leaving the Government of all to the Lords of his Parliament Which impudence of theirs hurryed them on so farre that they never left fighting till their King was murder'd but how uncertain Thus are the best men violently opposed by the wicked though the vertue and patience of the former might in reason mollifie the latter to obedience How wishedly will some pitty the case of Argalus and Parthenia the patience of Gryseld in Chaucer the misery and troublesome adventures of the Phanatick Lovers in Cleopatra Cassandra Amadis de Gaul Sidney and such like Yet all these as meer Romantick as Rablaise his Garagantua And yet with an unmoved apprehension can peruse the lamentable murder of Edward the Second of England and James the first and Milcolumb the first of Scotland the cutting off the head of good King Alpinus the poisoning of Fergusius the third by his own Queen and her stabbing her self the strangling of Malvinus by his own Queen and the throat-cutting of King Fethelmachus by a Fidler and besides these the martyrdome of old Queen Ketaban in Persia The stabbing of Henry the fourth in France The sacrilegious poisoning of the Emp. Henry the seventh in Italy The miserable death of Mauricius the Emp. with his Wife and five Children by the wicked Phocas And can read the fatall stories recorded by Boccace with lesse grief then the deplorable narrative of Arnalte's love to Lucenda And the patience of the good King Henry the sixth who being grievously struck by a murthering Varlet only made this Reply Forsooth and forsooth being his words for most earnest expression never using an oath ye do fouly to smite a King anointed so May be farre out-rivall'd by some with the misfortunes and hardship of some inchaunted Lover in Ariosto Parismus the two Palmerins or Mirrour of Knighthood And for the horrid murther of his late Majesty experience tells us that many have been so farre from contracting grief that they have so much triumphantly rejoiced at it that they have thought an action of so much wickednesse to have been honourable to them and their posterity for ever Thus have we come short to our Ancestors in fidelity and Loyalty by studying all occasions to rebell against our King They rather then undergo the ignominions title of Nithing i. e. a knave or a night-filcher swarme to the Service of their King we on the contrary rather then not be branded with the wicked name of a Traytor will court all occasions by our Rebellion to make our selves meritorious to a pair of Gallows And so to conclude this assertion I shall tell you that the Parliament wanted all the qualifications to make a warre really espousable No warre being lawful unlesse it be commanded by the Supream Authority the which the Parliament was not but the King if the Laws of our Land be an authentick Standerd And secondly the occasion of the Warre must be just which was wanting on the Parliaments side all their specious pretences being false and ridiculons their reasons suggested to the people to beget a Warre being to as small purpose as the Duke of Burgundy to quarrell for a cart-load of Sheep-skins or the two Brethren neer Padua about the disposal of the Starrs and Firmament And suppose their jealousies had been true yet it was Treason in them to warre against the Supream Authority the King according to the Laws of our Land and damnable according to the word of God Let Buchanan and such as he by supposing the Apostles and the Spirit to deal with us like Hypocrites evince to the contrary For if the Apostle Paul commandeth the Christians to be obedient to their Heathen and Tyrannical Kings who made it their sport to persecute Christians and that for Conscience-sake telling them that their power was of God certainly we are bound to obey a Christian Prince whose authority can be no lesse If we perceive our selves grieved resist we cannot but by Prayers and Obedience To which purpose the ancient Chaucer instructs us who certainly in this sung according to the rule of his time and therein neither false Law nor Gospel Lordes hestes may not be fayned They may wel be wayled and complained But men must nedes unto her lustre obey And so wol I there nis no more to sey The primitive Christians when collected into great Armies were honoured for their obedience never rebelling against but fighting or quietly living under their Heathen Kings as Tertullian will satisfie more at large But now we are so farre from being peaceable in a Christian Government that if occasion of rebellion cannot handsomly be pluckt by the fore-top yet we can create reason to our selves though upon a serious reflection we acknowledge such endeavours to be unjust Thus the Army when in obedience to the Parliament it had conquer'd and ruin'd the King and Kingdome and by the assistance of the sword and Satan had made themselves Lords and Masters over their Betters then I say when they were at the top of their prosperity they do seriously professe that the Parliament did justifie many extraordinary strange and doubtlesse in respect of the letter of the Law very illegal actions viz. Their taking up Armes raising and forming Armies against the King fighting against his person imprisoning impeaching arraigning trying and executing him cutting off his Head banishing his Children abolishing Bishops Deans and Chapters took away Kingly Government and the House of Lords broke the Crowns sold the Jewels Plate Goods Houses and Lands belonging unto the Kings of this Nation erected extraordinary High Courts of Justice and therein impeached arraigned condemned and executed many notorious enemies to the publick peace when the Laws in being and the ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them These were strange and unknown practises in this Nation and not at all justifiable as is conceived by any known Laws and Statutes Thus have you the judgment of a ruling Army against their Masters and themselves though this their repentance was but to vindicate another infidelity But here after all this it may be objected that though some factious spirits of the Parliament have been too incroaching upon the King and the chief Incendiaries of these Warres yet why should I lay all this upon the Presbyterian account To which there needs no tedious reply if we do but consider that these factious people were all Non-conformists from whom if examples may be held for proofs as Schismaticks a self-conceited giddy hot-headed zeal and by consequence Rebellion is as inseparable as pride from Menecrates or Children when gallanted up in new cloathes For my part I am apt to believe that the Bloud of many thousand Christians shed in these warrs and before cryeth loud against Presbytery as the people only guilty of the first occasion of quarrel And that they have been the chief occasion of other slaughters may be credited not only from forraign stories but the authentick judgment of the ever great
good Definition as in his Latin yet may we pick a sound truth of it in English That a seditious person is both an evil and unuseful Member in the Common-wealth Yet were this vice more wicked then it is it would never want admirers as long as Idleness is permitted the former being inseparable from the latter if we will believe the Historian And whether did leasurely foment our discontents or no I know not though I believe by this our turbulent spirits obtained many Proselytes who if they had had any thing else to do would never have spent so much time in an obstinate schism running dayly into more enormities under some pretence or other but never thinking of a return And they that are unwilling to amend Will take offence because they will offend Which was the true temperature of our Non-conformists not that they had any real cause of such disgusts but what they brought forth themselves And they having once taken fire found it no great difficulty to allure the multitude into their faction by their preachments whisperings pamphleting and such like rumours without which it is impossible to get a party moulded to act such destructive wickedness For though the people like the bounded Ocean do naturally affect ease tranquillity and such like peaceable vertues yet are they apt by the seditious blusterings and malicious insinuations of some factious Grandees or neighbours to be perswaded and agitated into turbulent extravagancies and Rebellion The minds of the irrational multitude as one calls them being thus seasoned and tempered with the principles of discontent and sedition are now ordered to put in practice what they have been taught and they so long meditated upon and these proceedings must run parallel to those of their good brethren the Covenanters in Scotland For as one ingeniously observes the English did derive from them not only the rudiments but the method also of revolt Our first probationary Tumult commencing in a rude assault upon the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as theirs upon the Arch-bishop of Saint Andrews Above five hundred of the Rabble one night assaulted the Arch-bishop's house at Lambeth and to what purpose is easy to conjecture And a little after about two thousand Sectaries made a tumult in London where they tore down the benches in the Consistory of Saint Paul's crying out they would have no Bishop nor no high Commission actions so inconsistent with good Subjects that the obedient Parret in Brasil will be as a reproach to these irrational Rebels Nor did their sury end here for when they perceived the execution of the Earl of Strafford was not so hasted on as their hot heads expected and when the Court dream't of nothing but joy the Princess Mary being then marryed to the Prince of Orange the very next morning after the wedding above five thousand Londoners most of them girded to their swords came yelling for justice against the said Earl affirming for want of it they were like to perish having no bread an excellent Non-conforming consequence calling the Earl of Bristol an Apostate and vilifying his son the Lord Digby one of them balling out If we get not satisfaction of the Lievtenant we will have it of the King or as some affirm If we have not the Lievtenants life we will have the King 's And posted up a Paper in Westminster with the names of 55. Lords Knights Gentlemen with the Title of Straffordians with this under-written This and more shall be done to the enemirs of justice afore-written Thus was this Earl rather murthered by malice then condemned by Law or Reason yet so impatiently wicked was the Rabble and Presbyterie that as Darius appointed a man every day to prompt him with a Sir Remember to be revenged on the Athenians so had these men their dayly agitators and contrivers by-jugled up Petitions and such like monitors to mind them of three things the destruction of this Earl the Extirpation of Episcopacy and the abolishing of the Common-prayer-book and Ceremonies The which at last by God's permission and Satan's assistance they obtained And immediatly before they had assaulted the Spanish Embassador's house with a great deal of violence and their pretended reason for so doing was because Mass was there said A Priviledge used by all Embassadors to exercise their own Religion be what it will and this allowed them by the Law of Nations yet was their malice such that if they had not been prevented by the Lord Maior they might have done abundance of mischief though what they did was no small blemish to the civility of a Nation These actions by the Sectaries were look'd upon as a blessing to the Nation and to keep the hands of these Myrmidons in use the City and Kingdom must now and anon too be alarum'd with false rumours and un-heard of plots and designs against something or other Now must the Houses of Parliament be said to be on fire and together by the ears and the City for sorrow thereof like to tumult and uproar themselves into Bedlam Then must strange plots come from unknown parts of the world be discovered at which the careful Commons take fears and jealousies and order the Arch-bishop's House at Lambeth to be searcht for arms as if the Arch-bishop then in the Tower should pelt the Parliament from Lambeth cross the water Then must there be a strange thing in Scotland agitating against Duke Hamilton and their true friend Argyle and this discover'd and seen by Mr. Pym at Westminster upon which the Members are in a hubbub and in great fear of their lives forsooth and therefore a strong guard under Essex is provided for the security of their Worship 's against temptations And the Burgesses of Westminster and the Knights for Middlesex are ordered in all haste to provide bullets and match and to shoot like little John at the Sun and Moon being resolved for the future to work altogether in darkness Yet were all these and many more acted with as much seriousness and gravity as Sancho Pança governed the Iland Barataria so that the abused people did not only believe such stories but feared their events which being once setled in their noddles is impossible to be removed the people being like the lineage of the Pança's all head-strong These jugling Transactions were enough to perswade the King and his friends to look about them but being innocent seemed also fearless Yet for prevention of disorders and tumults some people were ordered to keep watch near the Parliament thereby to keep off the Rabble which used daily to tumble out by thousands in great disorder ranting and railing against something or other in government according to the Items of their Patrons very beneficial to and desirable by the Commons Who took it so ill that their good friends the Multitude should thus be kept back that they did not only question the Justices of peace of
but fire and sword must redress it When the King accused but five Members of High-treason and in a civil way went to demand them of the House the Parliament call'd it an Illegal Seditions and Traiterous act though I cannot vindicate them for it and this was one of the main occasions why the people joyn'd with the Parliament though in so doing they had no more reason then the roaring Blaces in the Counter-scuffle or Quixot's fighting with red-wine or wind-mills And certainly the King hath more right and law in each particle of his body then the whole Army could in reason pretend to And this possibly may be one reason why the Army presently acknowledg'd their secluding the Members to be a course in it self irregular and not justifiable And if the Parliament did so much dis-relish the King 's how might they abominate this of their hired Cossacks But I must confess they were paid with their own coyn the Souldiers sticking as close to their promises to fight for priviledges of Parliament as the Parliament to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Vows and Protestations to maintain the King's person and Prerogative so that Neither barrel better Herring The Members being now reduced to a small number and the Lord 's flown away none being suffered to fit but those who had their Consciences like Fortunatus his purse full of gold and self-ends were from a name of several syllables like those of Brasil circumcised for Christians no man can now call them under the short title of RUMP and fagge-end of a Parliament with corrupt Maggots in it as Mr. Walker terms it And the truth of it is considering the many Members that went to the King with those Eleven forced away by the Army and this last Seclusion and then the Remaining will onely be the Rump of a Rump of a Rump of a Parliament That the Rumpers and the Army did comply together is palpable but whether they perswaded the Army to turn out the other members I know not though the Army did a little dash it in their teeth afterwards The Rump being thus fixt and back'd by an inconsiderable Army if either the Kingdome or London to give it no other Epithet durst know their strength compos'd of more Heresies then Rosse or Pratealus could imagin the Rump I say and the Army thus twisting their interests together go as boldly on to the distruction of others as Lazarellos blind Master leap'd to his own And first vote no more addresses to be made to the King and order themselves the supream Authority of the Nation And then two days after by the inspiration of some pretty Demon or other make an Ordinance of their supream Rebell-ships for the Tryal of his Sacred Majesty And having dapperly proceeded thus farre they in the next place conclude that Writts shall no longer run in the Kings name and at last bring the King to tryall for his Life where his declared and manifest enemies were his Judges under the title of a High Court of Justice A thing which the Army highly complain'd of several times the year before when it was their own case 'twixt them and the Parliament calling of it contrary to the law of nature that they should be judge in their own cause But now the case is alter'd quoth Ploydon the Army thinking it very fitting thut any be judges against the King so they do but make sure work of him And to bring this great thing about for all their protestations in favour of his Majesty all stones were turn'd that could be Several of the Sectaries like Hugh Peters were set up to prattle out the necessity of a Reformation in Government so that the people might take the change more peaceably Then were their several villaines imployd to vilifie his Majesty in print running through all the misfortunes of his Raign still implying that his own sins were the occasion of them all stuffing their pamphlets with abominable lyes set down with an infinite deal of malice and all applyed to the ignorant people with an aboundance of smooth-faced jugling most of them making perjury Hypocrisie and such like villanies as inseparable from his Majesty as the Devill from themselves Though if ones living writings and death do shew any thing of a man then there is no such thing as Belief if the world be not satisfied of his Majesties Vertues and Holinesse Besides these Pamphlets several people were instigated to Petition the Commons and General that speedy justice might be executed upon his Majesty and this as soon as the Army had conquered Hamilton and the rest of the Royalists Ponifract excepted For being now Maisters in the field they scorned to be bafled by an imprisoned King or a few talkers at VVestminster for both which they had laid rods in pisse Yet as a small cheat something to gull the world as if their actions were not so much their own as the desires and request of the whole Kingdome Petitions from several parts of the Nation must come thick and threefold clamoring for justice against the King One of the leading cards of this cheating game was thrown from London Westminster Southwark and Hamlets to the house of Commons and then another from Oxfordshire to the same house and the same purpose and a letter made up of the same ingredients from the Garrison of New-Castle and Tinmouth was not Sir Arthur Hazlerig then Governour to the Lord Fairfax And having thus begun they never leave off till they had petitioned the King to the block For the next month another Petition comes posting from Leicester-shire and 't is well known who were their Knights to the Commons desireing his Majesties speedy Tryall for all the passages hapned in his raign and this is back'd by another from the Maior Aldermen c. of New-Castle upon Tyne to the Commons and this hotly pursued by another from Yorkshire And to conclude this month a confident one was presented to the Generall from Iretons Regiment which was farre from complementing but struck home to the purpose In the next month Coll. Inglosbys Regiment solicits Fairfax to the same purpose which is seconded by Fleetwoods Whaleys Barksteads Overtons and blind Hewsons nor were the soldiers of New Castle Tinmouth Hartlepool and Holy Isle satisfied with their former paper but they also fall on again and clamour for justice and now also cometh the Petition of Coll. Hortons Regiment and on the last day of the month another from Sr. Hardresse Wallers tatter-demallions as also from Devonshire and Cornwall And in the next Month the General is stifly solicited for the Kings tryal by the rabble of Bristol Boston Glamorganshire Denbighshire Dover and Kent with the Cinque-ports and Canterbury in whose proposals are these words to the General First that you prosecute the execution of justice upon the person of the King Words strange to proceed from such a County as Kent who have oft
Army and all this forsooth against the Cause of God the souls of his true Saints the peace of the Directory and the happiness of the Elect the true children of Grace the poor people gaping all the while really believing no Devils to be in the World but Cavaliers not a word proceeding from the lying Throats of these Pulpiteers but fill'd the soft-brain'd Auditors with more indignation against the King and his Cause than our Women are against Popery at the sight of a flaming Picture in the Book of Martyrs All their prittle-prattle was to shew the goodness of their Cause and I wish some of the Presbyterian Churches beyond-Seas were not too much complying in this the abominable wickedness of the Kings Party and to perswade their friends never to make peace with such Malignants Of which I shall afford you two or three Instances Mr. Herbert Palmer of Ashwell in Hertfordshire made a long-winded tittle-tattle stuft with Rebellion and Sedition before the House of Commons at the latter end of which he finds out a pretty device to have all the Cavaliers throats cut and all this to be justified by Inspiration from God Almighty I humbly entreat you to ask Gods Consent first whether he will spare such or such or pardon them and if he will not you must not Probably this Politician was very well acquainted with the subtle Robber of old time who made the Countrey-Parson pray for Riches and upon that account took all his Gold from him Or it may be Oliver used this Art to murder his Majesty for we are told that he said he pray'd to know Gods mind in that case and he took the Answer Affirmatively Thus our Red-Coats of Wallingford-House after they had concluded upon any mischief would for a blind to the People appoint a Day of Humiliation to enquire of God what should be done though they were before resolved that all the Prayers in the World should not alter their fore-going Determination Whence it came to be a vulgar and true Observation That whensoever those Saints had a Fast they were then broaching some mischief or other To be short the greatest wickedness in the World may be perpetrated by this Rule of Palmer's and so Religion prove but a piece of Policy yet was it very fitting for the Parliaments actions which I suppose was the cause that they ordered Sir Oliver Luke to give him thanks for his Seditious Preachment and to desire him to print it the better to infect the People Another of these Bawlers seldom thought of a Bishop or the Kings Party but with Indignation and this must be Mr. Thomas Coleman formerly of Blyton in Lincolnshire but since by the Schismaticks was put into St. Peters Cornhill London from which they had not only wickedly Sequestred Dr. Fairfax but Plunder'd and Imprison'd him in Ely-House and in the Ships and turn'd his Wife and Children out of doors But to return to Coleman who in one of his Sermons thus rants against the Church of England and violently perswades the Parliament to execute severe justice upon her Children Our Cathedrals in great part of late become the Nest of Idle Drones and the roosting place of Superstitious Formallists Our Formallists and Government in the whole Hierarchy is become a fretting Gangrene a spreading Leprosie an unsupportable Tyranny Up with it up with it to the bottom Root and Branch Hip and Thigh Destroy these Amalekites and let their place be no more found Throw away the Rubs out with the Lords Enemies and the Lands Vex the Midianites abolish the Amalekites or else they will vex you with their wiles as they have done heretofore Let Popery find no favour because it is Treasonable Prelacy as little because it is Tyrannical This was rare stuff for the Blades at Westminster and pleas'd admirable well and therefore they strait order Sir Edward Aiscough and Sir John Wray to give the Zealot hearty thanks for his good directions and to desire him by all means to print it which accordingly he did and in requital of thanks Dedicates his fury to their Worships where he fals to his old Trade again very pretily by his Art of Rhetorick calling the Kings Army Partakers with Atheists Infidels Papists c. That it hath Popish Masses superstitious Worships cold Forms in the Service of God That it is stored with Popish Priests That it Persecutes Godly Ministers painful Preachers That it doth harbour all our drunken debauched Clergy our Idle Non-Preaching dumb Ministry our Ambitious Tyrannical Prelacy and the sinck and dregs of the Times the receptacle of the filth of the present and former Ages our spiritual-Courts-men This mans rayling pleas'd the Commons so well that they could think no man fitter to prate when their wicked League and Covenant was taken than He which accordingly he did to the purpose tickling their filthy Ears with the same strains of malice Impudently affirming That none but an Atheist Papist Oppressour Rebel or the guilty desperate Cavaliers and light and empty men can refuse the Covenant and so concludes with a reflection upon the Kings Party as Idolaters And for this stuff Colonel Long must be Ordered to give him thanks from the House Another of these Parliamentary Furies Mr. Arth. Salwey of Severnstoak in Worcestershire thus desires them to destroy the Kings friends Follow God I beseech you in the speedy and impartial Execution of Justice The hearts of your true Friends are grieved that so many Delinquents are in Prison and yet but very few of them brought to their Tryal When Elijah had done execution upon Baals Priests there was rain enough 1 King 18. 40 41. Who knows how soon the Lord may bless us with an holy Peace and blessed Reformation if Justice were more fully executed And this man must have thanks sent him too from the Parliament by Mr. Rouse Another of their Thumpers viz. Mr. George Walker of St. John Evangelists London thus stirs up execution against Malignants Cut them down with the Sword of Justice Root them out and consume them as with fire that no root may spring again let their mischief fall upon their own Heads that the land may be eas'd which hath a long time and doth still groan under them as an heavy curse And was not this a fit Sermon to be preacht just the day before the Treaty at Uxbridge and then to be printed too by the Presbyterian Authority Could these men desire peace that thus countenanced men to rail against their betters with whom they were to Treat But this is short of Mr. Love's malice let one of their witts sing out his Commendations as he pleaseth he at the very day of the Treaty must needs thunder it at the place it self perswading the people by all means not to treat with the Royalists as I have in part before insisted on but besides that which I told you then he could thus also animate his friends
of this Statute hath several times since been made good by practise on the part of the Commons For in King Edward the third's dayes a Parliament was summoned to consult about the security of the Marches of Scotland and the Seas and the advice of the Commons was desired about these things But they humbly declined it submissively desiring that they might not be put to consult of those things whereof they had no cognisance And in the same King's reign when their advice was asked touching a Prosecution of a Warr with France after four dayes consultation they returned their Answer by Justice Thorpe That their humble desire to the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience then themselves in such affairs And in the sixt year of King Richard the second a Parliament was call'd to consult Whether the King should go himself to rescue Gaunt or send an Army The Commons humbly answered by their Speaker Sir Thomas Puckering That the Council of Warr did more belong to the King and his Lords And the next year their advice being asked concerning the Articles of Peace with France they modestly excused themselves as too weak to counsel in so weighty matters and being more earnestly prest to shew their own opinions they humbly advised rather for Peace than Warr. For in those dayes the Knights and Burgesses made it their only care to study the well-fare of and complain of the grievances which afflicted those places for which they served Those of Lin would consult the advancement of the Trade of Fishing those of Norwich the making of Stuffs he of Teverston of Kersies those of Suffolk what conduced to the benefit of Clothing those of Cornwal for their Stanneries and never pry into those things which were farr above many of their Intellectuals Many of them being but of inferiour Trades and so almost as unfit to apprehend the Intrigues of State and manage such grand Concerns as Caligula's Horse to Officiate in Divine Service though made a Priest by the said Emperour or those Priests a hundred years ago to compile a Body of Divinity or a Church-History whose ignorance was such as to think that the New-Testament was composed by Martin Luther Such was the modesty and discretion of former Parliaments And if these of later date have any more Priviledges than the ancient 't is so farr unknown to me that I despair of ever finding them Of this I need say no more but that as a Parliament in Queen Mary's dayes supplicated That the Pope's Supremacy over them might be restored greatly repenting them of their former Schism by which means they got their absolution from Cardinal Pool So had it been well for many of our late Members to have acknowledged the King's Authority and reduced themselves betimes to his Obedience Much more might be said in the behalf of the Prerogative Royal. But this shall suffice since it hath been so well done formerly by the learned and constant true-hearted Judge Jenkins the Ingenious Mr. Diggs and others CHAP. VI. The Priviledges of Parliament and that in some Cases they are Null and Void THough these things afore specified might satisfie a Rational Subject yet as a cloud to obscure this Regal Supremacy the Commons have found out a way to cry Priviledge of Parliament And with this clamorous plea they have lately thought to save their Bacon in the multitude of their bewitched Proselytes be their Actions never so notorious And these Priviledges they are gloriously pleas'd to call Their ancient and undoubted Rights and Inheritance But King James a Prince too wise and learned to submit to or wink at a popular fury informed them plainly and truly that he should rather desire them to say That their Priviledges were but derived from the grace and permission of their Kings most of them growing but from Presidents which shews rather a Toleration than Inheritance And therefore could not endure Subjects to use such Anti-Monarchical words unless subjoyned with acknowledgement of grace and favour What their Priviledges are they have been very unwilling to shew in a particular way But be they what they will these two following they have most made use of and imbraced viz. 1. Liberty of Speech 2. Freedom from Arrest and Imprisonment As for the first 't is true that Sir Arnold Savage 1404 Speaker to the Commons humbly desired King Henry the fourth that they might freely make complaint of any thing amiss in the Government And that the King by the sinister Information of any person would not take it offensive The which the King was royally pleased to grant And after this Sir Thomas More their Speaker 1523 prayed King Henry the Eighth That If in Communication and Reasoning any man in the Common-House should speak more largely then of duty they ought to do that all such offences might be pardoned the which the King was pleased to grant And the same favour was also yielded to Thomas Moyle Esq their Speaker some twenty years after And Queen Elizabeth at the entrance of her reign was graciously pleas'd to allow the same to the Speaker Sir Thomas Gargrave before which mans time 't was very seldom asked and therefore not granted The Speakers commonly only desiring liberty for themselves not including the rest of the Members though since Gargrave's time it hath alwayes been humbly desired and also favourably granted But what of all this the King permits them Liberty of speech or rather winks at some slips which in heat of discourse or debates they may through unadvisedness let fall Therefore they may speak Treason revile Authority intrench upon Prerogative and what not But if this be a Logical Consequence then is a Kings condition as miserable as uncertain And this is something like the Long-Parliaments plea for a perpetual Session The King agrees that they shall not be dissolved without their own consent therefore they would sit till call'd to Judgement by the last Trumpet though their Treasonable Actions against the King did not only by the Law dissolve them but left them capable of severe punishments But how weak this pretended Consequence is may appear by a continued practise The Bishop of Carlile for his bold Speech in Parliament was imprisoned by King Henry the Fourth And Queen Elizabeth who was as great a favourite and darling in the eyes of her Subjects as any since the Creation tells her first Parliament at a publick meeting at White-Hall where they desired her to marry that if they had limitted her either to place or person she would then have thought it in you a great presumption being unfitting and altogether unmeet for you to require them that command or those to appoint whose parts are to desire or such to bind and limit whose duties are to obey or to take upon you to draw my love to your likings or to frame my will to your fantasie How severely did she check
the Parliament in the 23. year of her raign for presuming to Vote a Fast to be solemnized at the Temple-Church for such of their own Members as could conveniently be present there telling them by her Messenger Sir Thomas Henneage then Vice-Chamberlain With what admiration she beheld that Incroachment on her Royal Authority in committing such an apparent Innovation without her privaty or pleasure first known Upon which they desired Sir Thomas to present their Submission to the Queen and to crave her pardon Nor would she suffer her Parliaments to meddle in Ecclesiastical affairs And plainly used to tell them that their Priviledges were but the free pronouncing these two words Yea and No. And King James perceiving his last Parliament but one to soar somewhat high told their Speaker Sir Thomas Richardson in a Letter from New-market That some fiery and popular spirits of the Lower-House did debate matters above their capacity to our dishonour and Prerogative Royal. These are therefore to make known to them That none shall hereafter presume to meddle with any thing concerning our Government or matters of State with our Sons match with the Daughter of Spain nor to touch the Honour of that King or any other our Friends or Confederates Nor with any mans particulars which have their due Motion in our Ordinary Courts of Justice But to put them out of doubt of any question hereafter of that nature We think our self very free and able to punish any mans misdemeanour in Parliament as well sitting there as after which we mean not to spare hereafter upon any occasions of any mans And that King James had good grounds for what he wrote I am apt to believe not only considering his own Learning and Knowledge in State-affairs But that if a Parliament man by their own Orders is not abusively to reflect upon any of their own Members to me it seems very irrational to think that they may openly vilifie the Crown and throw dirt upon Regal Authority Therefore I shall perswade my self that Sir Henry Ludlow who said there that King Charles was not worthy to be King of England was farr more unfit to live As for the other Priviledge which the Parliament doth vigorously demand as their due and right we shall find their clamour to be not unlike some Bills in Chancery where many thousand pounds are demanded when scarce twenty is due Or the towring expectations of Lambert Simnell a Bakers son who under a Princely Vizard required the Crown of England as his Birth-right yet after all the bloud-shed in his behalf was happy to be a Turn-spit to King Henry the Seventh 'T is true for Debt and such private and peculiar Engagements a Member cannot be Imprisoned for if so a plot might be framed to shrink the Houses again though in a more plausible method to a New Rump And this was the case of Mr. George Ferrers Burgess for Plymouth 1542. who being arrested for debt was at the desire of the Commons released and the Sheriff of London sent to the Tower for two dayes But yet the best of them may be imprisoned though then actually in Parliament either for Treason Felony or refusing to give security for the Peace And for this cause was Thomas Thorp Speaker to the Commons arrested and put into Prison in the 31. year of King Henry the Sixth And the learned Judges of the Land declared he was not capable of a Release which being made known to the Commons by Walter Moyle one of the Kings Serjeants at Law they presently chose themselves another Speaker viz. Sir Thomas Charleton and never clamour'd that the Priviledges of Parliament were broken In Queen Elizabeth's time nothing was more common then to serve Subpoena's upon and imprison extravagant Members Witness the two upon Mr. Knevet An. Reg. 39. one upon Mr. Coke An. Reg. 127. and Mr. Peter Wentworth was committed to the Tower and Sir Henry Bromley Mr. Stevens Mr. Welch to the Fleet 35. Elizab. for desiring the Intailment of the Crowns Succession And in the 35. of her raign she sent into the House of Commons and took out Mr. Morris and committed him to Prison with divers others for some speeches in the House and when the rest of the Commons petitioned her Majesty for their release she sent them a severe check telling them that they were not to discourse of things of such high nature And the same Answer did King James return them 1621. when they endeavoured to know the reason of Sir Edwin Sandis his restraint And though he was a merciful and peaceful King yet when they presumed to incroach upon him he would make them learn more manners in the Tower and other Prisons witness the committment of several of them in the 12. year of his raign And though never any King was more afflicted and bandied with Parliaments than the late King Charles yet the sweetness of his temper made him wink at many insolent Indiscretions till at last their Impudence grew so high as not to permit the Serjeant of the Mace to go to the King upon his Command to lock the Parliament-door and deny the Kings Messenger entrance to hold by force the Speaker in the Chair swearing deep Oaths that he should sit still as long as they pleas'd though the King command the contrary to deny the Kings Power to dissolve them by Proxy that they are not bound to give an account to the King but to their own House of their actions be they what they will in Parliament upon which several of them were imprisoned the Judges delivering their Opinions positively that their crimes were within cognizance out of Parliament affirming that if it were not so if a Parliament-man should commit murder in time of Parliament he could not be tryed and arraigned until a new Representative and for confirmation of their Opinions they alledged many Presidents as that of Plowden in Queen Mary's time who was fined in the Kings-Bench for words spoken in Parliament against the dignity of the Queen And to be brief though the Long-Parliament made great hubbubs and brags about the five Members yet afterwards when they were in their height of pride they in print did acknowledge and confess that Members might be arrested and detained for Treason Felony and other crimes though they would gladly smooth it up so farr as to make themselves Judges I shall say no more but that what Priviledge soever they have the Laws of our Land allow the same to the Clergy and their Servants and Familiars for that is the word in the Statute when call'd to a Convocation and this either in coming carrying or going home again CHAP. VII The beginning of the Presbyterians with the wicked Principles of the Ring-leaders of that Factious Sect. HAving thus hinted upon the Kings Prerogative the Origin of the Commons and their Priviledges by which 't is plain that the King is Supream and by
the 9 Lords was not unsignificant viz. That if he look'd for any preferment he must comply with them in their waies and not hope to have it by serving the King Words of such a Mandrake-sound that they would have astonished a Roman ear whose generosity and vertue made them raise a Temple to Fidelity But all bonds of obedience and loyalty were hurld off by these sons of contradiction and Majesty it self so farr disrepected that Martin could with confidence wipe his lips with the whore in the Proverb and think he had done no wrong when he affirmd that the Kings Office is forfeitable and that the happiness of this Kingdome doth not depend upon him or any of the Royall branches of that stock and this was seconded by that worshipful Champion Sir Henry Ludlow who peremptorily said that he was not worthie to be King of England Nor are these words unbefitting the Father of such a known Son as Edmud Ludlow one of the Kings noted Tryers and an immortal Enemy to all goodnesse Church-government and literature Nor did the whole Parliament speak little lesse then the former when they affirmed he had no negative vote call'd all his Actions illegall and his Letters Declarations and Proclamations scandalous and false forbidding people to be obedient to him upon pain of displeasure declaring all such as did to be Traitors Taxing him with an intention towards Popery O implacable Malice foisted into the world by these his back-friends and spread abroad with abundance of impudence and malice by their zealous Myrmidon and Journy-work-jobber Prynne one that if he had lived amongst the Malabars in the East-Indies where long eares is a Token of honour comlinesse and bravery would have been held a man of no great credit But the best on 't is Pryn's scandalous pamphlet call'd the Popish Royall Favourite i. e. the King was many years ago learnedly and industriously answer'd to the Honour of his Majesty honesty of the undertaker and discredit and confusion of the Mercury-admiring accuser And therefore Mr. Baxter was somewhat to blame to cull such false trifles out of Prynne to prove the King reconcileable to Rome though he believes he was no Papist and this ten years after the Kings Beheading But to return to the Parliament who will yeild to none in bitterness against his Majesty who protest to him when no nearer York then New-Market That they would make use of that power which they had for their security and professing in the same paper that it was not words that could secure them And what their intention was in this may be gathered by voting some few daies before That the Nation should be put into a posture of Defence and only by Authority of Parliament And all those Extravagancies were acted by the Parliament in opposition and discredit to the King before his Majesty had so much as one man either in offensive or defensive Armes in a publick way So that he might well admire at those who charg'd him to be the first beginner and raiser of this Warre Thus the Kings mildnesse gave encouragement to those furious spirits who never left plotting till they had fill'd England with more villanies then Rome is in the vacancy of her Popedome or Tacitus could reckon up in the front of his History and this by their unjust dealings with him by warre and such like wickednesses though they might have consulted the Apothegm of that great Goth Athanaricus being good Divinity Law and Reason that A King is a earthly God and whosoever rebels against him is guiltie of his own death Nor doth the great Father of the Church intimate to us lesse obedience to our Kings then the former But these men cared little for reason or authority in any but themselves as appears by those impudent and irrational Propositions sent to the King at New Castle when they were Masters and had him in hold whereby he would be but a King of clouts and the Nobility and Gentry of his party bound to hop headlesse Articles so palpably wicked that an Italian through his Majesty looks upon them as distructive both to Church and State Nor could lesse be expected from these men in the height of their Pride and prosperity when at the beginning of these wicked Warres long before the stroak at Edghill The good King weeping as it were over the approaching ruine of his Subjects earnestly endeavours to perswade the Parliament to a Reconciliation in the lamentable breathings of Tancredi to the violent Rinaldo Dimmi che pensi far vorrai le mani Del civil sangue tu dunque bruttarte E con le piaghe ind egnede ' Christiani Trafiger Cristo ond'ei son membra e perte c. Ah non per Dio vinci te stesso Tell me what mean you now Will you yet stain Your hands in your friends bloud by Civill Warre And by your killing Christians now again Pierce Christ his side of whom we members are c. Ah no for Gods sake conquer your passion Desiring that they might both lay down their Armes and recall all their papers against each other upon an appointed day and so enter into a Treaty But they being carryed along with a Spirit of contradiction like the Scotch Presbyter who railing against King Church and Government and being commanded by King James to speak either sense or come down replyed like himself I say man I 'se nowther speak sense nor come down They I say resolved to run counter absolutely declare that they will not think of peace till the King have taken down his Standard left his Armies repair'd to the Parliament that so justice might be done upon those who had adhear'd to them and how by this his Majesty himself could escape they having some few daies before taxed him with most mischievous Tyranny I know not And in the same paper the lands of all those who were of the Kings party were forfeited and I think it is not unknown how they were disposed on afterwards Nor need we doubt but those men who without Blushing could Vote the Queen a Traitor would not care to draw up some blood into their faces soe they might have their revenge on his Majesty And whether this clause For the preservation of his Majesties person was voted to be left out in the New modled Commission the Commons and my Lord Fairfaz know best and what the meaning of such a seclusion was the revolution of a few years did fully import Thus did the English use the King as the Scots did their James the third who hated him as Mr. Drummond informes us because he got the love of his people by Piety and Justice and having taken up armes against him would not hearken to any termes of reconciliation unlesse he freely resigned the title of his Crown and Realm in favour of his Son then in theirs Hands and voluntarily deposed himself
bradg'd of their Loyalty but if there be Knaves in all Families much more are there Rogues in all Provinces But not unlike to the former was the letter of Exceptions and Doubts made by sixteen Kentish Gentleman as they titled themselves directed from Maidstone to Speaker Lenthal for which they had not only his but the thanks of the house to boot In the next month the fatall stroak was given in which month for the more hastning of the Execution several Petitions made haste from many parts of the Nation to the same intent as the former One was presented to the General from the then Capt. Smiths Troop in Oxfordshire another from Hartfordshire with a third from Surrey and a hot-headed one from London to the House of Commons which was seconded by one from the Common-Councell of the same City to the same purpose and members But that which gave the deepest stroak of all was that Long winded Remonstrance from the General Counsel of Officers at St. Albans wherein after many extravagant expressions against his Majesty and some Common-wealth-like puny reasons for their so doing they think it fitting to proceed against the King the which thoughts of theirs they at last vomit out with more impudence malice and inhumanity then an Army of Savage Canabells could in these astonishing words That that capital and grand Author of our troubles the Person of the King may be speedily brought to justice for the Treason Blood and mischief he is guilty of Desires so abominably wicked that it is impossible for any but their inspiring Satan to give them a befitting descant And that they had before this an intention to alter the Government is palpable by the often consultations and proposals of their Agitators and themselves in 1647. about the Government of the Nation by succession of Parliaments some advising Biennial others Triennial and some other modells And now Cromwell and Ireton all along cheated the King under specious pretences Major Huntington demonstrated in his Articles against them to the Parliament Yet could Cromwell with good store of seeming sanctity by his natural brasen face presume to bring off all those his seeming pretensions for his Majesty under the Hypocritical and sacrilegious Vizard of profound Revelations from some Deity or other By which means he would seem to patronize all the Armies wickednesse upon Divinity So that the jugling humour of this Army well considered we may well question both the modesty and Religion of one of their scribling patrons who had confidence publickly to assert that the Nation had far lesse cause to be jealous of the innocency or integrity of the Army then the Disciples of Christ These treacherous dealings of a perfidious Army not a little assisted by the self-ended members brought his Majesty to his Tryall a thing found out but as a politick trick to blinde the people with their open intentions as may appear not only by their ridiculous indictment but their former votes and actions whereby 't is palpable that they were pre-resolved not only to alter the Government but also to cut him off as accordingly hapned to the astonishment of humanity And how ancient these wicked intentions of some of them were hatch'd was not a little hinted at by one of Cromwels Captains two years before at Daintry who then fully related the resolutions of the Army and himself to bring the King to destruction Nor was the Revelation of Mrs. Grace Cary of Bristol though I do not use to give credit to such whimms much out in this exactly pointing out before these Warrs the Beheading of the King And whether all Poets are Prophets or no need not here be discuss'd though I am confident that an ingenious Gentleman did prognosticate better then those time-serving Schismatical Scriblers Lilly Booker Culpepper or such like Sectaries when he sung the Requiem of the King and Kingdome at the beginning of the Warres They would not have the Kingdome fall By an ignoble Funerall But piously preferre the Nation To a Renowned Decollation The feet and lower parts 't is sed Would trample on and off the Head What e're they say this is the thing They love the Charles but hate the King To make an even Grove one stroak Should lift the shrub unto the Oake A new found musick they would make A Gamut but no Ela take This is the pious good intent Of Priviledge of Parliament Thus fell the best of men by the worst of Devills so that this one wicked action will verifie that old saying that Brittain is crouded with the multitude of Tyrants and the horrid Actors may be for the future judged by the more Noble inhabitants of Nicaragua in America who formerly as Solon appointed no Law for a mans killing of his Father had none for the murtherer of a King conceiving no man to be so unnatural as to commit such crimes And for that vast Chaos the City of London who thus basely suffred their King to be murthered before their faces their Ancestors will rise up in judgment against them nor will the valour of Sir William Walworth a former Lord Maior of that City be mentioned but in derision of those Schismaticks of late daies When King Richard the second was in danger of his Life and Crown by Wat Tylers Rebellion Walworth raising up the Citizens by crying out Yee good Citizens help your King that is to be murthered and succour me your Maior that am in the like danger Or if you will not succour me yet leave not your King destitute By means of which the Rebells were dispers'd and the King rescued This was the loyalty of that City in former times But how little they have trod the steps of their Ancestors let themselves judge and blush for shame For being no small occasion of the ruine of his Majesty The Beheading of whom puts me in minde of a story recorded in our Chronicles in King Richard the seconds time viz. Of an Image of Wax or an Head of Earth framed by Necromancy at Oxford which at a time appointed spake these words Caput decidetur caput elevabitur Pedes elevabuntur supra caput The Head shall be cut off the Head shall be lift up The feet shall be lift above the Head And never did it happen so true as at this time when a company of beggerly peasants by horrid Rebellion did not only cut off their Kings head but also made themselves supream But whether this was made for a prophesie or no I know not yet Nostradamus Physitian to Henry the second King of France one much given to predictions and in great repute in those times for them had a happy guesse when long since he prognosticated that Senat de Londres metront a mort leur Roy. The London Parliament shall kill their King An action so treacherous that it would not be expected from the Devill himself after so many vows and protestations
call God to witness that though our quarrel be against the Malignant party for his Majesties sake yet not in that sense as is here affirmed but out of our Loyalty and affection to his Majesty Shall not the frequent protestations of both Houses of Parliament for his Majesties security to the utmost power that the Law can give to them or they unto the Law be sufficient to take away the pretence of danger to his Majesties Person To think they i. e. the Militia or Army would have followed us in any Act of dis-loyalty against his Majesty if we should have been so wicked as to have had them to do it Thus you see what glorious protestatious are here for the preservation of the King which I dare boldly say did ingage many honest men to joyn with the Parliament really dreaming that those men who have thus so solemnly vow'd before the Almighty to preserve the King and Laws must be men of publick honest spirits and not to be drawn though by chains of gold the wealth of Peru or East-Indies to the magnifying of their own Interest and the relinquishing of that publick Good to which they have tyed themselves by so many oaths And after the same manner did the City of London declare themselves by Petition Yet let their Promises Vows or Protestations be never so many a French Poet sings not amiss S'il promen s'il rit de sa promesse faile C'est qu'il en jure en Amant ou qu'il parle en Poëte He that doth swear and ne're means to do it Swears like a Lover or sings like a Poet. And really if experience may be a rule 't is more then probable that many of the Members had learn'd the Jesuit's rule by them call'd The Direction of the Intention whereby you may do any wickness if you propose to your self a good intent And after this manner hath our former Rebels blanch'd over their designs Wat Tyler and his Companions pretended onely to act against King Richards the seconds evil Counsel but if they had once got to have been Masters their intentions were to have kill'd the King and Nobility Jack Cade and his rabble under the colour of holy and good intents rais'd a Rebellion against King Henry the sixth and what iniquities such rubbish of humanity would have acted if they had been Masters is not known The Cornish rusticks under the notion to deliver King Henry the seventh from evil Council rais'd a Rebellion And the subtile Fox in Chaucer profest he onely came to hear the Cock sing but when by that craft he had once got hold of him the case and story was alter'd And after this deceitful manner acted the Parliament if you will give any credit to one of the King 's greatest enemies who thus informs us So powerful perswasive and contentful were their first Engagements Papers and Remonstances so fraught with self-denying doctrines tender regard to the peace of the Nation and satisfaction to all Interests as even lull'd all peaceable people into a sound sleep of security casting all the care upon the General Council of the Army as upon a people they thought could never have the face to decline either these principles or to neglect the performance of so many Engagements Promises and Protestations made as in the presence of the All-seeing God frequently calling upon him the searcher of all hearts to bear witness to their integrity and sincerity therein Insomuch that we who always with some wissness observed them many times denied our own understandings rather then we would draw hasty conclusions from evident testimonies of their defection And this principle of believing but especially their publick multiplyed affections for the preservation of the King were the motions which led Major General Massey to joyn himself to the Parliament as himself declareth and that they led many others is more then probable We see by experience that Religion is rooted into some men not so much by good and true reason as by birth and education the which if after they change is as oft for the worse as the contrary 'T is custome and fashion that over-powers or rather overthrows the rationality of all men The Indian women of Tiembas have always torn and bloody faces by which lacerating they judge themselves most beautiful The Goths gloried in a tall corpulent King on the contrary the Saracens liked none unless he were little and lean Custome hath made it as natural to a Brittish Presbyterian as it is to all Schismaticks to babble up sedition as to the Spaniard to court gravity whilst their neighbouring French affect an active airyness The Teneriff or Pico shall sooner shrink to Mole-hills the name of the Escurial be forgot and the great Tun at Heidleburgh fill'd with Renish-wine but a mornings draught to a Pigmie then a Non-conformist cease from being disobedient or our Disciplinarians as if they had been stuft with a Biscayners ignorance and spirit from hating and persecuing our lawful government of Bishops and how sedulous and crafty they have been to inveagle themselves into other mens affections is not unknown Many who take exception at Government can produce no other reason for their dissent but because others do so too so that to sin with company is thought by them rather a glory then shame If a great man take distast at Majesty he is confident to have most of his Relations and Servants of his opinion being apt to run as blindly into their Master's quarrel as their own ruin Nor is it a difficult thing among such variety of humours to entise some into the greatest wickedness some mens malice so far overclouding their reason that like Le Faucheur and Chauvinus they destroy those spectacles which should give them a sight and knowledge of truth and reality of the business by the malignity and wicked humours of their eyes and spirits Other men though their Grandeur of estate or affection with the people may after espouse them to be ring-leaders of the rabble yet at first were rather entised themselves then they the instruments of others wickedness Juam de Padilla's fault was that he was young good natur'd and so easily wrought upon by his haughty wife Donna Maria Pacheco to rebel against Charles the fifth And many others have been led the same way 'T is observed that Dod Pedro Lasso's sweet disposition love to justice and publick good engaged him in the same quarrel being noted for one clearly without malice but by the Inhabitants of Toledo hug'd into Treason and what influence great Cities have upon the people London knoweth too too well Many men through the hatred of some other person by way of Revenge and what more sweet and inticing may be drawn into Factions and so to espouse a bad quarrel to work their malice upon private enemies as the Venavides and Caravajales two noble familes in Castile or the Feuds antiently in
to have been so abused or had they had ever any reall intentions of peace they would never have permitted these Roysters to have widened the breach by their perpetual prating against Treaties But both of them were well agreed against peace especially the Parliament hated a personal Treaty by all means lest any of them should be convinced of his error as a former Earl of Ormond was He was a Fryer of St. Francis Order call'd Vincent and through mis-information thought our King Henry V to have been the most wicked man in the world and so thought his Warre unjust in France but after a little discourse with the King himself he was so satisfied on the contrary that he thus bespake the Kings Army My Lords and Masters all see ye that ye do to the King your Master diligent and true service as you have till now well done For in your so doing you shall well please God This morning before I came hither I believed that the King your Maister had been the greatest Tyrant among all other Princes Christian but now I perceive the contrary for I assure you He is the most acceptable unto God of all them that be here present this day and his Quarrel is so just and true that undoubtedly God is and shall be his Aide in all these Warres And this is not much unlike the Reply of that great sufferer the Noble Marquesse of Worcester to the Maior of Bala in Merioneth-shire who came to excuse himself and Town for his Lordships bad Lodging Lord what a thing is this misunderstanding I warrant you might but the King and Parliament conserre together as you and I have done there might be as right an understanding as betwixt you and I. Some body hath told the Parliament that the King was an Enemy and their believing of him is such hath wrought all the jealousies which are come to these distractions The Parliament being now in such a case as I my self am in having green Eares over their Heads and false Ground under their Feet Had the Presbyterians been content with the concessions granted them by his Majesty farre above their desert or cause they might have enjoyed peace and liberty and the government to boot but their resolutions to have all was the cause of their losing all by the intervening of the Independents Not unlike the Clown to whom St. Bernard promis'd his Mule whereon he then rode if he could say the Lords Prayer without the interposition of any vain thoughts The fellow very glad of the bargain falls a saying Pater Noster c. but before he had said half there came an idle thought into his head whether St. Bernard would give him the Bridle and Saddle too which making him faulter and confesse the truth he lost all I shall not here trouble my self to rake up all the sedition of that Scotch fire-brand Mr. Robert Bailey but only tell you that he greatly wonders that the Reverend Lord Bishop of London-Derry should deny so grand a Presbyterian Maxime viz. That it is altogether lawfull for the Parliament to take up arms for the defence of the liberties or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his Laws And of all this who must be judge but themselves But I shall tell you the passages of one or two great men now alive and great Bustlers in London against our true Church Mr. George Cockain of Pancras Soperlane London whence Mr. Eccop was sequestred plundred forced to fly and his Wife and Children turn'd out of doors This Cockain held forth before the Commons and whether or no he did not presse them to murther his Sacred Majesty let any man judge by these his following words Think not to save your selves by an unrighteous saving of them who are the Lords and the peoples known enemies You may not Imagine to obtain the favour of those amongst whom you will not do justice For certainly if you act not like Gods in this particular against men truly obnoxious to justice they will be like Devils against you Observe that place 1 Kings 22. 31. compared with chap. 20. It is said in chap. 20. That the King of Syria came against Israel and by the mighty power of God he and his Army were overthrown and the King was taken Prisoner Now the mind of God was which he then discovered only by that present providence that justice should have been executed upon him but it was not whereupon the Prophet comes with Ashes on his face and waited for the King of Israel in the way where he should return and as the King passed by he cryed unto him thus saith the Lord Because thou hast let go a man whom I appointed for destruction therefore thy life shall go for his Life Now see how the King of Syria after this answers Ahab's love About three years after Israel and Syria engage in a new Warre And the King of Syria gives command unto his Souldiers that they should fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Benhadad's life was once in Ahabs hands and he ventured Gods displeasure to let him go but see how Benhadad rewards him for it Fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Honourable and worthy if God do not lead you to do justice upon those that have been the great Actors in shedding innocent blood never think to gain their love by sparing of them For they will if opportunnity be ever offerd return again upon you and then they will not fight against the poor and mean ones but against those that have been the Fountain of that Authority and Power which have been improved against them Was not this spoke in very good time viz. Just upon the breaking off the Isle of Wight-Treaty and when the Great ones were consulting about the Kings Tryall which may serve for a Comment upon the Author If you shake your head at Cockain I make no question but you will bite your nailes when you hear the plain dealing of one of their Chiefrains his words I shall give you upon the honesty and ingenuity of Mr. Roger L'estrange for I have not the Sermon by me This spruce piece of Rebellion in one of his Preachments before one of Oliver's Parliaments like a zealous Covenanter thus delivered himself Worthy Patriots You that are our Rulers in this Parliament 't is often said we live in times wherein we may be as good as we please Wherein we enjoy in purity and plenty the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Prais'd be God for this even that God who hath delivered as from the imposition of prelatical Innovations Altar-genuflections and cringings with crossings and all that Popish Trash and Trampery And truly I speak no more then what I have often thought and said The removal of these insupportable Burdens countervails for the blood and treasure shed
this Objection may sound harsh in a Presbyterians ear who do not love to hear of their Iniquities yet that famous Geneva Bull Stephen Marshall can out-rore this though its clamours were as loud as the Nilan Thunderings of Catadupa Noysing it out to the World that if he had been so slain it had been none of the Parliaments fault for he might have kept himself farther off if he pleas'd These men rail against the Pope as Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and their wording is all for they never yet proved it but whether they do not both tread in the same way both taking upon them to depose Kings let those who are skill'd in Story judge yet for my part I think that one of our Countrey-men was not amiss in this They depose Kings by force by force you 'll do 't But first use fair means to perswade them to 't They dare kill Kings now 'twixt you here 's the strife You dare shoot at the King to save his life And what 's the difference pray whether they fall By the Popes Bull or your Oxe-General Three Kingdoms you have striv'd to make your own And like the Pope usurp a Triple-Crown But somewhat more to this purpose the former Writer thus reasoneth If in matter of Supream Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King Why then did the Presbyterian Party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand men who by accident of Warr had the power though not the Chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments Case it was alwayes conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have kill'd them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirk of Scotland long ago sent him a Bill of Divorce unless he satisfied for the bloud of three Kingdoms Which of the two Parties it was that at last kill'd him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those Parties as to that Act differ'd no more than Diminutio and Obtruncatio Capitis do for they who after a long Warr and by long Imprisonment dispoil'd him of that Regal power did according to the Term of the Civil Law Diminuere Caput Regis and they who in Consequence of his Civil death took away his Natural life did Obtruncare Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an Action of Warr before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier Commission have answer'd for his life For the more clearing of this I shall desire Jack Presbyter to resolve me these two Quaeries First Whether he doth approve of Cook ' s Appeal or Vindication of the King's Tryal except where he demands Justice though I need not except it If he doth take him Jaylor and Lord have mercy upon him But if he doth not then Secondly Whether he can shew me any thing in that Hellish piece of Treason except when Cook doth vindicate his Majesty from some slanders but I can show the same wickedness in Books publish'd by the Authority of Presbyterians or made and printed by people of that Faction For a piece of Parallel I shall at present point you to one or two Instances See The Mystery of Iniquity yet working in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Printed for Sam. Gellibrand 1643. Declaration of the Commons of England concerning no farther Address or Application to be made to the King 1647. A Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to his Majesty 1645. Mr. Robert Douglas being Moderator whose Sermon at Scoon 1651. you may also read John Vicars his several lying and scandalous Pamphlets And the several Presbyterian Books and expressions mentioned in this Book needless now to be repeated And to this purpose thus saith the learned Mr. Rich. Watson Whosoever will take the pains to compare the particulars in the Scottish Remonstrance which they brought in their hands when they came in upon the Covenant with those in the accursed Court proceeding against his late Royal Majesty may be able to do Dorislaw Steel Cook c. some little courtesie in their credit and plead for them that they drew not up but only Transcrib'd a Charge brought long since from Edenburgh to London Thus both Parties think the King alike guilty though it was the Presbyterian that first perswaded the Independent to think him so Then here must be all the difference The first declares him abominably wicked the latter being credulous believes the Declaration One part cowardly deliver him up I shall not hint upon the word selling to Execution and the other being more hardy strike the stroak Not that by this I lessen the wickedness of a Rumper as I cannot excuse that of a secluded Member since the latter knowingly destroy'd and kill'd the King 1642. the other under the notion of a private man murther'd Charles Stuart six years after The Laws of the Land not only in Killing but also in Fighting against the Kings Command making it Treason How to that Heaven did this Pilot Steer 'Twixt th' Independent and the Presbyter Plac'd in the Confines of two shipwracks thus The Greeks are seated 'twixt the Turks and Vs Whom did Bizantium free Rome would condemn And freed from Rome they are enslav'd by Them So plac'd betwixt a Precipice and Wolf There the Aegean here the Venice-gulf What with the rising and the setting Sun By these th' are hated and by those undone Thus Vertue 's hemm'd with Vices and though either Solicites her Consent she yields to neither Nay thus our Saviour to enhance his grief Was hung betwixt a Murderer and a Thief What the Powder-plot intended the Independent acted and I am confident the Presbyterians acted more mischief than Faux or his Complices Both of them were stopt in their designs and actions Only we know how farr the Romanists would have gone but we cannot understand what would have been the conclusion of the Puritans Villanies As we have a fifth of November in memory of one so shall we never think of the third of November but in detestation of the other two If the Presbyter would repent his former Vindications of the late Rebellion against their King It would convert the Act of Indempnity into one of Oblivion and people instead of dashing them in the teeth with their Iniquities would pitty their former blindness But when at this day they still continue in the same faults 't is not a sign of infirmity but real malice and enmity to that which is good Still we hear them perswade the people to the legality of the late Warr and that by consequence the same may be lawful against the Son which was against the Father and that upon such petit jealousies as their factious brains can possess the poor people with all whose easie natures are accustomed to take Pique against any thing that their hot-spurr'd Parson
O the height of Puritanical Malice were I a Caesar Vaninus I would call Presbytery the Father of Lies His enemies the Independents are farr more Civil in this than these Brethren of which I shall give you one or two Instances enough to cleer his Majesty from this Presbyterian slander John Cook then of Grays-Inn Barrister his Immortal foe when it was his purpose to cast all the filth that he could upon the King with an intention to make him odious to Eternity yet even then doth cleer him of this I do not think that the King was a Papist or that he design'd to introduce the Popes Supremacy in spiritual things into this Kingdome Nor that I think he did believe Transubstantiation God forbid I should wrong the dead And another of his profest Enemies viz. Will. Lilly thus vindicates the King He was no Papist or favour'd any of their Tenents And because an Enemies Commendation is held Authentick you shall see what a good King he was according to their own Opinions Of him thus saith the aforesaid Cook who yet demanded Justice against him for which Treason he since felt the Law He was well known to be a great student in his younger dayes He had more learning and dexterity in State affairs undoubtedly then all the Kings in Christendome And thus farther saith Lilly He was an excellent Horsman would shoot well at a Mark had singular skill in Limming and Pictures A good Mathematitian not unskilful in Musick well read in Divinity excellently in History and no lesse in the Laws and Statutes of this Nation He had a quick and sharp Conception would write his mind singularly well and in good language and style only he loved long Parentheses He would apprehend a matter in Difference betwixt party and party with great readiness and methodize a long matter and Contract it in few lines Insomuch that I have heard Sir Robert Holdorne oft say He had a quicker Conception and would sooner understand a Case in Law or with more sharpness drive the matter unto a head than any of his Privy Council Insomuch that when the King was not at the Council Table Sir Robert never car'd to be there He had also amongst others his special gifts the gift of patience Insomuch that if any offer'd him a long Discourse or Speech he would with much Patience and without any Interruption or Distaste hear their Story or Speech out at length He did not much court the Ladies He had exquisite judgement by the Eye and Physiognomy to discover the virtuous from the wanton he honour'd the virtuous He was nothing at all given to Luxury was extreme sober both in his Food and Apparel He could argue Logically and frame his Arguments Artificially If these qualities confest by an enemy do not make a good man Jack Presbyter can have small hopes to be so who hated him because he was too vertuous for them as the Devill envies honesty Amongst all the Plots and Designes these men have to overthrow the Church of England 't is none of the least to ruine its Glory by making it contemptible by Poverty For which purpose they endeavour to get all the Bishops Lands alienated or sold Dr. Burgess being their Champion and they will never question Law as long as Prynne hath any malice who toils and writes what he can to get the Lands confirm'd as they were sold by his Associates those Sacrilegious of the wicked long Parliament who impiously sold the Church Revenues to maintain their Rebellion against God and their King Had they been the Doners they might have had a more plausible Plea for their Alienation but since these Lands were given by other Pious and Noble Benefactors it shews their Devillish Avarice and Malice to meddle with or pocket up that which they had no claime to nor power over being but a Rump of two Houses actually in Rebellion against their King and so had no more Authority to conclude and act in such an high Concern without and against the consent of the King than the Pope hath to give away this or that Kingdom upon his form of Excommunication to any of his Favorites that can win it and wear it or poor Simnell had to the Crown in King Henry VII time Yet to have this wickedness confirm'd Burges and his Associats will offer severall hundred thousand pounds to his Majesty by way of gift thereby to hook him in to be pertakers of their sins a Presbyterian being like a Common Drunkard who is not satisfy'd with his own Excess but makes it his business that all his Neighbours too should be partners with him in his wickedness and debauchery But his Majesty is too Sacred and good to be toll'd away by such Miscreants it shews their abominable Impudence to imagine to perswade the Son to be an Enemy to the Church whose Father was a Glorious Martyr for it as if they would shew him a better way and Rule than the Example and Footsteps of his holy Parent To me it seems a strange piece of malicious Ignorance in them who will allow some knavish Lawyers to get by their prating some ignorant Physitians by distruction some cousening Trades-men by false dealing and some murthering Souldiers by plundring for some such there are in all faculties though their callings be lawfull and commendable two three or four Thousand pounds a year and yet think it an hard case or unlawful for a Reverend Bishop or Clergy-man who hath spent many years and all his own means in hard study and is held the most honourable preferment as much as the Soul excels the Body to possess that which other good charitable men have freely given him since such a deed of gift is so farr from endamaging our Presbyterian Grumblers that it is a main encouragement for their studies and preferment If they say as I have heard that these Benefactorships were given not to the men but the Diocesses by this retort they malepertly reflect upon the Kings discretion whose wisdom thinks such men fit for and capable of such Places But by this they may as well reason against Colledge and Hospital Lands and the Commons belonging to Corporations and when they have once taken these away they will eat up one another through avarice But enough of this only there was some ground for the observation that the only way to preferment was to be a busling Non-conformist Besides these and others they have another way to shake the foundation of Episcopacy and the peace of the Nation They know full well that nothing seems more formidable to the vulgar then a story of Gods strange judgments upon this or that And if they question the verball Narrative shew it them in print and 't is sufficient they having not confidence enough to deny that which cometh from the Press The story of a Spirit will fright these people out of their little witts and the relation of such a terrible
In the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms In which cases too themselves will be Judges so that the meaning is this as hath been proved before by several examples If the King will not obey the Covenant they are sworn not to obey nor defend the King 3. § By this Oath they commit absolute High Treason by nulling several Acts of Parliament made for the Preservation of the King and his friends For here they swear to bring to Publick Tryal to receive Condign Punishment the Kings best Subjects and Friends under the notion of Malignants whom they thus describe Evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion Dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant And that justice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof By this they quite overthrow all Government making Loyalty Treason and Rebellion the only sign of a good Subject And how severe they stick to this murthering Article you shall see by one passage In the year 1646. the Parliament remaining Conquerours many of the Loyal Party thought it fit to compound for their Estates better to have something than nothing Amongst those in the County of Chester who were put to this hardship were Mr. Richard Brereton of Ashley Mr. John Wilson and others This highly perplext the Committee then at Chester who therefore wrote several Letters to the Youths at Goldsmiths-Hall desiring them never to take such friends to the King into Composition and one of their great sticklers at Chester Mr. S. C. thus delivers the Opinion of himself and his friends about this business The Gentlemen here conceive they are bound in Conscience and by their late National Covenant to do their duty in their place to bring Delinquents to condign punishment Here they will have no mercy but stick close to their wicked Principles And this Oath must receive no Interpretation For if we endeavour but to mitigate it then some strange curse or other will tumble upon the Nation as Crofton not long since affirm'd His Sacred Majesty and the Kingdom must submit to the plain and literal sense thereof though it seem as sower Grapes unless we will by Gods wrath set our own and childrens Teeth on edge 4. § The Covenant if it were in force would be the cause and maintainer of Rebellion for ever for in it they also swear to assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof by which means they oblige themselves to all acts of hostility in its behalf though the King and Parliament as is now done should find reason for its nullity and 't is well known how oft they deny'd and defied their King upon this score O the Obedience and Charity of a Covenanter who like the wicked Jews combine together by Oath to kill those more holy than themselves needs must the malice of these men be so violent that they may be excus'd from saying the Lords-Prayer the very clause of forgiving their Enemies being enough to fright them into Dispair I wish I could say Repentance but that is a thing their zealous fury will not give them so much as leave to think on all of them hurryed on with that bloody rage as to cry out with that Levite in the Poet Blood Blood Blood destroy O Lord The Covenant-Breaker with a two-edg'd Sword Yet this Imp of wickedness the Brethren will not cast off The London-Ministers professing all the power on Earth cannot absolve them from it And Zach. Crofton keeps a great deal of clutter publickly affirming that it doth not only bind those who took it but those also who did not and that the Obligation of this Oath is for ever binding from Generation to Generation And in another of his flaunting Pamphlets he assureth the Reader That he doth and cannot but do it now contest for and assert the Solemn League and Covenant in that Religious part which must be promoted with out-most Zeal by all who wish well to the King and Kingdom though the Devil and his Instruments do endeavour to damp deaden and divert the discharge of duty And then afterwards tells them that Gods wrath will fall upon the King and Kingdom if Episcopacy be not extirpated and the Covenant observed to its literal sense and plain meaning And as they would thus continue it in fury so did they begin it as I have shew'd you before however I shall afford you one other piece of Canting confidence Mr. Andrew Cant the Father for the Son is now as bad in one of his Sermons at Glasgow told the Scots concerning their Covenant That he was sent to them with a Commission from Christ to bid them subscribe the Covenant which was Christ's contract and that he himself was come a Wooer to them for the Bridegroom and call'd upon them to come to be hand-fasted by subscribing that Contract And told them plainly That he would not depart the Town till he got the names of all who should refuse to subscribe that Contract of whom he promis'd to complain to his Master i. e. Christ As for the Obligation of the Covenant they themselves are sometimes forced to deny it unless they will make it a particular exception against all General Rules When the Scots in 1639. were a little troubled that Episcopacy was not absolutely abjured in their former Oaths which many thought binding to them The Covenanters thinking to take away that rub that all men might with more freeness embrace their Covenant declare publickly to the World that the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescriber of the Oath nor his own meaning but as the Authority shall afterwards interpret it and then by this Heathenish rule what will become of the binding force of the Covenant at this time Which is void also in the opinion of a great Presbyterian under the name of Theophilus Timorcus who thus shews himself Suppose that upon mature deliberation the Ministers that subscribed and took the Oath of Canonical Obedience find that it was an unlawful Oath or Subscription They are in such case only obliged to be humbled for their rash subscription and taking of that Oath and their second Oath against them will hold valid Now if they think this a sufficient salvo I shall only insert these four words Holy League and Covenant instead of the fore-mentioned four words Oath of Canonical Obedience and think the Absolution sufficient according to their own Argument Mr. Crofton tells us that the Oath which the King taketh at his Coronation for the defence of Bishops is of small validity because limited to the Laws of the Land But will this subordinate it to the Covenant Or will he make a little scribble-scrabble of a few perjured Rebels to be the Law of the Land If the