great splendor if so be we may properly say he reign'd whiles he was under the dispose of others taking all occasions to let those that attempted to disturb him both at home and abroad especially his right and left-hand Enemies the French and Scots feel the sharpness of his Sword and the weight of his Power forcing the first to quit their chief Design having prepar'd a Navy of 1287 Ships to invade him the other to quit their chief City which he thereupon reduced into Ashes to make a Bonefire that might give the whole Kingdom notice of his Victory But after he came to be of Age to do all himself he began very visibly to undo himself hastning the slow pace of his Deâ—â—iny by quarrelling with his Parliaments who being actuated by the subtilty of his emulous Uncles gather'd strength by the discovery of his weakness and taking all advantages against him in point of Right or Reputation urged their Priviledges so far in derogation of his Prerogative that he could not forbear telling them the very next Sessions after he was out of his Wardship as he was wont to call it that he perceived they had a mind to rebel and therefore thought he could do no better then to ask Aid of his Cosin the King of France into whose hands he said he had rather fall being a Prince then submit to his own Subjects A rash and unadvised Reply which however it seem'd to be the Result of a proud and vindictive Stomach was in truth so abject and low so unlike himself and so like his little Great-Grandsire Henry the Third that they taking Example from the Nobility of that time as he from that King immediately put the Government into the hands of thirteen Lords of whom his turbulent Uncle Gloucester was the Chief who having Divisum Imperium lookt like a great Wen upon the Face of the State that drew all the ill humours of the Body Politick to it The Duke of Ireland that was the principal Councellor of his party and his Uncle by Marriage was so amaz'd at the sudden birth of this Oligarchy that not daring to give any Opinion of his own in the Case although he were a man of sufficient Courage and Authority he put him upon advising with all the Judges possibly that what himself should think fit might pass for Law out of their mouths and accordingly Questions were fram'd to be propos'd to them by which it was easier understood what the King would have to be Law then what in truth was so To all which having receiv'd positive Resolves on the Kings side the next Consultation was how to frame such a House of Commons as might be brought to take part with the King against the Lords and forthwith Letters were directed to all the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace in every County to interpose their Credit and Authority for the chusing of such Persons Knights and Burgesses for the next Sessions as the King and his Councel had nam'd in a List sent to them This look'd like so dangerous an Industry that the Regency took the Alarm at it and trusting to no other remedy flew to Arms. The King thereupon demanded Aid of the City of London but they failing his Expectation the Lords grew so bold as to send to him to deliver up his ill Councellors whom they call'd Traytors and Seducers Upon this there were very great and grave Deliberations each man
universal darkness (t) Tertullian Tertullian that liv'd not long after taking thence occasion to upbraid the unbelieving Jews by telling them that the Britains whom the Romans could not conquer were yet subject unto Christ and to say truth their obedience to the Cross was the chief cause of humbling themselves under the Fasces Lucius being the first King that stipulated for the enjoyment of his own Laws at the price of a Tribute which if it were some diminution of his Majesty was made up with advantage by his Successour Constantine the Great whom therefore the (u) In M. Ant. In Arc. Cott. Panegyrist not unfitly stiles Divus Orbis Britanniae Liberator 7. However in respect the Romans had some hold-fast here for near a hundred years after Constantine's death it may be by some perhaps thought more reasonable to begin our Computation from Vortigern who having neither Competitor nor Compartner in the Government there being not one Roman left in the whole Isle to controul or contend with him was without doubt the first that as Tacitus speaks of Augustus Nomine Principis sub Imperium accepit circa An. Chr. 440. At what time all the Neighbour Princes round about him were under the common yoak of Servitude The French themselves who stand so much upon the Antiquity of their Monarchy falling short of this Account near four hundred years who being govern'd by Dukes till the year 420 had not in almost thirty years after any more of France in their Intire possession then that Canton which the Romans call'd Belgicum which was the more inconsiderable by being parcel'd out into many Petty (w) As were Burgundy Lorrain Guien Aquitain Normandy Champagne Fâ—ix Orange c. Royalties that could not unite till the time of Charlemaine who liv'd about the latter end of our Heptarchy after whose death the whole fell into five pieces again four whereof ceas'd to be French which gave so great disturbance to all their Kings of the Second and third Race that they were so far from being Masters of that little that they had that they were scarce (x) Vide Du Serres in Proem Hist Lords of themselves being forc'd to pawn the best part of their Inheritance to enable them to keep the rest none of their Successors being in condition to redeem any considerable part till Lewis the Eleventh who happily having recovered the Earldom of Provence and Dutchy of Burgundy made his boast that he had brought his Kingdom Hors de Page Much more distorted was the Empire of the Spaniards if so be we may allow them to have any thing like absolute Soveraignty till this very last Age when Ferdinand the Second worthily reputed their first Monarch happily united Castile and Aragon with their Appendixes their Predecessors till then being so inconsiderable that the Kings of Scotland took place of them In how obscure a condition all the Northern Kings were for by that common appellation those of Muscovy Sweadland Denmark and Norway past undistinguish'd till about the year 800 I need not say Since by being thought not worth the conquering there was not much more notice taken of them than of the rest of the barbarous Nations their Neighbours who may be rather said to be antient then honourable the Germans only excepted of whom to speak slightly were to defile our own nest since by them we derive our selves from Kings as great before the Flood as since The Precedence of the Kings of This Isle 8. Now as the Monarchy of this Isle is as Lanquet the Chronologer expresses it antienter then the Records of any time so the Kings thereof having held out a Succession of an hundred thirty nine Kings where as France reckons but sixty four taking in First Second and third Race have by the right of Custom as our particular Law expresses it Du temps dont memorie ne cúrt a le contrarie and by the consent of all Nations which is the Law universal to Ratifie and Regulate all respects taken and been allow'd the (y) As appears by the old Roman provincial second place inter Super Illustres for by that term Civilians make a great distinction and difference in point of Majesty even amongst Kings themselves A term which who so understands not may see the difference plainly in that old Formular printed at Strasburgh Anno 1519 where there is set down a Quadrupartite Division of Supream Principality the first place allow'd by them as reasonably they ought to their own Soveraign Kesar i. e. the German Emperour the Second to Romischin Koning i. e. the King of the Romans his Successor and their Countryman too The third place they gave to the Vier Gesalbt Koning i. e. the four anointed Kings In the last place came the Mein Koning or Ordinary Kings The difference betwixt these last and the Quatuor Vncti which were the (z) Javin Theatramundi Kings of France England Jerusalem and Sicily was this that with the holy oyl they receiv'd the Title and Adjunct of (a) Rhivallus ap Tooke in Carism Sanct. Cap. 6. Sacred being therefore anointed In Capite to signifie their glory above the other Princes of the same Rank In Pectore to denote their Sanctity In Brachiis to Emblematize their power this appears by the Styles of the Literae Formatae the antient forms of Addresses and the Frontispicians to the antient Councels where we find the various Styles of Sanctio Sacrietas and Divinitas apply'd to these to those were given only that of Dominatio and sometimes Celsitudo Regia conformable to this were all the phrases of the antient Laws of this Realm which Style the Crown-Lands (b) Cook sur Littleton Sect. 4. Sacra Patrimonia the Prerogative Royal Sacra Sacrorum the Laws themselves in respect they take their life and being from the King (c) Fortescu Leg. Aug. fol. 8. Sanctae Sanctiones The Kings presence was held so Sacred that if a (d) Plowd Com. 322. Villain heretofore cast himself ad Sacra Vestigia as they phras'd it his Lord could no more seize him than if he had been in the Sanctuary before the Altar it being upon the same Ground as great a crime to strike in the Court as in the Church and as if this were not enough they ascribe unto the King as unto God Infallibility (e) Edw. 4. 25. 24. Rex non potest errare Immortality (f) Crompton Jurisaic fol. 134. Plowd 177. B. 1 Ed. 5. Rex non potest mori for in all Pleadings they never mention the death of the King but call it the Demise Justice in perfection Rex non quam injuriam fecit Omnipresence in so much that he cannot be non-suited in any of his Courts because he is suppos'd to be always present and for the same reason all Persons are sorbid to be cover'd in his Chambers of presence though he be not there Lastly they give to him as to God the Issues of Life and
the Earl of Bolloigne the Kings Brother in law whose Harbingers being kill'd in the Scuffle the King commanded Goodwin as Lord Lieutenant of that County to do Justice on the Offenders but he deny'd returning this popular Answer That it was against his Conscience to execute his Country-men unheard upon the complaint of Strangers This coldness of his rais'd such a sudden heat in the Common People that there wanted nothing to set the whole Kingdom in a Flame but to tell them their Liberties were in danger and that there was no body durst assert them but the Earl Goodwin King Edward perceiving his design and doubting least it might bring him himself into suspition with his People being upon the matter a Stranger as having been alwayes brought up in Normandy he resolv'd to question him in open Parliament and accordingly he summon'd him and his Sons to give their attendance but they refusing to appear both sides armed London was divided in the Quarrel for the King possessed all on this side the Thames the Earl all on the other side next Kent But such is the terrour of Guilt that the Night before the Battel was to be fought the Rebels quit their General and by that commendable Treachery forc'd him to quit the Realm who taking shipping at Greenwich fled away as fast by water as his Complices did by Land The King upon this turn was so changed in his humour incensed at this their gross contumacy that he grew extreamly cholerick and peevish discharging his Anger with that violence upon all the Earls Friends that it recoil'd back upon the spotless Queen her self whom in the transport of his Passion he accus'd of a * Incontinency Crime which if she had been guilty of himself could not have been Innocent having as he was not ashamed afterwards to confess never perform'd the Duty of a Husband to her under which pretended Jealousie she was forced to suffer a years Imprisonment in a Cloyster partaking patiently the Pennance of those who were under a Vow never to know any man only to satisfie him who had before vowed never to know any woman This Indignity offer'd to the Innocent Daughter in whom saith Ingulphus there was no fault but that she was a Rose of that prickly stock did so stimulate the guilty Father for whose sake she suffer'd that he meditated nothing but the extreamest Revenge and by frequent Piracies so disturb'd all Trade that the King finding that the popular were on his side was glad to compound with him for his quiet upon his own tearms yielding to the banishment of all Strangers which Concession did his business but undid the Kingdoms For as it made way for his Son to be as he design'd him a King so it was the fatal occasion of that unexpected Invasion of the Normans abetted by the Earl of Bolloigne that had the first affront given him which not long after not only overwhelm'd the particular honour of his own Family but the glory of the whole English Nation by a Conquest so universal and sudden as if the Strangers they banish'd had gone out of the Country for no other end but to fetch in more However Heaven suffered not him to see either the fruit or punishment of his dark purposes it so falling out that whilst he design'd to have devour'd the whole Kingdom he was himself choak'd with a small morsel of Bread that went the wrong way down and by his death put such a full point to all great Actions as shews that either he did all that was done then or the King did not long survive him whose Reign being nothing else but a Commentary upon that Earl's Ambition 't is no marvel that his Fame began where t'others ended being sounded upon Opinion rather then Action whilst his Magnanimity was interpreted Patience and his Patience judg'd the Effect of Wisdom But they that duly examine the whole course of his life will find that the active part of it declar'd him scarce a good man the passive certainly not a good King and however the Clergy who were well brib'd extoll'd his Chastity and Piety yet 't is evident that the first was not without manifest wrong to his Wife whom not to use was the highest abuse the last with no less Ingratitude towards his Mother whom upon like suspicion he put to such a kind of Purgation as might have condemn'd the greatest Innocence causing her to pass the * To go over 9 red hot Houghshares bare-footed blinded laid at uncertain distances either of which if she touch'd she was hold guilty Ordeale or Fiery Tryal then in fashion But this unkindness to them is the less when compar'd with that to himself in the total disregard of all Posterity affecting more to be a Benefactor to then a Father of his Country as believing Religious Houses more lasting Monuments then Religious Children whereby it came to pass that for want of Issue of his own Body he was fain to leave the Succession to one that was both a Child and a Stranger little knowing and less known to the English as not having so much of the Language as might serve to demand or declare his Right when he was to recover it nor so much Spirit or Judgment as to shew himself sensible of the Injury when he was afterwards put besides it A fit adopted Successor for such a Sacerdoting King of whom if I should give an impartial Character I must say that he was rather cold then chast rather superstitious then religious fitter to be a Monk then a Monarch indeed so sottish that as 't is reported of Vitellius he would have forgotten he was born a Prince if others had not put him in mind of it So that 't is no marvel considering either his own weakness or his that was to have come after him that his Steward Harold by having only the rule of his Houshold should take upon him as he did to rule the Kingdom and he thought the fittest man however half a Dane to support the English Monarchy HAROLD date of accession 1065 AS there is no temptation so powerful as that which arises from the knowledge of a mans Power so there is no Consideration of that force as to make a man quit his Ambition that thinks he hath merited a Crown Harold having resolv'd to be a King tarries not till the People made him so but to take the charge of Injustice off from them boldly steps into the Throne the better to out-face his Rivals from thence who being no less then three two on a pretended and one with a real Right he conceiv'd they must justle one another before they could come at him The pretenders were Swain King of Denmark whose claim was as the undoubted Heir of the last Knute and William Duke of Normandy that set up a Title by Gift and Conveyance from the last King Edward But of these the first was ingaged in a War with the Swede the last imbroyl'd in
little disordered by it but those since who have found the benefit of having the Laws mysterious and less intelligible have little cause to decry him for it unless for this cause that they are never pleas'd with any fighting King In fine he strain'd not the Prerogative so high but his Son Henry the First let it down again as low when he restored to the People their ancient freedom of General Assemblies or rather permitted them a kind of share with himself in the Government by instituting a form of Convention so much nobler then any thing they had been acquainted with in elder timety in that the Peerage sate as so many Kings parting stakes with Soveraigns if what * Who was Lord Chief Justice to his Grandson Hen. 3. Bracton tells us be true who saith there were many things which by law the King could not do without them and some things which legally they might do without him which those that have read upon the Statute of Magna Charta can best explain This was not therefore improperly call'd the Parliament in respect of the Freedom of parlying after another fashion then had been permitted to their Ancestors in former Meetings which being Ex more or as they were wont to phrase it of Custome Grace during all the time of the Saxon Kings we cannot imagine their Debates to be much less restrained then themselves who attending in the Kings Palace like the Lords of the Councel at this day having had the honour to give their Opinions in any point of State submitted the final Judgment and determination to the Kings will and pleasure And whereas then the Commoners were wholly left out of all Consultations unless with the Learned Lambert we may think them included in the word Barones which seems to have been as equivocal a term heretofore in England as that of Laird yet in Scotland they now were made partakers of the like priviledge of voting as the Lords so that in Henry the Third his time to look no further backward we find them call'd by the yet continued stile of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to consult together with the Lords pro Pace asseverandâ firmandâ c. as the †lib. St. Alban f. 207. 4 H. 3. Record expresses it neither sate they when they met as Cyphers to those great Figures For when Pope Alexander the Fourth would have revoked the Sentence of Banishment past upon his proud Legate Adomare Bishop of Winchester for that he was not as he alledged subject to lay Censure they took upon them to give their Answer by themselves and it was a bold one That though the King and Lords should be willing to revoke it ‖ Vt pat Chart. orâ—g sub sigil de Mountford Vic. tot Communitat Rot. Parl. 42 Hen. 3. Communitas tamen ipsius ingressum in Angliam nullatenus sustineret How far their Priviledges were afterward confirmed and enlarged by several Kings successively but more particularly by that most excellent Prince Henry the Fifth who first allowed * 2 Hen. 5. The Petition of Right and permitted it to be entred in their Journals as the Great Standard of Liberty is not unknown from which time it hath been esteemed the second Great Charter of England whereby we were manumitted into that degree of Freedom as no Subjects in the world enjoy the like with like security from the fear of future bondage For as no man can be made lyable to the payment of any more or other Taxes then what himself layes upon himself by his representatives in that great Pan-Anglio call'd the Parliament so all the Kings of England since that time have been pleas'd to accept the Aids given by them even for the necessary support of the Government as so many Freewill-Offerings And well it is that they esteem them free since they are not obtained without a kind of Composition I might say obligation to give good Laws for good mony wherein the performance on the Princes part alwaies precedes that on the Peoples But there is yet something further then all this that renders the Norman Conquest so much more considerable then either that of the Romans Saxons or Danes by how much it spread its wings over the Seas into those goodly Provinces of the South never known to the English before thereby not only giving them Title to keep their Swords from rusting as long as they had any Arms to draw them forth but the Advantage therewithal of a mutual Conversation with a civiliz'd People who introduced so happy a Change in Laws and Language in Habits and Humours in Manners and Temperature that not only their rough I might say rude Natures no way inclin'd before to any kind of Gaiety admitted of smoother Fashions and quicker Motions but their dull Phlegmatick Complexions pale and wan by the continued use of dozing dreggy Liquor Ale became as ruddy as the Wine they drank which having more of Spirit and Fire then that other heavy composition sublimated their Courage and Wit and render'd them more lofty and eloquent both in Action and Language the last being before so asperous harsh and gutteral that an hours discourse together would have indanger'd the skin of their throats but being softned by the French and Latine Accents it became so gentle and smooth that as a Modern Master of Elocution hath observ'd 't is now so soft and pleasing that Lord Faulkland Prefat to Sands his Translation of the Psalms those From whom the unknown Tongue conceals the Sence Ev'n in the sound must find an Eloquence From the Normans likewise we had that honourable distinction of Sirnames which however they borrowed in the first place from the French who as Du Tillet tells us were about the year 1000 much delighted with the humour of Soubriquets * Vid Buck. Vit. Rich. 3. or giving one another Nic-names as we commonly call them insomuch that two of the very chiefest Houses amongst them the Capets and the Plantaginets had no other rise for their Names were continued no where with that certainty and order as amongst us here to the great renown and honour of our Families whose Nobility if it exceed not the date of the Norman Conquest may yet without any disparagement compare with any of those who call themselves the unconquer'd Nations of the World It being space long enough considering the vicissitude of time and power of Chance to antiquate the glory of great States much more of private Families and few there are that have attain'd to that Age. For however Honour like old Age magnifies its reverence by multiplying its years yet it is to be considered that there are visible decayes attend Veneration and it may so fall out that Names as well as Men may out-live themselves while the glory of a Family by over-length of time being less known may be the more suspected to have been but imaginary as some who exceeding the common bounds of certainty do pretend to justifie
year there but the taking only one Town and besieging another which upon notice of the Disorders at home that a wise man might easily have foreseen and prevented he quit with no less disorder leaving the whole Action with as much precipitation as he took it up insomuch that his Wife and Sister that accompanied him and all their Attendants and Officers were forc'd to shift for themselves and get home as they could which Inconsideration of his met with that pitiful Event before mention'd to redeem him from which his People were fain to strain themselves beyond their abilities Lay-men and Clergy parting with a fourth part of their Real and a tenth of their Personal Estate all not being sufficient to make up his Ransome till they pawn'd and sold their very Chalices and Church Ornaments Being thus as it were un-king'd and expos'd naked to the Vulgar stript of his Honour as well as Treasure he thought himself not secure of the fai h and reverence due to his birth by any other way but a Recoronation which being as extraordinary as the rest of his Actions for he 's the first we meet with twice crown'd was notwithstanding the poverty of the Nation that had paid in two years time no less then jj hundred thousand Marks of Silver the vastness of which Sum may be guess'd at by the Standard of those Times when twenty pence was more then a Crown now perform'd with that solemnity as shew'd he had the same mind though not the same purse as when he began his great Adventures After this he fitted out a Fleet of 100 Sail of Ships to carry him into Normandy to chastize the Rebellions of his Brother John who incouraged by the King of France the constant Enemy of England had during his absence depos'd his Vice-roy Long-champ and forc'd him to lay down his Legatine Cross to take up that of the holy War and had put himself in so good forwardness to depose him too having brought the People to swear a Conditional Fealty to him that there wanted nothing to give him possession of the Crown which was before secur'd in Reversion but the consent of the Emperor to whom there was offer'd a Bribe of 150 thousand Marks to detain him or 1000 pounds a Month as long as he kept him Prisoner But such was the power of the Mother who was alwaies a fast Friend to the younger Brother and had indeed a greater share in the Government of the elder then consisted with the weakness of her own or the dignity of his Sex that she made them Friends and obtained an Indempnity for all the Faults committed during Longchamp's Reign who indeed was more a King then his Master so that his Indignation being wholly diverted upon the French King he began a new War that was like to prove more chargeable then the old which he had so lately ended To maintain which he had new Projections for raising Money but Providence having determin'd to put an end to his Ambition and Avarice offer'd a fatal Occasion by the discovery of some Treasure-trove out of which the Discoverer the Viscount Lymoges voluntarily tendring him a part tempted him to claim the whole and so eager was he of the Prey that being deny'd he besieg'd the Castle of Challons where he conceiv'd 't was hid from whence by a fatal Arrow shot from the hand of one whose Father and two Brothers he had kill'd with his own hand he was unexpectedly slain leaving no Issue either of his Body or Mind that the World took notice off excepting his three Daughters before mention'd father'd on him by the Priest by the disposal of which though it were but in jest we may see what he was in earnest For he bestow'd his daughter Pride on the Knights Templars his daughter Drunkenness on the Cestercian Monks and his Daughter Leachery he left to the Clergy in general which quickness of his as it savour'd of Irreligion so it made good that in him which makes all things else ill the comprehensive Vice of Ingratitude the Clergy being the only men to whom he was indebted for his Honour Wealth and Liberty but the unkindness he shew'd to them living was sufficiently requited to him dead by one of the same function who reflecting upon the Place where he receiv'd his fatal wound shot an Arrow at him that pierc'd deeper then that which slew him Christe tui Calicis Praedo fit praeda Calucis This mounted him on the wings of Fame but that unexpected height was attended with a fatal Giddiness which turn'd to such a kind of Frenzy as render'd him incapable of all advice So that intoxicated with the fumes of his Power he committed many outrages not sparing his own Brother Jeoffry Arch-bishop of York who using the freedom of a Brother in reprehending his Exorbitances had all his Estate taken from him and confiscated a whole year before he could recover it again by the help of all his Friends The Earl of Chester fair'd yet worse who was banish'd upon the like accompt of being too faithful a Counsellor Neither did the Lord Fitz-Walter suffer less then either because he would not consent to prostitute his fair Daughter Matilda to his Lust And whether he shew'd any foul play to his Nephew Arthur after he was his Prisoner is not certain who surviving his Imprisonment but a few dayes gave the World cause to think he was not treated as so near a Kinsman but as a Competitor and that which confirm'd this Opinion was the Judgment from Heaven that attended it for from that time he grew very visibly unprosperous loosing not only his ancient Patrimony the Dutchy of * Which his Ancestors had hâ—ld in despight of all the power â—f France and the rest of their potent Neighbours above 300 years Normandy and that as strangely as t'other did his life but with it all the rest of his Possessions on that side the Water all taken from him in less then a years space not so much by force of Arms as by process of Law whiles the King of France proceeded against him as an Offender rather then as an Enemy And to aggravate that by other Losses seeming less but perhaps greater he near about the same time not only lost his two great Supporters Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury and Fitz-Peter his Lord Chief Justice as wise and faithful Counsellors as any Prince ever had but her that was the Bridle of his Intemperance his Indulgent Mother Elinor a prudent Woman of a high and waking Spirit and therefore a most affectionate Promoter of his because it tended to the supporting of her own Greatness These stayes being gone he prov'd like a mounted Paper Kite when the string breaks which holds it down for taking an extravagant flight he fell afterwards as that usually doth for want of due weight to keep it steddy and being no less sensible of the shame then the loss instead of taking revenge on his Foes he fell upon
Ingraven on it which denoted that wherever that Stone shou d be placed there should the Scotch Dominion take place a Prediction verisied in our days in the Person of King James the Sixth the first of their Kings ever crowned here With this he took away likewise all their Books and Bookmen as if resolved to rob them of all sense of Liberty as well as of Liberty it self only the brave Wallis continued yet Lord of himself and being free kept up their Spirits by the Elixir of his Personal Courage mixt with an Invincible Constancy and Patience till being betray'd by one of his Companions a Villain sit to be canoniz'd in Hell he was forc'd to yield though he would never submit first to the King after to the Laws of England which judging him to dye as a Traytor eterniz'd the Memory of his Fidelity and Fortitude and made him what he could never have made himself the most glorious Martyr that Country ever had No sooner was he dead but Robert Bruce Son to that Robert Earl of Carric who was Competitor with Baliol appeared as a new Vindictor who escaping out of the English Court where he had long liv'd unsuspected headed the confused Body which wanted only a King to unite them in Counsel Power and Affection but unfortunately laying the Foundation of his Security in Blood murthering his Cosin Cumin who had been one of the Competitors upon pretence he held correspondence with King Edward the horror of which fact was aggravated by the manner and place for he took him whilst he was at his Prayers in the Church it cost him no less blood to wipe off that single stain then to defend his Title the Partakers with the Family of Cumin who were many mighty and eager of Revenge joyning thereupon with the English against him This drew King Edward the fourth time personally into Scotland who had he suffered his Revenge to have given place so far to his Justice as to have pursued Bruce as an Offender rather then as an Enemy he might possibly have done more in doing less then he did but he not only sacrific'd the two innocent Brothers of Bruce making them after they became his Prisoners answer with their lives the penalty of their Brother's Guilt but declar'd he would give no Quarter to any of his Party whereby he not only drove them closer together but arm'd them with Desperation which as it hath a keeper edge then hope so it wounded so deep and inraged them to that degree of Courage as not only to give the greatest Overthrow to the greatest Army that ever the English brought thither but to repay the measure of Blood in as full manner as it was given or intended and in the end broke the great Chain of his well laid Design which was to have inâ—arged his Power by reducing the whole Isle Wales being taken in a little before under one Scepter with no less respect to the quiet then the greatness of England but maugre all his Power or Policy they let in a Race of Kings there that found a way to conquer his Successors here without a stroke of which he seems to have had some Prophetick knowledge upon his Death-bed when he took so much care to make his Revenge out-live himself by commanding his Son Edward to carry his Bones round about that Country having just begun his fifth Expedition as he ended his life and not suffer them to be buried till he had vanquish'd it wholly Thus this great King who spent most of his time in shedding others Blood was taken off by the excessive shedding of his own for he dyed of a Dissentery and like Caesar who terrified his Enemies with his Ghost seem'd not willing to make an end with the World afâ—er he had done with it but which never came into any Kings thoughts before or since resolv'd to Reign after his Dominion was determined being confident that his very Name like a Loadstone which attracts Iron to it would draw all the English Swords to follow its fate till they had made good that Union which he with so much harshness and horror had accelerated but as Providence which more respects the unity of Affections then the Unity of Nations did by the * Burrough on the Sands in the Bishoprick of Durham Place where he dyed shew the frailty of that Foundation he laid whilst he liv'd all his Glory expiring with himself so Nature as in abhorrence to the violation of her Laws by the effusion of so much blood as he had shed the most that any Christian King of this Isle ever did turn'd the Blessing she gave him into a Curse whilst she took from him before his Eyes three of his four Sons and the only worthy to have surviv'd him and left him only to survive who only was worthy never to have been born And now whether it was his Fault or his Fate to dote thus upon Gaveston who being only a Minister to his Wantonness could not have gain'd that Power he had over him to make himself so great by lessening him without something like an Infatuation the matter of Fact must declare For before his Coronation he made him Earl of Cornwal and Lord of Man both Honours belonging to the Crown at his Coronation notwithstanding the Exceptions taken against him by all the Nobility he gave him the honour to carry King Edward's Crown before him which of right belonged to a Prince of the Blood to have done and after the Coronation he married him up to his own Niece the Daughter of his second Sister Jone de Acres by Gilbert Clare Earl of Gloucester having indeed rais'd him to this pitch of Greatness as tempted him to raise himself higher being not content with the Power without he might aâ—so share in the Glory of Soveraignty most vainly affecting the Title of KING and if he were not King of Man as he desired he was at least King in Man ruling both there and in Ireland like an absolute Prince not without hopes of a fair possibility of being if the Kings Issue had fail'd King of England after him which Hope made him Insolent and that Insolence Insupportable so that the Lords finding it bootless to expect Justice from the King against him resolv'd to do themselves right and without more ado let fly a whole volley of Accusations at him This first forced him to part from the King and being separated they found it easie to make him part from himself for it was not long before he fell into their hands being taken Prisoner by the Earl of Pembroke who chopt of his Head a deaâ—h however esteem'd to be the most honourable of any other was to him questionless the most grievous in that it made him stoop who never could endure to submit This violent proceeding of the Lords as it shew'd a roughness of the Times suitable to that of their own Natures so it was the first occasion of the second Civil War of England
terrible by the ominous Reverberations from Scotland who ecchoed to those Murmurs here with such a dismal Concordance as shew'd to what Instrument they were tuned This drew him into that Kingdom to correct the growing Distemper before it because too virulent wherein he proceeded as wise Physitians do that draw the pains from the Head by Applications to the Feet but as it is hard to discern the true meaning of any mans Intention which being the Soul of every Action is invisible and very easie to abuse it with a malitious Interpretation that is not only against its own but against all Sence and Reason so it happen'd to him who beginning with the Ratification of the Negative Confession subscrib'd by his Father and the whole Kingdom Anno 1580. which was a Renuntiation of the Papal Authority and all the corrupt Principles depending thereon he was charged by those that had before felt the smart of the Commission of Surrendries and were inforc'd to disgorge those Sacrilegious grants they had obtained during his Fathers minority to have a design of bringing in Popery a word that turn'd every mans Blood into Choler and gave the hottest allarm to tender Consciences that ever that cold Clime knew the train of whose Calumnies was so laid that it quickly took fire here in England where the Presbyterian as yet call'd the Puritan Party having as they thought matter enough of Scandal long before from the unhappy Toleration of Sports on the Sabbath-day and the turning of the Communion Table Altar-wise began to chackle as one expresses it like the Geese in the Capitol bespattering the Bishops with that vehemency that much of their unbeseeming Froath fell upon the King himself And for the more intire Concurrence of Civil and Religious Clamors the same evil Spirit that furnish'd them with meet matters of Complaint turning Man-Midwife eased them of many a Spiritual Throw by opening the Womb of their Conspiracy before its full time making way for the new birth of that long expected Parliament from whose heat all the Factions took life and like quickned Snakes began to hiss with such invenom'd rage as shew'd a manifest contempt of all Authority pressing now upon the Kings Conscience as much as they would have the World to think he had press'd upon theirs before not only refusing to admit the use of the Liturgy however compos'd by their own Bishops in any of their Parochial Churches but denying the King himself the priviledge of having it read in his own private Chappel at Edenburgh And least the World should doubt that their Insolence was not come to its wish'd for height they took upon them the marks of Soveraign Power indicting without his Licence or Knowledge four principal Tables or Counsels in the said City one of the Nobility another of the Gentry a third of the Burgesses and a fourth of the Ministry Out of which there was set up a general Table of select Commissioners all alike Enemies to Unity and Uniformity who were to chalk out the Methods for abolishing Superstition and Tyranny by which was meant in their mystical Sense Episcopacy and Monarchy In order to the carrying on of which dâ—sorderly Proceedings they seiz'd as well the Crown as the Church Lands and notwithstanding their hate of Forms began so well a Form'd Rebellion that the unhappy King was provok'd beyond his natural temper to repell Force by Force But before his Justice could reach them they had so firm'd their Faction by their Solemn League and Covenant which was not like that ancient Bond taken in the Year 590. wherein they were bound to the maintenance of the Kings Person and Authority for in this they swore all to the mutual Defence and Assistance of each other against all Persons opposing them whatever not excepting the King himself that he was glad to close in a Pacification which after produc'd a Cessation that by the Artifice of some of their Friends here working upon his tenderness of shedding Blood concluded with a disbanding of his in order to the letting down their Army but after abusing him in this as well as in all other their Intreagues for they determin'd never to sheath the Sword till they got their ends he was forc'd to reinforce himself by new Leavies which necessitated the calling another Parliament here at home This prov'd so much worse then all that had been before it in that they were grown more learn'd in the Discipline of Daring and being fully instructed by the Complaints of all that were weary of the Government or Governours like the first Reformers of Germany they sum'd up their Centum Gravamina in a general Remonstrance which was carried on with that unparallel'd Contumacy that every one that was licentiously inclin'd pleas'd himself with the Imagination of having the Ball of Soveraignty flung down to be scambled for by the Multitude whose Heads being made giddy by the continual Noise of those Spiritual Trumpeters that fill'd their Ears with the joyful sound of the long look'd for Promises of a new Heaven and a new Earth and the Description of such a Kingdom wherein as they said the Saints and Servants of the most High were to reign by a Special Commission written in the Stars which none could read but these Astronomical Rabbins themselves They began like men Spiritually drunk to defie all Carnal Powers and having before broke the Windows of the Royal Pallace resolv'd in the next place to pluck down the two great Pillars of the Throne These were the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Strafford the one presiding in Spiritual t'other in Temporal Matters both of whom were Impeached of High Treason the one to gratifie their Malice t'other to secure their Fears the last was the first brought to stake whose Crimes savouring rather of Injustice to the Subject then Unfaithfulness to the King proving no otherwise Treasonable but by accumulation of so many lesser Misdemeanours together as might make up by heap what was wanting in the weight of his Guilt The King refus'd to condemn him till he had first consulted the Judges in point of Law and the Bishops in point of Equity by either of whom being left in greater doubt if possible then before having a natural aversion to all State Phlebotomy as well knowing that this Blood-letting though it might stop the Feaver for some little time would so weaken his Power that he should not be able to resist any future Distemper the consideration whereof brought him into a State Convulsion that drew his Judgment several wayes before he could determine what to do Honour and Justice press'd him on the one side the Common Interest as 't was pretended on which hung the weight of the Publick as well as his own private Peace urg'd him on the other side either grating upon the most tender and sensible part his Conscience which like a Needle betwixt two Loadstones that trembling with equal Inclinations to either at the same time seems to turn
the Fifth and the French King he was stopt before he Landed by the Duke of Gloucester and divers of the chief Nobility who coming into the very water with their Swords drawn in their hands stay'd his Boat and suffered him not to Land till he had declared Nil se contra Regis Superioritatem praetexere So likewise when (n) Sir Hen. Wotton State Observations 208. Baldwin the Greek Emperour came hither to pray aid of Henry the Third being beaten out of his Country the King sent him a Check instead of a Complement for Landing in his Territories before he had leave given him so to do being Jealous least it might be thought that he had pretended to something as an Emperour that might be Interpreted Superiority he himself being Monarcha in Regno suo as we find in the old Lawyer Baldus and descended from Ancestors that had the Imperial Stile of (o) See the Charter of the Abby of Malmesbury MCCCCLXXIV Rex Regum not only in respect of their having (p) Beauchampe King of the Isle of Wight The Kings of Man c. Kings to their Subjects but in regard to their enjoyment of all those fundamental rights which make up the whole Systeme of Supream power by the Feudists indifferently term'd Jura Regalia and Jura summi Imperii by the Civilians Sacra Sacrorum by our own Lawyers sometimes Prerotiva sometimes (q) As being so Inseparable that they cannot be dissolved by any humane power Inseparabilia which that they may be the better understood I shall consider them as I find them (r) Clapmarus lib. 1. de Arean Imper Cap 11. divided into ten parts reducing those ten like the Decalogue of old into two General Heads of Power i. e. Leges Ponere Legibus Solutum esse 20. For the First The Kings of this Isle have ever been the Lawgivers it is to be understood that however the Kings of this Isle have been pleas'd for the better and more equal Administration of Justice to Indulge the three Estates of the Kingdom who were heretofore call'd their Great Council but since the Parliament with the priviledg of making enlarging diminishing abrogating repealing and reviving all Laws and Ordinances relating to all Matters whether Ecclesiastick Capital Criminal Common Civil or Maritime yet it must be understood after all that neither houses of Parliament now both joyn'd together have in themselves no power as of themselves to do any thing without him much less (s) That is not only to be understood to his Dis nherison but the Diminution of his Prerogative Cook 4. Part. Institut fol. 25. against him no more than the body can make use of any of its members longer than it is actuated by the Soul For from him they have their life and motion Vt Caput principium finis as the Lawyers express it is he that gives them their Inchoation Continuation and Dissolution 'T is true that each Law receives its form Ex traduce Parliamenti that is as our vulgar Statutes express it by advice and consent of the Lords and Commons who sit with the resemblance of so many Kings but they find but the grosser substance or the material part 't is the Royal Assent that Quickens and puts the Soul Spirit and Power into it A Roy's avisero only much more A Roy ne veult makes all their Conceptions abortive when he pleases So that they can be but the Law-makers but the King only is the Law-giver and therefore Stiled in the old Books The Life of the Law and The Fountain of Justice The Kings of this Isle how far above Law 21. This prerogative I speak it out of a great States-mans observation consists in this not that Kings need not observe their Laws for that were a Brutal Tyranny insupportable in the most barbarous States but that they may change them And therefore St. Augustine made that a reason why the Emperours of old were not Subject to their own Laws because saith he they might make new when they pleas'd Now if the King of England should exceed the bounds of his own Laws which if it were lawful were no way convenient for him it being that becomes the wisdome of Princes saith Cicero to consider not how much they may do but what they ought to do in which sense (t) Senec. de cons lat cap. 6. Seneca is to be understood when he said that divers things were not lawful for the Emperour himself who might do all which he pleased It might be rather said in that Case as Grotius excellently distinguishes that he did not rightly then that he went beyond his right The Restraint by his Coronation Oath being like a Silken Coard that may be stretch'd without breaking upon any extraordinary force and violence offer'd as we see it happens upon the discovery and for the prevention of any publick mischief or Inconvenience Where our Kings have De proprio Jure suspended the Laws for a time that is until by advice with his Parliaments he might formally alter or totally repeal them Add to this that every Custom which is a Branch of the Common Law is void Si exultat se in Prerogativam Regis which I suppose is to be understood of the lesser Concerns of his Prerogative in points of Pre-eminence relating to civil Actions or Priviledges personal for as the Learned in the Laws tell us no Sale of his Goods alters his Propriety no Occupancy bars his Entry into his own Lands no Laches in point of time prejudices him as it does private men Again in doubtful cases say they Semper presumitur pro Rege No Estopel binds him nor Judgments final in Writs of Right These and many more such as these there are which we may call Minima Inseparabilia but in all cases where his Prerogative in point of Government is prejudic'd there our great Gownmen hold that he cannot be restrain'd no not by an Act of Parliament nor is he to be restrain'd as I take it in lesser cases unless named And to this it was questionless that the Sage Bracton and the Learned Plowden had respect when the one said the King was above Law to'ther that he was not bound by Law and if it were not so there would be no power left in him to grant any special Charter that in its proper nature is no other than a Dispensation with the positive Laws which can be understood to be binding to the King no otherwise than according to the natural Rule of Order as they are essential to the support of his Government In which Case Kings like good Husbands may be said to be Subjectis suis Subjectos mov'd by a Principle of Affection that voluntarily limits it self according to Rules of Prudence which upon all Emergencies of State on extraordinary occasions are wrested or broken as he himself only sees cause there being a necessity upon which the common safety depends that at such times Princes should be
unquestionable Authority that there is no less to be imputed to the vertue of the Faith of that Age then to the Patriarch's care that they perisht not in the universal Deluge The Britains having perhaps a better Constat of (l) Girald Camd. Matt. Westm Whites Hist Brit. Lib. 3. N. 14. these then the Jews had of those yet either deriv'd from the Authority of Tradition by how much they were left as a Legacy to succeeding Ages and lost nothing of their value in many hundred years afâ—er they were first deliver'd being the Original after which the great Legislator of the Saxons King Elfred copied his Breviary of Statues as the learned (n) Lamb. de Leg. Anglic. Lambert acknowâ—edges or which is of more Authority as himself confesses in his Title Page which very Breviary is said to be the Foundation of that we call our Common Law at this day however by reason of frequent Transcriptions Additions and Amendments like that of the Ship at Argos it seems to be new and another thing Now for the rest of the Acts of this King though perhaps they are not to be justifi'd as those written by Thucidides Zenophon Polibius or Caesar who were themselves Actors of the things as well as in the times they wrote Yet they have the Testimony of some Reliques which like those two (o) Procop. de b ll Vandelic Lib. 8. Pillars erected at Tingis that shew'd there had been some Colonies of the Jews there although no mention be made thereof in any of their own Writings support the honour of his memory beyond contradiction Such were those stupendious Works of his commonly call'd the four great Causeys that crossed the whole Isle erroneously suppos'd to be first undertaken by the Romans whereas they were begun by (p) Caxton Polichronicon Hollinshed him and only finish'd by them The first by him nam'd Fordd-y-Brenin or The Kings High-way leading from the Corner at Totnes in his own Country pass'd through the whole County of Devon the Counties of Somerset Gloucester Warwick and Leicester and ending at Lincoln this the Romans call'd the Fosse The second anciently called Guthelin-street because it was reported to have been finisht by that King beginning at Dover running out as far as Worcester and from thence was carried to Cardigan in Wales this the ancient Britains called Peunguys the Romans Via Consularis those of later times Watlin-street or Werhem-street The third call'd (q) See Hollinsheds Description fol. 113. cap. 19. Erming-street by the Saxons or rather (r) i. e. Mercurii Columna Irmanhull-street began at St. Davids in Wales and cross'd over all the Countries betwixt that and Southampton where it ended this the Britains call'd Croesfordd and the Romans Via Praetoria The fourth began a little of one side of Worcester and pass'd on by York to Tinmouth call'd Kikeneldis or Icknild-street which I take to be its primitive denomination And to these that Reverend (s) Seld. Poliolb Cant. 8. Monument aged now above 2080 years the shame and glory of the present Age dedicated by him to the (t) Attae Rhwyscoll i. e. All power M. S. in archive Oxon. Destinies or Holy Powers that rul'd the World and by the Romans at the arrival of Claudius consecrated to the honour of the great Goddess Diana and by King Lucius upon the first entertainment of Christianity to that great Apostle of the Gentiles St. Paul To this King likewise is ascrib'd the honour of Founding those rather ancient then great Foundations of * Fabian Blackwell and Guild-hall heretofore parcels of his Court the first continued perhaps ever since as the great Mercatorium or Staple for Trade the last as the great Orseddfaine or Tribunal of Justice both for City and Country He has the repute likewise of being Founder of those two ancient Buildings in the West Malmesbury and the Vyes the first having the stamp of his Name yet upon it But if the Reader be not dispos'd to believe any part of this or the other Kings Legend I shall conclude as I find a very reverend Author doth in the like case (u) Malmesbury de Oest Reg. Aug. Lib. 5. Mihi debetur Collectionis gratia Sibi habeat electionis materiam BELIN date of accession 3562 THE next Dynast in order of Fame as well as in repute of Order was this King whom the Britains make the common Root of that great Stock that hath adorned their Pedigrees with so many flourishing Branches being the most Splendid of all their Princes in that he was in like manner esteem'd by them to be a Representative of Apollo as Apollo was by the Ancients thought to be a Type of Christ This appears by the stile they gave him which I take to be one of the Attributes of that God calling him Belin Tucadre i. e. The Healing King or Healing God For it was a Policy much in fashion in elder times and as it seems as well understood by the British as any other Gentile Princes to take the advantage of assimulating themselves to that Deity which was most ador'd by their People to beget the greater reverence to their Majesty and accordingly in honour of the memory of this man who by some Writers is called (f) The Golden Belin. Belin or Pelinor and by others (g) Belin the Great Belinvaure all the successive Kings were styl'd * As appears by the Names of the following Kings Belin as the Egyptian Kings were styl'd I harach and the Roman Emperours Caesar The Vulgar turned Belin into Bren and the Latin Writers following that mistake changed Belinus into Brennus whereby it hath so hapned that he is by many Historians supposed and as they think with sufficient probability to be the same Brennus that was so terrible to the Romans Amongst those that deny it some doubt whether there were ever any such Persons as the one or the other Others take the word Bren or Belin to be only terms of Majesty and not Names which is an Opinion that calls in question all the best Pedigrees of Wales And some there are who from the difference of the Names infer a difference of Persons taking advantage thereby to discredit the Authority of Jeffery of Monmouth by seeming to uphold it who makes Brennus and Belinus to be two Brothers and Sons of Malmud but those that support the Credit of the Personality of Belinus and are willing he should be the same with the famous Brennus that Sackt Rome suppose there needs no better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to illustrate the matter then that accompt we have from the Oracle of Delphos which saith that the same Brennus came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the very farthest parts of the West which Catullus explains Britain and whether he meant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greater or the lesser Britain according to that Division made by Ptolomy either makes good the conjecture as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
by taking off his Caution so that after Dinner he would needs go hunt in the New Forrest and taking his Bow to shoot a Deer in that ominous place where before a * His Brother Richard Brother and a †The Son of Robert Duke of Normandy his elder Broth r. Brothers Son of his had both met with violent Deaths Tyrel his Bow-bearer being plac'd right against him as the best Marks-man let fly an Arrow that glancing against a Bough miss'd the Deer and found out him Pectus dum perforat ingens Ille rapit calidum frustrâ de Vulnere Telum Unâ eademque viâ Sanguisque Animusque sequuntur Being thus quietly stated he sweetned his Government by taking off all Taxes to shew his Beneficence and some of the principal Taxers to shew his Justice By the first he pleas'd the Multitude in point of Relief by the other the better sort in point of Envy and Revenge gratifying their Spleen by sacrificing the griping Bishop of Durham a man who being rais'd from a base Condition by baser means had attained to the honour of being Chief Minister to his Brother King William and was grown learn'd in the Science of selling Justice by the distribution of whose Bribes he brib'd those whom he thought fit to make his own Ministers neither thought it he enough to be an English man himself without assuring the State that he intended all his Posterity should be so too and therefore to the end to make sure the wise men that were as apt to be jealous as the weaker sort to be querulous he married Maud Sister to the Scotch King and Daughter to Margaret Sister to Edgar Atheling the right Heir of the English Blood a Lady that brought him an Inheritance of Goodness from her Mother and a good Title of Inheritance from her Uncle Thus firmly did he intrench himself before his Brother whom he had made a King in fame only that he might the easier make himself a real one return'd home who arriving unlook'd for was welcom'd by the Nobility of Normandy with more then ordinary Joy by whom being inform'd of what was done in England he made it the business of the first year to provide an Army and in the second landed it at Portsmouth in order to the recovery of his lost Right whereof he was the more assur'd in respect of those of the Norman Nobility here as he thought inclin'd to him who mov'd with revenge or discontent would be glad of any Occasion to Revolt This as it was a storm King Henry saw at a distance so he provided so well for it by cutting off all Assistances that Duke Robert and those with him doubting the success and seeing themselves certainly lost if they prevail'd not it being in his power to fight them where he pleas'd and when upon his desire to save the effusion of Christian Blood yielded to Articles of Peace the Substance whereof was this That Henry being born after his Father was rightfully King and being now invested in the Crown by act of the Kingdom should enjoy the same during life and pay Robert 3000 Marks per Annum as an Earnest of the Reversion after his Death in case Robert out-liv'd him With these Conditions Robert rather blinded then satisfied returns back again into his own Country and it had been well if he had never been blinded otherwise But such is the frenzie of Ambition that it suffers not unhappy Princes to consider either what they ought to do or what to suffer whilst like the Superior Orbs they are hurried with restless Motion without understanding by what Intelligences they are actuated Finding himself fallen from the height of his Expectation into some degree of Contempt with his own Subjects he assai'd by Profusion which some call Liberality to raise his Reputation at least to disguise his Impotency spending so freely that the Nobility fearing the Revenues of the Dutchy would not suffice to support his vanity complain'd thereof to King Henry who to shew his own power and t'others weakness sent for him over to chide him and indeed reprehended him so sharply as if he had been his Father and not his Brother and as if he would have him to know he rather expected the Reversion of the Dukedome after his death then to be accomptable to him for the Kingdom after his own and whether it were that he threatned him with a Detention of his Pension or drew him being of a yielding Nature as most indigent men are to give him a release for some inconsiderable Sum of ready Mony is not certain but so it was that upon his return he could no longer conceal the indignation he had conceived at it but took the very first Occasion to shew it by joyning himself with some mutinous Lords who having before begun an unsuccessful Combustion in England had fled over thither to commit what Outrages they could there King Henry for a while pretended himself touch'd in Conscience with the foulness of a Fraternal War but was indeed apprehensive that such trivial Injuries as the taking a few Castles was not worthy the trouble of drawing him over in Person at least not worth the charge of entring into such a War as might justifie the requiring his Dukedom for a satisfaction but having let them alone till he believ'd his sufferance had elevated them beyond the temper of hearkning to any conditions he then took his time to chastise their folly and by one single Battle upon the very same day and in the very same manner as 't is reported that his Father just forty years before won England he won Normandy and having made his brother prisoner depriv'd him first of his liberty after of his country and lastly of that which was dearer than either the light of his Eyes requiting his attempt which was but natural to escape out of prison with a punishment that was of all other most unnatural and as much beyond death as it was short of it which inhumanity to his brother though it was perhaps but a just judgment from Heaven upon him for his inhumanity to his Father whose life he had twice attempted being wilfully blinded by the King of France yet 't was such as was altogether undeserv'd as from him for t'other had him fast enough within his power circumscrib'd by all the rules of Hostility besieged within a Fort and half starv'd he was so far from pressing upon him that he pittied him and broke with his brother Friend to save his brother Enemy Poor Prince Robert how was he betraied by the goodness of his own Nature and tempted like a Child to save the bird which was to pick out his Eyes How did he live to see himself buried before he was dead invelop'd in dark and dismal thoughts whilst he contemplated his Sons loss with more affliction than his own a forward Prince born to two Crowns but now reduc'd to that necessity to borrow one to buy him bread So long
his Friends charging all his misfortunes upon disloyalty of the Earls and Barons that refus'd him aid whom therefore he fin'd first the seventh part of their Goods after that the thirteenth part of all their Moveables and not content with the aid of their Purses forced them at last with the hazard of their Persons to attend him in the prosecution of a no less chargeable then disadvantageous War where the recovery of part of his own indangered the total loss of their own Estates This as it was grievous to the Subject in general so more particularly to the Nobility being most of them descended out of Normandy and by his ill management shut out of their ancient Inheritances there had no other satisfaction for their Losses but by improving what was left here who finding themselves thus doubly damnified were inraged to that degree that using a Martial freedom sutable to the necessity of that stimulation by which they were urg'd they began to recollect all the wrongs done them by his Grandfather Father and Brother and to shew they were in earnest insisted upon renewing the great Charter of their Liberties neither were they unprovided of Arguments or Arms this contumacy of theirs being countenanced by the sullen Retirement of his own Brother Jeoffry the Archbishop who chose rather to cast himself into voluntary Exilement then submit any longer to his Tyranny In vain now demands he Pledges of their Faith whilst they believed him himself to have none Sending to the Lord Bruce for his Son to be deliver'd as an Hostage to him he receiv'd an answer from the Mother which it seems exprest the affections if not the sense of the Father That they would not commit their Son to his keeping who was so ill a keeper of his own Brothers Son which rash return cost him afterward his Estate her her life with the loss of two for the saving one only Child a Revenge so fully executed that it could meet with no counterbuff but what must come from Heaven Here began the breach that disjoynted the whole frame of his Government the King resolving to keep what by advantage of time and sâ—fferance he had got the Barons continuing as obstinately bent to recover what their Predecessors had so tamely lost Both sides prepare for War and whilst they face and parle like men loath to ingage yet scorning to quit their Cause either alike confident to hope the best and not unlike active to prevent the worst a new accident parted them by presenting a new Enemy which made the War give place as it were to a single Combat The Pope not allowing the King the Priviledge of Nominating a Successor to the deceased Arch-Bishop of Canterbury he makes a Truce I cannot call it a Peace with his Domestick Adversaries to try his Fortune with his Forreign Foe The Contest was not like that of Jacob and Esau who should be born first but like that of Caesar and Pompey who should be uppermost Now as desire of Rule brought these two great Champions into the List so the confidence each other had in his strength and skill to handle his Weapon made them unreconcileable The Pope made the first Pass who threatning to interdict the Kingdom was answer'd with a Menace of confiscating all the Lands of the Clergy and banishing their Persons The second Thrust given by his Holiness was a Threat of Excommunication of the Kings Person To this he returned that he would utterly disavow his Authority Thus far they were upon the even Terms and as it were hit for hit upon the next Pass they closed and as men desperately bent either maked good his Charge The Pope shuts up the Church doors the King those of the Cloysters the first took away all the Sacraments leaving the dead to bury the dead without Priest Prayer or Procession The last seized on all the Ecclesiastical Revenues and disposed them into Lay-hands Whilst they were thus in close grapple the King of France appeared as second to the Triple Crown Had the Barons then stept in as second to their King they had not only made good their own Honour as well as his but probably had secur'd the Liberties they contended for without any force there being more to be hoped for from this Kings Generosity then his Justice but which was most degenerous and leaves a stain upon their memory never to be washed off they finding him thus overlaid turn'd all their points upon his back poyson'd with the venome of the most opprobrious Calumnies that ever Majesty suffer'd under the Infamy of being not only a Tyrant but an Infidel all which he was fain to bear with more Constancy of Mind then Fortune But as we see a wild Boar when beaten out of breath chuses rather to dye upon the Spears of the Hunters then to be wearied by the Dogs so his Rancor turning into disdain he yielded to his Nobler Enemies and chose rather then not have his Revenge upon them whom he thought God and Nature had put under his dispose to humble himself to the Church hoping as 't is thought by their Keys to unlock the Rebels Power but over-acting his Revenge he stoop'd so low that the Crown fell from his Head which the Popes Legate taking up kept three dayes before he thought fit to restore it verifying thereby the Prediction of a poor innocent Hermite who foretold that there should be no King of England which however it was true yet being in some sense untrue too 't was in the Prerogative of him who never spar'd where he could shed Blood to make his own Interpretation which cost the poor Prophet his Life The Barons finding him thus incens'd and seeing how to make good his Revenge he had quit his Soveraignty they resolv'd to quit their Allegiance to make good their Security intending to call in the Dolphin of France and swear Fealty to him whilst the Common People were left to their Election whether to take the wrong King that promis'd to do them Right or the right King that persisted to do them so much wrong who as little understanding the Principles of Religion as the dictates of Reason the Bonds of Command and Obedience that should hold them together seem'd so wholly slackned that there was upon the Matter no other Tye on them then that of their Interest which sway'd them variously according to the divers Measures they took of it But as there are many Ligaments in a State that bind it so fast together that 't is a hard thing to dissolve them altogether unless by an universal concurrence of Causes that produce a general alteration thereof it being seldom seen of what temper soever Kings are but that they find under the greatest desertion imaginable a very considerable Party to stand by them upon the accompt of Affection or Ambition Honour or Conscience so this King the first of England we find put to this streight had yet many Members of Note and Power besides his chief
as often as any advantage was offer'd to him during the Barons War playing fast and loose sometimes as an Enemy otherwhile as a Friend as it made for his turn and having it alwayes in his Power by being in Conjunction with Scotland without which he had been inconsiderable to disturb the Peace of England at his pleasure never neglected any occasion where he might gain Repute to himself or booty for his People Upon him therefore he fastened the first Domestick War he had entring his Country like Jove in a storm with Lightning and Thunder the Terrour whereof was so resistless that that poor Prince was forc'd to accept whatsoever terms he would put upon him to obtain a temporary Peace without any other hope or comfort then what he deriv'd from the mental reservation he had of breaking it again as soon as he return'd whereunto he was not long after tempted by the delusion of a mistaken Prophesie of that false Prophet Merlin who having foretold that he should be crown'd with the Diadem of Brute fatally heightened his Ambition to the utter destruction both of himself and Country with whom his innocent Brother the last of that Race partaking in life and death concluded the Glory of the ancient British Empire which by a kind of Miracle had held out so many hundred years without the help of Shipping Allyance or Confederation with any Forreign Princes by the side of so many potent Kings their next Neighbours who from the time of the first entrance of the English suffer'd them not to enjoy any quiet though they vouchsafed them sometimes Peace Wales being thus totally reduced by the irrecoverable fall of Llewellen and David the last of their Princes that were ever able to make resistance and those ignorant People made thereby happier then they wish'd themselves to be by being partakers of the same Law and Liberty with those that conquer'd them he setled that Title on his eldest Son and so passed over into France to spend as many years abroad in Peace as he had done before in War in which time he renew'd his League with that Crown accommodated the Differences betwixt the Crowns of Scicily and Arragon and shew'd himself so excellent an Arbitrator that when the right of the Crown of Scotland upon his return home came to be disputed with Six some say Ten Competitors after the death of Alexander the Third the Umpirage was given to him who ordered the matter so wisely that he kept off the final Decision of the main Question as many years as there were Rivals put in for it deferring Judgment till all but two only were disputed out of their Pretensions These were Baliol and Bruce the first descended from the elder Daughter of the right Heir the last from the Son of the younger who having as 't was thought the weaker Title but the most Friends King Edward privately offered him the Crown upon Condition of doing Homage and Fealty to him for it the greatness of his Mind which bespoke him to be a King before he was one suffer'd him not to accept the terms whereupon King Edward makes the same Proposition to Baliol who better content it seems with the outside of Majesty accepted the Condition But see the Curse of ill-got Glory shewing himself satisfied with so little he was thought unworthy of any being so abhor'd of his People for it that upon the first occasion they had to quarrel with his Justice as who should say they would wound him with his own Weapon they appeal'd to King Edward who thereupon summon'd him to appear in England and was so rigid to him upon his appearance he would permit none else to plead his Cause but compell'd him in open Parliament to answer for himself as well as he could This being an Indignity so much beneath the sufferance of any private Person much more a King sunk so deep into his Breast that meditating nothing after but Revenge as soon as he return'd home securing himself first by a League and Allyance with the King of France to whose Brothers Daughter he married his Son he renounced his Allegiance and defied King Edward's Power no less then he did his Justice This begat a War betwixt the two Nations that continued much longer then themselves being held up by alternate Successes near three hundred years a longer dated difference perhaps then is to be found in any other Story of the World that Rancor which the Sword bred increasing continually by the desire of Revenge till the one side was almost wholly wasted t'other wholly wearied Baliol the same time King Edward required him to do Homage for Scotland here prevailed with the French King to require the like from him for his Territories there this began the Quarrel that the Division by which King Edward which may seem strange parting his Greatness made it appear much greater whilst himself advanc'd against Baliol and sent his Brother the Earl of Lancaster to answer the King of France Baliol finding himself overmatch'd as well as over-reach'd renew'd his Homage in hopes to preserve his Honour But King Edward resolving to bind him with stronger Fetters then Oaths sent him Prisoner into England whereby those of that Country wanting not only a Head but a Heart to make any further resistance he turn'd his Fury upon the King of France hastning over what Forces he could to continue that War till himself could follow after But Fortune being preingaged on the other side disposed that whole Affair to so many mistakes that nothing answered Expectation and which was worse the Fame of his Male-Adventures spirited a private person worthy a greater * Wallis Name then he had to rise in Scotland who rallying together as many as durst by scorning Misery adventure upon it defied all the Forces of England so fortunately that he was once very near the redeeming his despairing Country-men and had he had less Vertue might possibly have had more success For scorning to take the Crown when he had won it a Modesty not less fatal to the whole Nation then himself by leaving room for Ambition he made way for King Edward to Re-enter the second time who by one single Battel but fought with redoubled Courage made himself once more Lord of that miserable Kingdom all the principal Opposers Wallis only excepted crowding in upon Summons to swear Fealty the third time to him This had been an easie Pennance had they not together with their Faith resigned up their Laws and Liberties and that so servilely that King Edward himself judging them unworthy to be continued any longer a Nation was perswaded to take from them all the Records and Monuments whereby their Ancestors had recommended any of Glory to their Imitation Amongst other of the Regalia's then lost was that famous Marble Stone now lodg'd in Westminster-Abby wherein their Kings were crown'd in which as the Vulgar were perswaded the Fate of their Country lay for that there was an ancient Prophesie
dispend a thousand Marks a day which I have the rather noted to shew how the Kingdom flourish'd as well as the King gaining as all wise States do by their layings out for the whole Revenues of the Crown in his Grand-fathers days were esteem'd to be not much above a hundred thousand Marks a year Five years the French King continued Prisoner here in England time enough to have determin'd the Fortune of that great Kingdom and dissolv'd their Canton'd Government into parts had it not been a Body consisting of so many strong Limbs and so abounding with Spirits that it never fainted notwithstanding all its loss of Blood but scorn'd to yield though King Edward came very near their heart having wounded them in the most mortal part their Head The Scotch King could not recover his Liberty in double the time being the less able to redeem himself for that he was upon the matter but half a King the other half being in the possession of Baliol who to secure a Moyety to himself surrendred the whole to King Edward whose Magnificence vying with his Justice he gave it back again upon Terms more befitting a Brother then a Conqueror shewing therein a Wantonness that no King perhaps besides himself would have been guilty of nor probably he neither had either his People been less bountiful to him or Fortune less constant which to say truth never forsook him till he like his Father forsook himself leaving all Action and bidding adieu to the World ten years before he went out of it declining so fast from the fortieth year of his Government that it may rather be said his famous Son Prince Edward commonly call'd the Black Prince reign'd then he and happy 't was for him that when his own Understanding fail'd him he had so good a Supporter who having it in his power to dispose of Kingdoms whilst he liv'd ought not to be denyed after he dyed the honour of being esteem'd equal to Kings in the Prerogative of a distinct Character Begin we then the Date of his Government from the Battel of Crassy which happening in the Sixteenth year of his Age makes the Computation of his Glory to commence near about the same time his Fathers did who however he was King at fourteen rul'd not till after Mortimer's death by which Battel he so topt the Fortune of France as his Father had that of England that he may be said to have taken thereby Livery in order to the Seisin of that Kingdom And after the Recovery of Calais it may be said the Keys of the Kingdom rather then of that Town were deliver'd into his hand for that he therewith open'd all the Gates of almost every Town he came to till the King of France incompassed him like a Lion in a Toil with no less then 60000 of the best Men of France and brought him to that streight that it seem'd alike disadvantageous to sight or yield and which made the danger more considerable as things then stood England it self was in some hazard of being lost with him here he seem'd to have been as well accomptable to his Country as to his Father for his Courage and Discretion and how well he acquitted himself appears by the Sequel when forcing Hope out of Despair like fire out of a Flint he necessitated his Men to try for Conquest by shewing them how impossible 't was for him to yield and by that incomparable Obstinacy of his made Fortune so enamour'd of his Courage that she follow'd him wherever he went while his Sword made its way to Victory and his Courtesie to the Affections of the Conquer'd whom he treated with that regard and generosity that many of them were gainers by the loss being dismiss'd with honourable Presents that made his second Conquest over them greater then the first the King of France himself being so well pleas'd with his Bondage that he return'd voluntarily into England after he was redeem'd to meet two Kings more that might be Witness of his Respect and Gratitude In short he was as King of England on the other side the Water as his Father was on this side keeping so splendid a Court in Acquitaine that no less then three Kings came to visit him too all at once these were the King of Majorque Navar and Castile the last of which craving Aid of him against an Usurper who was back'd by an Army consisting of no less then One hundred thousand men if the Writers of those times say true was re-instated accordingly by his single power to shew the World that he could as well make Kings as unmake them His second Brother who had the Title of King by marrying with the King of Castile's Daughter and Heir being principally indebted to him for the honour of that Title and it prov'd a fatal Debt both to him and his Son Richard the Second costing the one his Life the other both Life and Kingdom too for as himself never recover'd the health he lost in undertaking that Expedition so his Son never recover'd the disadvantage put upon him afterward by his Uncle Lancaster who by that means having got the Regency of his drooping Father King Edward who tyred with Action rather then Age fatally submitted to the loss of more years of his Government then he got by his unnatural Anticipation from his own Father and suffer'd himself to be buried alive as we may say under his Cradle put fair for setting his Nephew aside but wanting a Colour for so apparent an Injustice his jealous Father the Black Prince having declar'd him his Successor in his life time to prevent all tricks he thought it enough to make way for his Son to do it and accordingly put such an impression of dislike upon the innocent Youth at his very first Edition as prov'd Indelible in his riper years for the very same day he was presented to take his Grandfathers Seat in Parliament as Heir apparent to the Crown being then but eleven years old he taught him to demand a Subsidy purposely to turn the Peoples blood who were then big with their Complaint of Taxes But possibly he is made more splenetick as well as more politick then he was for it was scarce possible to make the Youth more odious then he had made himself before by disgusting those two potent Factions of the Church and the City of London who to shew how weary they were of his governing the old Child his Father would not after his Death let him longer Rule the young Child his Nephew but purposely depos'd him to the end as they said that he might not depose the other Thus this great King ended as ingloriously as he began who having stept into the Throne a little before he should 't is the less wonder he left it a little before it was expected he would especially if we consider that in out-living the best Wife and the best Son in the World he had a little out-liv'd himself being so unfortunate
being to advise at the price of his own Head the Arch bishop of York like a man of great Faith was of Opinion to sight them with such present Strength as the King had trusting to the Justice of the Cause the Dukes of Ireland and Suffolk men of Action but wanting the means were for delivering up Calais to the French King to purchase his Assistance But the Majority of Voices coming from such men whose Fears made them rather wise then honest were for appeasing the Enemy with fair promises till there were a fit opportunity to suppress them the first Proposal was thought very hazardous the second much more besides there was such a bitterness in the Pill that no preparation could make the King to swallow it who not knowing what effect it might have when it was done utterly rejected it upon which they secretly withdrew that gave the Counsel and left him to himself Whereupon the Lords Regent found an opportunity to be admitted to a Parley with him who producing to him Letters from the King of France which they had intercepted pursuant to the Design of bringing in a Forreign Enemy they mov'd him no less by shame then dread of the Consequence to consent to the calling another Parliament Upon the day of the Convention the King came not to the House being infinitely troubled in his mind at News he had just then received of the Earl of Derby's Intercepting the Duke of Ireland who being gone as far as Chester in order to his passing into that Kingdom was set upon by the said Earl and totally defeated who hardly escaping fled into the Low-countries where not long after he dyed The Lords heightened with this Success sent a very harsh Message to him letting him know that they attended him there and if he would not come to the House according to promise they would chuse another King that should hearken to their faithful advice This though it were in effect no other but to tell him they would depose him without his consent if he would not come and consent to be depos'd yet having no Retreat from it but down a steep Precipice he chose rather to compâ—y and put himself under the mercy of Providence then under the uncertainty of their Mercy Upon his first appearance they presented him with a black Roll of those whom he call'd his Friends they his Enemies some to be prescrib'd some to be imprison'd and others banish'd and in this last List there were not only Lords but Ladies found Delinquents Some were accus'd of imbeziling his Treasure others of purloyning his Affection all for robbing him of his Honour whereupon some were to be try'd for their Lives others for their Fortunes and all for their Liberties but in respect of their other great Affairs which were in order to what followed they referred it to the succeeding Parliament not unfitly call'd the Parliament that wrought wonders which contrary to all other Parliaments that used to swear Obedience to the King requir'd an Oath of him himself to observe such Rules and Orders as they should prescribe to him Here now we have this unfortunate Prince brought to the last year of his Rule though not of his Reign beginning then to enter into his Wardship as he call'd it when he thought he was just got out of it All power was put into the hands of the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester who managed all Treaties abroad concluded War and Peace as they thought fit and were indeed absolute in every point but the Command of their own Passions and uncontroulable by any but themselves The Duke of Lancaster having now digested the Kingdom in his thoughts procures the Dutchy of Acquitaine to be setled on him as an earnest of what was to follow being the Inheritance of the Crown and descended on the King from Prince Edward his Father and having married up the King to a Child of eight years old by whom 't was impossible he could have Issue with a Portion that scarce defraid the Charge of the Solemnity he secur'd his own Pretensions by Legitimating three of his Bastard Sons in case his lawful Issue should fail The Duke of Gloucester had the same Ambition in his heart as well as the same Blood in his Veins but Nature having put a disadvantage upon him by placing him so far behind being the sixth Son of King Edward the Third he was forc'd to gratifie his Envy instead of his Ambition and rest content with the hopes of doing his Brother a Mischief when time serv'd without any great probability of doing himself good Accordingly he made a Faction who conspir'd with him to seize the King his two Brothers Lancaster and York and to put them all up in Prison and after to execute divers Lords whom he thought to be more his Enemies then their Friends but the end of his Treason being to be himself betray'd by those he made use of Lancaster came thereby to stand single like a great Tree which being at its full height spread his Limbs the wider and grew to be so conspicuous that the succeeding Parliament desired to shelter themselves under the shadow of his power hereupon he reduced the number of the thirteen Regents to seven only which being all his Confidents he with them concluded aforehand all Affairs of moment and directed how they should pass in Parliament An Example not less mischievous to the Kingdom then the King so that now there wanted no more to make him the Soveraign but the putting on the Crown But see the uncertainty of humane Glory Having just finished the great work of his Usurpation an unexpected blow from that invisible hand that turns about the great Wheel of Causes broke the frame of his projection in pieces His Son Henry Duke of Hereford accused by the Duke of Norfolk of Treason was forc'd to purge himself by the Tryal of Combat a Law that might condemn but never acquit him since it was only possible to discharge himself of the danger but never of the suspition of the Crime This being urg'd so far that they were both brought into the List there was no way left to avoid the uncertainty of the Fight but banishment of both wherein though the Duke of Lancaster got the favour to make the Exile of his Son but temporary when the others was perpetual yet the affront that Fortune seem'd to give him by this accidental Disgrace came so near his heart that his Son had no sooner taken leave of his Country but he bid adieu to the World and so left the King once more Hors de page Thus Time and Fortune seem to have conspir'd in vindicating the wrongs of this abused Prince ridding him at once of those two great Corrivals in Power whose Authority had so far outweighed his that they kept him in the condition of a Minor till they had made the People believe him insufficient for Government the one being remov'd beyond all possibility the other beyond all
France set forth his own Eloquence and the Kings Title so well deducing his Descent in a direct Line from the Lady Isabel Daughter to Philip the Fourth and Wife to his Grandfather Edward the Second and refuting all the old beaten Arguments brought from the Salique Law to oppose it as being neither consistent with Divinity Reason or Example he at once pleas'd and convinced all his Hearers but most especially the King himself who seem'd to be inspired with a Prophetick confidence of that success which after he had but scorning to steal any Advantage or wrong the Justice of his Title somuch as to seem to doubt 't would be denied before he would make any kind of preparation for the Conquest he sent Ambassadors to Charles the Sixth to demand a peaceable surrender of the Crown to him offering to accept his Daughter with the Kingdom and to expect no other pawn for his Possession till after his death This Message as it was the highest that ever was sent to any free Prince so he intrusted it to those of highest Credit and Trust about him these were his Uncle the Duke of Exeter a man of great esteem as well as of great Name the Arch-bishop of Dublin a very politick Prelate the Lord Gray a man at Arms the Lord High Admiral and the Bishop of Norwich the first as much renown'd for his Courage as the last for his Contrivances to whom for the greater state there was appointed a Guard of five hundred Horse to attend them The Report of this great Embassy as it arriv'd before them so it made such a Report throughout all this side of the World that all the Neighbour Princes like lissening Deer when they hear the noyse of Huntsmen in the Woods began to take the Alarm and consider which side to sly to it being so that England and France never made any long War upon one another but they ingaged all Christendom with them However the Court of France pretending themselves ignorant of the Occasion of their coming dissembled their disdain and treated them with that magnificence as if they had design'd to Complement them out of their business but after the Message was delivered with that faithful boldness that became so great an Affair they were all in that confusion that it was hard to judge whether they were more ashamed incensed or afraid giving such a return as seem'd neither compatible with the honour wisdom or courage of so renown'd a People as they are For first as they did neither deny nor allow the Kings Title but said they would make Answer by Ambassadours of their own So in the next place they were so hasty in their Counsels and the dispatch of their Ambassadors hither that they arriv'd in England almost as soon as those sent hence And lastly at the same time they desired Peace and offer'd to buy it with the tender of some Towns they gave the King an Affront which was a greater Provocation then the denyal of ten such Kingdoms for the Daulphin who in respect of the King his Fathers sickness I might rather say weakness managed the State affecting the honour to give the first Box or perhaps desiring to make any other Quarrel the ground of the approaching War which he foresaw was not to be prevented rather then that of the Title which had been already so fatally bandi'd scornfully sent the King a Present of Tenis-balls which being of no value nor reckoning worthy so great a Princes acceptance or his recommendation could have no other meaning or interpretation but as one should say he knew better how to use them then Bullets The King whose Wit was as keen as t'others Sword return'd him this Answer That in requital of his fine Present of Tenis-balls he would send him such Balls as he should not dare to hold up his Racket against them Neither was he worse then his word however his preparations seem'd very disproportionable for so great a Work For the Army he landed was no more but six thousand Horse and twenty four thousand Foot a Train so inconsiderable and by the Daulphin judg'd to be so despicable that he thought not fit to come down himself in Person to take any view of them for fear he should fright them out of the Country too soon but sent some rude Peasants to attend their Motion who incouraged by some of the Troops of the nearest Garrisons as little understanding the danger they were ingaged in as they did the language of the Enemy they were ingaged with fell in upon the Rear of his Camp but as Village Curs which fiercely set upon all Strangers having the least Rebuke with a Stone or a Cudgel retreat home whining with their Tails betwixt their Legs so they having a Repulse given them ran away and made such Out-cries as dishearten'd the Souldiers that were to second them so much that after that he marched without any Resistance as far as Callice Neither indeed saw he any Enemy till he came to give Battel to the united Forces of France at that famous Field of Agencourt where notwithstanding he was out-numbred by the French above five for one he fought them with that Resolution as made himself Master of more Prisoners then he had men in his Camp to keep them an Occasion Fortune gave him to shew at once her Cruelty and his Mercy who whilst he might have kill'd did not but when he should not was forc'd to be cruel beyond almost all Example for as he gave Quarter in the beginning of the Battel to all that ask'd it his Clemency and Gentleness being such that as he was then pleas'd to declare he consider'd them as his Subjects not as his Captives So being over-charged with their Prisoners Numbers upon a sudden and unexpected accident however of no great Consequence if it had been rightfully understood he was forc'd to write the dismal Fate of France in cold Blood and in order to the saving life destroy it For as he was seeing his wounded men drest having gotten an intire Victory as he thought and as afterward it proved a sudden out-cry alarm'd his Camp occasion'd by a new Assault of some French Troops who being the first had quit the Field were the first return'd into it again in hopes by fighting with Boyes to regain the honour they lost in refusing to fight with men these under the Leading of the Captain of Agencourt set upon the Pages Sutlers and Laundresses following the pursuit with that wonted noyse as if they would have the English think the whole Army was rally'd again and chasing them Upon this the King caus'd all the scatter'd Arms and Arrows to be recollected and his stakes to be new pitch'd and put himself into a posture of Defence neither were the English only deceived by the Shreiks and Cries of those miserable People that fell into these mens hands but all those of the French likewise that were within hearing insomuch that the Earls of Marle and
Troyes she should be there to be espoused to him and with her he should have the Assurance of the Crown of France after the Decease of her Father and to gain the more Credit the Bishop secretly deliver'd him a Letter from the Princess her own hand which contained in it so much sweetness as had been enough to have made any other man but himself have surfeited with Joy his happiness being now so full and compleat that he had nothing beyond what he enjoyed to hope for Upon his Marriage with her he was published Regent of the Kingdom and Heir apparent to the Crown the Articles being published in both Realms and the two Kings and all their Nobility Sworn to the observance of them only the Daulphin stood out in utter Defiance both of his Right and Power Against him therefore the two Kings his Father and Brother together with the King of Scots who was newly arrived the young Duke of Burgundy and the Prince of Orange the Dukes of Clarence Gloucester and Bedford and twenty one Earls forty five Barons and Knights and Esquires sans nombre advanc'd with an Army of French English Scotch and Irish to the number of six hundred thousand if the Historians of that time may be credited and having taken in all the Towns and Places that denied to yield they return'd to Paris where King Henry the Articles being ratified the second time and a Counterpart sent into England began to exercise his Regency by Coyning of Money with the Arms of England and France on it placing and displacing of Officers making new Laws and Edicts and lastly awarding Process against the Daulphin to appear at the Marble Table to answer for the Murther of the Duke of Burgundy But being willing to shew his Queen how great a King he was before she brought him that Kingdom he left his Brother Clarence his Lieutenant General there and brought her over into England where he spent some time in the Administration of Justice and performing such Acts of Peace as spoke him no less expert in the knowledge of governing then in that of getting a Kingdom But he had not been long here before he received the sad News of the death of his Brother Clarence who betrayed by the Duke of Alansons Contrivance into an Ambuscade was slain together with the Earls of Tankervile Somerset Suffolk and Perch and about two thousand Common Souldiers whereupon he deputed the Earl of Mortaine in his room and not long after went back again himself with his Brother Bedford to reinforce the War taking in all the Fortresses in the Isle of France in Lovaine Bry and Champagne during which time the Daulphin was not idle but industrious to regain Fortunes savour if it were possible made many bold Attempts upon several places in possession of the English But finding the Genius of our Nation to have the Predominancy over that of his own he diverted his Fury upon the Duke of Burgundy betwixt whom and King Henry he put this difference That as he dreaded the one so he hated the other Accordingly he laid Seige to Cosney a Place not very considerable in it self but as it was a Town of the Duke of Burgundy's King Henry was so concern'd to relieve it beyond any of his own that he marched Night and Day to get up to the Enemy and making over-hasty Journeys over-heat himself with unusual Travel and fell so sick that he was fain to rest himself at Senlis and trust to the Care of his Brother the Duke of Bedford to prosecute the Design who relieved the Town and forced the Daulphin to retreat as he thought a great Looser by the Seige but it prov'd quite otherwise For the loss of the Town was nothing in comparison of the loss of King Henry who died not long after and which made his Death the more deplorable was That he no sooner left the World but Fortune left the English whereof having some Prophetick Revelation 't is thought the knowledge thereof might not be the least reason of shortning his Dayes by adding to the violence of his Distemper For 't is credibly reported that at the News of the Birth of his Son Henry born at Windsor himself being then in France even wearied with continual Victories he cryed out in a Prophetick Rapture Good Lord Henry of Monmouth shall small time Reign and get much and Henry of Windsor shall long time Reign and lose all but Gods will be done Which saying has given occasion to some to magnifie his Memory above all the Kings that were before him not to say all that came after him in that he was in some sense both King Priest and Prophet HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE A Prince of excellent Parts in their kind though not of kindly Parts for a Prince being such as were neither sit for the Warlike Age he was born in nor agreeable to the Glory he was born to but such rather as better became a Priest then a Prince So that the Title which was sometimes given to his Father with relation to his Piety might better have been applyed to the Son with reference to his that he was the Prince of Priests Herein only was the difference betwixt them That the Religion of the one made him bold as a Lion that of the other made him as meek as a Lamb. A temper neither happy for the times nor himself for had he had less Phlegme and more Cholar less of the Dove-like Innocence and more of the Serpentine subtilty 't is probable he had not only been happier whilst he liv'd but more respected after he was dead whereas now notwithstanding all his Indulgence to the Church and Church-men there was none of them so grateful as to give him after he was murther'd Christian Burial but left him to be interr'd without Priest or Prayer without Torch or Taper Mass or Mourner indeed so without any regard to his Person and Pre-eminence that if his Obsequies were any whit better then that which holy Writ calls the Burial of an Ass yet were they such that his very Competitor Edward the Fourth who denied him the Rights of Majesty living thought him too much wronged being dead that to him some kind of satisfaction he was himself at the charge of building him a Monument The beginning of his Reign which every Body expected to have been the worst and like to prove the most unsuccessful part in respect of his Minority being but Nine Months old when he was crown'd happen'd to be the best and most prosperous there being a plentiful stock of brave men left to spend upon who behaved themselves so uprightly and carefully that it appear'd the Trust repos'd in them by the Father had made a strong Impression of Love and Loyalty to the Son The Duke of Bedford had the Regency of France the Duke of Gloucester the Government of England the Duke of Exeter and the Cardinal Beauford had the Charge of his
Person and each of these whilst they stood as free Agents and counterpoiz'd each others Greatness kept the Scale â—even maintaining by the Sword what was got by the Sword But after the King came to be declar'd Major and at his own dispose having not the Judgment to conceal his own Weakness much less to controul their Potency Faction and Ambition broke in upon the Government and made such a Rupture in the Reputation of their former Successes that the French King back'd by many Seconds who yet were not so much his Friends as Enemies to the English took that advantage to reinforce his Credit and press'd so hard upon them that all the well-built Frame of their Fortune crack'd from top to bottom However there were three fatal Breaches made in it before all fell to pieces The first Flaw was occasion'd by the Rupture betwixt the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy who divided about a meer Punctillio of Honour who should first come to the place where they had appointed to treat of the Differences betwixt them The Duke of Bedford thought the other ought to attend his coming in respect he was Regent of France t'other thought he ought rather to expect him it being in his own Dominions where he was absolute Soveraign upon which they parted the Duke of Burgundy lest the English and the Duke of Bedford not long after the World And this unhappy King became so much the greater Sufferer by how much the reparation of that loss prov'd more fatal then the loss it self for as it was as difficult as necessary to find out a good Successor to that great Trust so he was not a little opprest by the Importunity of two Competitors who being men of like Anger and Ambition caus'd a more fatal Breach then the former These were the Dukes of Somerset and York the first Grandson to John of Gaunt and Grandfather to Henry the Seventh the last yet greater in respect of his Descent from Lyonel Duke of Clarence being Head of the White-rose Faction both equal in Blood and Merit either too Great to be displeas'd much more too Ambitious to be pleas'd In this Contest the Duke of York got the Ball and from his Success concluded 't was possible as he did afterward to get the Scepter too being by the Mothers side the right Heir to Richard the Second but the Duke of Somerset resolving to revenge his loss by the hazard of loosing the whole gave him so many Interruptions in his Dispatch of that great Charge that before he could arrive in France the Parisians had shuck off their Yoke and by their Example the Revolt became so general that even the Normans themselves ever before firm to the English were upon the point also of changing their Allegiance The third and most fatal Breach was that betwixt the Uncle and Nephew the Cardinal Beauford and the Duke of Gloucester The Duke charg'd the Cardinal with Affectation of Pre-eminence even to the Derogation of the Kings Prerogative and Contempt of his Laws the Cardinal not finding Matter to recriminate so Personally upon him himself accus'd his other self to wit his Wife to be a Sorceress and one that by Witchcraft attempted to take away the Kings Life Which whether it were true or no was so well managed that her pretended Crime was in effect made his for by the help of the Queen to whom the King had been espoused by advice of the Cardinal and the Marquiss after made Duke of Suffolk his Creature against the advice of this good Duke for so the People call'd him they prevail'd with the weak King first to exclude him the Councel after to deprive him of all Commands and lastly to take away his Life too not foreseeing so improvident was their Malice that as long as he liv'd his Primogeniture being descended from the Fourth Son of Edward the Third would have kept back the Duke of York's Claim that came from the Fifth Son For his Death gave the first Occasion of beginning that desperate War betwixt the two alike cruel Houses of York and Lancaster who so wasted themselves by Alternate Successes like Plants which cut in the Spring bleed themselves to death that they left no Issue to inherit their dear-bought Titles and were thereby necessitated for the same Reason to unite in the last as they divided in the first place to wit to entail that fatal Glory upon their Posterity which they found to wither do what they could as the Roses they gave for their Cognizances which by being so often cut down came at last to be over-topt by the Thistle of Scotland The Dukes of Somerset and Suffolk being the two principal Councellors that govern'd the Queen who govern'd the King and managed the whole Prosecution of the Duke of Gloucester The People after the Death of the Cardinal who did not long Survive the Execution of that good Duke for so they commonly call'd him fixt their Mark of Evil Councellors and prest so hard for their amoval from the King that the Queen was forc'd as commonly it falls out in such Cases to let go her hold and leave them to shift for themselves The last was the first fell into their Hands who attempting to fly their Fury being Impeached in Parliament was taken at Sea and Executed according to the Popular way of Justice without Ceremony or Sentence by chopping off his Head on the side of a Boat The Duke of Somerset being more above their reach one Mortimer whom for that end the Duke of York allow'd the honour to be reputed of his kindred better known by the name of Jack Cade alias Captain Mend-all undertakes to bring him to a Bay and backt with a multitude inraged with the sence of their just Complaints arriv'd to that power as to possess himself of London where he took off the head of the Kings Chamberlain and grew so terrible that the King himself was constraâ—ned to retire and give place but before he could reach the Duke of Somerset he fell himself Whereupon the Duke of York was forced to take off his Vizard and own the Justice of his Complaint barefac'd who having an Army ready to second them prevail'd so far with the Parliament as to get the Duke twice arrested but finding him to be still releas'd as soon as they were up who therefore were dissolv'd to the end that he might be discharg'd he advanced towards London to do himself as he said and the Kingdome Right But before he could pass St. Albans the King met him and gave him Battel wherein the unfortunate Duke of Somerset gave the last Testimony of his Loyalty to the King in the loss of his Life and the unhappy King the last Test of his Affection to him by the loss of his Liberty being forced to render himself a Prisoner to the Victor who was so modest as not to declare his Title to the Crown but contented himself to be by the good favour of the
better Neither was he less fortunate then forward in Peace as well as in War So that as upon the one side he look'd like Caesar or Augustus rather both of whom as they were armed with Lightning so their Pardons went ever before and after their Swords so on the other side he was not unlike those two famous Legislators Solon and Licurgus who principally regarding the People were yet so wise for themselves as with the publick safety to secure their own Authority for he was an excellent Judge of times and seasons and knew when to strain up the Laws to his Prerogative and when to let down his Prerogative to the Test of the Law And though 't was observ'd never any man lov'd his own way nor his own will better then he nor perhaps ever had so much Reason to do it being as another Solomon wiser then his Counsellors and yet they perhaps as well chose as ever any Kings Counsellors were yet we find he was sometimes content to part with both for the more orderly administration of Justice leaving the disposition of his Mint his Wars and his Martial Justice things of absolute power not to say the Concerns of his unsetled Title which was yet of higher and tenderer consideration to the wisdom of his Parliaments And least the thing called Propriety which is the same to the Subject as the Prerogative to Majesty should be thought to suffer in the least he gave himself the trouble of hearing many Causes at his Councel-board where sitting at the Fountain of Justice assisted by the most learn'd as well as the most reverend Professors of Law and Conscience it was not to be suppos'd that any Cause could lose any thing of its due weight and allowance yet it seems the Common Lawyers unwilling the determination of Meum and Tuum should go besides their own Courts traduc'd him with distrusting his Judges in matters of Common Right as the Souldiers complain'd of his not trusting his Generals in point of common Security And some there were who would have aggravated it to a Grievance however 't was apparent to be rather their own then the Peoples who are apter to complain of the chargeableness then the due Administration of the Laws But these Causes being for the most part heard in the Vacation time 't is possible he had in his Thoughts something beyond their reach with respect to the splendor of his Court and the profit of the City to which as he was alwayes a Friend so by this dispatch of Justice while there was no other Courts sitting he drew such a concourse of Clyents to Town as kept up a kind of Term all the Year round and so quickned Trade that by adding to theirs it increas'd his own Wealth to that degree that amongst other Reasons given of his neglecting the benefit of the Discovery of the Indies first offer'd to him by Columbus 't was not the least that he had no want of Money and having made himself a Member of the City that by the benefit of that Community he might find his account as well in their Chamber as his own Exchequer and prove as after he did the only Dragon that kept their Golden Fleece sharing with Solomon himself in those two great points of Glory to be reputed the wisest and richest King of his time 't is no wonder he should by Works Immortal as he did make his way to Immortality leaving his Son Henry nothing to do but to inherit his envied Felicity HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Now as he began his Reign at the time when every thing begins to grow and blossom it being in the Spring of the Year as well as of his Age so the Season complying with his Constitution made it hard for him to resist the heat of his blood yet we do not find that he ingaged in any War abroad till he had secured Peace at home making his Justice as renown'd amongst his People by revenging their wrongs as he made his power afterward when he came to revenge his own executing Empson and Dudley as a terrour to all Promoters to shew he did not esteem them faithful Servants to his Father that had so betraid their Country Which Act of Justice being clos'd with another of Universal Grace in restraining his Prerogative to inlarge the Subjects Confidence and Affection made him so clear a Conquest over all Discontents arising by the Oppression of his Predecessor that having nothing more to do at home he bethought himself of what was to be done abroad Providence offering him a Projection suitable to the greatness of his mind to render the esteem of his Piety no less famous then that of his Justice by undertaking to rescue the Pope out of the hands of the King of France as a Dove deliver'd out of the Talons of a Vulture who having already drove him to Covert as we say that is besieged him in his City of Bononia and having his Confederates the Emperour and King of Spain ready at hand to make a retreive doubted not but to devour him in a very short time This as it was a Design of Super-errogating Merit so it carried in it no less of Advantage then Glory giving him a fit occasion to shew at once his Zeal and Power and in serving him to serve himself upon him in the promotion of his Title to France it being no small addition of Credit to his Claim that his Hoâ—iness as an Earnest of his Spiritual Benediction had bestowed upon his Majesty the forfeited Stile of Christianissimus However before he would move himself in Person out of England he thought it necessary to prevent any Motion of the King of Scots into England who he knew would be ready to bruise his Heel as soon as he advanced to break the Serpents Head and accordingly he got not only a confirmation of that Excommunication which Julius the Second had formerly granted against the said Scotch King in case he broke his League with him the Curse whereof followed him to his Grave for violating his Faith he died in the attempt but obtain'd a plenary Indulgence for all that should assist him Thus arm'd as it were with the Sword of God and Gideon he entred that goodly Kingdom and long it was not ere he got the Maiden-head of that Virgin City Tournay who having repuls'd Caesar had the Testimony of her Pucillage written upon its Gates as the only Town had kept her self unconquer'd from that time but now was forced to yield to him by the Name and Title of Roy tres Christien as appears by the Original Contract yet extaâ—t The same day he receiv'd the News of the †James the Fourth slain in Flodden-field Scotch Kings death who attempting as I said before to divert the War lost his Life and 't was happy he lost not his Kingdom too a Victory so seasonable and super-successful that Fortune as enamor'd of him seem'd to prostitute her self
consequences of which being justly to be suspected he made use of their present apprehensions to renew the Treaty and by his contrivance there came a Letter to the King from Melancthon to whom the King seem'd alwayes to have great regard exhorting him to perfect the Reformation begun as well in the Doctrinal as the Ceremonial part of Worship To which the King by advice of Gardiner gave this Answer That he would make a League with them in honest Causes as he had done with the Duke of Juliers and after that he would treat of an Accord in Religion This being no way satisfactory to them much less to Cromwell who had slatter'd them with hopes of a better Accommodation he cast about another way to compass his end and knowing very well that the King did alwayes prefer his Pleasure before his Revenge as those that mean to take great Fishes bait their Hooks with flesh so he held up the Treaty with the Proposal of a new Match that he believ'd could not but be very acceptable not only in respect of the Kings having been near three Years a Widower but for that it was such as he said would at once anger and curb the Emperor the Popes only Executioner to make good his late Fulmination This was a Daughter to the Duke of Cleve who being a Protestant and Father in Law to the Duke of Saxony and next Neighbour to the Emperors Dominions in the Low Countries there seem'd to be in the Proposal great considerations of State besides that of Riches and Beauty the last being the first thing in the Kings Thoughts wherein Hans Holbin the famous Painter contributed much to the deceiving him which whether it prov'd more unfortunate to her or Cromwell I cannot say but it so fell out that the King disgusting her after he saw her was easily prevail'd with to repudiate her and consequently to reject the Match-maker who having it in his Fate to be undone as he was at first set up by the Smock was sacrificed to the Envy of the People rather then his Masters Displeasure who let them lay the load of his Faults upon him and being a Prince that drew upon all his great Ministers more blame then either they could bear or durst answer he left him to perish under the weight of it And which made his Case more deplorable perhaps then that of most others that felt the weight of his Iron Rod and therefore look'd more like a Judgment from Heaven then Earth was First that he suffer'd him to be condemn'd at the same time all other men by a general and free pardon were indempnified from the same Crimes of which he stood accus'd Secondly in that he died like Phalaris by an Instrument as some say of his own inventing Thirdly and lastly that after having been Vicegerent to the Defender of the Faith he should dye as an Heretick for opposing the Faith after having had the repute of a faithful Servant indeed so faithful that as Cranmer's Letter to the King yet to be seen testifies he cared not whom he displeas'd to serve his Majesty he should dye like one that had merited no favour from him That he who was so vigilant to detect all Treasons in their Embrio should dye like a Traytor himself That he that had no bounds set to his Authority should dye for exceeding his Commission Lastly That he who was the only Master of Requests and gave an answer to all men that made any Addresses to the King should himself dye unheard as well as unpitied But when we consider all this we must conclude the end of some mens Rise is to keep others from Falling Providence oftentimes upholding Justice even by Injustice that so by correcting some men causlesly she may certainly teach all men Caution The King having thus rid himself of his new Wife and his old Servant both submitting to his Will the first with the loss of her Estate and Dignity for instead of being his Queen she was adopted his Sister the last with the loss of both his Estate and Life he found the means to repair the want of the one though he could not of the other by taking to his Bed perhaps with no disparity to his Greatness if there had been none betwixt her own Vertue and Beauty the fair Lady Katherine Howard Neece to the Duke of Norfolk who seems to be born to be a Scourge of the Injustice shew'd to his former Wives whilst her Incontinence under the veil of a clear and most modest behaviour appear'd so notorious that being confessed by her self he himself was forc'd to suffer in the shame with her which he was so sensible of that we find by a Law ex post facto he labour'd to prevent the like for the future And now being as it were weary of Pleasures of that kind this being his fifth Wife that was executed or suffer'd worse his Love gave place once more to his Ambition which he gratified with a new Title or rather the Superfoetation of an old one causing himself to be stiled King of Ireland whereas none of his Predecessors were otherwise stiled then Lords thereof which as it was in the first place intended by him as an additional honour to that Nation rather then to himself so in the last place he did it to prevent James the Fifth of Scotland who had an Invitation from some of the discontented Nobility there to have taken it on him having before affronted him by assuming the Title of Defender of the Faith with the addition only of the word Christian as if there were any other Faith but what was in truth so and because he was resolv'd to quarrel him upon it he sent to require Homage to be paid him for that Kingdom urging that the Kings of that Nation had for many Ages submitted themselves in a qualified Condition of Vassalage under the Kings his Ancestors both before and since the Conquest This begat a War which ended not with the Life of that King being struck to the heart with the melancholy apprehensions of being over-match'd who dying left a young Daughter to succeed whom King Henry thought a fitting Wife for his Son Prince Edward and accordingly afterward in despight of all the tricks of the French Party that then rul'd there he brought it to such a Treaty as amounted to a Contract being under Hands and Seals of both sides But the Scots shewing themselves by their wonted breach of Faith to be true Scots all ended in War wherein though he were victorious yet the main business was nothing advanc'd by the Success there being more done then became a Suiter for Alliance and too little for one pretending to Conquest Hereupon he was forc'd to try the Fortune of another Treaty with the discontented Earl of Lenox who having formerly been set up by the French to be Governour of the young Queen and the Kingdom but deserted by them when he had most need of their aid he was
was it long that the Protector bore up after his Brothers Fall the great care he took to build his * From his Tittle call'd Somerset-house House being no less fatal to him then the little care he had to support his Family whiles the Stones of those Churches Chappels and other Religious Houses that he demolish'd for it made the cry out of the Walls so loud that himself was not able to indure the noise the People ecchoing to the defamation and charging him with the guilt of Sacriledge so furiously that he was forced to quit the place and retire with the King to Windsor leaving his Enemies in possession of the strength of the City as well as the affections of the Citizens who by the reputation of their power rather then the power of their repute prevail'd with the King as easily to give him up to publick Justice as he was before prevail'd with to give up his Brother it being no small temptation to the young King to forsake him when he forsook himself so far as to submit to the acknowledgement of that Guilt he was not conscious of The Lawyers charged him with removing Westminster-hall to Somerset-house The Souldiers with detaining their Pay and betraying their Garrisons The States-men with ingrossing all Power and indeavouring to alter the Fundamental Laws and the ancient Religion But he himself charg'd himself with all these Crimes when he humbled himself so far as to ask the Kings pardon publickly which his Adversaries were content he should have having first strip'd him of his Protectorship Treasurership Marshalship and Two thousand pound a year Land of Inheritance But that which made his Fate yet harder was that after having acquitted himself from all Treason against his Prince he should come at last to be condemn'd as a Traytor against his Fellow-Subject whilst the Innocent King labouring to preserve him became the principal Instrument of his Destruction who by reconciling him to his great Adversaries made the Enmity so much the more incompatible who at the same time he gave the Duke his Liberty gave the Earl of Warwick and his Friends the Complement of some new Titles which adding to their Greatness he reasonably judg'd might take from their Envy The Earl himself he created Duke of Northumberland and Lord High Admiral of England and to oblige him yet more married up his eldest Son the Lord Dudley to his own Cosin the second Daughter of the Duke of Somerset whom he gave to him for the more honour with his own hand and made Sir Robert Dudley his fourth and his beloved Son the same that was after made by Queen Elizabeth Earl of Leicester one of the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber And to gratifie the whole Faction he made the Marquiss of Dorset Duke of Suffolk the Lord St. John Earl of Wilts and afterwards Marquiss of Winchester Sir John Russel who was Northamberland's Confident he created Earl of Bedford Sir William Paget another of his Tools he made Lord Paget This the good natur'd King did out of sincere Affection to his Uncle in hopes to reconcile him so thoroughly to Northumberland so that there might be no more room left for Envy or Suspect betwixt them But as there is an invisible Erinnis that attends all Great men to do the drudgery of their Ambition in serving their Revenge and observing the Dictates of their power and pride so it was demonstrable by the most unfortunate issue of this so well intended purpose that by the same way the King hoped to please both he pleas'd neither Somerset thinking he had done too much Northumberland thinking that he had done too little who having drunk so deep a Draught of Honour grew hot and dry and like one fall'n into a State-Dropsie swell'd so fast that Somerset perceiving the Feaver that was upon him resolv'd to let him blood with his own hand And coming one day to his Chamber under the colour of a Visit privately arm'd and well attended with Seconds that waited him in an outward Chamber found him naked in his Bed and supposing he had him wholly in his power began to expostulate his wrongs with him before he would give him the fatal stroke whereby t'other perceiving his intent and being arm'd with a Weapon that Somerset had not a ready fence for an Eloquent Tongue he acquitted himself so well and string'd upon him with so many indearing protestations as kept the point of his Revenge down till it was too late to make any Thrust at him Whereby Northumberland got an advantage he never hop'd for to frame a second Accusation against him so much more effectual then the former by how much he brought him under the forfeiture of Felony as being guilty of imagining to kill a Privy Counsellor for which he was the more worthily condemn'd to lose his Head in that he so unworthily lost his Resolution at the very instant of time when he was to vindicate his too much abus'd Patience thereby betraying those of his Friends that came to second him into the scandal of a Crime which had it succeeded would have pass'd for a magnanimous piece of Justice in cutting off one whom however he was content to spare Providence it seems was not reserving him to die a more ignoble death and by a worse hand The sorrow for his ignominious fall as it much affected the Consumptive King his Nephew who was now left as a Lamb in the keeping of the Wolf the Duke of Northumberland having got as high in Power as Title by ruining the Family of the Seymours so his end which was not long after put an end to the Reformation and made way for the Dudley's to aspire with incredible Ambition and not without hope of setling the Succession of the Crown in themselves For the Duke finding that the King languish'd under a Hectical Distemper and having better assurance then perhaps any one else could from his Son that alwayes attended in his Bedchamber that it was impossible for him to hold out long for Reasons best known to him he cast about how to introduce the far fetch'd Title of his other Son who had married the Lady Jane Gray eldest Daughter to the Duke of Suffolk by the Lady Frances one of the Daughters and Heirs of Charles Brandon by his Wife Mary Queen of France the second Daughter of Henry the Seventh And however this seem'd to be a very remote pretention yet making way to other great Families to come in by the same Line in case her Issue fail'd as to the Earl of Cumberland who had married the other Daughter of Charles Brandon and to the Earl of Darby that had married a Daughter of that Daughter and to the Earl of Pembroke that had married the Lady Jane's second Sister it was back'd with so many well-wishers that it was become not only terrible to the Kingdom but to the King himself However there were two Objections lay in the way the one the preference that ought to be
France and Spain being her secret Friends and Well-wishers not to mention the nearer Obligations of her own Son being then but young and the Pope ever ready to pack the Cards for her as occasion served The advantage Queen Elizabeth had was by the Knaves in her hand all the factious Demagogues of Scotland being at her Devotion and so dependant on her Power that their disloyalty stood her in better stead than the Loyalty of her own Subjects whereof she made so good use that her over-match't Rival being never able to fix their Obedience much less recover their Affections was fain to seek for help abroad And after she became a Prisoner finding none she could trust was forc'd to attempt her Freedom singly proceeding therein for want of due intelligence by such indirect wayes and means as prov'd very unprosperous for the more she stirr'd the more she intangled herself fastning the Bonds beyond all possibility of being shaken off again which had she sate still might possibly have loosed of themselves Neither could it prove otherwise whiles she was neither able to take right measures of her Adversaries strength nor of her own weakness Queen Elizabeth having more Subjects then she knew of for she had got the Ascendant of her Neighbours so far that like her Father Henry where she made not Kings she gave them Laws The Protestants 't is true the only useful Party to her were few in comparison of the Papists who were all inc ined to the other side But the Security of Princes rests not so much in the number as in the affections of their People of whom whilst by extraordinary methods of Love she testified her self to have so great a care they made to her as extraordinary Returns of Loyalty witness that voluntary Association as 't was call'd which the Protestants so solemnly enter'd into as soon as they found her imbarrased by the Queen of Scots Faction binding themselves with mutual Oaths and Subscriptions to each other to prosecute all those to death who should attempt any thing against the Queens life This was it gave her that high repute without which she could not have given that protection she did to those of other Countries who afterward applyed themselves to her as the only Defender of the Faith for though it were no more then what they were before bound to do by their Oath of Allegiance yet being a voluntary Recognition resulting out of the Sense they had of their own in her danger it made such a noise in all Christendom that all those who chose rather to change their Country then their Religion cast themselves at her feet and where they could not come to her she sent to them witness the aid she gave to the persecuted Protestants of France when they were overwhelmed by the unholy Confederates of the Holy League that had set up a Priest to make way for a Cardinal by the Murther of a King and by the Murther of many Thousands more afterward made may to set up themselves to whom as she sent no ordinary supply of Men so she gave so extraordinary a supply of Money that Henry the Fourth himself was pleas'd to acknowledge he never saw so much Gold together at any one time in his whole life before More notable yet was that aid given to the distrested Protestants of the Netherlands when Duke D'Alva falling on them with like Fury as Vespatian upon the Jews put them in as great a fear of being drown'd in a deluge of Blood as they were but a little before of being overwhelm'd by that of Water who when their Courage was sunk as low as their hopes and that lay as low as their Country for she put them into a Condition not only to defend their own Liberty but to assert her Soveraignty their gratitude prompting them to swear Allegiance to her for that she had as they said an indubitable Title to those Provinces by Philippa Wife of Edward the Third who was one of the Daughters and Coheirs of Earl William the Third of Holland a right precedent as they alledged to that of the King of Spain But whether it were so that she rather approved the change of their Principles then of their Prince or would have the World believe she rather favour'd their Religion then their Rebellion or judg'd it would be hard to make good what was so ill got or was unwilling to do any thing that might give King Philip cause to question her Gratitude no less then her Justice or what other motives moderated her Ambition is not known but so it was that she laid aside for the present the consideration of her own Right and to shew she sincerely intended that Self-denyal she assisted the Spaniard with men at the same time she supplyed the Dutch with Money thereby giving those cause to extoll her Generosity whiles these magnified her Bounty both alike desiring her Friendship and admiring her Wisdom whiles the one could not tell how she affected Peace nor t'other how far she inclined to War Thus she preserv'd her self by Arts as well as by Arms which was the less easie for her to do in respect of the many cross Designs that were then on foot in France Spain Germany and Italy in each of which she was deeply concern'd not to say in Scotland which being on the same Continent was under her Eye as their Queen under her keeping But the King of Spain finding that whatever was pretended overtly she did underhand abet the Rebels of the Netherlands he set his thoughts upon supporting the Rebels of Ireland which how much she dreaded appears by her ready acceptance of that seign'd Submission of the Earl of Tyrone the first that gave her trouble and the last that repented him of it But before he made any Rupture upon her there happen'd a lucky hit which contributed much to defraying the Charge she foresaw she must be at whenever he broke the Peace made with her A mighty Mass of Money which King Philip had taken up from the Genoveses and other Italian Merchants to be sent by Sea to the Duke D'Alva for carrying on that War of the Low-Countries was drove into one of her Ports by a French Man of War which she seizing to her own use and justifying her self by necessity of State the only reason for all unreasonable actions thought it enough to give the Proprietors Security for the Principal without any consideration of Interest This so incens'd D'Alva that he forthwith laid an Imbargo upon all the English Merchants in the Low-Countries She to requite that did the like upon the Dutch Merchants here upon which Letters of Mart were granted on both sides and so that War began which she liv'd not to see and end of For the King of Spain as is said before knowing the Irish to be naturally inclined to break out with the Itch of Rebellion resolv'd to inflame their Blood with the hopes of a new Change combining with Gregory
others all men of good Families and of as good Education one would have thought it a soberer and deeper design then it proved to be Some think their intention was to have seiz'd on the Persons of the King and Queen and their Children and so to have made Conditions with him for the Kingdom in general and perhaps for themselves in particular being perswaded by some cunning Casuist amongst them That it could be no Treason being enter'd into before the King was Crown'd and Anointed And in case they could not bring the King to their terms 't was said they resolv'd to set up the Title of the Lady Arabella as the next presumptive Heir to the Crown being sole Daughter of Charles Earl of Lenox younger Brother to the Kings Grandfather whom the King when her Father dyed put besides that Title as by Custom of Scotland he might being a Donation during his Minority to give it to his Cosin Esme Lord Aubigny the Heir Male of the Lord John the other younger Brother Now that which gave colour to this unreasonable Conjecture of setting up this Lady was the particular respect Sir Walter Rawleigh profest to her but if his enmity to Spain had not been a more unpardonable sin then his amity with her the Charge Count Gundamore brought against him could not have been so much more pressing upon him then the Attorney Generals upon his Fellows to make his much Merit no less criminal then their much Guilt and which was more unlucky to render him a greater Sufferer by the Kings Mercy then divers of them were by his Justice who having freed him after Condemnation was prevail'd with by the Spaniard to condemn him after that freedom contrary to the opinion of divers learned Gown-men who held that his Majesties Pardon lay inclusively in that Commission he gave him afterward upon his setting out to Sea it being incongruous that he should have had the disposing of the lives of others who was not clearly Master of his own But herein those that were his particular Friends and Relations were not more surpriz'd then all the World beside For as they expected to have been indebted to his Sword for bringing home more Gold then would have paid the price of his forfeited Head so every Body eâ—se hoped to have been no less indebted to his Pen for finishing that most excellent Piece of his The History of the Old World which ended as untimely as himself by attempting a Discovery of The new One Now as this Plot seems to have been as dark as the place it self where it was first hatch'd so it was made yet darker by the wisdom of the King who kept the Cause unknown to the intent it might have no Seconds However some have concluded from the appointment of that Conference of Divines which hapned not long after at Hampton-Court that whatever Reasons of State topt the Plot Religion lay at the bottom of it which being at all times a sure foundation for any treasonable practices was at this time so much more seasonably pretended by how much the King being as yet a stranger and unsetled not knowing whom to suspect much less whom to trust would necessarily be dâ—stracted with various apprehensions and not think himself secure in the Glory of being Defender of the Kingdom till he appeared to be The True Defender of the Faith here in England as well as Defender of the True Faith for so run his Title in Scotland Neither were they deceiv'd that took this measure of his Zeal or Fears it being well known that he was as ambitious to shew the first as other Princes were careful to conceal the last Witness the pleasure he took in wrestling as I said before with Pope Pius the Fourth not as Jacob wrestled with the Angel to obtain his Blessing but as he contested with Esau to shew how little he regarded his Cursing After which he entred the List to grapple with that more dreadful Monster the Presbyter who professing to hate the pomp of Superstition disdain'd to give Obedience to any kind of Order in the Church being like the Chymara which the * Vid. Ovid. Metam lib. 6. Poets feign'd to have breath'd out fire having the head and breast of a Lyon a bold voracious Creature but very dull with the belly of a Goat and therefore much followed by the Female Sex and the tail of a Dragon to sting the Consciences of those that follow him and make them spiritually mad Betwixt him and the Pope finding Religion to be placed as his own Arms were betwixt the Lyon and the Unicorn who trampled under their feet his Beati Pacifici with as much scorn as they have since Diâ—u Mon Droit He thereupon deferr'd the matter no longer but calling before him the ablest of those that took upon them to oppose the Monarchy of the Church he resolv'd to preside himself in the Controversie betwixt them and the Bishops He that was the Prolocutor of the Non-conformists hapning to be a man worthy a better imployment then that Religious Drudgery they had ingaged him in was so modest notwithstanding it was his business to oppose all Formality as to offer nothing that was altogether void of Form beginning with a General Discourse of the Necessity of a thorow Reformation he brought the Desires of his dissatisfied Brethren under four Heads beseeching his Majesty that there might be 1. An establishment of true Doctrine in the Church as if that receiv'd from Christ and his Apostles had not been as yet sufficiently clear'd 2. That there might be a settlement of true and faithful Pastors meaning men of known simplicity and plainness and if not Fishermen as were the Apostles yet of any other Trade or Occupation 3. That there might be a sincere Administration in point of Government meaning that the Presbyter might he joyn'd in Commission with the Bishop as Calves-head and Bacon are better meat together then either of them alone that by his letting in as many at the back door as the Bishop did at the fore door great might be the multitude of Preachers 4. That the Book of Common Prayer might be fitted to a more increase of Piety by lengthening the Prayers which as one of the Fraternity and doubtless a Taylor objected were like short shreds or ends of threds that were too quickly wrought off and spiritualizing them with some less intelligible Phrases to prevent praying by rote These Proposals of his being inforced by a not unlearned Discourse however more like an Orator then a Divine he concluded with sundry Objections 1. Against Confirmation as being altogether needless and unnecessary because it added nothing as he said to the Validity and Sufficiency of the Sacrament To which Answer was given That the Church held it no essential part of the Sacrament but judg'd it a thing most reasonabâ—e that Children who at their Baptism had made Profession of their Faith by others should so soon as they came to years of
as himself observ'd for the most part their Graves the Vote of Non-Addresses being as Earth flung upon him Fortune cruelly brings him to Life again by the Cordial of unexpected hopes heightned by the Zeal of several Counties declaring for him Divers Lords in Arms again at Land and his own Son with others at Sea these incouraged by the Revolt of several Towns those by the coming in of several Ships so that there were no less then Two thousand in Arms for him at Sea with Twenty good Ships and not so litt e as Ten thousand at Land with Horses Arms and Ammunition suitable And which was yet more considerable the Grand * Call'd The Committee of Danger Committee of State in Scotland whose very name carried Danger in it allarm'd them by sending the Propositions following 1. To bring the King to London or some of his Houses near with Freedom and Safety 2. To disband the Army 3. To punish those that had deteined him in Obscurity 4. To restore the Secluded Members 5. To establish the Presbyterian Government and suppress Sectaries And that they might yet appear more like a Committee of Danger they sent a formidable Army under the Conduct of Duke Hamilton to make good their Demands and to give their Nation the Honour of being the last as they were the first in Arms in this unhappy War The terror of these formidable Preparations incourag'd by several Petitions out of the City and Country moved the affrighted Parliament to consent to a Personal Treaty whilst the Army was busie in disputing the Points with the Sword and accordingly they recalâ—'d the Vote of Non-Addresses and sent their Commissioners to wait on the King at the Isle of Wight where he argued so like a Divine with the Divines so like a Lawyer with the Lawyers so like a States-man with their Matchiavillians that they went all away fully satisfied in their belief of his Wisdom Piety and Justice and upon the publishing his Conditions the Houses voted him to be in Honour Freedom and Safety according to the Laws Here seem'd to be nothing wanting now but a Sword in his hand to have once more disputed it with the Sword-men too and then possibly he might have saved himself and the despairing Nation But just as every man was making ready to bring in his Peace-Offering in Confidence that the King and Parliament were fully agreed the inraged Army returning home from the Conquest of all those that had oppos'd them doubly dyed with Blood and Treason alike Enemies to Peace and Reason broke down the great Chain of Order which binds even the Divels themselves and first seizing on him next on them sent no less then Forty of their principal Members to Hell a Place purposely made their Prison not so much for any conveniency of Reception or nearness of Scituation as the Uncoughness of the Name that by the conceipt of being typically damn'd they might bring them into despair and tempt some of them as after they did to become their own Executioners Ninety more they turn'd quite out of the House and appointed a day for turning out all the rest In the mean time they publish'd a Modification which to make the more acceptable they term'd The Agreement of the People by which the number of the Representatives of the Nation was reduc'd to Three hundred half which were to have power to make a Law and during the Intervals of Sessions a Councel of State was to govern This Model was put into the hands of those Members of their own Faction who besides the Confirmation thereof had Instructions given them for passing six other Votes 1. For renewing that of Non-Addresses 2. For annulling the Treaty and Concessions at the Isle of Wight 3. For bringing the King to publick Justice to answer with his own all the Blood shed in the War 4. For summoning in his two Sons the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York to render themselves by a day certain to give satisfaction on their parts otherwise to stand exil'd as Traytors to their Country 5. For doing publick Justice upon all the Kings Partakers 6. For paying off all their own Arrears forthwith How obedient Slaves this Rump of a House were to these their own Servants who could not find in their Heart to pay the least respect to their natural Prince appears by the Sequel For immediately they gave them or rather permitted them to give themselves above Sixty thousand pounds and voted that the General should take care to secure the King and the Councel of war to draw up a Charge of High Treason against him Lord Faulâ—land Behold the frailty of all humane things How soon great Kingdoms fall much sooner Kings This as it was an Insolence beyond all hope of pardon so nothing could justifie it but such a Violation of all sacred and humane Rights as must not only out-do all Example but out-face all Divinity and Majesty at once by erecting that High Court of Justice as they call'd it to try him as a Rebel against himself Preparatory whereunto they made Proclamation at Westminster-hall Cheapside and the Old Exchange that all that had any thing to say against him should come in at the prefix'd time and be heard And for the greater solemnity of their intended Paricide the Law was silenced that is the Tearm put off for fourteen dayes in order to the better formalizing the disorder that was to follow And now having brought the Royal Prisoner to their Judgment Seat they proceed to arraign him with not unlike Impudence and Impiety to that of the Rascal Jews when they brought the King of Kings to Tryal whom as they charg'd to be a Perverter so these charg'd him with being a Subverter of his People both Prisoners being in this alike Guilty that eithers Crime was the owning himself to be a King which as the Jews could not indure then so neither could these now Their King thought not fit to give any Answer to his Accusers this King preparing to give sitting Answers could not be heard But he had this satisfaction to hear Pontius Bradshaw the President by whom he was to be condemn'd condemn himself first and all his Fellow Paricides by a Reply to him not less absurd then observable For his Majesty reasoning upon the unreasonableness of not being suffer'd to speak for himself said Where is there in all the World that Court in which no Place is left for Reason to which t'other unwittingly reply'd Sir you shall find that this very Court is such an one Nay then retorted the King in vain will my Subjects expect Justice from you who stop your Ears to your King ready to plead his Cause Thus they strangled him before they beheaded him and designing to murther his Soul if possible as well as his Body added to their Denial of Justice so many Contumelies Indignities and Affronts as were enough to have tempted him to despair had not his Faith been as strong