Earls and Barons without the scum of the Vulgar Patri Doctor 't is most true that upon the first view that remnant which so lately sate at Westminster in most mens understanding seemed to be no other then an usurped power and these back't by the Souldier but when we come to the Examination of their mutilation and how their number came to be diminished you will be of another minde for as the Author of the Kings Life and Raign exactly lays it down and resolves this doubt and tells you by whom it was first lamed and disordered this we all know that it was at first legally summoned by the Kings Writ with Lords Bishops and Commons which by your favour are not the scum of the people but as good Gentlemen as any of the Lords but as afterwards it fell out by the Kings practises and artifices it was first lessned in both Houses near to a moity to make up his Mungril Parliament at Oxford and yet the King himself and that Conventicle both calls them and acknowledges these at Westminster to be a Parliament though much against his will The late reliâ—k of the old Parliament though lamed and lessened by the late King and 't is a plain case that since the exclusion of another party by the Souldier that remainder or relick was still the Parliament and stood upon the same feet as 't was first summoned 3 Nov. 1640. with their full number and that piece of a Parliament left as you call them acted by the same power so that you must always take Powers in their present being not as they have been when inforc't from their old presidents and usages which I finde not to have been always one and of the same form but varied in all Ages according to the Revolutions of times and accidents for without all question that Magnum Consilium or Commune Consilium as Caesar calls it of the old Britons was not altogether Caesa Com. lib. 5. of the self-same form with the Witenagomots of the Saxons neither those with the Parliaments as they were after called on the coming in of the Normans and since the Conquest we finde them very much to vary Parliaments throughout all Ages not one the same in form though in substance neither is there any Record extant that shews the time when the late form with King Lords Spiritual and Temporal with the Commons had its institution but doubless 't is both a new and false assertion that the Commons had not their free voyce from the first foundation of Parliaments to this present as it evindently appears by the citations within mentioned which are authentick and incontradictable as for instance Quarto conquestoris Rex fecit summonâ—ri per universos consulatus Anglos nobiles sapientes sua lege eruditos ut eorum jura consuetudines ab ipsis audiret the fourth year of William the Conqueror the King caused to be summoned out of every Country of England all the Nobility the wise men and all such as were Learned in the Laws to the end that he might hear and understand what their Laws and customs were Hoved lib. de Litchfield Moreover Hen. 1. apud fontem Clericorum fecit summoneri omnes Arch-Epis Episcopos Abbates omnes nobiles Angliae sapientes omnes incolas Regni The King caused a summons go Clerkenwel of all the Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots all the Nobles Wise men and all the Inhabitants or as I conceive by Incolas the chief dwellers in the Kingdom which seems to be a multitudinous Aslembly Math. Paris Edm. de Loud Again Hov. 2. decimo Reg. praesentibus Arch-Epis Episcopis Abbattibus Prio. Comitibus proceribus Regni Math Paris But Hoveden Fitz-Steven make mention of Clerus Populus the Clergy and People to be then assembled the tenth of Henry the Second being present the Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls and Barons together with the Clergy and people Paris calls this Assembly Generale Consilium a General Councel Now amongst many other presidents I shall only instance in one or two more viz. Sexto Ioban at Oxford Communi consensu Arch-Epis Episcoporum Comitum Baronum omnium fidelium nostrorum Angliae by the common consent of Arch-bishops Bishops Earls Barons all our faithful men of England Parl. Rot. pat 5. there are some presidents which only mention Barones liberos bomines totius Regni onely the Barons and all the free-men of the Realm tempore Henrici 3. and another of this reign and before the Grant of the great Charter hath it Convocatum est Londoniis praesidente Arch-Epis cum toto Clero tota Sect a Laicalâ— An Assembly at London the Arch-bishops being President with all their Clergy and all the Laicks without any mention of Earls Barons or Bishops Auth. Eulog which seems to be a strange kinde of Parliament so that in an hundred more of Presidents which may be instanced it will manifestly appear that our antient Parliaments though they are acknowledged for a National meeting made and un-made Laws according to the vicissitude of times yet were they not always of one constant and set form though tending to no other and the self-same end salus populi the safety and conservation of the people by their Enacting such Laws as then were thought fit to be established for the common welfare of the Nation to which all our Laws and Statutes in the same words have special reference though 't is confest in ancient times often varied in the form but never from the end And 't is very observable that neither the ancient summons to our Parliaments were always of one stamp but varied in Neither that the summons to our Parliaments are of one and the self same form most our Kings Raigns sure we are that last of the kings was much different from those of old which evermore had in them inserted viz. ad tractandum consulendum ordinandum cum nobis c. the principle Gerund Ordinandum being purposely omitted least it might intimate a greater power in the Commons to act by then the King was willing they should have just in the same manner as the Archbishop curtald the most material clause of the Kings Coronation Oath that so he might assume to himself a greater power then of right belonged unto him but this is a subject which to dispute to the full would take up more time then we can at present well spare onely in a word that the Commons sate not in our ancient Parliaments and that now they onely sit there where the King and Lords sate alone without them Truly Doctor I retract not from that which I have often said viz. that these late times have produced such Monsters of men such Traytors and shameless Vipers that have endevoured to blot out of memory those ancient Rights and Liberties which the Natives have for so many hundred years enjoyed and to devour the mother that bare them most
Refractoria Disputatio OR The Thwarting Conference IN A DISCOVRSE BETWEEN Thraso One of the late Kings Colonels Neutralis A sojourner in the City Prelaticus A Chaplain to the late King Patriotus A well-willer to the Parliament All of them differently affected and disputing on the subjects inserted after the Epistle on the dissolution of the late PARLIAMENT and other changes of STATE Porv. 12. 15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes but he that hearkneth unto counsel is wise The wise man foreseeth the evil to come and preventeth it Eccles LONDON Printed by Robert White and are to be sold by Thomas Brewster at the three Bibles in Pauls Church-yard 1654. To the intelligent Reader whether Royalist Malignant or howsoever affected Gentlemen IT is a facete observation of * Mouâ—tague in his Essays a Person of honour that a diligent Reader may apprehend more then the Author himself ever meant or intended If then it shall be either thy fortune or neglect in reading this Thwarting Conserence to understand less then is intended for the general instruction that 's the Readers fault none of the Authors If so much as is presented for the rectification of particular mens judgements doubtful of their own principles and unsettled in their minds here is that which if they be afore-hand not infatuated will compose their distractions out of the whole the Reader may recollect his memory in some particulars of State as haply are either forgotten or unknown unto him and so he may take a review of things past as they were caried on in their various and mystical traverses of Court and thence to foresee what may be the event of the late miraculous change of Government If on thy first view of the Title thou findest any itching desire to know the scope and whereat the Discourse ayms as all novelties provoke appetite take this in the way of an advertisment that here are vetera vera novaque intermixta old true and new passages cursorily presented in an interlocutory Conference then look over to the next page and haply the Contents may set a new edge on thy desires then read all or none and not unlikely thou mayst go very neer henceforth to know how to order thy self to the best advantage under the present powers and therewith judge of the universal destiny of the Nation should it revert into Monarchy and on casting up of thy accompt take these following Animadversions into thy more serious consideration first with what labor travel care and vexation of spirit the two late Kings even from the very Ingress to their Crowns to the period of their days prepared the way to their own ruines by pursuing their ambitious designs of heightning their Soveraignties above and beyond the bounds and limits thereof whereas with much honour love loyalty content and profit to themselves peace pleasure security and tranquillity to their Subjects they might have spent those their vexatious days in the full fruition of all worldly happiness But intoxicated with those restless desires of greatness and of ambition to climb above the right end and orb of Government and inflamed with those over-high heats of strengthning themselves with that frail support of the arm of flesh verified in that their long continued and chargable negotiations to contract Alliances and intermarriages with Spain and France Families of contrary and Idolatrous Religions aspirations which were never yet prosperous to Princes professing as they pretended the purity of Religion without intetmixtures what Apologies and Defences have been made either by themselves living or by others surviving and exposed to the world in vindication of their actions and too too manifest errors are no other then the superfluity and fineness of mens wits byassed without judgement to discern between truth and falshood the infallible testimonies of humane frailty and the Devils juglings onely to deceive the common belief whereas truth is still the same and will one day clearly appear and discover those dark traces and ambages of the greatest Masters of Art and Policy though for a time they may be inveloped and hidden from the sight of the Vulgar and happily predominate on the credulity of too many that think themselves wise above the ordinary sort yet at length they must be unmask't and layd open to the Worlds view for magna est veritas c. and it cannot be resisted 'T is most true they were Princes of great parts and endowments though now in another World whether we must all follow to render an accompt of our Stewardships howsoever without prejudice to their memories both for our own and the instruction of posterity we may take into observation what they were living and what instruments they made use of for carying on their ambitious Designs to their own dishonour the blemish of their fames the disturbance of their domestick peace the publick tranquillity and of that secure settlement which the old King found here in a most perfect establishment on the decease of that unparalleld Princess Elizabeth and as to the late most unfortunate King to the destruction of three flourishing Kingdoms himself his Posterity the Royalty and the ruine of many of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England Scotland and Ireland In the next Scene we may take a short view of that remarkable fate which befel the Authors Promoters Incendiaries and principal Workmasters both Ecclesiastical and Civil both before and throughout the whole managery of the late prodigious War and work of darkness to their own ruine as a just reward to such as in assistance and advance of a lawless and unlimited Soveraignty most unnaturally and treacheously steered in the Regal course of attaining and well-nigh to the accomplishing of more absolute power over the three Nations then ever was attempted on the Theator of this Kingdom whence we may learn and set up our rests on these infallible Aphorismes that Consilium malum consultoribus pessimuÌ„ evil counsel is most inauspicious to the Councellours themselves and on that other which by lamentable experience we have found most true Quicquid delirant Reges plectuntur Achivi whatsoever Kings project the poor innocent people must suffer for all and for their faults Gentlemen to come a little neerer unto you and more openly to explain my self you have in the following Discourse not onely a part of the old case between King and Parliament cursorily disputed but what the issue in all probability will be in case the Scotch King cometh in by the sword with the fearful consequences thereof both in relation to your selves and the universal people ye may by the way remember what work the late King made in all parts of the Land wheresoever his Armies and Garrisons were how many Counties he made the constant seats of a furious and bloody War how long he continued to embrew the land with innocent blood even to desolation in how many places the poor Inhabitants had neither bread left them to eat nor
us reason this case amongst our selves in moderation and with patience and let the first Quere be whether the States Government as 't is now setled or shortly may be with our present Contributions for payment of their Armies wil not be more safe and easie for the people then the Scotch Pretenders coming in by force of Arms to assume the Kingly Government Since by a peaceable and conditional way I suppose he will never be admitted So that Doctor without all question he hath no choice left him but that of the sword and then judge you of the issue and into what a lamentable condition the poor Natives will necessarily be reduced when the right of the crown comes again to be disputed on English ground the king as you would have him being personally present And after this Quere Let us compute the hopes helps strengths and assistances whereon both parties may depâ—nd for support of each others cause For one battel either by Sea or Land happily will not determine the controversie as t was conceived by some that one battel as that at Edghill in the begining of the late wars would decide the business which proved to be like the pullulation of the Monster Hidra's head which begot others in infinitum and when the late King was in person in the head of his Aâ—my Of the hopes assistances and Forces which the Scotch King may have to recover the Kingly Government compared with the strengths the States have to maintain the present Government argued on all hands I say then Let us make an â—stimate of the forces and assistances of each party which on a due examination and on consideration of that which must necessarily follow when at once as we may conjecture two four or happily six several Armies may be in the field will be so far from easing or dâ—sburchening of the people that what by free Quartering and inforcing of contributions by one or the other party that the Natives will curse the time that ever your King came amongst them Now Gentlemen do one of you tell me what Forces and Assistances as you conceive the King may have or presume upon for I believe he will come short of his expectation in receiving any considerable Assistance either from the Scotch or Irish and then I will tell you that which all men and your selves do know to be most true what the States here have and may have as well in their present power by Sea and Land as by their Politique managery in fastning friends unto them whereby to make good the present establishment Colonel You being a Souldier and not unlikely having better Intelligence from abroad then any of us what preparations the Scots King hath in forraign parts what friends at home and elsewhere begin you if you please and I will rejoyn Thraso With all my heart In the first place I 'le assure you that since the death of the late King my Royal Master his Majesty that now is whom the States here would exclude hath ten friends for one more then he had before thoughout the three Kingdoms so much your States have gotten by the bargains in Martyring their King neither ought you to believe but that the King hath both in Scotland and Ireland a very considerable party that will joyn with him as soon as he arrives and not a few even in the City of London which expect a good time though they lie still and quiet however the King hath their hearts and will have their hands on all fitting occasions Besides He hath at his devotion all the Catholikes and most of the Clergy of England with all the Lords so lately and Injuriously thrust out of their house together with the better part of the Members of the Commons house pulâ—ed out by the ears by the Independent Souldery all which refused to take the Engagement and when time serves will appear in Arms for him besides all the The Scotch Pretenders hopes in assistance for recovery of the Crown summed up old Royal party Banished the Realm for their fidelity to their old Master Thus much for the ayds and assistances his Majesty may relie on from his own Subjects And as to his forraign assistance you may rest assured that all the Princes through Christendom when the time serves will engage for him since it stands them upon so to do Neither may you doubt but that all the Princes his neer Kinsmen and Allyes will furnish him plentifully with all sorts of Ammunition and the Hollanders with shipping so soon as they have mastered the Seas and made all things ready for an Invasion for believe it as an evident truth that in the present quarrel by Sea between them and this State the Kings Interest is involved and will be pursued notwithstanding their late brush which they reckon not of neither of a few inconsiderable Ships they having enough of others to recrute in a trice so that you may evidently see that as soon as time serves the King cannot want men and for mony good Swords and Pistols will fetch it in with a vengeance Whence you may discern what an unwildy task the late piece of a Parliament and these new sprang-up States have undertaken and what will necessarily befall them through their own divisions when the King appears in power as of that you may be sure he will sooner then you think on then you shall see a world of the Parliaments friends to fall from them for their own sakes will fight for him and probable it is that a good number of the States Souldiers now in their pay on his Majesties landing with another manner of equipage then all of you are aware of will run from them to him with all their hearts as their indubitable Lord Soveraign Partri Colonel you have indeed succinctly summ'd up what Forces as you surmise the King may have and expect both at home and from abroad wherein you are very much mistaken and do reckon without your host you speak rather what you would have then in reason what the King can have still discovering your malignant heart and flattering your self as most of your party use to do with vain and imaginary hopes not considering how the late King notwithstanding all his wyles and attifices fail'd in all his designs and practises and at last brought him self and his friends to utter ruine to the great detriment and desolation of three Kingdoms still soothing up himself with the goodness of his cause which was as bad as bad might be to the last gaspe neither take you the least notice of Gods providence in the disposure of this wonderful work and change of Affairs neither the continued series of the many mitaculous Victories which it hath pleased God to give to the States Armies wherein the very hand of the Almighty is most perspicuous to all good men but to you and your complices hidden and unseen even to obduracy and hardning of your hearts The
took part with his Father and in this supposed Conquest joyn'd in ayd of himself so that the estates of the Parliament Members would be much with the least to make them all compensation for their services and losses sustained by Seisures Sequestrations many total Confiscations nay you may rest assured that there would follow upon such a Conquest a more exact and rigorous search for Delinquents estates against the king then ever the Parliament made for Delinquents against them and you may build upon 't that not a common Souldier whether Native or Stranger but would press the king for some considerable recompence for his service Insomuch that there would necessarily fall out such a strange change of affairs and so much oppression of the people above that which we now suffer as that it would amaze the universal people to look upon the miseries which would befal them neither ought you to esteem of that ridiculous surmise of Judge Jenkins annexed to the conclusion of all his jugling fragments to wit that the late kings Act of Oblivion would have been the readiest and onely way both to reconcile all differences and as he infers settle peace throughout all the three kingdoms that being a subtil kinde of begging the Question and onely for his own private ends having a tacite relation to himself though craftily umbrated under the vail of the common good and in a cunningness to endeer the Souldery to him with a super-indulgent seemingly Of the juglings of Judge Jenkins in Lex terrae care he pretended to have them paid by all means when the crafty fox only intended his own indemnity in freeing himself of all debts acompts and moneys trusted in his hands and for many years most unjustly detained from the right owners * Mr. John Earnly by name of the county of Wilts you may take it in the next degree of an article of your faith that the king comming in by the way of the sword cannot for the reasons alledged be so prodigal of his grace as to spend so lavishly on the stock of his new gotten Conquest to grant a piece of an Act of Oblivion for farther proof whereof I pray remember that when the late king after the battel at Edge-hil fortified Oxford and as then to most mens judgement was in a sairer way to carry all before him there was not any debate in that mungril Parliament as the king in his Letters to the Queen calls them that pleased him and glad he was to be rid of the tumultuous motions there made unto him for even that Conventicle composed of the Fugitive Members of Westminster plotted by himself had not the right measure of his foor but in a confused and streperous manner fell always athawrt his inclinations which were secrets he meant not to discover but to such as could guess at them and comply with his designs before himself came to disclose them and such as had that faculty were the best instruments for his turn and believe it Gentlemen he was too dark and cunning a Prince for any that he ever imployed certain it is could he then or at any other time have destroyed this Parliament he would have altered the Government and hanged by degrees most if not all the Members together with all their adherents and consequently to have made use of their estates as the exegency of his affairs then required to gratifie such of the Nobility and Gentry as he had befool'd in to side with him though to their own loss and that of the universal Nation and this was well known to all men of an ounce of wit that made any resort to his Oxford Garrison as it hath been openly confest by some of his chiefest Commanders * Colonel Leg and others and of greatest trust about his person since the rendition of that City and in this particular I appeal to you Colonel who then waited on his Majesty Colonel That which you now avouch Patriotus is a known truth and the king in reason of State and in reference to his own profit and the designs he had in hand as also for our sakes which stood to him would do no less then change the The change of the Laws and Government which of necessity would follow a Conquest Laws and the Government but especially to quit himself of all Parliaments which throughout most Raigns have been so cross and opposite to their kings and so to any Act of Oblivion after a Conquest obtained and that then a general pardon should have been granted to all sides the Judge was out of his sphear and pratled like a Parrot for admit that the king should so much overshute himself as to grant an Act of Oblivion in what a condition should we of the Souldiery be what then could we expect in reward of our service which for his late Majesties sake and the Kings that now is or shall be in spight of the Devil have hazzarded our lives and fortunes Sure I am my late Master not onely promised me but granted to divers of us his Commanders such and such Parliament mens estates yea and oâ— * Witness Colonel Gunters estate of the County of Pembrook and divers others Delinquents both Lands and Goods and you may be sure more he would have given had he obtained his ends then all of you are aware of and I doubt not but that his Royal Successor in good time will do the same as his Father intended so soon as he comes to be invested with the Septer otherwise he would be the most ungrateful Prince most deficient and wanting to himself that ever was in the world Nay reason perswades me Patriotus to concur with your opinion as touching this treacherous City of London from whence the Parliament in the very beginning of the War had their only assistance and were first enabled to wage War with their King which I hope his now Majestie will never forget whensoever he comes to be Enthroned and then I doubt not but to have a good shane of the Citizens money Gold Chains Rings Plate Jewels Silks Satins Velvets Of the implacable batre the Cavaleers bear to the City of London and that in plentiful measure since I have taken special notice that they bequeathed not all their Riches to the Parliament some I am sure and that good store are left for such as better deserves them then such Mecanicks as knew not how otherwise to use their goods then to the destruction of his Majesty and the Kingdoms detriment Patri Colonel I profess I am bound to honour you for that you have candidly and like your self spoken the truth and what in reason in such a case would befall the City not onely in the total plunder thereof which will be much with the least to satisfie such a multitude both of Natives and Strangers neither can it sink into my understanding that the ransacking of the City will be the worst that may befall it such
an implacable hatred do you of the old Cavalry in general bear towards the Citizens that if God aveâ—t it not in all probability the whole City will run the same fortune with Saguntum in Spain Carthage in Africa and Jerusalem in Asia and this fate the Cavaleers themselves have often in my hearing wisht unto it Neut Gentlemen your divinations seem strange to me and they very much trouble my cogitations to hear you talk in such horrid language I hope you believe the King of Scots to be a Christian and not that he will destroy himself which will be as good as done whensoever so great and oppulent a City becomes ruined which is the key of the Kingdom and from whence issues the greatest Revenue and Income the Kings of England have ever received by Customs and Imposts from the Merchants but more especially since he cannot be ignorant that he hath within this City a world of loyal Subjects as I my self for one which never bore arms against his Father nor voluntarily contributed to the Parliament one groat otherwise then needs he must whom the Devil drives therefore I doubt not however the game goes he will remember his friends and distinguish them from his foes Patri Excellently well infer'd Neutralis it seems then you conceive your self safe and sure for that in all the late Wars you have carried your self in a neutral way according to the old adage bene vivit qui bene latuit he fares best that keeps himself close and out of the scuffle But suppose the King after his Victory and march comes to be possest of the City accompanied as that you may believe with four or five several Nations can you imagine that so numerous an Army attending his person will or can Quarter elswhere then in the City and when they are there think you not but that the Souldier will have a minde to the business viz to take A continued description of the lamentable effects that willâ— besal the Nation in the case aforesaid up their pay out of the ransacking of the Citizens and that without any distinction of persons haply you conceive that the King out of his Grace and good will towards his friends will cause a mark or some cross to be set up at their doors whereby to difference his loyal Subjects from those which assisted the Parliament and took up Arms against him and his Father No Neutralis let not such a Chimaera enter in your thoughts when you shall finde your imagined cross to be no other then in so promiscuous a plundring that your self or any others of your mode shall escape scot-free or that whensoever the Souldierie falls to riffling think you any of them will be so nice and mannerly as to forbear any that lies in the way of their fury or that in such a confusion the King himself were he willing can stay them which afore-hand are prompted to enrâ—ch themselves with a booty which lies so readily before them or that the Souldier will be so modest as to omit so fair an opportunity and suffer the Citizens to convey their cash and commoditities out of the way of their needy and greedy clutches Let me I beseech you dispute this case a little farther with you for rest assured that not onely those which had a hand in his Fathers death whom long since he hath doom'd to death and confiscation by his own Dâ—clarations but even all those which assiâ—ted the Parliament or stood neutral will necessarily sall into the number of plundred persons yea all such as at the begining of the War took up Arms and were listed under the Earl of Essex which indeed were the first that broke the Ice and made the way open to the new Model under the Lord Fairfax and the now Lord General Cromwel Do you think that any of those of the first establishment which laid down Arms when the Lord General Essex layd down his Commission divers of which either before or after have been chosen Parliament Members and were known to be bold speakers in the behalf of the late Kings re-admission to the Kingly Government will or can escape If you conceive they will your imagination is vain and reasonless since it stands not with reason of State or the Kings necessities to lose the least grist that otherwise may come to his wanting Mill Moreover you may be sure on 't that in order to all the premised plundrings and confiscations you shall finde all rich men or so accounted will be cal'd to an after reckoning and holes pickt in their coats of what party soever they have been to the end to supply the Kings great debts and urgent necessities for who knows not but that he hath borrowed much and yet wants more then can well be Of the fearful consequences that attend a Conquest imagined and that having the sword in his hand he will and must have money wheresoever it is to be had and then believe it the next bout will be a strict inquisition whom they are or have been which have taken the old Covenant and the new Engagement or have bought any of the Crown-Land or goods of the late Kings the Bishops Delinquents estates and in order to this progress a rigorous inquiry will of couâ—se fall in who they are which the Parliament hath employed as actors and instâ—uments for the promoting of their designs whether in the City or elsewhere in the Country neither may you doubt on'c but that all the Judges Serjeants at Law Officers Clerks of the Crown and Chancery Sheriffs Justices of peace Commissioners Committees with all other inferior Clerks and Officers whom the Parliament have employed throughout the Nation acting by and under their power will by degrees be fetcht over and enforc't to come off with greater Fines then possibly they are able to bear and this in part was put in practise by the late Kings Commissions thoughout all his Quarters and wheresoever his Armies had prevalence when he resided at Oxford and elswhere and enough there will be which will not fail to instruct and inform this King that all the riches of the Land saved from the spoyl of his Father will not be sufficient to make him satisfaction for the infinite losses which the Crown hath sustained since the beginning of the late War and to recompence such as have suffered by taking his part Thraso Signiour Patriotus dam me if all that you have now said be not Oracles and the King ought not or can in honour do less then that which with well measured reason you have declared and in case he doth it not to a hairs breadth I shall take him not to be so wise as he should be for in confirmation of your opinion I le tell you a story and 't is a true one on my life and the reputation of a Souldier that all of us at Oxford concluded * This is a known truth and hath been often aver'd by many residing
grievance hath been a good space since taken away and the Souldier wheresoever he now Quarters pays both for horse and mans meat moreover the States have very much lessned their Forces onely retaining such numbers of horse and foot as may keep in awe such as you Collonel of the Royal Party which if not secured it may happily be more hurtful to the Nation then the not securing of our out-works against the ingrateful Dutch on whom the Malignant party which are still rotten at the heart looks upon with a pleasing eye in hopes so to order their designs as at last to bring in the Scotch Pretender though to their own particular ruine and the general destruction of the poor innocent people but in farther answer to your Objections suffer me to put you in remembrance what long since and before the late War began was projected by the late king when he was in peace and amity with all the Princes of Europe you shall finde it most true that in so great a calm of quietness divers Regiments of Germane horse were designed to be transpotted hither to keep all the Natives in awe and under the whip and in order to that the Deputy Straford in as calm a time of quietness as ever Ireland enjoyed had raised there an Army of near ten thousand Papists which for many Moneths and some years together were there both disciplined quartered and paid for the most part at the charge of private men and such as were averse to his Tyranous courses and in addition to those grievances on the Irish Scotch and English the imperious Deputy having taken to farm the Customs of that Kingdom at an excessive under-value he imposed on all the Commodities of the Land an incredible surplusage above the Rent he payd to the King Happily you may here ask the Question to what end such an Army was there raised and quartered on the Irish and so great Taxes impâ—sed on all the Commodities of that kingdom I answer The Deputy himself tells you the reason as you may see it in the * Vide. The Juncto Juncto You have an Army says he to the King in Ireland to reduce this Kingdom If you put the Question farther Why to reduce this kingdom being in peace I shall tell you that Army of foot with the Germane horse were all to be Garrisoned in England on free-quarter to amuse and keep the people in subjection whilst the king playd his game for the reducing the Scots to the Enslaving of all the three Nations If again you demand What the King would have done with so vast a Treasure as he intended to raise on both Kingdom the Deputy could have yeelded you a reason and president for this too viz. to erect Castles and Forts in both Kingdoms * Witness his great Structure not far from Dublin Houses of pleasure as capacious as Towns Parks of as large an extent as whole Parishes Masks Friscals Comedies Tragedies for the Saboth Banquets Junkets and such-like petulancies wherewith to please the Queen and the Court Ladies to gratifie Madam Nurse her Fidlers and Dancing-Masters for rest assured that the King meant not longer to depend on Parliamentary assistance for defraying of the Court expences neither to be controld for any irregularity he pleased to put in execution and this as tenacious as he was had often dropt from his own mouth and Cottington could openly say at his own Table 1638 when a Gentleman of honour told him That the best way for the King to fill his Coffers would be by the ayds of Parliament What needs that replies Cottington the King hath other ways in hand to supply his wants without Parliaments And indeed gentlemen as it seems you know not what the King had then in agitation some what more I shall tell you that there were certain odd * Dangerous Papers of the Duputies discovered Papers of the Deputies which I finde not were in question at his Arrainment for the Parliament had proof enough wherewith to charge him of his intention to alter the Government but those Papers intimate that the design was laid that no man was to stir above ten miles from his Habitation without leave and shewing his occasion and that no man was to be master of his own Train Arms either for his Domestick use or the Publick defence but that every Particulars mans Arms were to be deposited in one Magazin and in one place throughout all the Countries of England and Wales neither was any Houshoulder to be permitted to have the use of so much as a Pitch-forke without special license such a strange change of Soverainty was not only in hatching but in the high way of execution had it not been put by and obstructed as already is declared by the refractory Scot who marr'd all the Kings work the Deputies Archbishops and Cottingtons endevours to have accomplisht the whole design but how Almighty God iâ— his Justice hath disappointed and disposed of them all I leave to your second considerations Now Doctor if I have not given you a full Answer to all your Objections would my leisure permit my longer stay I could give you a little better satisfaction but for the present I say no more but examine well the case as the King before the Wars began was carrying on his designs and at a time when he had no cause at all to attempt as he did and then take into your more serious consideration the Parliaments case and condition which inforc't them for safeguard of themselves and those that trusted them to leavie men and money and since of necessity to Impose Contributions on the the people for support of the common Interest and then you will finde a great difference between one and the others case onely for a close of our Conference and in farther proof of the premises I beseech you tell me wherefore the King at this last Expedition against the Scoâ—s 1640 Commissioned Cottington Lord-Warden of the Tower with injunction to see that place well Fortified and man'd which in obedience to his Majestie in commands was presently put Execution but with such a refuse of Bankrupt * Billingsly and Suckling Colonels and Souldiers as could not be match't in all the Kingdom then to mount near upon twenty great Guns on the White Tower with their mussels turned against the City if you cannot tell the the reason I le tell it you That it was to awe the Citizens out of fear and jealousie that some one or other insurrection which the Projectors own guilty consciences suggested to themselves might fall out during the Kings absence in the North and to mar the work he had then in design before it came to maturity to be put in execution Why then and at the very same time the King should Commission the late Earl of Worcester a profest Papist as Cottington was no better as Lord President of the Welch-Marches commanding the Earl of Bridge-water a sound
prejudicial to the Rights and Liberties of the people Now forasmuch as Royalists do still constantly maintain that their first engagements with the King were undertaken on just loyal honourable honest and religious grounds and that the king suffered as an innocent Martyr in his own defence under the specious pretexts of his injustice and Tyranny and that themselves are enforc'â— to live under Powers utterly unlawful usurpatious and tyrannical May they be pleased to give me leave briefly to sum up the whole Controversie intended for their own good the quieting of their distempered spirits the settlement of the universal people in the blessed harmony of peace and unanimity their onely distance and refractory humour to that of the present establishment being the onely cause that the old Rupture cannot be sodred up and cemented as it ought to be between brethren of one stock that the States after their many miraculous Atchievements Victories over so powerful enemies are inforc'c to the great charge and grievance of the Natives to keep in pay so many Armies for the prevention of such dangerous conspiracies as are daily hatcht and seen to flow from the fountain of their malitious hearts whereas their conformity with the rest of the Natives in obedience to the present powers would be the speedy remedy and abatement of those heavie and Monethly Contributions continued on the people wherein themselves would partake in the easement the State and Common-wealth in the happiness and comfort that so many Proselytes should be added to their number Now in as much as the nature of this subject by way of advice will necessarily require some short repetition of the Kings proceedings in the late prodigious War wherein the grounds of their partaking with him are briefly stated I shall intreat the Reader of what garb or party soever not to conceive that herein I take occasion to rake over the ashes of him who is at rest but onely for the better manifestation of truth never more opposed then at present and to let the universal Nation see and understand on what sandy foundations not onely the King but the Royalists themselves built the whole fabrick of his designs how and by whom they were promoted to his own ruine his posterity and most of the Royal party to the irreparable loss of three flourishing Kingdoms Briefly then that the King at his first access to the Crown had it in design as an unhappy legacy left him by his Father King Iames to advance the Regal power to absoluteness conformable to the French Model is a truth so perspicuous as that divers persons of honour then in Court both perceived it and feared the sad issues that would follow the Kings ambitious affectations True it is the design a long time was carried on in the dark and mystical traverses of Court and State but 1638 and 39 the King by his active * Strafford Canterbury Cottington Agents haing prepared all things in readiness for the accomplishment both in England and Ireland the onely rub that then lay in his way of compleating an universal invassaladge over the three Nations and conforming the Church Government of Scotland sutable to the Episcopal Discipline of England was the refractory Presbyterian Scot whom he first tempted with the bait of a new Liturgy and whether they should perceive the meaning thereof or not was amongst the first Projectors of this Innovation here in Court not much reckoned of for that in case of the Scots refusal they very well understood the King was resolved to compel them to submit by force of Arms but the Scots utterly rejecting the Liturgy as an Innovation and Invasion on their National Laws and Liberties the King raised his first Army against them and then the second after a Pacification given them passages so commonly known to both Nations that there needs no farther manifestation of their contrivances But most certain it is that then the Kings grand design began more openly to appear and that those two Northern Expeditions having exhausted his Treasure with all that he could shift for and the extremity of his want of money succeeding produced the first and the late Parliament Where we may not omit to shew how the King at his first entry to the Crown was after misled and most grosly betray'd and by persons of his own choyce from the very beginning of his raign to the last of his power who had chiefest influence on his Councels which principally were the Bishops and his Court Chaplaines which more studied his inclinations then Divinty and then to comply with whatsoever they found most agreeable to his natural appetite which was the usual ladder wherewith they climbed to preferment these sycophants well perceiving the bent and promptitude of his ambition to absolute Soveraingty had learn'â— the faculty of wresting of Scripture answerable to Arbitrary power and made it their ordinary Pulpit-stuff to instill into his apprehensions that the Subject had no other propriety in any thing he enjoyed but at the Kings good pleasure And to these there were another sort of * Lawyers Gown-men that could stretch Law and Statutes to the tenter of the Kings designs neither were there wanting many about his person even from the first to the last of his Power that to gain his favour had learn't the art of compliance so that I am confident to affirm as being often conversant in the Court that no Prince of his time and of his abilities was ever so nurst up what between those Clergy Laquies and his jugling Judges in the principles of Tyranny leaving out those forragn Pedagogues as well masculine as femine always in Court and most near his person insomuch as at last he knew not or would not know the nature and constitution of the English Soveraignty neither what the nature of those Royal Prerogatives he claimed were how intrusted and invested in him but took them for no other then his own proper inheritance to be used as his he should think most conducible to the advance of his absolute power But to return to the late Parliaments first sitting down and to relate what in the first place they fell upon as of highest concernment to be redrest most certain it is that they finding the many grievances of the people with the various innovations disorders and distempers of the State and Church all concentring in the Kings indigence they took it into their serions consultations first of all to call to an accompt such Participants of the Kings Councels as were well known to have been the principal Instruments for promoting of Arbitrary power and then to apply themselves to the redress of the Publick disorders and rectifying of the obliquities both in the Church and Commonwealth crept in through the long dis-use of Parliaments We shall onely touch on the most eminent passages during their first fifteen Months sitting viz. The Attaching and Arraignment of the Earl of Strafford the Archbishop the flight of the Lord
work to the enslaving of the Nation Of the Prerogatives Royall which the late King claimed as inseparables of the Crown 1. OF the Royal Power what it is 2. His sole and absolute power over the Militia 3. His Negative voyce in all Parliaments 4. His power to Array the people at will and pleasure 5. His Prerogative to call and dissolve Parliaments at pleasure 6. His Prerogative to pardon Murderers and Fellons 7. His Prerogative to dispose of Wards Mad-men and Lunaticks c. 8. Lastly that Tyrannous assertion of his own and his Father King Iames viz. That they were not bound to give account of their actions to any but to God alone These Prerogatives claimed by the late King as the Royalists say were invaded by the Parliament and the grounds of the late destructive Wars happily after-Ages as well as the present may be inquisitive to know whether they were so legally in the Kings absolute power that he stood bound to uphold them by the sword to the ruine of the Kingdom and whether the Parliament by their trust stood not more obliged to withstand them as encroachments on the common freedoms and liberties of the people We shall therefore for the general satisfaction briefly shew the extent of them all as they are either defined by our ancient Lawyers or confined and limited by our common Laws and Statutes The Royal power what it is FIrst then that this Royal power of our Kings hath never been any other then a limited and intrusted power to govern by Law to which their Coronation Oathes oblige them which may very well satisfie any rational man and save us the labour farther to dispute this point But we shall make it more plain that the highest of this Royal power was never more by the Law of the Land throughout all Ages then in the executive power Ius suum cuique tribuere to give to every subject his right neither can the King otherwise dispence this right or Law to the people but in and by his Courts of Judicature non per se tantum not by himself out of the law of his own breast for that 's plain Tyranny Stat pro ratione voluntas quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem which are the common principles of all Tyrants that That shall be the Law which the king wills which is more then the Grand Signior claims or exerciseth neither can this Royal power whatsoever of late times by flattering Lawyers hath been exposed to deceive the people enable the king to do that which the Law forbids What kings as Tyrants will do makes nothing to the matter in question but what they ought to do and what by the Law their Oath and duty of their Office they are bound to do is the true state of this Question Neither were any of our kings ever so absolute in power and Supremacy but that by the fundamental Laws of this Land they had their Superiours and those which were above them as one of the most eminent and ancient of our * Bracton Lawyers affirms often recited during the late Controversie viz. Rex habet superiorem scilicet legem per quam factus est Rex alterum scilicet curiam comites Barones which is The king hath a superiour to wit the Law by which he is made king another though very much scorned by the late king viz. The Court of Parliament composed of the Earls Barons and selected Gentry of the Land for this Court hath in it the Legislative power or the Authority of making Laws and who knows not the old principle Quod efficit tale est magis tale that which makes the thing is greater then the thing made And another of our eminent and learned Lawyers Fortiscue Chancellour to Henry the Sixth fol. 40. cap. 18. positively delivers it as a fundamental Law that the kings power is no other then that which the Law gives him and that cannot be farther extended or made greater without the assent of the whole Realm for should it be otherwise it follows that the king might then sell or dispose of the kingdom to whom he pleaseth which by the Law he cannot do neither by the ancient Laws of the Land can the king sell or alienate the Regalia and Jewels of the Crown though the late king took the liberty to sell them for Arms against the Parliament neither can the King by his own sole power dispose of the Cities Towns Forts and Castles of the Kingdom as the Scotch Lords 1639 told him in down-right terms on his fortifying of the Castles of Edenburgh and Dunbarton and the reasons they gave were valid both in Law and reason for that those Forts and Castles were built for defence security and safety of the people against Invadors and not for their offence to be man'd and fortified at the Kings pleasure against themselves And the reason of this Law is rendred by a most learned and expert * Novil 85. princi cap. 18. Jurist viz. Quod Magistratus sit nudus dispensator defensor Iurium Regni constat ex eo quod non possit alienare Imperium oppida urbes regionesve vel res subditorum bonave Regni quia Rex Regni non proprietarius Which is that a King or Magistrate is no more then a bare dispensor of the Laws of hâ—s Kingdom and the reason is manifest for that he cannot sell or alenate the Kingdom or the Cities Towns and Provinces thereof neither the Subjects goods or goods of the Kingdom because the King is onely the Director not the Owner and Propriator of the kingdom But Royalists and some jugling * Judge Ienkins Lawyers and ignorant Divines have both taught and written the contrary and made the late king believe that his power was absolute and without bounds which is fearful to imagine and shameful in those which continue to possess the people with such damnable untruths as lamentable it is to see the generality of the Nation to stand still unshaken in their belief that the kings rights were invaded and himself inforc'â— to make war for his own the contrary whereunto that his power stood bounded and limited by the Laws of the Land hath been so often alledged and prest upon him by the Parliament in their Answers and Expresses that the re inforcing of more Arguments on a subject so much overworn would be nauseous to all ingenious Readers To period this particular as 't is the gound-work of all the kings other Prerogative claims I shall onely put all Royalists in remembrance of that which the Earl of Strafford aver'd to the king 1640. viz. * Vide The Iuncto loose and absolved from all the reines of Government whether this assertion amongst other of the Deputies tended not to place the kings power above the known Laws of the Land I appeal to the judgement of any rational man for as a late a worthy * Mr. John Pim in his Speech to the Lords Member of
Parliament observed at the Earls tryal that the Laws were the boundaries and measures betwixt the Kings Prerogative and the peoples Liberty But whether the king throughout the whole course of the late destructive War and â—ome years before was not a prompt disciple in the Deputies doctrine I leave to Royalists to make their own judgement And whether that which after befell the king and his Fathers house was not rather of the justice of heaven then of men I leave to the judgement of all the world Sure we are the best Jurists maintain Si Rex hostili animo arma contra populum gesserit amittet Regnum which is that if a King with an hostile intent shall raise Arms against his people he loseth or forfeits his kingdom Now that the late king assumed to himself such a Royal power as to raise Arms against the great Councel of the Land I suppose no man in his right wits can deny Its most true a moderate Royal power to rule by the Laws is doubtless of Gods Ordinance but a Tyrannical power to cut their throats I am sure is of no Divine Institution and a Dominion fitter for beasts then men yet this is that power which Royalists would have fastned on the king and too many there are which constantly believe that the more injury was done him that he had it not as by the Laws of the Land they erroneously conceive he ought to have had The Power of the Militia how the Kings BRiefly now to the Militia and what kinde of power our kings by the Laws of England have had therein It hath been often told the late king all along the late Controversie that the power of the Militia was in him no other then fiduciary and not at his absolute dispose or that at his own will and pleasure he might pervert the Arms and strength of the kingdom from their proper use and against the intent of the Law as ' its visibly known he did even to the highest breach of trust wherein a king could be intrusted Now for proof that this power was onely fiduciary and by Statute Law first confer'd on * Anno 7. Edw. 1. apud Westminster Edw. 1. in trust and not his by the Common Law is most apparent by the Express words of the Statute it self which as they are commonly inserted were onely for the the defence of the Land and safety of the people salus populi being that grand Law and end of all Laws now such as are verst in our Historie know that this Prince was one of the most magnanimous kings that ever swayd the English Scepter and therefore it cannot be imaginable that he would clip his own power and so great a right belonging to him by the Common Law in accepting a less by Statute Law to his own loss of power or that ever he would have assented thereunto by an after Act of his own as follows in haec verba viz. Whereas on sundry complaints made to us by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament that divers of the standing Bands have been removed and taken out of their respective Counties by vertue of our Commissions and sent to us out of their Shires into Scotland Gascoyn and Gwoyn and other parts beyond the Seas contrary to the Laws of the Land c. Our Soveraign Lord willeth that it shall be done so no more Agreeable to this we finde Anno 1. Edw. 3d. viz. The King willeth that no man henceforth be charged to arm otherwise then he was wont in time of our Progenitors the Kings of England and that no man be compell'd to go out of his Shire but where necessity requireth and the sudden coming in of strange Enemies into the Realm And in the same kings time there being a peace concluded between him and the French king wherein the Duke of Britain was included whom the French king shortly thereupon invaded whereof complaint was made to king Edward he instantly summons a Parliament and there moves the Lords and Commons both for their advice and assistance whereupon it was concluded that the king should be expeditiously supply'd in ayd of the Britton but the Act was made with such provisoes and restrictions as Royallists happily and others of late years would have deemed them too dishonourable and unbefitting the late kings acceptance howsoever this Act shews that the ordering of the Militia of those times was not solely left to the kings disposure but that which is of more note was that both the Treasure then granted was committed to certain persons in trust to be issued to the onely use for which it was given as also that no Treaty or any new peace or agreement with the French King should be made without the consent and privity of the Parliament By these instances all Royalists may make a clear judgement that the Militia of those times and the power of the Arms of the Kingdom were never so absolutely conferr'd on our kings as that their power therein extended to such a latitude as they might use them as they pleased and to turn that power provided for the onely defence of the people against themselves and therefore wheresover we finde the Militia by other Statutes conferr'd and yeelded to the disposal of our kings without any particular mention of the word trust which is necessarily imply'd or exprest in most of the Statutes or their preambles viz. * Note that these words viz. for the defence of the Realm or common profit are afore inserted â—ither in the Stat. themselves or in their preamb. In these wotds For the honour of God the Church common profit of the Realm or defence of our people No man in common reason can conceive the Militia to be such an inseparable flower of the Crown as if it had been brought into the world with the King and chain'd unto him as his birth-right but onely as a permissive power recommended unto him by the people in their Representatives as the most eminent and illustrious person to be intrusted with such choyce weapons in trust and confidence that he will use them no otherwise then to the end for which-they were concredited unto him as the Soveraign of the people and for their onely safety and defence which trusted him in honour of his person and place Many other Statutes there are though some of them repealed which prove the Militia is onely fiduciary and not absolutely inherent to the Crowns of our Kings Now for our conclusion of this senceless illegal Prerogative as to the absolute power thereof let us in a word take notice of the destructive consequence admitting this power should be left to the Kings absolute disposure it then follows that he may take all that the Subject hath for he that hath the power of the sword on the same ground may command the purse which the late King not onely intended but practised witness the many great sums of money plate jewels and other moveables whatsoever
taken either by his command or permission in the late Wars the instances whereof would amount to a volumn and as to his intentions without injury to his memory we may take notice of his own expressions in his Letters to the Queen viz. That though he wanted money yet good swords and Pistols would fetch it in Ex unque Leonis We may judge of the Lyons strength by his paw and of the kings intentions had he lighted on the fortune to have mastered the Parliament Of the Kings Negative Voyce in Parliament WE now come to that so much asserted and inseparable Flower of the Crown as the king and Royalists would have it believed viz. his Negative voyce in Parliament a claim so absurd and contrary to Law and Reason that wise men may laugh at it and fools discern the distructive consequence thereof for at one blast or breath of the kings it utterly frustrates the very Essence and Being of all Parliaments and obstructs all their Consultations and whatsoever they shall never so well advise and agree upon as a necessary Law shall be made of no effect with this one single word of the kings Negatur which is point blank against his Corronation Oath where he swears or ought to swear to Govern both by the old Laws per istas bonas leges quas vulgus eligerit though it pleased the Archbishop to emasculate that most essential part of the Oath so to leave the king at liberty and by such good Laws as the Parliament shall chuse so that the Legislative power hath always resided in that Soveraign Court to make and unmake Laws according to the vicissitude of times and change of mens manners and not at the kings choyce who hath only the distributive power when Laws are made to see them duly executed and the Law of the Land also limits that power for the king as before 't is noted cannot execute the Laws at his own pleasure but in and by his Courts of Justice But strange it is what a ridiculous construction Royalists have made of the verb eligerit to be meant in the preterpersect Tense and not of the future to make any new Laws though never so necessary but that the people must stand to their old Laws though some of them never so fit to be abrogated unless the king please to give way to the establishing of new or repealing of the old which is a most irrationall and destructive assertion Neither may we omit to shew what Royalists farther aver that such is the necessity and force of the Kings assent that be the Law never so useful and beneficial for the people to be established yet without the Kings fiat it can never have the force and stamp of a Law which is the same as when the King chosen Generalissimo and trusted with the conduct of the Kingdoms Armies will turn the mouth of the Canon from the Enemy on his own Souldiers and deny them to provide for their own safeties such absurdities have the late and present Licenciates of this time ran into as if men had been bewitch't to betray their own freedoms It is not denyed but that the Kings assent to a Law thought fit by the Parliament to be Enacted is very necessary yet it follows not that it must be of necessity for if the King out of a perverse humour will not after some time of consideration assent to such a Law which if not ratified by his fiat tends to the inevitable destruction of the Common-wealth shall the publick safety be neglected for the humoring of one mans obstinate will and in such a case ought not the States Assembled in Parliament provide against a common mischief Enact and Ordain for the publick indemnity as former Presidents in such cases may direct them and when no other remedy can be had The Lords in the time of king Richard the Second would not be so answered when they sent him word that if he would not come to the Parliament according to his promise and joyn his helping hand to theirs in redress of the publick grievances they would chuse such a King that should The Array of the People WE now come to the principal and practical part of the kings power over the Militia for the Array of the people is the grand piece of that usurpatious claim viz. That at his own will and pleasure he may send forth his Commissions to Array the people against themselves and this power under colour of Law and of right belonging unto him the universal Nation knows he forbore not to put in execution against their Representative summoned by his own Writs a president without president neither for the legality known either in our Histories or Law-books otherwise then by consent of Parliament and in cases of immiment danger for opposing of an invading Enemy but for a king trusted with the defence of his people in calms of peaceable times and on no necessity to put in execution such a reasonless and unlimited power as one of his Royal Prerogatives and to maintain it by the sword was besides the breach of his Royal trust such a daring action as none but a Tyrant in folio would have attempted 'T is true that heretofore during that long continued feud between the English and the Scots divers Gentlemen of the North parts and others on the Welch-Borders of the kings Tenants were by their Tenures bound to rise watch and wind * Cornage Tenure horns on all incursions of the Scots and of these kind of Tenures Littleton treats in his chapter of petty Serjeanty but I suppose none so very cowards though not bound by their Tenures but would take up Arms in the common defence and contribute their best assistance for the expelling of an invading Enemy though in this very case by the Law of the Land 'T is very dangerous for him that shall raise Forces without special Commission from the King and Parliament and * The Lords Cromwels Case Cromwel Earl of Essex in Henry the Eigth's Reign though at that time Lord President of the North dyed for no other cause then this that he raised an Army both for the suppression of an insurrection and expulsion of the Scots so nice and provident our Ancestors have ever been of levying Armies in the bowels of the Land on any pretence whatsoever But for the king first to raise an Army at York assuring the Parliament that it was to no other end then for a Guard to his Person and therewith to cause so many half-witted Lords then attending him to attest that for truth which was false as it manifestly appeared by his immediate marching to Nottingham where he set up his Standard of War as a summons of the people to his assistance against the Parliament when himself was both the first Assaulter and Invader and yet at that very instant of time to reassure the Parliament that he raised not his Standard against them and at the same conjunctureâ— of
time to send out his Commissions of Array was doubtless such a breach of Trust and a Treachery of so deep a die as that in all our Histories we finde it not parrallel'd amongst all our kings but onely in that Tyrant of Tyrants king Iohn who indeed invaded the Land and ruined the Castles and Houses of the Barons Gentry that opposed his Tyrany and came not to his assistance at a call and in this kinde of Tyranny it cannot be gainsaid the late king came not behind him if not exceeding that irregular king as 't was evident by this instance that immediately after the sending forth of his Commissions of Array on the heels of those issued out his Commissions of Oyer Terminer to hang all those which adhered to the Parliament But in a little more to the illegality of the kings Commissions of Array both before and after the setting up of his Standard surely those Lawyers that waited on him first at York and after at Oxford were doubtless those which misâ—ed him and with such artifices and pains drew up his Answer to the Parliaments Declaration of the first of Iuly 1642 against the legality of the Commissions of Array He that will take the pains to examine that Declaration compared with the kings Answer may soon perceive that the Contrivers and Penners thereof were not so honest as they should have bin neither as it seems so wel read in the Laws or so expert workmen as to avouch the Statute of the 4. 5. of Hen. the 4. 150 times over in that Answer and notstanding all their endeavors to entrust the King with a legal power to send forth his Commissions for arraying of the people at his own will and pleasure without consent of Parliament yet those fine Iohns for the king have not neither could they produce any scrap of Law or piece of Statute that enables the king to Array the people against themselves to engage English against English and to set so many as came into his assistance together by the ears with those which adhered to the Parliament and at a time when there was not the least fear or expectation of an invading Enemy more then of those which the Parliament feared should be sent him out of France Lorrain and Denmark but to what other ends then to ruine the Parliament let any impartial Royalist make his own judgement 't is true that in case of Forraign invasions the king by Law hath been evermore trusted as Generalissimo to command the Forceâ— of the Kingdom for defence and safety of the people and to no other end and so was the Law expounded in Parliament the thirteenth of Queen Elizabeth but never so wrested before by any of our Lawyers as by those that waited on the King would have enforc't thereby to impower him at pleasure to command the strength of the Kingdom against it self and surely it appears to me and thousands more that forty Judges Serjeants and Lawyers then in both Houses of Parliament should better understand and know more of the Law in the case of Commissions of Array then those eight or ten * Littleton Banks Lane Heath the Atturney Herbert Palmer c. sycophant fellows that followed and animated the King in such irregular motions onely in hopes of preferment and to form him into such a posture of absolute power that when he pleased he might destroy himself and the Kingdom as that to our grief we may remember they had taught him and put him in the high-way of the accomplishment I remember a pertinent passage related in our Histories how that the Earls of Warwick and Leycester being peremptorily summoned to attend Edward the First into France the Earls in plain English told him that by the Laws of the Land they were not bound to wait on him out of the Land at his pleasure but onely within the Realm and for the defence thereof and that onely on Invasions of Forraign Enemies which agrees with that before recited of his taking the Train-men out of their respective Counties by his Commissions to serve him in Gascoyn Gwyn and other places beyond the Seas contrary to the Laws of the Land which grievance the King then redrest neither could I ever yet finde any one express Law or Statute that enables any of our Kings by their sole power without consent of Parliament to Array the people but onely in the case of Forraign Invasions and coming in of strange Enemies howsoever the Penners of the Kings Answer to the Parliaments Declaration have laboured though to no purpose to prove it otherwise however 't is worth the observation what fruitless pains they have taken in their frequent recitals of the Statutes of the 4. 5. of Hen. 4th the 13. of Edw. the 1o. 1. Ed 2d. 25. of Edw. the 3d. 9. of Edw. 2d. the 4. 5. of Phil. and Mary 1º Iacobi with divers others all of them principally tending to the Assize of Arming the Subject secundum facultates according to his ability those Assizes having been almost in every Raign altered and the Statutes according to the vicissitudes of times change of Arms and invention of Guns for the most part of them repealed and new Statutes made in their rooms with power of Commissions to be issued as the exigency of affairs should require on Invasions from abroad home defence on Insurrections c. All which so often and so much prest in the Kings Answer made nothing to the matter in question between him and the Parliament 1642. The point in question was not then concerning the old Commissions of assizing Armes or Commissions of Lieutenancies in every County but the reasons of the Parliaments Declaration and the exceptions they took were against that exorbitant power the King assumed to himself under pretext of Law to Array the people one against the other and against their Representative as that sure enough he failed not to put in practise howsoever disguised under an elaborate and ridiculous Answer when as we have noted before there is not one Statute or scrap of Law to be found in all our Law-books that legally enables the King to raise war against a Court of Parliament and raise combuston in the bowels of the Kingdom which I trust may satisfie all Royalists that the Parliament had then good cause to complain when in times of Peace he made them times of war and desolation by sending out those his illegal and destructive Commissions which whether they were so or not doubtless the Parliament was better able to judge and determine then the King or his Minions then attending his Person Of the Kings Prerogative to call and dissolve Parliaments at his own will and pleasure AS to the Kings power to call and dissolve Parliaments at his will pleasure to summon a Parliament with one breath and blow it away with another blast of his mouth as 't is still frequently maintained by Royalists and others newly started up that by
Law and presidents he was enabled to do is an assertion so irrational as that I wonder not so much at their ignorance as their audacious language since 't is the known Law of the Land and by two Statutes of near 400 years standing ordained That Parliaments shall be call'd once every year and oftner as the emergency of affairs may give occasion why then it should rest in the kings onely power to call them and that his assent to a Triennial Parliament should be such a boon bestowed on the people surely may encrease the wonder since by our old Laws and the usuages of former times they ought not to be dissolved until all grievances be heard and redrest otherwise to what end or use were Parliaments Instituted which as one calls them are the Beasoms that sweep clean all the nasty corners of the Common-Wealth But observe the sad consequences of this absurdity for suppose the King would not call any Parliament in ten or twelve years together till his necessities inforc't him how then should the publick grievances be redrest and by whom shall the disorders and obliquities of the Church and Commonwealth be rectified Royalists Answer by the king alone or his Councel of State as the suprem Magistrate within his own Dominions A strange task surely for one man to undergo and more then that active Magistrate Moses was able to perform as we may see by * Exo. 18. Iethro's Counsel who advised to take into his assistance the Princes and best of the people to ayd him in the Administration of Justice to the Israelites and all that with the least in a populous Nation Well then let it be considered how many grievous enormities and disorders during that interval of ten years discontinuance at least of Parliaments were crept into the Church and State meerly through their disuse we have sorry cause to remember when through the pangs of the kings necessities the ill managery of the publick affairs the prodigality of the Court the corruption of all Courts of Justice the Judicature with the licentiousness of a dissolute Clergy inforc't him at last to cal the late Parliament yet how soon he endevoured by his many wiles practises to annihilate it nay by all possible means he could invent hindred their endeavors in reducing the Church and Common-wealth into order never ceasing to interrupt their consultations purposly to disorder and thrust all into a Chaos of confusion insomuch as to this day the Parliament have had their hands full to finde out the means how to reduce and settle things in that order as at first they might have been had not the publick affairs been obstructed and all reformation hindred by his onely means so to render them as odious to the future and as contemptible to the people as heretofore they were boloved and desired of them notwithstanding that at their first sitting down he promised to contribute his own Authority to theirs and to leave the re-ordering of all things amiss to their onely managery an overture so acceptable unto them as that in retribution thereof how willing and intentively bent they were in the midst and heat of their distractions to make him rich and glorious and how indulgently ready to cover his faults in the recovery of his honour at home and his reputation abroad none unless blinde men or besotted but may remember But the truth was he could not brook any Rival with himself in the Government pursuing to the last his design of absoluteness so long that in the end the Parliament was inforc't not to retain any longer such a Rival as a King amongst them but rather chose to estate the people in the same peaceable Government as we see it now established then to imagine themselves able to better it by retaining of Kingship Of the Kings Prerogative in granting of Pardons to Murtherers and Fellons WE now come to that Prerogative or rather lawless usuage of our Kings in granting their Charters of pardon to Murtherers and Fellons condemn'd by the Laws of the Land 'T is confest that it hath been practised by all or most of our Kings though as it may be supposed rather permissively then by vertue of any Law extant but by what warrant in Justice they have assumed such a Soveraign power to themselves will be the question for by Gods Law 't is absolutely forbidden Yee shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murtherer which is guilty of death but he shall be surely put to death Numb 35. 31. and vers 33. Ye shall not pollute the Land wherein ye dwell for blood defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it Thus much briefly may suffice as to Gods Law Now as to the Laws of England the King cannot pardon a Murtherer or Fellon condemn'd by the Laws of the Land without a plain breach of those Laws and his Coronation Oath for Anno 2d Edward the Third it was by Act of Parliament ordain'd that Charters of pardon should not be granted but onely where the King may do it by his Oath And further amongst this Kings often breaches of the Laws this very particular of his frequent granting of pardons to Murtherers was complained of in open Parliament and the King by three several * 4. Edw. 3. I dem 16. Acts was restrained in those cases but how faulty both the late Kings were in pardoning both Murtherers Fellons condemn'd by the Laws is too well known and how guilty and insensible the late King was of shedding of innocent blood three Kingdoms have lamentable cause to remember Of Wards Ideots and Mad men AS to the Kings Prerogative in taking of Wards and their Marrages it hath been granted him by Statute Law as hereafter shall appear and as to Ideots incompos mentis and madmen or such as have by accident fallen into destraction for the king to assume to himself their estates doubtless there is no Law for it as I can remember extant otherwise to dispose of their estates but an accompt to be given to the next Heir at Law and this of late years was resolved by Mr. Calthrop his own Aturney in the Court of Wards in the case of the Widdow of whose husband being burnt with powder at a muster in Moorfields dyed his wife for grief falling distracted the King gave her estate to one of his * Mr. Ramsey servants a Scotch-man but she having many children and good friends they petitioned the King therein and in the end he was pleased to retract his grant as to the whole of the estate but with this proviso that Ramsey should have the use thereof during the Widows life in case she continued incompos giving security for the repayment to the children but the Gentlewomans friends found it unsafe to trust so great an estate as 30000. l. in Ramseys hands and therefore with great difficulty they drew
Ramsey to accept of 3000. l. ready money to to be quit of him Of the Kings assertion that he was not accomptable for his actions to any but to God alone AS to that odious position or rather Tyrannical assertion both of the Fathers and the Sons that they were not accomptable for their actions to any but to God alone doubtless 't is an impious position and in the next degree to blasphemy and cannot be without repentance forgiven of God nor forgotten of men and those of their subjects which felt the effects thereof Should we longer insist on this Theam and produce proofs that Kings for their irregularities and Tyrannies have in divers Kingdoms been call'd to account they would amount to a Volumn The Justice of Arragon the Ephori amongst the Lacedemonians the Senate of Rome the Parliaments of England and Scotland will soon evince and put this question out of doubt for Kings as well as subjects both by Gods Laws and mans are under the Law and in this kingdom and many other well regulated Soveraignties they have been often over-ruled withstood in their exorbitancies sued at Law and evicted and some deposed expeld and sentenced to death and should it not be so Subjects would be no other then inanimate slaves sure we are Almighty God never impowered Kings with such absolute Soveraignty that might enable them to trample on their subjects without controule Saul made a rash vow as a Law to the Isaelites that none should eat any food all the day until the evening but he should die Ionathan being then absent not knowing thereof had dipt his rod in a Honey-comb and tasted it but being told of his Fathers Law he answered the people My Father troubles Israel and indeed such troublers there are amongst kings howsoever Ionathan was sentenced to death but the people withstood the king and swore that a hair of his head should not fall and they rescued him in the face of the king certainly should not there be some one other power in a kingdom to curbe and controule the exorbitancies of irregular kings for few of them are Saints no man should be exempted from their oppressions and therefore Bracton delivers it as the law of the Land that in such cases the Barons or Parliament ought not onely to withstand oppressive kings but to call them to account for their misdemeanors which may suffice to show how much the two late kings were mistaken in this their Tyrannous assertion Now Gentleman Royalists these Soveraign Rights as you would have them so often treated on utterly dissonant to the Laws of the Land whereunto particularly I have briefly made answer are those goodly Prerogatives wherewith you would have invested the late king as his indubitable birth-rights and inseparables of his Crown for which you still constantly aver he was compeld to fight and your selves with him to uphold them where I must by the way remember you of a time when he shamed not to * Vide The Kings Coyn at Oxford divulge it to the whole Nation that he fought for the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and Priviledges of Parliaament for he was not to seek wherein to please the people and win them to his cause though never so unjust when as in truth he fought against all those three and so long as untill he could fight no more but by what law or reason other then his own none may better know then your selves which as well as infinite others that opposed him have felt the fruits of your unadvisedness the effects of his obduracy his cunning and crafty fetches to attract friends for backing of an unlimited Soveraignty to which had he attained it would have been no other then too heavie a burthen for him to bear a sting in his own conscience a sore in yours which you will all finde whensoever it shall please God to open the eyes of your understanding and enable you to see how you have bin decoyed in with Oathes Protestations and hopes of preferment made the instruments of your own Invassalage This if you believe not to have been the design yet you may finde it legible not onely in the claims and pretences he made to those illegal and irrational Prerogatives before recited but more apparently figured in that bloody Rubrick of a continued War which he so long waged to be absolute master of them and consequenly over all the free people of England Thus have I shewed you how invalid the grounds are whereon you continue to insist in justifying the late king and your selves how dissonant and contrary to the Laws usuages and Statutes of the land such was the wisedom and providence of our ancient Parliaments in all their enactings evermore to prefer the common interest before the kings though they failed not to gratifie them as they found them compliable to the redress of the publick grievances with many Royal immunities as we may finde them registred in the Statutes at large on the Title of Prerogative some whereof I think fit here to present to your view that so you may judge whether Sir Walter Rawly was not in the right who avoucheth that few of our kings but have gotten ground and improved their Soverainties meerely by their Parliaments as I verily believe none more then the late unfortunate King had he been pleased in imitation of Queen Elizabeth to have complyed with the late Parliament But as to his Prerogative of Wardships and Marriages they were first conferr'd on our Kings 17 of Edw. 2d their primer session 52. Hen. 3d the tuition of Ideots and distracted persons 17. of Edw. 2d 32. of Hen. 8th but with several proviso's of accompts to be made to the next Heirs of Ideots and the children of him that was incompos mentis As to wracks of Sea Whales c. they were given by Parliaament to Edward the Second the 17 of his Raign Felons goods the 9 of Hen. 3. power to make Justices of peace 27. of Hen. 8. the Legitimation of the Kings children born beyond the Seas 25. Edw. 3. Tonage and Pondage to Edw. 4. pro tempore yet granted to every of his Successors by the meer indulgence of their Parliaments though the late King challenged it as his own right I may not omit farther to inform you that this Nation hath not been so much abused and deceived by any one proficient in our Laws as by that false and jugling Judge Ienkins who in his Lex * Lex Terrae a most vile and fraudulent peice Terrae by his accumulation of several Statutes insinuates and endeavors to make the Kings power absolute and consequently the people meeâ— Slaves and Vassals alledging this and that to be the Law of the Land which is not or ever was taking his Authorities and Authors by piece-meals curtaling the Statutes in their sense without the explanation of their meanings and intents whereby on my own knowledge he hath deceived and prevailed on the
unnaturally attempting to enslave themselves and their Posterity I shall particularly name some of them Judge * Lex terrae and Mr. Pryns Book Jenkins and another under the name of Mr Prynne which have avouched that the Commons were not summoned or sate in our ancient Parliaments which is a most imputent lye and false assertion as it evidently appears by those old authentick Authorities even now recited and indeed I have spent many an hour in a diligent search into Antiquities to finde out the time when our late form of King Lords and Bishops with the Commons all call'd by Writ from their respective Burroughs had its beginning though it may be enough to satisfie rational men that it hath been at least of 500 years standing if not 600 as by * Archyton Mr Lambert and many other better Authors and far better seen in the Laws then that false Judge Jenkins ever was it manifestly appears Doctor to put a period to this particular let me tell you for your own and the better satisfaction of thousands more of your opinion that new powers will have new Laws new Forms and we of the people must and ought to obey them or smart for our disobedience and so would the King have had you should have found it too true had he prevailed Prel I confess indeed you have given me full satisfaction as well to my first question Whether that relick of the late Parliament was a legal Parliament as to my last concerning the sitting of the Commons in our Antient Parliament but what say you to this new form that meerly is summoned by the power of the Souldiery and almost half Souldiers that now sit at Westminster by what right of a legal Election do they sit as a Parliament for by the Law and right of the people they were to have made choyce of their own Representative Patri By the right of the sword which in all Ages hath been the original foundation of all Laws and Powers and where that weapon hath predominance we must not altogether insist upon Law for silent leges inter arma but look upon Gods Providence with the effects which this power may produce in the issue for the good of the universal Nation since that after the States Army by Gods great blessing had no sooner freed the people from farther bloodshed and rapine the late Parliament being at ease and not playing their parts so dexterously as they might have done but minding their own interests more then that of the publick 't was thought fit by the Councel of war to put a period to their fruitless sitting as formerly they did to the Kings exorbitant Government and for his often breaches of Faith with God and his trust with the whole Nation over whom he was appointed to rule by the Laws of the Land and not by his own will and pleasure for bonus pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus the good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep he never flayes or destroys them Thraso I hope Sir you cannot say as your intimation imports the King my late blessed Master was ever known to flay his Subjects you 'l never leave the Round-head lyes and slanders Patri No Sir I do not positively say so or that the King was guilty of pulling his Subjects skins over their heads as S. Bartholmew is reported to have been served by his cruel Persecutors but by your favor since you are so captious and uncivil to asperse me with lying and slandring as that you can do when you please on innocent children and then make them good with volleys of dam-mees other fearful Oathes and imprecations 't is well known that before the king levied war against the best Subjects he had some have had their ears cut off by the roots their bodies whipt all over in gore blood and their fore-heads branded with hot Irons no man knows well for what more then to please the great Arch-Prelate who would have it so and the Lords of the Star-Chamber and others of the High Inquisition could do no less or durst do no other then vote as he would have them and as sure it is that you and your Complices under the Kings Commissions kill'd plundered and shaved the poor innocent people wheresoever you march'c or quartered which in many places of the Land you perpetrated without mercy so that by your leave the King himself was the sole Author and cause of all the blood and miseries that besell the three Nations as himself sometimes hath confest but good Sir enough of this for it grows late and a time we must have to retreat as you my good Colonel have had a time to rob plunder and spoyl the poor people though I believe you have not purchased any great store of Lands with the remains of your stoln goods but in case you have any store left you there are yet very good peny-worths to be had of Delinquents estates and you may likewise buy wood and timber if you have any use for it if not that you will keep it by you for some other mischievous purposes and not live quietly and peaceably under the present Government the State you may be sure on 't will finde out a parcel that may serve your turn Neut Colonel I have often told you that he would be too hard for you at this kinde of fencing yet you 'l take no warning do you not understand Patriotus his meaning that the State will soon finde out a parcel of Timber for you if you stir and foment more mischief you may guess at his meaning if not take it into your second consideration that there is an intent of erecting a new Court of Justice which will tell us all our fortunes in case any of us should be over-busie and plot new insurrections Thraso A pox of him and the Court of Justice to boot that ever I saw or heard of either of them I pree-thee Doctor suffer not this round-headed-fellow thus to go away with the Bucklers and to send us away like mutes and with a flie in our ears Prel Colonel to deal plainly your langnage is insufferable at our last conference you gave the first offence and now again you are at your old lock for more boldly and uncivilly yon durst not have spoken when you were in the head of the greatest Army the King ever had the truth is you too much forget your self and think not where you are and to whom you speak should I judge of most that the Gentleman hath said I should be a Witness my self that he hath spoken truth and that with well measured Reason but I beseech you Patriotus pardon the Colonels incivility and be pleas'd to satisfie me in some particulars which I suppose you may do in a few minutes of time then I shall both thank you and wish you a good night and at your better leasure shall not fail to give you a friendly visit Sir in brief King John
was a known Tyrant an Usurper and a murtherer of his own Brothers children an Enemy to the Clergy and the greatest depopulator of the Kingdom that ever before it had and yet the States and Nobility forget all his Tyrannies misdeeds and after his poysoning at Swinsteed admitted of his innocent young Son after call'd by the name of Henry the third and soon quitted the Land of Lewis the Dolphin of France whom before they had call'd in to their assistance and to whom most of the great Lords had sworn fealty In like manner the Parliament after the deposiog of Edward the second for his Tyranny made choyce of his young Son Edward the third who proved a very galland Prince likewise on the Parliaments deposing of Richard of Burdeaux for his misgovernment the State made choyse of his cousin-german Henry of Bulling-brook who though not the next in blood and consequently an Usurper as to the right of Succession yet was he made King by consent of the Parliament and he approved himself a very wise and politick Prince whence it appears that the Parliaments and Nobility of those times had ever an eye on the next Successor or to such a one of the blood-Royal as in their judgements they conceived to be most capable and fit to undertake the kingly Government as it may be instanced in their Election of Steven Earl of Bulloyn in the absence of Maude the Empress next in blood and since that of Henry of Richmon after the killing of that Tyrant Richard of Glocester on these premises I beseech you a little extend your patience and tell me what you conceive to have been the reasons that the late Parliament not only took away the Kings life by a new president and under colour of a legal hearing to the great regret of the major part of the Nation but have rerejected the young Prince of mature years hopeful and able to govern together with the Duke of York and Glocester with all the discendents of King James and have changed the Royal Government into a Common-wealth have sold all the Lands Honours Mannors and Revenues anciently by right belonging to the Crown as the proper Inheritance of the Kings of England Now Sir By what Law of God man or reason of State they have attempted on so strange an enterprise passes my understanding especially the exclusion of the poor innocent Princes goes directly against my conscience yet if you please I shall willing hear what you can say for my better satisfaction Patri Doctor your questions necessarily will require a long search into the reasons wherefore the Parliament enterprized on so high a concernment yet in brief I shall tell you what hath been told me and by some of the late Members on the same Queres you have propounded First they say that on consideration of the Kings seldom calling and often dissolving of such Parliaments as he summoned without their due effects and that for ten years together he refused to summon any but ruled during so long an intermission at will and pleasure whereby the common interest and liberties of the people were so much invaded and so many grievances and oppressions crept both into the Church and State that when this late Parliament was through the extremity of his wants call'd the Assembly was to seek where to begin to rectifie and repair the decays of the Commonwealth which through his own misgovernment the prodigaltie and dissoluteness of the Court and Clergy had befallen the universal Nation which although he wholly then left to their rectification yet immediately thereupon he not onely went from his word and falsified his promise but by the continuance of innumerable practises and his uttermost endevors he sought nothing more then to obstruct their Reformation ruine the Parliament and put all the Kingdom into consusion by a most bloody and destructive war which the Assembly perceiving and that his intent in pursuing his designs full six years together and so long as he was able aimed at the utter overthrow of the Laws and envassaladge of the people and that he had entailed this quarrel on his Son and his Heirs-males in perpetuum how impossible then it was for the Parliament to settle a firm peace throughout the three Kingdoms by re-admitting the King full fraught though a prisoner with his wonted Principles and designs or to take in any of his Posterity afore-hand indoctrinated in their Fathers frauds and subtilties might amaze the wisest of men even Salomon himself to finde out any other way how to free the Nation from peâ—petual Tyranny and bloodshed but by cutting off both the Father and Son which were so deeply interessed in the controversie and to make the same use of their victories for the future security and indemnity of the people as the King himself intended to do in the behalf of himself and his Successor had the fortune of a Conquest befallen him thus much in general as to the grounds of the Parliaments resolution of cutting off the King and his Posterity as to the particular reasons I pray take them in their order 1. They alledge that they had no choyce left them whereby to save the Nation from utter ruine but were by the Law of necessity inforc't upon them by the King himself and of his own seeking both to cut off him and exclude his Postâ—rity 2. That having had so long patience and taken such infinite pains during all the wars after he had lost all and was a Prisoner to satisfie him from time to time in what possibly they could in all things questionable between them and on all his exceptions to reason the case all along with him in their several Answers and Replies to his Papers Expresses and Protestations attested before God and his Holy Angels pretending still how really he meant when by long and sad experience they found all his pretences fraudulent yet could they never satisfie him with any Arguments either of Law or Reason but that his own Reason his Will his Honour his Conscience must be the onely Directory to the Parliament theirs of no esteem with him 3. That notwithstanding their many Addresses and humble Petitions presented unto him after his causless recess from the Parliament for his return with honor and profit with this onely reservation to leave Delinquents to the judgement of his Supream Court they prevailed not but he defended them and was the skreen to most notorious Offendors professing still a willingness to peace and Treaties onely to get advantages when he most intended War and Conquest 4. That such was the obstinacy of his natural inclination which himself miscalls constancy from which they found it was impossible to disswade him or yeeld to any reason never so well measured by them but that they must yeeld to his though never so unreasonably prest by himself 5. That in this wilsull pursuance to obtain his most unjust ends he incorrigibly persisted to the last without the least reluctation