that our History may appear to be all of a piece and void of Breaks as much as may be Walter therefore had a Son named Alane who as they say follow'd Godfrey of Bullogn into the Holy Land in the Year 1099. Alexander was his Son who begat Walter Stuart he had Issue Alexander whose Son was John the Father of Walter Stuart that marry'd the Daughter of King Robert Bruce and begat on her Robert Stuart call'd in the Scotch Chronology Robert the second King of Scotland but he was the first Stuart that was advanced to the Throne of that Kingdom But before we can fairly come to give you an exact Account hereof it will be necessary to premise a short Scheme of the Contests between the said Baliol and Bruce because somewhat interwoven with the Affair of this Family Upon the disastrous death of Alexander the Third who broke his Neck as he was gallopping his Horse at Kingcorn over the West-clift of the place near the Sea-side and left no Issue but had only a Grand-child by his Daughter in Norway very young and who died soon after Scotland fell under an Interregnum for the space of six Years and nine Months as Buchanan computes it for so long it was between the Death of Alexander and the declaring of John Baliol King of Scotland and in the mean time you may be sure there wanted not Pretensions to the Crown and the case briefly was thus William King of Scotland had a Brother named David Earl of Huntington and great Uncle to this Alexander the III. which David had three Daughters Margaret marry'd to Allan Lord of Gallaway Isabel to Robert Bruce Lord Annadale and Cleveland and Adda to Henry Hastings Earl of Huntington now Allane begat on his Wife Margaret a Daughter named Dornadilla marry'd in process of time to John Baliol after King of Scotland and two other Daughters Bruce by his Wife Isabel had Robert Bruce Earl of Carrick as having married the Inheritrix thereof but as for Huntington he laid no manner of Claim Now the question was whether Baliol in right of the eldest Daughter or Robert Bruce being descended of the second but a Male should have the Crown he being in the same Degree and of the more worthy Sex The Controversie was tossed up and down by the Governors and Nobles of the Kingdom for a long time but at last upon serious deliberation it was agreed to refer the whole matter to the decision of Edward the I. King of England which he was not a little glad of For resolving to fish in these troubled Waters he stirs up eight Competitors more that he might further puzzle the Cause and at length with twenty four Councellors half Scots half English and a great many Lawyers so handled the Business that after a great many cunning delays he secretly tampers with Bruce who was then conceiv'd to have the better Right of the Business that if he would acknowledge to hold the Crown of him he would adjudge it in favour of him But he generously answering That he valued a Crown at a less rate than for the wearing of the same to put his Country under a Foreign Yoke Edward turns about and makes the same motion to Baliol who did not stick to accept of it Baliol having thus gotten a Crown as unhappily kept it for he was no sooner invested with it and done Homage to King Edward according to Agreement but the Aberthenys having slain Mackduff Earl of Fife he not only pardon'd them the Fact but gave them a piece of Land that was in Controversie between them Whereupon Mucduff's Brother being enraged makes a Complaint of him to King Edward who sent for him used him so that he made him rise from his Seat at Parliament and go to the Bar and answer for himself He hereupon was so enraged at this manner of Usage that when King Edward sent to him for Assistance against the French he absolutely refused it and proceeded so far as to renounce his Homage to him This incensed King Edward to the quick and so with an armed Power he hastens to Berwick where he routed the Scots took and kill'd to the number of Seven Thousand of them among them most of the Nobility of Fife and Lowthian and some time after gave them also a great Overthrow at Dunbar which occasion'd the immediate surrender of the Castle of the said place into his Hands After this he marches to Montross where Baliol was brought to resign up both himself and his Crown to King Edward all the Scotch Nobility at the same time doing him Homage The Consequence whereof was that Baliol was sent Prisoner to London and from thence after a Years detention into France But while Edward was possess'd of all Scotland one William Wallace arose who tho' but a private Man bestirred himself in the publick Calamity of his Country and gave the English several notable Foyls This brought King Edward into Scotland again with an Army and falling upon Wallace routs him who was overcome with Emulation and Envy from his Countrymen as well as power from the Enemy upon which he laid by his Command and never acted after but by slight Incursions but the English Army after this being beaten at Roslin Edward comes in again and takes Sterling and makes them all render him Homage Robert Bruce Son to the foresaid Bruce that contested with Baliol for the Crown was in King Edward's Court and him the King had often promised to put in possession of the Crown But Bruce finding at last that all his promises were illusory and nothing but smoak he enters into a Confederacy with John Cummin sirnamed the Red how he might get the Kingdom but being basely betray'd by him to King Edward he had much ado to make his escape and when he was got into Scotland the first thing he did was to stab Cummin at Drumâ—reis and then got himself Crown'd King at Scone Never did any Man come with greater disadvantage to the possession of a Crown or underwent greater Hardships for the sake of it He was beaten over and over by King Edward's Troops forced to flee to the Highlands with one Companion or two and to lurk in the Mountains in great misery as if he had been rather a Beast of prey than a rational Creature And while he was in this miserable State it is storied of him by Fourdon That being in a Morning lying down on his Bed in a little Cottage whither he was glad to retire and make the same his Pallace he espies a Spider striving to climb up into her Web which she had spun to the roof of the House but failing of her purpose the first time she attempts it the second and third time and so on to the sixth and last wherein she accomplishes it and gets in the King who as well as his Companion had all the while view'd the Action said Now let 's get up and hasten to the Lowlands to try our Fortunes
pleased over the King 's Natural Subjects but he must mock and deride with the ignorant multitude the Danish Ambassadors also and use them with all the despight imaginable for it seems they knowing his former meanness in Swedeland made no great Court to him which raised his Fury this was quickly perceived by some about the King whom the Earls Practices and Insolence had disobliged and who failed not to let the King know it and for all the Earls Ascendency made him somewhat to decline in Favour which another accident gave a helping hand to for Sir Francis Russell upon some disorders that fell out upon the Borders happening to be slain of the English side Mr. Woton the English Ambassador who stood in competition with the Earl for the King's Favour took occasion to lay the blame upon him alledging that the Laird of Fernihast who was Warden of the Scots Borders had Married the Earl of Arran's Brothers Daughter and that the said Earl had caused the slaughter to be committed that the Borders might break loose Wotton was seconded by others in this complaint so effectually that the Earl was committed prisoner to the Castle of St. Andrews where having remained for a few days he got by the intercession of the Master of Gray whom he won with fair promises to be his Friend It 's strange he should find any who had disobliged every Body leave to retire to his own House and here the King played a Noble prank but whether he used it as Lex talionis for the sham-Ring Arran had put upon Walsingham as aforesaid and which he durst not otherwise punish I am not certain but it looks like his little tricks which notwithstanding he dignified with the name of Kingcraft for when the Earl was upon his journey homeward he sends to him with all possible diligence for to lend him a great Gold Chain which he knew he had got from Sir James Belfour which weighed 57 Crowns to be given to the Danish Ambassadors which if the Earl had refused to do he would it's likely have lost the King and in delivering of it he lost his Chain Arran being thus retired makes several attempts to recover his former station and the King it was observed retained a Favour for him and would have been content to have Himself and Kingdom still Governed by him he was once again admitted to Court but others had stepped in and the King had not power to remove them so that the Earl after long retirement and discontent was surprized at last by James Douglass at Parkhead and slain by him in revenge of the death of the Earl of Morton his Unkle and but little care taken to punish the same many thinking it indeed strange that he should be permitted so long to live who had carried it so arrogantly and insolently towards all Men in the time of his Ascendency at Court but several other Accidents intervened before the Earls Exit The next Man that had the chief Credit and Management of Affairs was Mr. Wotton the English Ambassador but tho' the King begun now to be Governed by a Favourite and a Forreiner under this Character yet it did not end here as you shall hear by and by when the Scene is transplanted into England Wotton knew as well as any Man alive how to humour him in his pleasures and such familiar access had he at all times to his Person that he attempted to have brought in the banished Lords whose Interest he had espoused not without the direction to be sure of the English Court secretly into his presence in the Parish of Sterling at such a time as they should have so many Friends at Court that he must have remained once more at their Devotion but all things did not so concur as to put this Enterprize in practice so it was laid aside and Mr. Wotton essayed a Second but more desperate attempt which was to Kidnap Jemmy out of the foresaid Park into England see Sir James Melvill but Sir Robert Melvill coming to a timeous Knowledge hereof took measures to prevent it which made the English Ambassador withdraw home without bidding of them once a good night the Lords for all this enter the Borders being assisted by the Lords Hamilton Maxwel Hume and several others and advance to the number of Three thousand Men towards Sterling entring the Town without any opposition where they were no sooner arrived but there appear'd two Factions with the King in the Castle the one favouring the Lords whose part the King took as if he had really desired the Lords should have come thither in this manner to tear his Minions from his Heart and so once more the King is in their Power which they exercised with great moderation only a few were committed for the present to the custody of some Noblemen and so a Parliament was called as the best expedient to heal all their breaches Things continued in some sort of Concord for a little while and the Convicting and Beheading of the Queen his Mother in England seemed to possess all their Minds with amazement at the Fact for the present tho' I do not find he did at all resent it but this was no sooner over but there appears a new Faction at Court headed by the Earl of Huntley whose aim was at the removing of the Master of Gray and Maitland the Chancellor with their Adherents but finding it was not so easily to be effected Huntley Bothwell and others contrived to seize the King's Person and to keep him in their custody but this proving Abortive the noise of the Spanish Invasion which was dreaded in Scotland as well as in England seemed to lay all Animosâ—tâ—es aside for the present but this blowing over the King's Thoughts seemed to be taken all up about Marrying the Sister of the King of Denmark was the Lady proposed and Queen Elizabeth consulted with thereupon who disswaded him therefrom and said she had Interest with the King and Princess of Navarr and that she would imploy the same for effectuating of a Marriage between him and the said Princess but the King was bent upon the former and because he found the Chancellor and some others oppose it he could not or would not be seen openly to controul them but dealt secretly with some of the Deacons of the Craftsmen of Edenburg to form a Mutiny against the Chancellor and some of the Council threat'ning to kill them in case the Marriage with the Daughter of Denmark were hindred or any longer delayed whereupon the Earl of Marshal was sent thither with Power to Treat about the said Marriage but withal in so stinted and limited a degree contrived by the Craft of the Chancellor and his Faction that he was necessitated to send the Lord Dinguall back from thence to desire either liberty to return hence or to have sufficient Power to conclude the Treaty when he came he hapned to find the King at Aberdeen without the Chancellor c so
Consent they do Pronounce and Declare this judicial Verdict and say that after the end of the said Parliament specified in the Commission viz. After the first of June in the Seven and twentieth year of the Queen divers Matters were compassed and imagined in England by Anthony Babington and others with the Privity of Mary Queen of Scots pretending Title to the Crown of England tending to the hurt death and destruction of the Royal Person of our Sovereign Lady the Queen and furthermore that after the said Day and Year and before the Date of our Commission the said Mary hath compassed and imagined in this Kingdom of England divers Matters tending to the hurt death and destruction of the Royal Person of our said Sovereign against the Form of the Statute specified in the said Commission Soon after a Parliament was called wherein the House of Peers by the Chancellor petitioned the Queen that the Sentence might be promulgated and withal besought Her Majesty for the Safety of Her Person and Kingdoms to execute Justice on the Queen of Scots the Queen in her Answer shewed a great reluctancy to cut her off but concluded with Her Thanks for their Care and Advice but in a case of so great consequence said She would not be rash but consider and some Twelve days after desir'd the Parliament to consult some other way of Safety and to spare the Queen of Scots but they persisted in their former Advice so that some time after the Sentence was proclaimed throughout London and all the Kingdom King James upon the news sends one Kieth to Queen Elisabeth to intercede on his Mothers behalf and after him came the Master of Gray and Sir Robert Melvill to whom She said She was sorry no way could be found out to Save their King's Mother and secure her own Life they offer Pledges of the Scots Nobility for Her Security and wondred what should move any Man to attempt any thing against Her Majesty for Queen Mary's sake because said Queen Elisabeth they think She shall succeed me and She a Papist they to salve this Proposed that the Right of Succession might be made over in King James's Person and this would cut off the hopes of the Papists and they were sure Queen Mary would readily resign all her Right to Her Son but Queen Elisabeth urged She had no Right being Declar'd uncapable of Succession tho' the Papists would not allow her Declaration and this brought them again to press the Resignation but the Earl of Liecester who stood by objected that Queen Mary being a prisoner she could not deny 't the Scots Answer That it being made to her Son with the Advice of all her Friends in Europe in case Queen Elisabeth should miscarry none will partake with the Mother against her Son c. Here the Queen misunderstanding the Ambassador's meaning was told that the King would be in his Mother's Place Say you so said she 'Sdeath that were to cut my own Throat he shall ne'r come to that place and be Party with me and added Well tell your King what I have done for him to keep the Crown on his Head since he was Born and for my part I shall keep the League betwixt us and if he break it it shall be a double Fault and in passion got away Melvill followed her praying respite of Execution not an Hour said she and so they parted Some time after she Signed a Warrant for a Mandate fitted for the Great Seal for her Execution and entrusted the same with Davidson one of her Secretaries to be in a readiness in case of danger but he too hastily got it to pass the Seal which some said she would afterwards have recalled but was prevented by the earnest prosecution of Beal Clerk of the Council who was sent by them to the Earls of Shrewsbury Kent Derby and Cumberland to take care of her Execution unknown to the Queen for it was said that she should tell Davidson at that instant that she was resolved of another way then by death the Earls arriving at Fotheringham Castle in Northamptonshire where she was detained gave her notice on Monday Feb. 6. 1586. to prepare for Death the Wednesday next following but one when the fatal day came she was cloathed in Black had an Agnus Dei about her Neck a pair of Beads at her Girdle with a Golden Cross at the end of them and so passed through the Hall and mounted the Scaffold raised Two Foot high and Twelve broad Railed about with a low Stool a Cushion and a Block all covered with Black being set down the Lords and the Sheriffs of the County stood on her Right Hand Sir Annias Paulet and Drewry on her Left the two Executioners one the Common Hangman of London and the other of the County standing before her and the Knights and Gentlemen placed round about without the Rail Silence being made the Clerk of the Council having read the Commission for her Execution the People shouted and cryed God Save our Queen then Dr. Fletcher Dean of Peterborough standing before her gave her several Godly Exhortations as preparatory for her Death but she little regarded him and at last interrupted him saying he needed not trouble himself that she was a Roman Catholick and so forth then the Earls offered to join in Prayer with her that she might be enlightned in the true Faith but that she refused to do saying she would use her own Devotions then they required the Dean to Pray who did it with an audible Voice the Queen all the while sitting on her Stool with a Latin Prayer Book in her Hand a Crucifix and a pair of Beads and not minding what he said when the Dean had done the Queen with her own People all in Tears Prayed aloud in Latin and concluded her self with an English Prayer professing to be Saved by Christ's Blood and thereupon kissed the Crucifix then her Women begun to undress her and one of the Executioners taking from her Neck the Agnus Dei tyed behind the Queen laid hold on it gave it to her Women saying he should have Money but she suffered them and her Women to take off her Chain and Apparrel in some haste always smiling and put off her strait Sleeves with her own Hands hindring the Fellow who rudely offer'd at it to do it and now being in her Petticoat and Kirtle prepared for Death she crossed and kissed her Women who were lamentably skreeking and crying and crossed also her Men-Servants who stood without the Rails and then kneeled upon her Cushion saying in Latin the whole Psalm In te Domine confido ne eoufundas in aeternum and groping for the Block laid down her Head putting her Chin over the Block with both her Hands and held them there which might have been cut off with her Head had they not been timely espyed being thus fixed while one of the Executioners gently held her down the other with two stroaks with the Axe
severed her Head from her Body leaving only a little Gristle uncut without the least stir or motion of the Body and lifting up her Head said God Save our Queen her Lips moved for about a Quarter of an Hour after and her Head-Cloaths falling off her Head appeared as Grey as if shee had been Seventy years old whereas she was but Forty six Having thus brought this unhappy Queen to her fatal Catastrophe we now return to her Son James VI. who notwithstanding afterward his vain â—oast of his inherent Birth-right when he came to be King of England during her long Captivity in England being above 18 years possest her Throne in Scotland he was Born on the 19 th of June in the year 1566 and about Fourteen Months after Crowned King in his Mother's stead she being forced by the Nobles to resign to him The Kingdom during some part of his Minority was Governed by the Earl of Murray as Regent but he being murthered basely by one Hamilton at Lithgow Matthew Stuart Earl of Lenox the King's Grandfather was advanced into his room during whose Regency two Factions continued as before the one for the young King and the other for the Deposed Queen but by the means of Sir James Melvill and others the Queen was brought upon the point of Agreement with the Regent but the Earl of Morton returning to Court he and Randolph the English Ambassador suspecting the probability of such an apparent agreement which had been kept secret from them they fell a plotting which way to obstruct the same and resolved as the most probale means to have a Parliament convened and therein got all the Queens Lords forefaulted whereby the Regent should utterly ruin the ancient Families of the Hamiltons and this would afford a bait to every one of the King's Lords seeing they should be made sharers of the spoil and every one of them get wealth enough Mr. Randolph for their incouragement gave them assurance from England so as they needed not fear any resistance from their Adversaries and Morton to clench the Nail First represented in Council that the Queen's Lords had an intention to re-establish Popery upon which Allegation he knew he would make them odious to the generality of the People and upon their being Forefaulted that each of them should have a share of the said Lord's Estates which brought the Council readily to consent to a Parliament to be held at Sterling to the same purpose The Queen's Lords to be even with them held another Parliament at Edenburgh at the same time and with the same Design of Forefaulting as the King's Lords in the mean time the Laird of Grainge was highly concerned at those violent proceedings wherefore he sent for the Laird of Fer in haste and Buccleugh to come to him one Evening to Edenburg with a good Guard along with them and tell them according to the projection had already devised that that same Night after they had Supped and fed heir Horses they should ride with them to Sterling so as to be there early in the Morning before any of the Lords who held the Parliament were out of their Beds hoping by the Intelligence he had received assuredly to surprize them before they could be advertised thereof the Project they all readily agreed to but they would not allow Grange to go along with them for fear any disaster should befall him who was the Life of them all and so on they march under the Leading of the Earl of Huntley and some others and were got to Sterling by Four next Morning whereinto they entred by a little passage being conducted by a Townsman one George Bell which entry of theirs was immediately after their Night watches had retired to their Rest they divided their Men into several Partys and appointed such as they thought meetest at every Lord's Lodgings leaving one body under Capt. Hackerston at the Market-Cross to see good Order kept and to prevent any spoil to be committed only they ordered the Stables to be searched and all the Horses in the Town to be carried away which was punctually executed but because Captain Hackerstown did not come in due time with his Company to attend at the Market-Cross according to appointment a Company of unruly Servants broke open the Shops and run up and down to take what spoil they could get in the mean while after they had taken out all the Lords from their Lodgings and were leading of them prisoners down the steep Causey of Sterling on foot intending to take them Horses at the Nether-Gate and to ride to Edenburg with their Captives those within the Castle hearing the noise of the Townsmen crying out because of the plundering of their Houses and considering what a disgrace it would be to them if they did not shew themselves Men upon such an occasion they Sallied out boldly and perceiving the disorder of the Enemy rescued all the Prisoners saving the Regent whom one shot in the Back at the Command as was alleged of the Lord Pachey he died of the Wound some days after The next Regent was the Earl of Mar the Discord still continued His Government held not long for being one day invited to Dinner by the Earl of Morton he returned home and sickned died soon after not without vehement suspicion of having been poisoned at his Banquet Morton came in after him Regent the Division between the Lords not yet made up some Overtures of an Accommodation were made but the Queen's Lords finding the Regent not sincere in all Respects refused the Agreement and were at last Besieged in Edinburgh Castle by an English Army which they surrendred upon Articles that were basely broke and most of them executed The King now growing up began to hate the Regent he being aware of it â—ed those about him to infuse in him a good Opinion of him but in vain and so a Council was appointed at Edenburg wherein it was agreed to Depose him Morton thereupon retires to the House of Lochleven within the Lough for his greater security but while he was there his Head was continually a plodding how he might again become Master of the Court then at Sterling which he accomplished in the dead of one night in this manner When he came to the Gates of the Castle they were opened to him by the two Abbots and a Faction they had drawn in there with them though the Master of Mar and Earl of Argyle made what resistance they could yet Morton prevailed but handled the matter so discreetly and moderately as possible he could that the alteration might not appear to be over sharp or violent but the Lord Aubonie about that same time coming into Scotland from France which Lord was afterward Created Duke of Lennox and was Brothers Son to the late Earl of Lennox He and James Steward of Oghiltrie did in a short time gain the ascendency over the King's Affections who was like a Tennis-Ball tossed from one Favourite to another
contrived that the Earl of March should give him an invitation to be at the place two or three days before the time under pretence that the preparations he had made of Wild Meats and other things for his Reception would be spoiled if he came not somewhat sooner than the appointed day a silly excuse but on he goes contrary to the advice of some about him who were sensible of the inconveniencies that might attend it especially since the Lords whom he had summoned could not be there so soon and when he arrived at St. Andrews he took up his Lodgings at an old Inn whose greatest security was the Yard Dykes of little consideration Melvil who saw the vanity of such doings goes to the Provost to see what force he could make for the Kings security in case he were exposed to any danger who answered very few and those not to be relied upon but returning to the King and believing that the Proclamation had been made that no Man should come to the Convention unsent for he found the Abbot of Dumfermling and the Earl of Marshal there the Abbot who was of the contrary Faction yet did by his Wit and Dissembling Practices so manage the King that the Proclamation was not only stopped but Missive Letters sent to the rest of the Nobility to come but under the Restriction that each Nobleman should come attended with no more than two Persons Some of his Adherents who foresaw this would unravel the whole design reminded him of the danger and advised him to retire into the Castle which they could not persuade him to do till after Supper Next day all the Lords as well written as unwritten for came to St. Andrews the latter strongly armed and the others not The Abbot who was with the King in the Castle pretending all manner of Zeal for his Service advised him to let none of the Lords come within the Castle accompanied with any more than twelve Persons which tho' he were now in a place of security if well managed had like to have brought him again into a State of Captivity for the next morning the Castle was full of Men and the contrary Party being well Armed had already possest themselves of the Stair-Head and Galleries resolving a second time to be Masters of the King and all his Followers but the Earl of March his Gentlemen with the Provosts Men and some others got thither with such diligence that the design was rendered Abortive for that time so that next day the King for fear of a further surprise gave them fair Words promising all alike there of his Favour and Protection which for the time seemed to give Contentment to all the parties In the mean while the Earl of Arran got the Favour to be confined in his own House at Kinneall from whence he sends to Congratulate his Majesty's safe deliverance begging leave to come to Court to kiss the King's Hand which for the time was deninied but he still persisting in his Sollicitation by the help of some Friends and promising to make no manner of stay but to withdraw again to his Habitation the King whose Affections were still towards him and Born it seems to be ruled by others tho' he could not chuse but know he was obnoxious to the whole Kingdom and had been a principal Cause of the King 's former confinement grants him leave the Earl had no sooner access no more thought of his Promise but staid not only at Court but in a short time altered all the ways of procedure with a design to draw the management of all publick Affairs to himself as before this was a great mortification to many about the King and Colonel Steward resented it highly saying That if his Majesty suffered that Villain to remain at Court he would yet again undo all but at last they were reconciled and became great Friends and from henceforward the Earl managed the King Council and all other Affairs of the Kingdom as despotically as if he had been Grand Signior or Mayor of the Palace in France the King was easily induced by him to spend most of his time a Hunting and to be content with whatever Relation he gave him of the Publick Affairs and when he had gained this point he bent his whole force for to ruin the Ruthwen Road Lords notwithstanding the Publick Faith given them for their Indemnity Queen Elizabeth about this time sent to King James a sharp Letter concerning his mismanagement of his Affairs and promised to send Sir Francis Walsingham into Scotland by whom she said she intended to deal with him as an Affectionate Sister and one from whom he might see he should receive Honour and Contentment with more safety to himself and Kingdom than by following the pernicious Councils of those crafty dissembling Advisers about him but there was nothing could stop the career of this mighty Favourite Arran who obtains the Government of Sterling-Castle to the rest and banished several Noblemen as the Earls of Mar Angus c. and by his insolent behaviour drove the Noble Earl of Gawry and almost all other honest Men from Court at length Walsingham arrived who after he had been with the King and pursued his Instructions prepared to return home Arran would fain have entred into a familiar Conference with him but Sir Francis disdained to speak with him the other enraged with the conceived affront and finding no other way of Revenge but what must bring great dishonour upon the King a poor tool to suffer it gave Orders that the Captains of Berwick and several worthy Gentlemen who came to convoy Secretary Walsingham should not be suffered to enter into the King's Presence-Chamber and not content herein when the King had ordered a rich Diamond to the value of 700 Crowns to be given to the Secretary instead thereof the Earl puts a scornful Present upon him of a Ring with a Chrystal stone sett therein only a Presumption undoubtedly that Harry 8. would have punisheed with the loss of his Head had the Earl been his Subject but this way of procedure was so far from exciting the King to vindicate his own Honour which was abominably blemish'd hereby that when he was determined to go to Edenburg to call a Convention of the Estates more Honours must be put upon the Earl for to that of the Government of Sterling-Castle already in his Hands was added that of Edenburg Castle the two most important Fortresses in the Kingdom and least a Military Power was not yet sufficient both for his Greatness and Security he gets himself Declared Lord Chancellor and so Head of the Civil Power in the Kingdom and now he Triumphs making the whole Subjects tremble under him and by daily seeking out and inventing new crimes against others to get their Lands and Possessions several of the Nobility he banished but more especially shot directly at the Earl of Gawrey's Life and Estate but the Earl could not be content to Domineer as he
an entire disappointment of his hopes that way and they to be so beaten as they were never before nor after by the English Fleet. Oliver Cromwel sometime after assuming the Supream Power by the Title of Protector he and Mazarine grew so gracious one with another that France began now to be too hot to hold King Charles so as he was necessitated to retire thence to the Elector of Cologn and afterwards into the Spanish Netherlands where he ordered the English Scots and Irish in those parts which amounted to between four and five thousand Men to joyn the Spaniards to attempt the relief of Dunkirk then besieged by the French and English But herein he was as fatal in his Arms as he had been all along before for the Spanish Army were utterly routed and this defeat broke his whole design so that he never after made use of Arms to recover his Inheritance but retired to Bruges where he stay'd to see the event of things The death of Oliver Cromwell together with the many changes of Government that happened thereupon in England gave new life to his hope and made him go in person to the Pyrenaean Treaty to promote his Interest from whence he returned through France to Bruxells But coming to understand that Sir George Booth and the Cheshire Men were supprest by Lambert it did not a little damp his hopes and made him return again to Bruxells from about St. Maio's where he privately lay in readiness to take Shipping for England upon the first good event of Sir George and others undertakings for him But his Crown was not to be recovered by War how then came he to be restored A grand step towards it was the Rump Parliament's Jealousie of Monk and his Jealousie of them again But what contributed most to it was the unsetled state of the Nation under the many Vicissitudes of Government that had been introduced since the death of the King his Father which made the People very uneasie and long for a Settlement upon any terms and therefore the Convention when they met in order to it on April 25. 1660. did hand overhead without any Preliminaries of asserting the Rights and Liberties of the English so manifestly violated by his Father and Grandfather restore him without any contradiction which did not a little contribute to the succeeding uneasiness of his Reign as well as the Nations trouble But restored he was as aforesaid and on May 25. following Landed at Dover and was received every where with utmost Demonstrations of Joy About October following came over the Queen-Mother seemingly to Treat about a Marriage between Mounsieur of France and her fair Daughter Henrietta Maria But it 's like the Marriage between the King and the Infanta of Portugal was no less designed which was after Consummated and wherein he was as unhappy in respect to Procreation by her as he was fruitful in what ground soever else he sowed his seed which he was Prodigal enough of But there was yet somewhat else of far more dangerous consequence to poor England and more dishonourable to the King that brought the Queen-Mother over and that was the Sale of Dunkirk to the French whose Agent she was in that fine spot of work If the King's Arms whilst an Exile in conjunction with the Spaniards were so unsuccessful in the relief of Dunkirk then Besieged by the joint force of English and French he was much more unhappy in the Sale of it afterward for 400000 l. whereof one moiety was detained for the Portion of Henrietta Maria his Sister and not to the Spaniards who were kind to him in his adverse Fortunes and had most right to it but to the French who had done all they could by their Embassador Bourdeux to hinder his Restoration and on whose side the Ballance then lay which it had been his business to have kept even as his Predecessors the Kings of England were wont to do and particularly Henry 8. and Queen Elizabeth This action I think was us unparallel'd as any can be found in our English Annals It was indeed a Charge against Mary Queen of Scots that she would have transferred her Right of Succession to the English Crown to the then King of Spain Philip 2. but that if true was giving away what was not in her power to dispose of and much such another Donation as that of the Pope's to the Emperor Charles of the Kingdom of Mexico tho with a different fate to both Nations but here was neither Donation force nor any visible necessity but a voluntary act in King Charles to the inestimable damage of England as has been but too sensibly felt to this very day You must note that the gazing World stood a little while amazed at the strange Revolution in England by the King 's easie and pacifick Restoration and with what transports of Joy he was received by the Nation then in a most Warlike posture and as much dreaded by our Neighbours and particularly by the French who had formed designs for an Universal Monarchy But now they were put to a stand to see what such a mighty power and apparently lasting Settlement in England would produce yet finding at length that here all thoughts of Military glory and extention of Dominion seemed wholly to be laid aside and all the severity of the preceding times daily degenerate to the Luxuries of an Effeminate Reign they began to reassume their former design and to prosecute the foundation Cardinal Richlieu had laid for them But that they might make sure work on 't and see that they made a true judgment of the English affairs they resolved to try such an Experiment as would throughly decide the matter and what must that be but overtures for the buying of Dunkirk which succeeding as aforesaid according to their wishes raised their hopes higher than ever of attaining their ends And because they knew well enough that the English were a powerful People by Sea and that while they retained the Soveraignty of it it would be a hard rub in their way they joyn their strength with the Dutch to dispute the Dominion of it with us but the Dutch were as unfortunate in their Allyance in the first Dutch War as the English were in the second when they joyned with them against the Dutch for excepting the time that the English Fleet was divided in the first War and that base business of burning the Ships at Chatham so much to the King and Nations dishonour the Dutch came by the worst of it in all the rest of the Engagements and it was much the same luck the English had by their Conjunction in the second War the French both times standing aloof as looking on and no doubt laughing in their sleeves to see the two most Potent Nations in the World by Sea weaken and destroy one anothe whilst they in the mean time not only saved their own stake but learned how to fight and doubted not but in time
clear and distinct a View of that Part of the History of this Family which I have taken upon me to Write as possibly I could And so far forth as any Thing contained herein shall redound to the Reader 's Information or Benefit by so much proportionably shall the same be taken by me for more than a Compensation of all my Impended Labour As to what concerns the Pleasurable Part Although History in general be a Study that carries as much Diversion and Agreeableness in it yea and much more if the Judgment of One be allowed who is a passionate Lover of it than any other Science whatsoever Yet it must be confess'd that the very Epithet of Tragical bears a very harsh and ungrateful Sound and such as cannot but offend some and more particularly the Comedy-Admirers of this Age who are not a few as appears by the ordinary Course of the Stage Yet I have taken Care so to attemper my Matter as now and then to intermix some agreeable Passages therewith but yet not without all just Deference to the Law and Truth of History which cannot but suit their Genius also To conclude If any other Cavils shall be raised against me as That I have been any where too Satyrical or given my Pen too much Freedom in exposing Vices or otherwise I shall once for all give in for Answer what a great Princess and a Descendant from Mary Queen of Scots was pleased to say to a Person who would have excited her to resent what a Protestant Author had somewhat severely written concerning the Amours of that Queen viz. That there ought to be a Permission for Men to speak the Truth especially after their Death for that if History did not do Justice to their good and bad Qualities we should find but very few that would be Vertuous LETTER I. The Author revives his Correspondence with his Lordship and intimates his resolves to continue it as time and his circumstances would admit of with some account of the Fears and Terrors the French Papists are in of the Prince of Orange as he is called by them My Lord WHen I had dispatch'd away my last to your Lordship I did not expect a sudden opportunity if at all to revive my correspondence with you the mighty change that hath been wrought in England having quite stopped up the ways of my former Conveyance But revolving frequently with my self that it would be a matter highly grateful to your Lordship to have from time to time some secret information of the Affairs of this Country I have left nothing unessay'd whereby I might be in a capacity to gratify your curiosity and so have now sooner indeed than my own expectations found out a way that I hope though my fears are also very great now and then may effect it which is by though I must also inform your Lordship that there is a more than ordinary care and circumspection used now to keep all Court-Intreagues from taking Air by frequent altering of their Cyphers Entries and other Methods Your Lordship knows best how the face of things appear in England upon so grand a Revolution they put the best Meen they can upon it here and tho' there is a fair shew made at Court of it yet nothing is more certain than that the Kingdom is in a general Consternation of which surprizing marks are to be seen as well in the Lovre as in Paris and the Provinces Some have smiled here and I doubt not of your Lordship and our Friends in England smiling too when I tell you that the French King astonished and not knowing how to believe that the Prince and Princess of Orange have been Crowned in England and proclaimed in Scotland has asked several times a day whether the News was true or no so dreadful to him is that fatal Accident and which has made him dispose of his Armies into all Quarters where there can be any semblance of Danger as if he expected to be attacked every way But all these terrors from without makes the Court abate nothing of their vigorous prosecution of the peaceable remains of the reformed within so that upon the least suspition of any meetings of them they run from all the Neighbouring parts to circumvent them For there being a report lately raised in Perigord that a religious assembly of Hugonots was held at the House of one M. Dupare the alarum Bell was immediately rung and all the Town got together and ran to the House but found no body in it save a few Children But this did not hinder the Neighbouring Villages to take the Allarm who run in heaps to Massacre the Hugonots and Prince of Orange whom they believe to be always at their heels And such Pannick Terrors does the apprehension of him strike into them that about the same time the Preacher of Sarlate was forsaken by all his Auditors upon an imaginary Rumour thought to be spread abroad that the Prince of Orange was at the Gates of Regaudi how desirable would it be that King William and his Confederates might strike the Blow while the Iron is hot But I shall not Dictate but conclude with my hearty wishes that this or any other intelligence I may transfer to your Lordship hereafter may be of any advantage through your Honours Wise Conduct and Management to my Native Country and so remain highly satisfy'd of his opportunity to testify how ready I am at all times to serve and obey You and to subscribe my self My Lord Your Humble and most Devoted Servant Paris May 14. 1689. N. S. LETTER II. Of the Dauphin's Dissatisfaction with his Command of the French Army in Germany and what use might be made of it by the Confederates if dexterously managed My Lord I Do not question but your Lordship is very well acquainted with the present posture of things in reference to the Armies of this Kingdom and that particularly the Dauphine has the Command again this Year of the Army upon the Rhine But what his real sentiments are concerning it your Lordship cannot be thought to know and perhaps but very few others yet it is apparent by the Air and Countenance of this Prince that he does not take the Field with the same Chearfulness as he did last year and something that has lately dropped from him and which I had communicated to me from one about him who knew the truth of it hath something so remarkable in it and by a wise Conduct may be so made use of as to turn to such solid advantage that I do not know any thing at present so worthy to be Communicated to your Lordship Said he I am not so much concerned at the great number of Enemies I have to fight with as the difficulty I labour under how to treat with them for above all things it behâ—ves one that is Successor to a Crown to be true to his Engagements more especially in such a Reign as this is For that the first impressions
the Worlds take of him are likely never to wear out Things are now brought to that pass that I cannot rely upon the Enemies word nor they upon mine and I should be still in fear that they would violate their agreements with me supposing I would never keep faith with them any longer than I esteemed it for my conveniency I know it will be a fruitless thing for me to make protestations that what happened last year in reference to the violation of the Capitulation of the Cities in the Palatinate came to pass without my approbation or privity that excuse will be imputed to Folly or Treachery unless I could publickly put to death the Authors of that infidelity which the evil Counsellors about my Father will not permit for fear both the crime and the punishment should fall upon themselves These are generous Sentiments my Lord which if well cultivated may perhaps prove useful to himself and to the confederated Enemies of France at this time and I can think them no other than the remains of such as were infused into him by the good old Duke his Governour who stuck not once to tell his Father upon the account of his Cruelty to his Protestant Subjects That it became not a King to be a Bigot I shall confine my self now and always to a bare transmission of what I shall judge worthy your knowledge leaving the application wholly to your Lordship without I have other commands from you which I do not know how to receive in my ticklish circumstances at present but such when known to me as I shall always obey to the utmost of my power as far as I find them safe and consistent with your Honour and so I remain My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Entirely devoted Serv. Versailles May 30. 1689. N. S. LETTER III. Of the Declaration of War made by France against the Crown of Spain after she had endeavoured in vain to keep the Spaniards neutral My Lord YOur Lordship may perhaps call to mind what I formerly transmitted to you out of our Minutes concerning the efforts made by this Crown to induce the Spaniards to a Neutrality in the War formed by France against the Republick of Holland and her then Confederates And I am now to acquaint you there have been the like and greater efforts made to keep that same Crown from falling into the present Conjunction of the Allies against her though both the attempts have failed of the desired success It s true the Spaniards thought fit to temporize the latter end of the last Year and the beginning of this till they found the Revolution in England accomplished and the Government reduced to a settled form and then they made no bones openly to testify their Aversion to France and her interest as well as good-will to the Confederates at the same time by such Acts as gave evident signs both of the one and the other And your Lordship cannot think how greatly mortified this Court is at the News they have lately received of my Lord Stafford King James his Embassadors being dismist by the King of Spain and that they would no longer own his Character It has occasion'd much discourse here and People daily vend their Sentiments upon it as they are variously affected towards the parties concerned and among other things I cannot forbear mentioning one passage which though perhaps already known to your Lordship yet give me leave to please my self since I have nothing more momentous to transmit with a short relation of it It seems upon the late King James his Accession to the Throne the Spanish Embassador Don Ronquillo took upon himself to advise him not to suffer himself to be guided by Friars and Monks the King for answer told him That the Kings of Spain were wont to do it The Embassador replied again I know it Sir but that is our misfortune Therefore your Majesty ought to take warning by our Example and not to dash your self against that Rock and surely if he had taken up with this Counsel he might have been still in great security upon his Throne and his Embassador in the highest esteem in Spain But to return the foremention'd prevarications in the Court of Spain as they are pleased to denominate them here has at length produc'd a Declaration of War against Spain which has been dispatch'd by a Trumpeter to the Governor of the Spanish Netherlands and the substance whereof is here subjoined That the unfeigned desire his most Christian Majesty had to observe the Truce concluded on in the Year 1684. had caused him to take no notice of the demeanor of the Spanish Ministers in the Courts of all the European Princes where they had made it their whole business to animate the several Princes to take up Arms against France That His Majesty is not ignorant of the share they have had in the Negotiation of the League made at Ausburg That he is also well acquainted with what share the Governour of the Spanish Neatherlands has lately had in the Prince of Orange his Enterprize against the Kingdom of England But that yet not being inclinable to believe that what was transacted by him was done by his Catholick Majesty's Command his most Christian Majesty was in good hopes to have perswaded his Catholick Majesty to have concurred with him for the effectual Restoration of the lawful King of England and the preservation of the Catholick Religion against the Protestant League that was formed or at leastwise to have observed an exact Neutrality To which purpose he had made several proposals that seemed to have been well received so long as the success of the Prince of Orange continued doubtful but that when it came to be once known at Madrid that the King of England had left his Dominions that then nothing was meditated upon but a War against France That his Christian Majesty was moreover further informed that the Spanish Embassador in England paid dayly visits to the Prince of Orange and was very importunate with him to declare War against the Kingdom of France That the Governour of the Spanish Low Countries was raising Men with utmost diligence and had promised the States General to joyn their Forces in the beginning of the Campaign and laboured with the Prince of Orange to send numbers of Men into Flanders Of all which procedures he had informed his Catholick Majesty and offered him a sincere continuation of the Truce provided he would give no succour to his Majesty's Enemies But now finding after all that his Catholick Majesty was resolved to favour the Usurper of England whose Agents had received considerable Summs both at Cadiz and Madrid His Majesty therefore to prevent the Evil intentions of his Catholick Majesty has resolved to declare War against him both by Sea and Land c. Your Lordship cannot but discern by the whole purport of this Declaration where the shoe must Pinch and nothing is more manifest then that the successful enterprizes of
the King of England stick most to the heart of this Court which may at last turn to a mortal Convulsion which none can be more desirous to see than My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most Obedient Servanâ— Paris June 10. 1689. N. S. LETTER IV. Of Cardinal d' Este his solliciting the Pope for Money for the late King James and his proposing a Croisade for the restoration of him to his Throne again My Lord I Have in my last endeavoured to give your Lordship the Sence and Resolution of this Court concerning the present posture of Affairs and mighty Efforts are made for the support of the late King's Interest who is as you well know now in Ireland both here and at Rome too by the Agency of this Court and least the Differences that have been so long depending between both Courts should any ways obstruct the Cause they have at length laid the foundation of an accommodation and the great motive to press it on is taken from the miserable condition of the late King's Affairs and that his Holiness could not but know that the main of the Catholicks hopes resting in the most Christian King for the redressing of them those very hopes would also vanish if his Holiness still obstinately persisted to refuse an accommodation with him The Cardinal d' Este the late Queen's Unkle is the person pitched upon to manage this Negotiation whose further instructions are to sollicite the Pope for some present supply of Money for his Nephew and not only so but to propose to the Old Father the publishing a Crolsade for the restoration of him to his Kingdoms But finding this did not relish well with the Old Dad his Eminency confin'd himself to a request that his Holiness would exhort the Emperor King of Spain and other Catholick Princes to it and mediate an accommodation between them for the more effectual carrying on the same But this is but Thunder afar off and will never endammage the Brittish Isles I heartily wish you may be as secure from intestine commotions and machinations there is nothing more talked of here and I have some reason to fear some measures have been conserted here for the fermenting of that inquietude which has possest too many amonst you upon this change of Government your Lordship will pardon me since I write with the same freedom and sincerity as formerly and remain My Lord Your Constant and most faithful Servant Paris June 17. 1689. N. S. LETTER V. Of the Queen of Spains Death the formal Story made in France of her being Poisoned and a Marriage feared between his Catholick Majesty and the Infanta of Portugal My Lord NOW things are come to an open Rupture and hostility between the two Crowns of Spain and France some account of which I have already transmitted to your Lordship you cannot conceive how violently they vend their Spite and Malice against the Spanish Court and more especially take occasion to renew publickly the discourse which was at first scarce whispered of the Queen of Spains being poisoned in which they pretend to interest themselves very much as she was a Daughter of France and say that she being secretly admonished in the midst of all the troubles that befell her to take care of her self found out a way to dispatch a Frenchman that was then in Spain to her Father the Duke of Orleans and to desire him to send her some treacle by the most cunning Courtier that was in the Kingdom that thereupon the Duke who had a most tender Love and Affection for the Queen his Daughter being deeply concerned at the News which portended his approaching Misfortune had discovered what had happened to the King who at the same time took care to send away what the Queen desir'd But that by the time that the Courier was arrived at the City of Burgos he met there with another who told him that he was carrying the News of the Queen's Death To which particulars are superadded these circumstances of her Sickness that being suddenly taken with a Vomitting she should say as formerly the deceased Madam her Mother of whose Death I have to the best of my remembrance formerly given your Lordship some account after she had drank the Glass of Succory Water to which she atttributed her Death That she was poisoned That her Vomitting was attended with most violent Convulsions which being reported to the Count de Rebenac â—enquires the French Embassador then at the Spanish Court he went to give the Queen a Visit but that When he came there entrance into her Chamber was denied him under a pretence that it was not the custom in Spain for Men to visit Women neither in Health nor Sickness That thereupon he became very importunate for Entrance urging that he came not to see her as Queen of Spain but as she was a Daughter of France and the King his Masters Niece They further add that this contest continued and was spun out to a long time under pretence of knowing the King's Pleasure and that at length after long attendance the Door was open'd to him but yet at such a time when the Queen was so very ill that she could not speak one word That she dyed within a short while after one Convulsion succeeding another till she gave up the Ghost That besides all these concurring circumstances the designs formed last Year by the Council of Spain to have his Catholick Majesty divorced from her and their applications to the Pope for that purpose under the pretended Allegations that the French before they parted with her had used all Aritifices of the Devil to prevent her having of Children but not being able to lay convincing proofs before him of the matter they had put off that project these things they say gave no small umbrage to some Clandestine practices against her life to say nothing of the project at the same time to get the â—nfanta of Portugal married to him and thereby lay a Ground-plot for the uniting of Portugal once more to Spain c. But my Lord whatever surmizes they have had of such a design then its certain there is nothing they are more apprehensive of at this time than such a Conjunction which must inevitably add one Kingdom more to the number of the Confederates and against them and all Engins are on work to divert the success of it I hope the King of England and his Allies are sensible of this and will take care to countermine the Enemy in time which are the hearty wishes of My Lord Your Lordships to serve and Command whilst Paris July 2d 1689. N. S. LETTER VI Of some secret Designs hatching against the Establisht Government in England My Lord IT is not long since I gave your Lordship a hint of the apprehensions I had of some evil Designs formed against the Established Government and I am so far from lessening the same that I grow more and more jealous of their progress day by
day Not that I am able to Name either Person or Place or positive design to your Lordship but sure I am there is a Snake in the Grass and perhaps it will be found some of those from whom was expected most Service and Fidellity will be found to act a counterpart However it be I can assure you that Barillon late Embassador in England from this Crown though he has been forced to quit the Brittish Isle ignominiously enough yet he hath found out a way to leave two if not three Frenchmen of his Train behind to no good end to be sure and I do not question but you will hear more of them without they be secured in time And though it does plainly appear both by the countenance and minutes of this Court that things do not go so trim and glibly with them in England as in former times when they had no more to do than to consult those infallible Oracles the Dutches of Portsmouth and Goodman Peters yet I do not question but it will appear that their Oracles are not quite silenced there I beg your Lordship to pardon this freedom and to entertain a favourable opinion of the sincere intentions of My Lord Your Honours to Serue and Obey Paris June 25. 1689. N. S. LETTER VII A Summary of the Articles concluded on the French King's part for restoring of the Late King James to his lost Dominions My Lord I Can't forbear taking notice to your Lordship tho' I have done it once and again already of the great difficulties I labour under to procure any true and certain intelligence of matters transacted on our side in reference to the Affairs of England And I can as little forbear endeavouring to communicate whatever such intelligence comes into my Hands to your Honour though it be accompanied with such imminent danger as you cannot but be a little sensible off and which I heartily wish none of my Friends may ever have the black apprehensions of how much more your Lordship whom I ever have and shall Love and Honour Wherefore be pleased to receive hereby the heads of those Articles agreed and concluded on the French King's part for the furthering the late King James in the recovery of his abdicated Throne and they are these following First He doth Solemnly promise and engage to assist and promote the late King his dear Brother in his Pretensions with Men Money and all possible force both by Sea and Land and firmly resolves never to lay down his Arms or be at Peace with his Enemies till such time as his said Brother shall be remounted on the English Throne and be peaceable possessor of the same Secondly That till such time as the foresaid Article should be put in full Execution and thoroughly accomplished he hath obliged himself to support him the late King and all his other dependants in his Kingdom of France or elsewhere with all suitable grandeur and dignity Thirdly That he should with utmost expedition and application assist him with a competent number of Forces by Land and a sufficient Navy by Sea towards the reducing under his Obedience the hostile part of the Kingdom of Ireland and not desist till the same were entirely recovered unto him And after that it were so reduced and subjected by their conjoint Arms the late King should be in possession of it till such time as he shall be in full possession of the English Throne but no longer But how to unravel the later Clause of this Article at present is beyond my skill and so I will leave it Fourthly He hath also over and above the preceding Engagements promised to give him all the assistances necessary from time to time both by Sea and Land for the recovery of England and Scotland unto him when he shall arrive in one or either of the said Kingdoms in Person and in the mean time hath engaged to be aiding and assisting to his party in either of the two Nations as time and occasion should serve My Lord I do question but you would be highly satisfyed to have a view of the Stipulations on the late King's part to his Gallick Majesty and I hope your Lordship has Entertained such an Opinion of me as to think my satisfaction can be no less in being able to gratify your Honours Curiosity upon this head which I shall not fail to endeavour to do and heartily wish an accomplishment of in my next who am My Lord With all due Observance Your Honours most Obedient and Devoted Ser. St. Germ. July 31. 1689. N. S. LETTER VIII Articles stipulated on King James's his part for the giving up Ireland c. to the French upon his recovery of England and Scotland My Lord THat your Lordship has safely received my last I have had some intimations of by my friend from I earnestly wish for the like success to this and your speedy receipt of it seeing it hath so luckily fallen out with me that the purport of it contains what I cannot but flatter my self will redound much to your Honours satisfaction I mean the Articles stipulated on the late King's part to the French King of which I gave an hint in my last though I could not then as much as hope with any tollerable confidence of being so soon able to procure them First then The late King hath agreed in consideration of the French King's assistances as mentioned in my last and as soon as he shall be restored and fully resetled in his Dominions and not before that he may not give any umbrage to the English to quit all manner of claim to the Title or Arms of France and take effectual care to put the same out of the Royal English Escutcheon Secondly That he shall entirely quit and resign up the soveraignty of the narrow Seas to the French and that to that purpose he shall give orders to his Ships of War c. to strike to the French Flags Thirdly That he shall be obliged to assist him the French King with thirty Capital Ships of War and Twenty Thousand Land-men in any War when he shall have occasion for them and this at his own proper cost and charges Fourthly That he shall make or enter into no allyance against France nor to any other without the French King's Privity and Consent but unfeignedly observe a perpetual League both Offensive and Defensive with the Crown of France Fifthly That he shall permit unto the French King at all times and occasions the free use of all his Ports for the retreat of his Ships and be obliged to furnish him then and there with proper Conveniences and able Workmen to repair his endamaged Ships or to build new ones when soever he shall require it Sixthly That he shall admit into his standing forces whose number and strength shall from time to time be limitted and regulated by him in concert with the French King a constant Body of Twenty Thousand French and Ten Thousand Catholick Switzers or more or
less of them in proportion to the Troops of his own Subjects and this after his full re-settlement on the Throne And not only so but shall deliver up Dover Castle Plymouth and Portsmouth to be Garrisoned by French Soldiers as cautionary Towns for the security of performance Seventhly That in regard of the Situation of the Irish Ports and their conveniency for the French Fleets as also in consideration of the agreement of the Irish with the People of France in Religion He shall after his full restoration to the English and Scotch Kingdoms be obliged to give Ireland to the French King in full compensation of all the Moneys he has already expended or shall expend further in his Quarrel and for vindicating of his right to his Dominions But that however because of the Scituation of the Islands of Sicily and Sardinia in the Mediteranean for the English Navigation and Trade into the Levant the sly Monsieur hath obliged himself to conquer those Kingdoms for the late King at his own Expence and with his own Arms and to give them up entirely to him in lieu of his Kingdom of Ireland Eighthly That still towards the furthering a stricter Friendship and Allyance between the two Nations of England and France and for perpetuating a mutual amity and sincere Correspondence If in case by the Violent or Natural Death either of King William or Prince George of Denmark or both of them one or both of the Princesses Royal shall become Widdows and that their Persons can be seized That then they shall be convey'd with all expedition and secrecy into France and be put into the French King's Power and shall there be Married Nolens Volens to such Prince or Princes as he shall appoint or think fit for them Ninthly That the Eldest or Surviving Issue of such Marriage shall succeed to the Crowns of Ireland and Scotland and England only to remain to the pretended Prince of Wales with the American Plantations Thus My Lord I have now given you the Stipulations so much desired by you I 'le leave your Lordship to descant and make such use of them as your known Wisdom and Ability shall direct for the good of the King and Country and shall reserve some further things which I cannot conveniently Write now and which relate to this subject to another opportunity and in the mean time I am and ever shall remain My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Faithful Servant Paris Aug. 19. 1689. N. S. LETTER IX Some Reflections upon King James's League with the French King with an account of some further terms agreed upon between them in relation to the English Protestants in Ireland My Lord THis Court is mighty uppish upon the success of the late King James or I may more truly say their own in Ireland which if totally reduced by their conjoint Arms is to be one day their own as appears by the seventh Article stipulated between the two Kings and of which I gave your Lordship an account in my last And 't is not doubted but the Count d' Avaux hath already taken Livery and seisin of it privately in his Majesty's Name And that it is really so I am not only assured of by the said Articles but the same is more then probable by the great care and exactness that is had at Brest and other Ports of the Ocean to keep an account of all the Cloaths Arms Ammunition and Provisions that are shipped off there for Ireland and which according to some of the accounts stated and transmitted hither somewhat whereof I have had the opportunity to have a slight view of are set down at such extravagant rates as if they designed in a short time not only to ballance the account with him for Ireland but to make him considerably their Debter over and above for the carrying on another Game But they may chance to reckon without their Host in this as well as all the rest I pray God keep King William and his Royal Consort and may she and her Royal Sister be never so unhappy as to fall into the French power as your Lordship sees has been again conserted by the Ninth and last Article If ever it should so happen which God of his Mercy avert and that any such Match or Matches shall come to pass and issue come thereof my Friend hath secretly whispered me That then the pretended Prince of Wales is not like to be long liv'd But I still trust all these towering hopes of our Enemies will evaporate into Smoak and that their designs shall have as little Effect upon the lives and fortunes of our true Princes as their contrivances against the Religion and property of their Subjects shall become abortive and fruitless and whom they have agreed upon to treat in the following manner First That all possessors of Lands in Ireland that are of the Protestant Religion and will not turn Papists shall be bound to sell their Estates at a set price to the French King who shall let them out to the old Irish proprietors at certain Quit-rents and services that shall in a reasonable time reimburse him of the purchase Money Secondly But still to shew their good Nature and Lenity it s agreed that all Protestants that will shall have leave freely to depart with their Effects whither soever they please And lastly That such as will stay shall have liberty of Conscience granted them for the space of Twenty Years till the Country shall be fuller stockt with French Catholicks and other Papists I am well satisfied your Lordship will not think these Machinations a matter of nothing but as a good Patriot which you have shewed your self to be in the most Arbitrary times will stir up your self and honest Countrymen to obviate them seasonably which I as heartily wish as I have little reason to doubt it who am My Lord Your faithful and most Obedient Servant Paris Octo. 27. 1689. N. S. LETTER X. Of King James's Army in Ireland and Duke Schomberg's with Cardinal Bouillon's Motion for a Contribution for the support of the former My Lord THE raising of the Siege of London-derry and the landing of the English Army without interruption in Ireland under Duke Schomherg with other successes and advantages are so far from discouraging this Court in their hopes of a speedy conquest of that Kingdom that they have already in the Cabinet vaunted it to be as good as their own and that perhaps they need not stay for another Campaign to re-establish the late King upon the Throne of England and put themselves in an entire possession of the other Kingdom according to the full extent and meaning of the Stipulated Articles which I have formerly transmitted to your Lordship But because Money here is very hard to come by in such a proportion as to answer those vast Expences they are at to carry on the War upon the Continent which must be got at any rate they have resolved to carry on the Irish
Narration of Conjectures and Opinions but content my self to inform you as the observation of a person that 's my Friend who has for many Years been very critical and exact to pry into the Court-Conduct and has not had the least opportunity so to do that the Dauphiness at first had been so well received by the King that some malignant Spirits made it their publick Discourse But that a terward meeting with a colder entertainment when they saw it impossible to engage the Duke of Bavaria her Brother to the interest of the Crown of France the Princess her self became so sensible of the change that she grew sad and melancholy upon it till now at length Death it self has put a final period to her grief as I am forced to do to this letter through a pressing occasion who am My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most devoted Serv. Paris April 28. 1690. N. S. LETTER XIV An exact Account of the number and strength of the French Fleet in 1690 with some intimations of a Conspiracy formed against the Government at the same time My Lord I Cannot but express my great Sorrow to find that many things that relate to the English Affairs and which should be managed in the Cabinet and only known by the Execution of them are so common in most Mens Mouths on this side There must be false Friends some where and who knows but they are the very Men who would possess the Government that the Enemy is not so formidable as is given out But I cannot believe your Lordship to be among the number of those incredulous ones tho' I am confident you 'l find it an hard task to convince those who should concern themselves of their imminent danger This Court seems long since fully to be satisfyed of the King's intention to go for Ireland and that much of his time and thoughts have been taken up for the work that lies before him there and therefore they are more busy here than ever in projecting methods and carrying on designs to allarm England in his absence I heartily wish your Out-works may be firm and strong they are likely to be attacked by a formidable power from without and I do not question but there are attempts formed within to second the same it being in a manner a common Discourse here And this I can firmly assure your Lordship of that several English Men who were some time ago about the Court and this City are all of a sudden disappeared but have since rendevouz'd at Brest with a full design to Embark on Board the Fleet which whatever Men may flatter themselves in England with is very formidable and very near ready to put out to Sea having its full complement of Mariners with an additional number of Landmen which are not sent there without some considerable design in view I am confident some men in England would laugh me to scorn should I tell them that the French Fleet is composed of Fourscore and two great Men of War Forty Frigats Thirty Fireships and Fifteen Gallies but your Lordship I hope will have a better Opinion of my Sincerity than to think I would any ways impose upon you That this formidable Fleet is designed for the English Coast is not doubted but as to any particular management all that ever I could learn is that an attempt will perhaps be made during the King's being in Ireland to raise a Mutiny and that in the Interim King James is to leave the command of his Army to Lauzun and Tirconnell and to hasten with all speed into England to favour which part of the French Fleet is to block up the River of Thames another part in conjunction with the Gallies are to land the Men on board somewhere in the West and such spare Arms as they have with them which is thought to be a great Number and when this is done they are to set sail for the Irish Coast to hinder King William and his Forces from returning Now my Lord I confess I do not think all these things practicable but there must be something more than ordinary in the Wind and you cannot be too cautious There are various other discourses that pass up and down continually concerning this grand Expedition which I shall not trouble your Lordship with as being meer conjectures and therefore I conclude only with subscribing my self as I am unfeignedly and so shall remain My Lord Your Lordships most Humble Faithful and Obedient Servant Paris June 2d 1690. N. S. LETTER XV. Of the late King James his arrival in France out of Ireland and of an uncertain report raised of King William's Death occasioning much ridiculous Mirth and Bon-fires at Paris c. My Lord THat the Arms of this Country have lately prevailed in two great conflicts the one by Sea and the other by Land is sufficiently known here by the publick rejoycings that have been made for both in all parts of the Kingdom and I cannot sufficiently express to your Lordship the Agony I have been under especially when I heard of the defeat by Sea but the arrival of the late King some days ago at St. Germans hath cheered up my drooping Spirits wonderfully again It s universally agreed here that King william has had the better of him though the defeat is minced very much at Court who thereupon foreseeing that it would be a matter of much enquiry and seem no less than a paradox among the people that he should quit Ireland so soon where his presence must have been absolutely necessary for the heartning of his foiled party they have given a reason for his retirement so ridiculous that let them believe it who will I think I shall not yet and I am sure your Lordship will not and that is that Monsieur Lauzun had in a manner constrained him to withdraw himself into France because his extraordinary courage caused him to expose himself like a common Soldier even to so much danger that it had like to have cost him his life And if the foresaid reason was so very ridiculous I am sure your Lordship will not think the rejoycings made in this City upon the groundless report of a Lacque of the Kings who got out of Ireland a few days after his Master to be less so For upon his Arrival he was pleased to acquaint the Court that Duke Schomberg was not only killed but King William dead also which good News as they call it was of that importance that it was glibly swallowed down and the proof thereof never enquired into and the News happening about Mid-night to come into the City the Commissaries immediately ran up and down the Streets knocking up the People and crying out to them Rise Rise make Bonfires So that in about an hours time all Paris was in a Blaze and nothing to be heard there but Hautboys Drums and Trumpets Not content with this the Rabble made the Effigies of King William and Queen Mary dragged them through
so taken up continually with the one or the other of them that he has of late neglected his ordinary Recreations and Divertisements I am confident there is a grand design formed against England and I have had no obscure intimation of it though I cannot possibly penetrate into any one distinct particular I heartily wish there may be as much precaution used on your side to ward off the blow But while matters are thus secretly agitated in the Cabinet the noise of Monsieur Tourville's disgrace is with great industry bandied about both in City and Country and nothing omitted to let the Confederates also come to the knowledge of it which perhaps may carry as great a Mystery in the Womb of it as the rest Some attribute it to one thing some to another many stick not to say it arises from his holding some sort of Correspondence with the Enemy others that some latent Maligner of his advancement has done him some ill Office at Court I heartily wish for the Confederates sake France had occasion to shift her Admirals often But believe me my Lord these are meer illusions and amusements and the French King knows his interest better than to lay aside at such a juncture as this the most understanding Sea-Officer he has in his Kingdom and you will find he will command a more formidable Fleet next Summer than ever yet he has done It s whispered also as if the Swede had been won to the French Interest and that besides the divertion he will give to the Confederates in Pomerania he will send a squadron of ships to join those of this Crown early in the Year which the Confederates ought to be as sedulous to prevent as they are to watch the motions of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to whom its commonly reported there have been proposals made of a match to be made between the Dauphin and the Princess of Tuscany in hopes by means of that Allyance to oblige him as being the most potent Prince of Italy to declare for the Crown of France or at least to perswade the Duke of Savoy to an accommodation But yet my Lord if my intelligence fail not they have much more reason to fear such a match struck up with the Infanta of Portugal as giving a fair prospect to far greater future advantages then any solid present ones that might reasonably be expected from that other Allyance with the grand Duke more especially since the Dauphine will have in her right not only a particular pretention to the Crown of the King her Father but also a very plausible one to the Kingdom of Spain and so an advantage may be made of both at the same time I wish the Spaniards were as jealous of this match as they are of their Wifes then there may be some hopes of frustrating the same Your Lordship knows how far the knowledge of these things may be useful to the present Constitution and so I refer them entirely to your consideration and management who am My Lord Your most Humble and entirely devoted Serv. Versailles Nov. 7. 1690. N. S. POSTSCRIPT This Letter I have been forced to keep by me for some days for want c. but it gives me the opportunity to acquaint you that there is advice that the Infanta of Portugal is dead which quite puts an end to the Negotiation above mentioned and may ease the Confederates of their cares to obviate it but the malignity of this Court will not suffer some of them and particularly the House of Austria to go untraduced when 't is already given out aloud that the life of that Princess was cut short to secure the Crown to the Successors devoted to the House of Austria I am My Lord Your Humble Servant LETTER XVIII Reports in France of a design formed in Spain to give up the Netherlands to some Forreign Prince c. My Lord THis Court is not a little Allarmed or at least seem to be so at the late advises from Spain of some proposals made there in the Council of State that seeing the defence of the Spanish Netherlands costs much more than the Revenue thereof amounts to that they should be surrendred over to some Prince or other who would undertake their defence doing only homage to the King of Spain It s not unknown to your Lordship how about Eight Years ago they had some thoughts of surrendring them to the Duke of Bavaria and nothing more certain than that this Court broke then the neck of that design But though the Dukes apprehensions at that time of engaging himself by such a procedure in a War with France was the reason the business went no further yet that can be no obstacle now he is actually engaged in the Confederacy against France But how disgustful soever this proposal is to the Ministers here that other motion in the same Council to leave those provinces to their own management with permission to change themselves into a Republick and provide for their own safety as they should think most expedient is much more dreaded by them as foreseeing such a form of Government might according to the example of the Switz Cantons though of different principles in Religion so league themselves with the States General as for ever after to prove a Wall of Brass against all the attempts of this Crown But while these and other matters are slowly deliberated it s well if some part of these Provinces be not filched away by the Arms of France In the mean time I can assure your Lordship there are vast Preparations made and some very grand Enterprize at hand on that side and some considerable Pass may be seiz'd without the Confederates are as forward and vigilant to defend as the French Arms are to Attack which I am sure is not believed at this juncture I am as heartily sorry I cannot be more particular in my information as I am always forward to transmit all that I think any ways worthy to be known and desirous to approve my self My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most Obedient Serv. Versailles Feb. 7. 1691. N. S. LETTER XIX Of the City of Mons besieged by the Arms of France and the reason why King James was not there My Lord YOur Lordship cannot now but see the Effects of part of what I have writ to you in my last the close consultations and vast Preparations that were made were not for nothing I am not well informed I confess of what Preparations the Confederates have made to obviate the enterprize in hand but I can assure your Lordship they have a very poor opinion of them here and they as little question the speedy reducing of Mons under the Obedience of the Crown of France as they do the safe return of their King laden with Trophies for the taking of it But many People are not a little surprized to see that while the King and all the Princes of the Blood expose themselves to the Hazards and Toils
for Spectacle did not inordinately break forth into any bitter Words but only said with a calm Temper If the faults were true which have been laid to their Charge the King had done nothing but what is Right and Just unto them As this King's Reign was usher'd in with the foresaid Troubles it continued to be in a ferment upon other Accounts and particularly for the great Pension raised for his Ransom and for raising of other Moneys which tho' the Revenues were exhausted was interpreted Covetousness in him But in the thirteenth and last Year of his Reign a sharp Rencounter happening between Henry Percy and William Dowglas Earl of Angus at a place call'd Piperden in the Kingdom of Scotland James thinking himself injured hereby by the English as the Scotch Historians write but Hall and Graston charge him home with Ungratitude herein raises a great Army and lays Siege to the Castle of Roxborough but when as the Scotch write he had almost brought his Work to Perfection and that the besieged began to capitulate about surrendring of the place the Queen in all haste came to the Camp and acquainted him there was a horrid Conspiracy framed against his Life and conjured him to use all the Precautions imaginable to secure himself The King was surprized with the Message he forthwith raised the Siege and returned home to provide for his better safety tho' all avail'd little But that you may have a clearer Idea of the whole Matter we must a little look back and tell you again that Robert II. had three Sons by his Concubine whom he afterward married and so settled the Crown upon them to the Exclusion of his two legitimate Sons by his Queen Euphemia Ross who were Walter Earl of Athol and David Earl of Strathern Now these two tho' they found themselves injured by such a Preference of an illegitimate Race before them Yet being inferiour both in Years and Wealth they dissembled their Resentment for the present The Death also of the Earl of Strathern weakned their Hands who left one only Daughter behind him who was given in Marriage to Patrick Graham a noble Youth and a most potent and illustrious Family as any in that Age on whom he begat Melisse Graham whose Parents did not long survive And the Child not many Years after being then a Stripling was sent into England among those who were Hostages till the Money for the Kings Ransom were discharg'd and paid But Atholl tho' he were every ways inferior to the opposite Faction yet ever made it his Business to take off his Kindred and did not lay aside his Hopes of recovering the Crown and because he was not capable of doing any thing by open force he craftily sowed Discord among them and so plied the Matter that as has been already in some measure set forth a very numerous Family were reduced to a few for the most part by his Council For many were of Opinion that it it was by his Contrivance that David Duke of Rothsay King Robert's Son was cut off neither had James escap'd his Snares unless he had spent the greatest part of his Life in England far from his reach He would have encouraged the Earl of Fife to seise upon the Kingdom taxing his Brother with Slothfulness and fit to be taken off and when the King having now no Children to succeed him for James was then a Prisoner in England and obnoxious to the Pleasure of his Brother had suddenly died of Grief there was only the Governor now and his Children that impeded his Hopes But when Robert the Governor was dead and his Son John kill'd at the Battle of Vernole in France he re-assumed his former Thoughts with greater Vigour and strain'd all his Wits to compass the same first by getting of King James released and then contriving Duke Mordo's and his Children's Death and since it was almost inconsistent that all these should subsist and be safe together he foresaw that which soever fell of them he was one degree nearer to the Crown Therefore when James was at last return'd to his Country he set all his Engines on work to hasten Mordo's death finds out fit tools to bear Testimony against him and set himself as Judge upon him and his Children and when they also were cut off there was only King James and a young Son of six Years old that stood in the way and when he by a conjuration of the Nobility were once removed the Earl did not doubt but himself who was the only surviving Person of the Royal Stem should be advanced to the Throne Atholl therefore I say being night and day agitated with such Considerations did however keep all his Designs close and secret and thro' a counterfeit Zeal for the King's Welfare made it his Business to cut off his Relations and Friends and more especially to advance his own Estate by the Misfortune and Crimes of other Men and so to lessen his Adversaries In the mean time King James to further his own Misfortune deprived Melisse Graham who we have said was one of the Hostages in England of the Earldom of Strathern alledging it was bestowed on his Grandfather of the maternal side and his Masculine Line and for want of such Issue to revert to the Crown The Misfortune of the young Man induced many to commiserate his Case but made Robert his Guardian almost stark mad and so being more impatient of the Injury offer'd to his Kinsman stuck not to accuse the King openly of unjustice and being cited to appear to make his defence but did not a Sentence of Banishment pass'd against him This did but enrage him more and more and his whole Business seem'd to be to engage others who had been injur'd in their own Persons or Friends to entertain the same Sentiments of the King in respect to his Avarice and Cruelty as he had done but it had been well if he had rested here You have heard before how the King was advertised of a Conspiracy against him at Roxborough and how the King to obviate the same retired home and took up his Lodgings in the Convent of the Dominicans at Perth and what Designs Walter Earl of Atholl had been hatching from time to time Now this Walter the King's Uncle tho' he were Principall Author and Contriver of the Conspiracy yet he did his utmost endeavour to put off all manner of Suspition of it from himself therefore he privily sends for and discourses with Robert Graham afore-mentioned who as being an active bold rash Man and an hater of the King upon account of his own Imprisonment and â—anishment and the Injury done to his Nephew by divesting of him of the Earldom of Strathern he thought to be a Person most fit for his purpose and with him he engaged his own Grandson Robert Stuart a stout hardy Youth who readily engaged in the Work He instructs them what they were to do assured them of his favour when the Fact was perpetrated
not doubting but himself should be advanced to the Throne Having thus agreed and resolved upon their hellish Design they advance secretly with their Accomplices whom they had drawn into the Conspiracy towards the Friers aforesaid where the King then resided and encourag'd the King's Porter whom before they had brought over to their Party to give them un-interrupted admittance which he does and they advanced into the Gallery adjacent to the King's Bed-Chamber where he shews them the Door might be easily forced open he himself having taken away the Bolt Others think it was Robert Stuart aforesaid Atholl's Grandson that let them into the Court however it was while they in the mean time tarried in the Gallery seeming to deliberate about the breaking the Door open an Accident made their Passage the more easie for Walter â—tratâ—on coming out of the Chamber as having brought in some Wine for the King a little before and seeing of armed Men in the Gallery he endeavours to whip in again crying out Treason Treason But before he could get within the Door to make it fast they rushed upon him and slew him outright While this was done not without great bustle and noise a noble Maiden named Katherine Dowglas marry'd afterward to Alexander Lovell of Bolunny got to the Door and not finding the Bolt that had before been taken away as you have heard she thrusts her Arm into the place where the Bar should have been but her Arm was soon crusht and broke and the Ruffians forced their way into the Chamber Such of the Servants as were there and made Resistance they dispatch forthwith and then advanced towards the King and fell upon him The Queen did all she could to defend him and receiv'd two Wounds and thereby was forced to give over the Conflict and so at last the King having received to the number of eight and twenty Wounds and some of them to the Heart was slain by them Thus fell James the I. King of Scotland by violent and bloody Hands and seem'd to entail a violent Death upon all of his Name that succeeded him but because the Execution of some of the Conspirators was the most terrible that can be met with in History we shall shall give you a short Account of it and the rather because of the Persons concern'd therein The Nobles of the Kingdom hearing this unexpected News assembled from all parts of the Nation to Edinburg and made such diligent Search after the Conspirators that they were soon apprehended Tried and Condemn'd Walter Stuart Earl of Atholl was charged as being principal Actor in this Tragedy his crime exaggerated to the height and was executed in this tremendous manner On the first day being stripped of all his cloaths save only his shirt only he was bound fast in a Cart to an Instrument of wood made like to a swipe with Ropes and Pullies to the same by which means they sometimes raised him up on high into the Air that the people might see him and by slackning of the Rope all of a sudden let him down with a swang dis-jointing all his body thereby then they brought him to an open place where all might be Spectators and Crowned him with a red hot Crown of Iron with this Elogium that he might be Stiled the Ring of all Traytors The reason of this part of the punishment was said to be this for that a Witch had told him that he should be Crowned with great Pomp and Magnificence in the presence of the people and that the prediction was in this manner either fullfilled or eluded On the second day he was drawn on a hurdle through the high Street of Edenburg at an Horses tail he was on the third day extended upon a board at the Market-Cross his Belly ripped up and his Bowels taken out thrown into the fire and burnt before his face then was his heart plucked out and burnt likewise and last of all his head was chopp'd off and fixed upon a long Pole and set upon the highest place of the City his body divided into four Quarters and sent to the four principal Cities of the Kingdom The Execution of Robert Stuart was not altogether so severe as that of his Grandfather some respect being had to his youth But as for Robert Graham who as did appear was the Person that slew the King with his own hands he was put into a Cart and that hand that did the deed fastned to a pair of Gallows that was set up in the said Cart then were three persons appointed to thrust him through all parts of his body with hot Irons beginning first with those places where it was thought no hasty Death would ensue as with his Legs Arms Thighs and Shoulders and thus was he carried through all the Streets of the City and tormented in a most horrible manner and at last his Belly ript open Bowelled and Quartered as Atholl was before and thus was the cruel Death of King James revenged in the most cruel manner that was ever heard off beyond all the Bounds of Humanity You have seen the dreadful effects of the Interrâ—gnum now the Kingdom falls under a worse Administration even under one of the woes of God Almighty himself for this King was succeeded by his Son James the second of that Name a Minor of about six years old And as the King was not yet able to Govern himself another must be chosen to Govern both him and the Kingdom and this fell to Sir Alexander Levinston and Sir William Creichton the Chancellor the former had the denomination of the Governour and the other had the Kings keeping Never was poor Prince more harrased till he came to Maturity which they say in Princes is at fourteen through the Jealousy and Ambition of these two men fomented also by others who were willing to fish in troubled waters The Chancellour kept the King in Edenburg Castle the Queen Jane sides with the Governor and resided at Sterling Archembald Earl of Dowglass a powerful Subâ—ect kept within his own Territories and would obey none of them all by which discords many evils ensued The Queen being intent upon advancing the Governor's side and thereby gratify her own Ambition repairs one day with a small retinue to the City of Edenburg and with a Womanish Dissimulation won the Chancellor to give her Admittance into the Castle to see the King and to abide with him whose Company she so extreamly longed for But when she had been there three Days she feigns a Pilgrimage one morning to the White Kiâ—k but first wheedles with the King to make his escape which she easily brought him to packed him up dexterously in a Trunk as if he had been a bundle of Cloaths and sent him away by one of her trusty Servants laid upon a Sumpter Horse into Lieth from whence he was conveyed by water to Sterling and Joyfully received by the Governor who highly extolled the Queens Conduct in deceiving so wise a
was so put to it that he was forced to flee out of Edenburg to save his own life whereupon he enters into a Confederacy with his Friends for his own security which together with some Depredations made in the Lord Ferres Lands by some of the Earls Tenants without redress from him upon Complaint made thereof enraged the King to an high degree against him But sore disorders still increasing through the Earls not punishing of the offenders at last Ferres makes an inroad by way of reprisal into his Lands was taken and by the Earls command was put to Death tho' the King by an Herault commanded the contrary so that upon serious Deliberation the King finding his power unsufficient for curbing him had no other way left than to send to him in a most Courteous manner to come to him who was then in Sterling Castle The Earl apprehensive of some design upon his Person refused without he had an assurance of safe Conduct under the Kings great Seal which being Granted he came and was received with a great semblance of good Will by the King who toâ—k him into a Room by themselves and there after some other Admonitions expostulated with him about the Confederâ—cy he had entred into with the Earl of Crawford and others and would have urged him to forsake the same Alledging it was no ways Honourable for him but hurtfull and tho' he took it very ill at his hands yet he allowed him the Liberty to disâ—null it tho' himself had full power to command it Dowglass was very obsequious in all things 'till this business of the League came in Question whereunto he did not Answer distinctly but would have put it off 'till he had discoursed with his Confederates thereupon neither could he well see at present what could be in that League which could be offensive to the King that he should insist so much upon his breaking of it whereupon the King who it's likely had already determined to commit the perjur'd Fact tho' his flattering Courtiers would have his displeasure only to arise from the Earls present stubborness said if you will not I will break it and without any more ado struck him with his Dagger in his breast those that stood at the Door hearing the bustle rushed in and dispatched him by many wounds His Brethren and Kindred being at first surprized and then exasperated at the horridness of the Fact and the faithless proceedings of the King towards the Earl flew to their Arms and made no less than a Civil War of it which was waged between the King and them with various Fortunes at last the King prevailed which brought great Destruction and Calamity upon that Noble Family of the Dowglasses And then it was that King James began to Reign as the Historian says their greatness having been hitherto a Check upon him But his Civil broils were scarce ended when he was brought to engage in the fatal controversy which happened in England between the Houses of York and Lancaster He at first sided with King Henry VI against Richard Duke of York but afterward faced about Upon the Duke's promise that Cumberland and other Lands should be restored unto him that had been in the possession of his Ancestors if the Duke prevailed and so assisted the Yorkians having therefore raised an Army as he was entering into England he was for a time diverted cunningly by an English Gentleman who took upon him to be the Pope's Nuncio His Speech Habit and Retinue were perfectly Italian and to make the matter more plausible with the Cloak of Religion he had a Monk along with him and so with the Popes Counterfeit Letters they approached to the King and charged him to proceed on no farther and threatned him if he did to curse him For that the Pope to the end the War might be carried on against the Common Enemy of Christianity with greater vigor having now Composed all differences in Europe was set upon Accommodating this matter in Britain That they indeed were sent before to preadmonish him but that another Legate would quickly follow with an Ample power to Compose the Civils Discords in England and to procure satisfaction for the injuries sustained by the Scots This bait took him and so he Disbanded his Army But alas nothing could divert this Prince's now impending Fate for being soon after advertised of the trick put upon him by the foresaid Counterfeit Nuncio he re-assembles his Army and because he could not directly Joyn with York's Forces He marches to the Siege of Roxborough and having quickly master'd the Town lays close Seige to the Castle which made a brave defence The Duke and his Companions having in the mean time prevailed sent to give King James thanks for his Assistance desire him now things were amicably terminated to return home least the English being incensed they should be forced to march against the Scotch Army The King having received the Message asked those that brought it whether the Duke of York and his Friends said any thing in relation to the promises they had made when he came into their Assistance but finding no satisfaction in that point he proceeds with great Fury to assault the Castle and Batters the Walls with Cannon which began then to be much used as they were much dreaded and being very forward and intent upon his work one of his Guns being over-charged burst and a slice thereof struck the King dead to the ground and hurt no other besides himself a strang fatality that brought him to his end when he had lived twenty nine Years and of them Reigned twenty four Anno. 146â— He left three Sons behind him James that Succeeded him Alexander Duke of Albany and John Earl of Mar who were a plague to one another while alive and not one of them died a natural death as we shall shew in its proper place James III. a Minor of seven Years old as his Father before him came to the Crown and at first fell under the Care and Regency of his Mother as did the whole Kingdom a Woman after the decease of her Husband James II. that lead a Scandalous life keeping one Adam Hepborn who was himself a Married Man for her Gallant but death put an end to her Lewdness and Government together about three Years after Then he came into the hands of the Boyds who Ruled the roast for a long time but at last made a fatal Catastrophe he took to Wife Margaret Daughter to the King of Denmark and Norway Anno. 1469. And about this time began to Exercise the Royal power himself He involved himself at first with the Affairs of the Church and not long after became miserably enslaved with the predictions of Astrologers and Witches to which he was strangely addicted and which brought not only destruction upon his kindred but also at last upon himself which we shall now prosecute as they fell out in order He was on a time it seems informed by some
Sycophant or other that his kindred laid in wait for his life and that he was in great danger which agreeing with the sayings of the Witches which he had Consulted and who had told him that the Lyon should be devoured by his Whelps it made very deep impressions upon his suspicions mind and so from a Prince at first very hopefull and of great expeâ—â—ation degenerated to a Monstrous Tyrant So that now these suspicions having once possession of his mind from henceforth he looked upon his neer Relations and almost all the best of the Nobility as his Enemies The Nobility on the other hand finding none preferred by the K. but Men of base degree were not a little disatisfied and began to alienate their Affections from him wherefore they met together upon this occasion to concert measures how they might purge the Court of those abject Fellows and reduce it to its former State of Grandeur The principal of this Assembly were the Kings two Brothers Alexander and John the latter whereof having discoursed of the Irregularities and the present State of that Kingdom somewhat frankly and liberally and with less Caution than the rest he was suddenly taken by night in his own House by the Court Faction and conveyed to a place called Crâ—gmiller and there Imprisoned by the King's order and not long after by the same Courtly Crew was adjudged to Die and Executed accordingly in the Cannon Gate by cutting his Veins and letting him bleed to Death And as they had thus barbarously murdered his Person they proceeded also to murder the Earls fame for they gave out that his Crime was that he had had Secret Consultation with Witches about destroying the King and to put as good a Colour as they could upon this unnatural Act tho' it were by heaping up iniquity upon iniquity they brought several other Witches and Sorcerers to their Tryal for the said Fact and burnt them at Edenburg for the same So that here is one of the three Brothers dispatch'd you 'll here of the rest by and by Alexander the other Brother and Duke of Albany tho he had neither acted nor said any thing that might Justly disgust either the King or Courtiers that were about him yet as he was next of Kin so it seems he was next in danger for these Blood-suckers mistrusting with themselves that they could ne'er be safe as long as he was alive got him suddenly seized and sent Prisoner to Edenburg Castle He was kept close there by such as did believe his power might be Fatal to them and finding there was no way by his Friends for to pacify the Kings displeasure he had nothing to do now but to consider how he might make his escape he had none to communicate his design to or to further him in it but one only Servant of his own that was left to be with him in his Chamber him he sent to get a Ship ready to attend him at the next Part at the time appointed which he does effectually In the mean time his persecutors to Plague him the more with their delusions sent several Messengers from the Court who feigned in the presence of his Keepers for he was not allowed to talk with any privately that the King's Anger began to be pacified and that he might shortly hope for his Liberty but when the day appointed for his escape was come he puts as good a meen as possible he could upon the matter and begins to feign a belief in what the Messengers said in Favour of him and Questioned not but to have a speedy and honourable deliverance And to further the Design treats his Keepers with a splendid Supper and Drinks with them till it was late at night but when they were gone and fast asleep he falls to work and makes a Rope of the Sheets of his Bed long enough as he thought to reach the ground and first for to make a Tryal therof le ts down his Man by it by whole fall he finds it was shorter then it should have been Having therefore lengthened the Rope as much as the present Circumstance would admit he follows his Man who in his descent had broke his Leg takes him up upon his back and carries him about a mile to the Sea-side and having got a Favourable Wind set sail for Dumbarton and from thence having first well secured the Castle he sailed into France The Duke was honourably received in France and Married the Earl of Bologn's Daughter but upon the Death of his Wife who lived not long with him finding Affections cool towards him he goes over into England and was entertained by Edward IIII. then King of England who assisted him with an Army to invade Scotland under the Command of his Brother Richard Duke of Gloucester King James makes all the Force he could to oppose them but being Governed by his former Councells the Nobility took it in high disdain and therefore they met together in the Church of Lowder where the King and his Army then were to deliberate what they should do in such a conjuncture Where Archibald Dowglass Earl of Angus takes upon him to set forth the occasion of their meeting which he did in a very pathetick Speech and shew'd at large all the enormities of the King's Reign down to the present time the danger they then stood in from a Foreign Army and therefore exhorts them first to shake of the Domestick Yoke of servitude they were under before they Engaged with the Enemy c. this Oration wrought so effectually upon their minds that they were immediately ready to run in headlong into the Pallace without any Consideration of what they were to do But the principal Men amongst them appeasing the tumult advised that a sufficient number should only enter in without any shew of Commotion and take out the Criminals lead them to Judgment and Punish them according to Law In the mean time while these things were in Agitation comes a Rumour into the Court that the Nobles held a Consultation together before day in the Church the subject whereof was uncertain but that it must be strange that such Men should Assemble together without the King and his Councellors Knowledge The King hereupon being hastily awaken out of his sleep enquires of those about him what he had best to do in the mean time he sends Cockram before to observe what was done and to give him an Account of all with speed he with a few followers goes towards the Church and meets the cheif of the Nobility advancing towards the Court whom they no sooner espied but Dowglass laid hands on him and catching hold of a large Gold Chain he had about his neck squeezed him first a little and then sends him to Prison himself with the rest going directly to the King's Bed-Chamber Where when they came they filled all with Astonishment so as that there seemed to be a little pause upon the matter for the present but it was not
long e're they seized upon the Kings Evil Councellors that were about him and sent them all away save only John Ramsey a very young man that clung to the King and who intreated for him that he might be spared The rest were lead to Judgment and with the loud cries of the Army calling for Justice upon those miscreants were hanged out of the way and such forwardness was shewed to have them dispatched speedily that when they wanted Ropes upon such a sudden occasion every one was ready to offer his Horses Halter or the Reins of his Bridle for that purpose These Wretches were charged with many private injuries and among the more publick ones was their advising the King to Coin base Copper Money which the Common people by way of reproach called Black-Money and that this was the principal cause of the scarcity that was in the Land the want of Trade and many other Calamities too long to be incerted To the Kings charge was laid the unjust death of the Earl of Mar his Brother his advancing of Cockram a Mason to the said Earldom his practising of Magick and resolvedness to destroy his Relations This done they returned to Edenburg and appointed the King himself to be kept in the Castle of the said City by the E. of Atholl and in the mean time they send to the English Army for a Cessation of Arms for three Months The Duke of Albany was honourably received into his Country again and had the Castle of Dunbar with the Earldoms of March and Mar conferred upon him and was withal Proclaimed the Kings Lieutenant General While things were in this state the English take the Castle of Berwick the Town having been surrendred to them before The Duke of Albany making a faint of relieving the same but did nothing At length the Duke accompanied with the Chancellor Archbishop of St. Andrews and others went to Sterling to pay the Queen and Prince a visit they had not been there long when the Queen entering into a secret Conference with the Duke unknown to the rest about the King's Confinement and urging how noble and generous as well as advantagious an act it would be in him to imploy his power for his releasement he consents to the undertaking and so returning to Edenburg besieged the Castle and took it remov'd the Earl of Athol and so sets the King and all his Servants at liberty for which extraordinary favour the King shewed him great tokens of his affections but they were not long-lived for the remembrance of old offences are of greater force in a degenerous and impotent mind than fresh kindnesses And to foment his jealousies he had always those at his Elbow who never ceased to upbraid the Duke to him of affecting too much popularity and to construe the same as an infallible sign of his intentions to snatch at the Crown when ever a fit opportunity presented The Duke who was not ignorant of those jealousies entertained of him and at last finding there was a design formed against him of no less than taking away his Life and that as appeared by poyson withdraws privily into Dunbar Castle And the King as conscious of his evil doings fearing the displeasure of his Nobles hereupon withdraws also into the Castle of Edenburg where the Earls of Angus Buchan and others forsook him and assisted the Duke But the King being haunted still by his Evil Spirits I mean those vile fellows whom he had again placed about his Person he summoned the Duke and his adherents to appear and answer for such treasonable Crimes as he had to lay to their Charge and withall prepared an Army to Besiege Dunbar which the Duke having notice off he flies into England And afterwards being accompanied with the Earl of Dowglass and others was engaged to invade the Marches of his own Country but meeting with ill success and being checked by the King of England for his ill Conduct he grew sullen thereupon and withdrew secretly into France where not long after according to the usual fate of his Family running at Tilts with Lewis Duke of Orleans he was wounded with the splinter of a Spear and thereof Dyed So that here is two of them gone the fate of the third is now approaching with winged hast For the King having once got a Peace with the English and the Castle of Dunbar into his hands which seemed for some time to put a check upon his exorbitance he returns to his old haunts gives himself over not only to be guided by Favourites and mean Persons as before who were his Leeches to drain his Subjects to satiate his covetous desires but to unlawful pleasure with loose Women Among the men Favourites John Ramsey saved as you have heard before by the Kings importunity from an Halter was chief This Man having been advanced to the dignity of Lord Stuard K of the ing's Houshold and endowed with many large demesns became so elated in mind that not being content with that large fortune nothing would serve but he must have an order that none besides himself and his Companions should go armed in those places where the King resided designing by this devise to fortifie himself and his Faction against the Nobility of the Kingdom whom he found to go frequently armed themselves and accompanied with such as were well provided for their defence But this Edict procured him more hatred than it wrought fear in his Enemies In the mean time the King minded nothing as much as to gratifie his mind with the blood of those who were thought to be the Authors of Rebellion And seeing he could not bring about his purposes he endeavours to surprise them by cunning for feigning to be reconciled to one of them after another he entertained them with that gentleness and in so soothing a manner as came below the Dignity of a Prince to do Others of them who excelled in Riches and Power he accumulated with Rewards and Honours making David Lindsey Earl Crawford Duke of Montross and George Earl of Angus he would have frequently in his Company carrying it so by communicating his secret Counsels unto him as if he were throuhgly reconciled But his Rewards and Blandishments had but little effect upon any of them in respect to any opinion his Sincerity for they who knew his disposition doubted not but all that semblance of Goodness and Favour tended to no other end than either to surprise them one after another or to set them at variance one against another which when he had got the chief of Nobility to Edenburg did more clearly appear for having sent for Dowglass to him into the Castle he shewed him what a brave opportunity he now had to be revenged on them for if he did but secure the Heads of the Factions and punish them the rest would be quiet That if he lett his opportunity that presented it self slip he could never afterward hope for such another Dowglass who well knew that the Kings mind
was as implacable towards him as the rest of them cunningly discusses that rash and evil Counsel arguing with him what a base and flagitious offence all the world would look upon it to be if he should without due Process of Law suddenly hale to execution so many Illustrious Persons to whom he was reconciled as having given his Royal Word for pardoning of what was past and that not long since and now secur'd with the Publick Faith for the fierce and enraged minds of Enemies would not be broken with the ruine of a few and coming once to despair of Pardon they would turn their wrath into fury and the consequence of that would be that they would grow more stobborn and obstinate and less value the King's Authority and their own lives and if your Highness will take my Counsel continued the Earl Iâ—ll put you in a way whereby to salve the King's Honour and Dignity and that revenge may at the same time be prosecuted For I having gathered my Friends and Tenants together will openly and in the day time lay hold of them and then you may try them where you will and punish them as you please and this will be not only more Honourable but also more safe for the King than if they should be killed at unawares in the Night as it were by Thiefs The King believing the Earl spoke what he thought for he knew well enough that he was able to perform what he promised he gave him many thanks for his advise and dismissed him laden with large Promises of Reward The Earl having warned the Peers to take care of their safety and to withdraw from the imminent danger that hung over their Heads does himself also retire to a place of safety The King from hence forwards finding his secret Counsels laid open and not daring to trust any body betook himself to the Castle of Edenburg and from thence being conveyed by Sea to the Countries beyond the Forth which still were obedient to him did in a short time levy a good Army And now the Nobility who before designed nothing but that the King should amend in his male administration finding all accommodation with him desperate and his evil disposition incurable bend all their Counsels to remove him A bad Steward its most certain he had been and now they are resolved to call him to a severe account for the same The great difficulty that stood in their way and which they were deliberating to remove was whom they should appoint to be their Captain who when the King were brought to a compliance might be constituted Vicegerent of the Kingdom It was adjudged highly necessary it should be a person that was pleasing to the Commonallity of an Illustrious Name That the Faction might not be opprest and weakned out of an envy to his Greatness and at last after they had thought of one and another they pitched unanimously upon the King 's own Son the Prince of Scotland who being taken from his Keepers and Governours of his tender years was urged to a speedy compliance for if otherwise they were resolved to transfer the Kingdom into the hands of the King of England who would take care to root out him and his Family for the better security of it Now the King had past over the Forth and pitched his Tents at a place called Blackness and the Sons Army ready prepared to give Battle were not a far off But by the mediation of the Earl of Athol the King's Uncle things were at present brought to an accommodation and Athol himself was delivered as an Hostage to Adam Hepborn Earl of Bothwell in whose custody he remained till the K. death which now was not far off But the agreement as being between such as had an incurable jealousie of one another did not last long In the mean time Couriers and Mediators past continually from one to another at last the Lords gave determinate answer That seeing the King acted nothing sincerely with an intention to perform they adjudged it better to be engaged in a certain War than a delusive and treacherous Peace That the only hopes of agreement was if the King would Abdicate the Throne and have his Son advanced in his room if not it would be to no purpose for them to try and frustrate one another with Conferences The King not to be wanting to himself in this desperate Fortune orders his Embassadors in England and France to communicate this answer to those Kings whom he earnestly sollicites to make use of their Authority or if need were their Forces too in his behalf for the repressing of the insolence of a few Rebels and reduce them to Reason and their Duty and to esteem his Fortune common with their to own and such as might by the Contagion thereof easily creep to other Nations He sent also to Eugenius IIII. Pope of Rome to intreat him out of his Paternal care and love to the Scotish Name and Nation to send a Legate into Scotland to enforce the Rebells according to the Authority of his Holiness's Power and Jurisdiction to lay down their Arms and obey their King The Pope having one Adrian Castlean for his Legate in England a Man of great Learning and Prudence he Writes to him to use his endeavour to compose the Scotch Affairs and bring them to a settlement But this came a day after the fare for the Lords who knew well enough that these proceedings of the King abroad were in agitation and withall that his mind was implacable towards them resolved before he should have an opportunity to augment the number of his Forces to try it out by Arms and though they had the Kings Son with them as well to manifest their Authority to the Common People as to shew that they were not angry with or had no quarrel against their Country but a pernicious King who would have ruined them yet least the minds of the people should be alienated by the cunning or forreign Ambassadors and other accidents that attend procrastination they were busied night and day how to commit all to the hazard of a Battle But the Kings timerousness was an obstacle to their eagerness and hast who because he had ordered considerable Levies to be made for the augmentation of the Troops he had on foot already in the northern parts of the Kingdom did in the mean time keep himself close within the Castle of Edenburg But that he might precipitate his fate he was brought by his Followers whether designedly or ignorantly is uncertain to forsake this wholsome Counsel which he looked upon to be safest for him for they perswaded him that by reason of the frequent tides there which might cause delay and danger to them that were about to meet together it were more adviseable he should go to Sterling Castle the best situated place of any for gathering of Forces together out of all parts of the Kingdom That he would be as safe there as in Edenburg Castle
seeing his Enemies were unprepared of all things necessary for a Siege That his Fleet also which he had prepared to be an help to him at all adventures might be at hand This advice did indeed seem to be sound and real and had been safe enough in all probability in the event had it not been that the Governour of the Castle being corrupted by the opposite Faction excluded him from admittance And now all things conspire to his ruin for the Lords were now at his heels that he could not possibly retire to the Castle of Edenburg again and the Forces raised by the Earls of Huntley Errol Athol and diverse other Noblemen who stuck to him and which they said amounted to the number of Forty Thousand Men being not yet come up he would not stay for them and so with those Forces he had with him hazards a Battle The Battle was at first very fierce and the first Wing of the Nobâ—es Army gave way but the Annandalians and their Neighbours who inhabite the Western parts of Scotland press hard upon the Kings Forces and with their huge Spears much longer than their Adversaries quickly broke the King's main Body who finding now it was in vain to stand it and being injured with the fall of his Horse retires to a Mill that was not far off from the place of Battle with a design as was thought to get aboard his Ships which were not far off where being taken with a few more he was slain It 's not fully agreed who killed him but pursued he was to the foresaid place by Patrick Grey Sterling Keiry and a Priest whose name was Borthick and who it was said being asked by the King for a Confessor roughly replied That though he was no good Priest yet he was a good Leech and with that stab'd him to the Heart And here you see how contemptible the Majesty of a Prince is that is sullied with degenerous actions and there was this further ignominy affixed to his Death That it was enacted in the next Sessions of Parliament that he Justly suffered and strictly forbidden that any who had bore Arms against him or thier descendants should be upbraided therewith Young he was being about 35 years when he died and of them had Reigned near Twenty Eight in the year of our Lord 1488. The Son who had headed this Army is now advanced to the Father's Throne and known by the name of James the IV. being then about Sixteen years of Age. Wood who Commanded the Ships before mentioned was with great difficulty brought to submit and did afterward this King great Service who it seems had some remorse for his contributing so much to his Fathers Death for in token thereof he wore continually an Iron Chain about his middle all the days of his life made frequent visits to Religious places c. all which methinks seems to have been put upon him by some crafty Priest tho Historians are silent in that particular but he had hardly been warm in his Throne when those Nobles that were of his Father's Party sent their Emissaries to all the parts of the Kingdom and exhort one another not to endure the present state of things That so many brave Men should not suffer such publick paricides who had murdred one King and kept the other in servitude so proudly to illude them and to charge them with being guilty of High-Treason who fought for the King's defence and safety but that they should arrogate to themselves who were violators of all Divine and Humane Laws the title of being defenders of the Honour and Dignity of the Commonwealth and preservers of their Country in whose hands the King himself was not free as being enforced first to take up Arms against his Father and King and having wickedly slain him to prosecute his Father's Friends and such ns engaged in his defence by an unjust and Cruel War that was intollerable When many things of this nature had been bandyed about amongst the Common People Alexander Forbes to excite in them a greater hatred towards the present Administration caused the dead King 's bloody Shirt to be hung up on a long Pole and exposed publickly at Aberdeen and other places where there was great concourse of People This being as it were a publick Edict to stir up all Men to revenge so foul a Deed. Nay many of them who had engaged with them actually in the slaughter finding that all things did not go as they would have it now joyned with these Malecontents And as things were transacted in these parts about Aberdeen much to the new King's prejudice Matthew Stewart Earl of Levins a popular and potent Man in his Country summons all such as he had influence over this side the Forth to come to him and having raised a good body of Men finding he could not make his way over Sterling Bridge which was guarded by the Royalists he hastens towards a Ford not far from the River-head at the foot of Mount Grampias with a design to joyn with his Friends in those parts Now when John Drummond had notice hereof by Alexander Mac Alpin his Tenant and who had joyned the Enemy and found plainly that all things were so careless and secure in the Enemies Camp that they dispearsed themselves up and down as every one pleased and had no Centry nor Scouts and destitute of all Military Order and Discipline he immediately with the Courtiers and a few Voluntiers he had with him sets upon them un-a-wares and in a manner all asleep which was in too many of them continued by Death the rest unarm'd run back headlong from whence they came and many were made Prisoners but some known Friends and Acquaintance were let go they were severe only upon such as wrote or spoke very contumeliously of the Government and so this storm blew over and not long after a Parliament was called wherein past a general Act of Indemnity so that now nothing was expected here but Halcyon Days but a Storm quickly arose which terribly shook not only this but the Kingdom of England also by one Perkin Warbeck's pretending himself to be Richard Duke of York and second Son to King Edward IV. and so to have an undoubted Right to the Crown of England He came over from France into Scotland and possest this King so far with a belief of his Right and the Justice of his Cause that he not only gave him the Lady Margaret the Earl of Huntley's Daughter for a Wife but also raised an Army to defend his Cause which took up some Years of his Reign little enough to his or the Kingdoms Commodity and Advantage At last a Truce for some Years was agreed on between him and the King of England and the Consequence of that was first orders for Perkin of whom you may read at large in my Lord Bacon's History of Henry VII to depart the Realm of Scotland then a Marriage between King James and the Lady Margaret
Henry VIIth's Daughter and lastly a Peace between both Kings during their Lives This Kings Reign is remarkable upon many accounts which being not the scope of this Treatise we designedly omit But one passage I meet with in Lesley's History of this Kingdom which for the rarity of it I cannot omit and hope the Reader will not think it an Impertinent Digression About this time says the aforesaid Author The King to tell you a business that to this day is remembred with great Laughter among the Roman people created a certain Italian with whose Wit and Pleasant Conversation he was much taken Abbot of Tungland This man thinking to magnifie his own parts did on a certain time perswade the King that he was so well skilled in the Secrets of Nature and more especially in the noble Science of Chimistry that he could transmute any other Metal into Gold if the King would please to bear the Charges thereof But after much Time and Treasure spent and long Expectation of this Glorious Effect all proved Abortive and came to nothing so that the vain Braccadocio fell into great contempt both by the King and People which grieved him very sore so that he sets all his Wits on work how he might do somewhat that might regain his fame in the world and at the same recover the King's Favour At last he gave out a Report that he would by flying be in France before the Kings Ambassadors who were sent thither and were then actually under sail to pursue their Voyage and that this might not be all talk without any Performance he boldly appointed a Day and Place which was Sterling from whence to begin his flight the noise whereof brought you may be sure a great concourse of People together among whom was the King himself When the Time was come the man gets up to the Top of Sterling Castle and having fastned the Wings which he had made of the Feathers of several Fowls to his sides he lifts himself into the Air thinking to pursue his course But alas he came quickly down headlong to the ground his Wings availing him nothing whereupon the people who knew not whether they should rather Rebuke his Presumption or Pity his Misfortune flocked about him and asked him how he did he made Answer that he had broken his Thigh-bone and despaired of ever flying any more at which they all laughed their fill But this Icarus to salve the matter laid the fault of his flying wholly upon his Wings because they were not made of Eagles Feathers and the like but only of Poultry which were not fit to cut the Air with flight and which by a certain innate Virtue operating according to the Nature of those Fowl drew the Feathers downwards to the Dunghill where those Birds fed But to re-assume the Thread of our Story things continued in a tollerable state of Tranquillity till the death of Henry VII the King's Father-in-law but Henry VIII a young ambitious and active Prince had not long mounted the English Throne when he makes Preparations to recover his Right in the Kingdom of France The French King to fortifie himself as much as possible against the impending Storm requir'd Aid of the King of Scotland who by his Embassadors would have accommodated Matters and perswaded both Kings to a Peace But King Henry persisting in his Resolution the Scot won by French Promises of Money and Ammunition joyns with them in League against England and because the English Commissioners appointed to accommodate the Differences between both Nations about some Irregularities and Depredations committed upon the Borders would not come up to their Terms James takes this occasion to send Lyon King at Arms to King Henry by this time besieging Terwin with Letters of Complaints commanding him for want of satisfying the Contents of the said Letters to denounce War against England When Henry had read the Letters and advised with his Council thereupon he told the Herauld he would make him answer If he would promise faithfully to declare the same to his Master Lyon replied Whatever his Master commanded him to say to others that he was obliged to do and would but for the Commands of others to his Master therein he desired to be excused but added your Highness Letters that declare your Pleasure I am willing to carry tho' your Answer requires doing and not saying I mean that you should immediately return home The King sharply retorted I 'll return at my own Pleasure to your Damage and not at thy Master's Summons and so delivers him a Letter to carry to his Master importing he had receiv'd his Full of frivolous Complaints which had been sufficiently answer'd before sharply sets forth the baseness of the Scotch Nation but says at the same time it was always their Ancestors custom to invade his Dominions in his absence which they never offered nor durst do while he was within the Land but however that he had taken caution for his security and would not desist from his present enterprize which the Scotch King had nothing to do with as being no Competent Judge for so the words are of so high Authority to require him in that behalf c. But before the Herault arrived and the Letters could be delivered King James had precipitated his own fall at Floddenfield For having dispatched Commissions for the raising of Forces he determines to put himself at the head of them before they were fully Compleated but first goes to a place called Limuch and there heard even Song as they called it where after he had entred the Chappel came an old man to him whose hair was somewhat of a yellow red hanging down over his Shouldiers his Forehead high with Baldness bare Headed clad in a Blewish Garment with a white Girdle and had a very Reverend Countenance and said King I am sent to admonish thee that thou go not forward to the place which thou hast determined which warning if thou dost despise it shall succeed ill with thee and all such as shall attend thee Further I am Commanded to give thee Intelligence before-hand that thou eschew the familiarity and Custom or Counsell of Women if thou do otherwise it shall tend to thy Dishonour and Hurt And when he had so said he mingled himself with other Company and when Prayers were over and that the K. sought for him he could by no means be found for he was never seen after the delivery of this Message which seemed the more strange because that many who stood near him and observing all he said and intent to hear more from him could not perceive his departure of which Number David Linsey a Person of known Virtue and approved Reputation was one who told me the same saith Buchanan of a most certain truth or else I would have past it over for a Fable handed down to us by Common Fame But no premonitions from Heaven nor Advises upon Earth could divert the Career of this willfull Prince
but on he goes towards Edenburg and there takes a review of his Army and hastily marches towards the English Borders takes in several lesser places and Ravages the nighest parts of Northumberland In the mean time the King quite contrary to the premonition aforesaid being ensnared with the Beauty of a Noble Captive she was Hern's Wife of Ford neglected Military Discipline and his Army lying idle and in a Barren Country where Provisions were very scarce a great part of them in dâ—scontent disband and forsake the Service so that there were none but the Nobles with their Kindred and a few Tenants that staid behind For the greater part were of opinion they should not tarry any longer in a Country that was so Poor and withal Plundered but rather to Besiege Berwick which they had left behind them since the taking thereof alone would be much more Honourable and advantagious than all the adjacent Garrisons and that the taking thereof would not be difficult seeing the Town and Castle were unprovided to make any considerable resistance The King who supposed there was nothing too hard for his Arms especially now the English were imployed in the French Wars and being buoy'd up by the flattery of his Courtiers judged he could do that easily in his return but while he lay loitering at Ford came an English Herauld into his Camp requiring him to appoint a day and place where both Armies might give Battle whereupon the King calls a Councell of War wherein the greatest part were of opinion that it was most advisable they should return home least they might with so small a Force hazard the State of the whole Country especially seeing they had already obtained sufficient Renown Glory and Riches and fully satisfied the League of Friendship made with the French neither could there be any appearance of reason that they who were now so much diminished in their number and so weakned with the Fatigues they had undergone should now be exposed to so great a multitude of English daily increasing with Re-inforcements for it was Rumored then that the Lord Thomas Howard was arrived in the English Camp with Six Thousand old Soldiers from before Turwin And for the further inforcing hereof it was moreover added That if the King did depart the English Army must necessarily seperate and could not be drawn together that Year again as being to march from the remotest Parts of the Kingdom But and if the King must needs fight that then it were more advisable he should do it in his own Kingdom keeping the appointment both of the Time and Place always in his own Power But when the French Ambassador and such Mercenary Courtiers as took French Pensions opposed these Arguments the King who was eager for Battle and to hasten his own Ruin was easily perswaded to wait for the Enemy in that Place In the mean time when the English did not advance and engage at the day appointed by the Herault the Scotch Nobility laid hold of the opportunity afresh to go to the King before whom they laid the matter home again Alledging That the reason why they declined Battle was an Artifice of the Enemy only to gain time 'till all their Forces were come together while the Scotch dwindled away more and more and therefore it was high time they should have recourse to the like Pollicy and since the Enemy failed of their word it was no ways disgracefull to the Scots either to return into their own Country without giving them Battle or to Fight within their own Limits of which Councel the first was infallibly the best but if that were not approved off there was abundant reason for to execute the latter for seeing that the River Till was not foardable for some Miles space and could not be past by the Army but by one Bridge there a few might be able to resist a great multitude besides if part of the English Army were past the Bridge the same might easily be broken by Engines conveniently placed for that purpose so as to obstruct the passage of the rest to relieve them who of necessity must be cut to peices But so was the King taken with his own Conceit that you had as good have talked to a dead Man as to him upon this head And therefore he slightingly said That if the English Army were an Hundred Thousand strong he would Fight them With which rash Answer the Nobility were very much displeased Whereupon Archibald Dowglass Earl of Angus a Man that far excelled the rest of the Nobles both in Years and Authority endeavoured in a gentle Oration to alter the King's Resolutions enlarges upon and shews the reasonableness and advantage of the former Counsells given him by the Nobility for he made it appear that the King had been punctual in the League with France and gratified their Request in that he had now turned the English Arms before bent against the French against himself and against his own Country and had so ordered his own Affairs that those great Armies should neither injure France nor endamage Scotland seeing they were not long able to keep the field in those cold Countries and a Barren Soyl Unfurnished of necessaries for the support of Life through the Calamy of the late Wars and which at best produced but little Corn but Winter was drawing near which in those Northern parts was felt betimes And continued the Earl as for the French Ambassadors urging of us to come to a Battle I cannot think that should be looked upon as either new or strange by us that a Foreigner who hath no respect to the publick good of this Kingdom but to the private interest of his own Nation should be so lavish of other Mens blood And besides his Request is unreasonable and impudent for he would have the Scots do that which the French King a Person of the highest Prudence thinks not fit to do for his own Kingdom and Honour neither should the miscarriage of this Army be looked upon by him as a small loss because they were not so numerous for all those are here who excell either in Virtue Authority and Counsell and if these be once lost the surviving Commonalty will become an easy prey to the Conquerors What is it not at present safer and withal more profitable to protract the War For if Lewis thinks that the English can either be exhausted by Expences or wearied with delay what can be better as to the present State of things than for us to enforce the Enemy to divide their Forces that we may keep one part of their Army to watch and look after our motion making a continual shew of our readiness to make Incursions and by putting of them under a constant apprehension thereof ease the burden of the French by our Labour and Vigilancy and I think those men who I fear are more Valiant in Words than in Actions have sufficiently Consulted for their Glory and Renown under which names they would
long Wound his left Arm almost cut off in two several places could scarce hang to his Shoulder and had been besides shot through several parts of his Body with Arrows and this seems to have the greatest appearance of truth in it tho' what Buchanan and others his Countrymen alledge is not improbable viz. That after the King found the Battle encline to the English without any hopes of retrieving it he passed the Tweed and near Kelso was slain by Humes's followers it remaining uncertain whether it was done by his Command or that these Ruffians thinking to gratify the humour of their Patron were in hopes when the King was once cut off they might transact what villany they pleased impunedly but if he survived they were in great apprehensions of being called to a severe account for their tardiness during the Battle To which they also add other conjectures that the very night after the Battle the Monastery of Kelso was seised by one Carr a confident of Hume and the Abbot chasheered which its likely he durst not have attempted if he had known the King had been alive But these things are so uncertain says Buchanan that when Hume was afterward called to an Account and Tryed for the Fact by the Earl of Murrey the King 's base Son it came to nothing they were not able to prove it upon him but withal adds that Lawrence Faliser a Person of integrity but then a Lad and spectator of of the Action did often affirm to him that he had seen the King on Horse Back pass the Tweed and hence many took occasion to report which lasted many years that the King was alive and would appear in due time after he had pay'd his vow of going to Jerusalem to view the Holy Sepulcre But this savours two much like the legendary Story of Arthur of old and of Charles Duke of Burgundy not many Years before of whom they related such another Tale But to return and take for granted that he died as before noted upon the place of Battle his Body being enclosed in a Sheet of Lead was brought into England and by the Kings Command laid in some bye Vault or Corner without any Funeral rites he saying That it was a due punishment for one who had perjuriously broken his League So that Death it self had not put a Period to his misfortune Tho' otherwise he was a Prince of great perfections both of Body and Mind and endued with most of those Royal Virtues that are necessary for the equal poize of a Scepâ—er which caused that sharp but true saying to drop from the Pen of a learned Author upon him that he perished Non suo sed Stuartorum Fato The loss of James IIII. in this manner seemed to carry with it the most dreadfull presages of Confusion and Misery that ever threatned any Country for he left his Queen Margaret and two Sons behind him the Eldest whereof James V. that succeeded him in the Kingdom being not fully two years old most of the Nobility who bore any thing of Wisdom and Authority before them being slain in the foresaid Battle and the major part of such as survived by reason of their Youth or Incapacity of their mind very unfit to meddle with matters of State especially in so teachy a time as that was And those who were left alive of the better sort who had any thing of Prudence through Ambition and Covetousness abhorring all Counsels tending to Peace and Concord However something must be done for the Publick weal and as the fittest expedient for a settlement a Parliament was convened at Sterling who Proclaimed James V. King and according to the Deseased King's Will The Queen was constituted Regent of the Kingdom so long as she remained a Widdow But she soon after Marrying Archembald Dowglass Earl of Angus a young Gentleman who for Lineage Comliness and other Accomplishments might be ranked amongst the prime Nobility of Scotland lost her Office and Authority and this occasioned a great feud among the Nobility The Dowglassian Party endeavoured to have the Queen continued in the Office Alledging That this was the way to have Peace with England which was not only advantagious but highly necessary for them at that time as matters stood with them But the Humes whereof Alexander Hume Warden of all the Marches and a very Potent Man was head making up the adverse faction under pretence of publick Good and that it was against the old Laws of the Kingdom to have a Woman however otherwise dignifyed to be Regent stiffly opposed the Queen and her Adherents so that at last after they had passionately struggled about the choise either out of wicked Ambition or secret Envy They past by all that were there present and incline to choose John Duke of Albany Son of Alexander of whom we have spoken before Brother of James III. and who lived then in good Repute in France from whence soon after he arrived in Scotland The Duke was ignorant of the old Customs of the Country as having been bred abroad all his Days which John Hepburn a Crafty Knave and one who had contested with Andrew Foreman about the Archbishoprick of St. Andrew's a little before well observing makes it his business to insinuate himself into the Regents Favour under pretence of informing him of the Laws and Manners of the Land but in Truth and Reality that he might advance himself upon the wrack and ruine of others And to this End he tells the Regent there were at that time three Factions in the Kingdom the one headed by Archibald Dowglass Earl of Angus the Queens Husband who was wonderfully Popular and upon the account of his Alliance with England and his own Personal and Hereditary Merits bore a Spirit too big for a private Man Alexander Hume was the next whose Power and Interest was so great that there was a necessity of repressing of him in time Foreman his former Competitor was the third who said he 't was true was not to be feared upon the account of Kindred and Nobleness of descent yet by reason of his great Wealth he would make a great Accession of Strength to what Party soever he inclined But to this last Part the Governor gave little heed as knowing it to be an invidious accusation of Hepburn proceeding from the noted feuds between Foreman and himself But the suspicion of Hume sunk deeper into the Regents mind which the other quickly perceiving he falls in for his own security with the interest of the Queen and her Husband and lamenting the danger the young King might be in if he should fall into the Regents Hands who was next Heir and bent to translate the Kingdom to himself he perswades the Queen to retire with the King to her Brother into England But these Consultations were not so secretly carried on but that the Governor had notice thereof who being an Active Man hastens with all his Forces to Sterling and quickly took the
aid at hand had set themselves in array at the Bridge of the River Aven which is about a mile from Linlithgow and placed a small Guard upon the Bridge to secure the Pass and drew up the rest of their Forces at the brow of the Hiâ—â— which they knew the Enemy must pass Lennox seeing that this passage over the Bridge was stopped Commanded his Men to pass over a small River a little above by the Nunnery called Manuell and so to beat the Hamiltonians from the Hills before Dowglass's Forces had joyned them The Lennoxians advanced towards the Enemy thorough thick and thin but were much incommoded by the others throwing of Stones down the Hills upon them and when they came to handy strokes the word was given that the Dowglasses were at hand and indeed they from their march ran in hastily into the Fight and soon carried the Day so that Lennox's Men were grievously wounded and put to flight The Victory was used by the Hamiltonians with much cruelty and among the Number of the slain was the Earl of Lennox himself highly lamented by all Persons and more especially by the King himself who now saw no visible hopes of ever retrieving his Liberty and could not choose but see how fatal his presence was to all that attempted it Now the Dowglasses are Lords paramount and carry all before them those that had taken up Arms against their King as they phrased it for fear of a Tryal were forced to compound with them for money or to put themselves into the Clanships of the Hamiltons or themselves and such as refused they utterly ruined yea and the Queen her self thought fit to retire to a place of Secrecy least she should fall into the hands of her Husband whom she hated But fury abating with time and the Dowglasses being severally intent upon other matters and concerns and secure as they thought as to the Kings Departure from them gave him at last an opportunity to gain his Liberty which all the former attempts of his Friends could not effect for him They believed now that his mind was fully Reconciled to them by those Blandishments and Immoderate Pleasures they had indulged him in and besides thought that if he were minded to remove there was no faction strong enough to oppose them neither was there any strong Garrison whither to retire but only to Sterling Castle which was allotted to the Queen for her Habitation And then it was deserted for a time by the Queens Officers when she hid her self for fear of the Dowglasses and when the tumult was a little appeased 't was somewhat Fortified but rather for a shew then any real defence The King having obtained some small relaxation saw that this must be his only refuge and and therefore he deals privately with his Mother to exchange that Castle and the Lands adjoining for other Lands as convenient for her and providing all other requisites as private as he could the Dowglasses not being so intent as formerly in their watch over him he retired by night with a small retinue from Falkland to Sterling whither he soon sent for some of the Nobles to come to him and others hearing the News came of their own accord so that now he seemed sufficiently secured against all force Then he issued out a Proclamation that the Dowglasses should abstain from all the Administration of publick affairs and that none of their Dependants should come within 12 miles of the Court upon pain of Death This Proclamation was quickly seconded with an Assembly of the Nobles at Edenburg where they had such Terms offered them as they would not accept whereupon their Offices were taken from them and themselves Summoned to attend the Parliament at Edenburg But they knowing the danger Endeavoured to seise upon Edenburg and dissolve the Parliament but failed in the attempt So that thâ— Earl of Angus retired to his Castle of Tanâ—allon and the Parliament proceeded in their business and the Earl with his Brothers Relations and intimate Friends were out Lawed They on the other hand being enraged at these proceedings and seeing all hopes of Pardon cut off betook themsâ—lves to open force and Committed all sorts of Outrages upon the Lands of their Enemies and with their Horse advanced many times to the very Gates of Edenburg so that the City was almost besieged by them The King thinking to unroost them all at once raises Forces and lays siege to Tantallon Castle but all that ever he could do could not take it At length the Dowglasses finding the Hamiltons and the rest of their Friends fail them found it necessary to retire for their better safety into England from whence came Ambassadors shortly after about settling a firm Peace between both Kingdoms and with the same labour to procure the Restitution of the Dowglasses King James was mighty desirous to have Tantallon Castle in his Power and at the same time his mind as averse to the Restoration of the Dowglasses and for that reason the matter was convassed too and fro for some Days and no temper of Accommodation could be found out But at length they came to this That Tantallon Castle should be surrendered to K. James a Truce between both Nations for five Years and the other demands in referrence to the Dowglasses he promised to grant under his Signet When the Castle was surrendered according to Composition the King failed of his Royal Word and not one of the Dowglasses were permitted to return which was foul prevarication in him and a stain that will not easily be blotted off his Memory seeing this was a principal matter in the Agreement and the Equivalent for the Castle The Truce about half expired was infringed by a War between both Nations which the French Ambassador endeavoured to compose and about the same time James transacts with the French King and afterward with the Emperor about a Match which was like to endanger his life For the Hamiltons almost confident of the Succession yet looking upon it a long way about to stay either for Fortuitous or Natural dangers to befall him and fearfull in case he married he might have Lawfull Issue of his own studied to hasten his Death by Treachery a fair opportunity was offered them to effect it by his Night-walkings to his Misses having but one or two in Company but however it were they ne'er could put their purpose in Execution The Emperor's offers were rejected and at last he went over himself into France to seek him a Wife and brings over along with him Magdelen Daughter to Francis the French King but she died soon after and had no issue The Death of Magdalen did but whet his desires to get him another Wife and to that End he dispatched Cardinal David Beaton and others into France to treat of a Match between himself and Mary of the House of Guise Widdow to the Duke of Longeville by whom he had two Sons and a Daughter of whom you 'll hear by
and by But before her arrival in Scotland John Forbes a young Gentleman of a great Family was accused of a Design he had many years before to Assassinate the King It was believed to be a malitious prosecution of the Huntley's but Condemned he was and lost his head and a few Days after came on another Tryal which on the account of the Family of the accused Parties the Novelty of it and the heinousness of the punishment was very Lamentable and Tragical and plainly shews the Kings mind was cruel and implacable Joan Dowglass Sister to the Earl of Angus of whom we have said so much and Wife to John Lyons Lord of Glames also her Son and latter Husband Gilespy Campell John Lyons Kinsman to her former Husband and an old Priest were accused for endeavouring to poyson the King All these tho' they lived continually in the Country far from the Court and their Friends and Servants could not be brought to witness any thing against them yet were put on the rack to extort a Confession from them and so were Condemned and shut up in Edenburg Castle Joan Dowglass was burnt alive with great Commiseration of all the Spectators The Nobleness both of her self and Husband did much affect the beholders Besides she was in the vigour of her youth much celebrated for her rare Beauty and in her very punishment she shewed a manlike Fortitude But that which people were more concerned for was that they thought the enmity against her Brother who was banished did her more prejudice then her own objected Crime Her Husband endeavoured to escape out of the Castle of Edenburg but the Rope being too short to let him down to the foot of the Rock brake almost all the bones of his body with the fall and so ended his Days Their Son a young Man and of greater Innocent simplicity then to have the suspicion of such a wickedness justly charged upon him was for all that shut up a Prisoner in the Castle And the accuser of all these William Lyons by name afterwards perceiving that so eminent a Family was like to be utterly ruined by his false Information Repented when it was too late and confessed his offence to the King Yet so bloody was he an instance I think hardly to be parallelled in all the records of time that it did not prevent the Execution of the Condemned or hinder their Estates from being Confiscate and the aforesaid young Gentleman was not discharged from his Imprisonment and Restored to his Inheritance till after the King's Death which is now upon the Wing But as we have given you the Tragical part of his past life in all the Circumstances of them we shall depeint unto you all the concurrent causes of his Tragical and Untimely Death and to that End we are necessitated to recount some few things to you that in order of time precede and you must note That King Henry VIII having upon the account of his Divorce from Queen Katherine Proclaimed himself head of the Church and utterly disclaimed the Pope's Authority in England he thereby contracted great enmity not only from Rome but also from Spain and the Empire Wherefore to strengthen himself against any Combination that he expected to be made against him he was desirous to entertain a strict amity with his Nephew James V. of Scotland and to that End directs Ambassadors to him inviting him to a Conference at York whither Henry offered to come and meet him Alledging That by such an interview matters might be better concerted for the mutual Interest of both Kingdoms K. James after a serious Deliberation returns Answer he would attend his Unkle at the Time and Place appointed who thereupon made very great preparations to Entertain him with utmost solemnity But the Scotch Clergy apprehensive least their King through his Unkles Perswasions and Example might be wrought upon to shake off the Pope's Authority in Scotland as he had done in his own Dominions Resolve to do the utmost of their endeavours to prevent the intended interview and so mustering up all their Forces by themselves and the Kings minions and flatterers acquaint him with the evil Câ—nseâ—uence of his going to England shew how King James I. had been kept Prisoner in England how ill the French their old Confederates and the Emperor would take it at his hands That King Henry was excommunicate that a dangerous Heresy had overspread not only the greatest part of that Kingdom but had infected even the King himself That many of his own Nobility were favourers of the said Heresy which notwithstanding if he took care timously to suppress it would be of mighty advantage to him and he might very much increase his revenue by their Estates a list of whose names they presented to him which he put in his Pocket thinking it a very profitable proposal and therefore with all expedition to be put in Execution The Lord Grang his Treasurer and who secretly favoured the Reformation was then much in his favour and to him the King shews the foresaid List telling him what great advantage he would make of it whereat the Treasurer smiled and withall desired leave to speak his mind freely upon which the King drew his Sword and merily said to him I le kill thee if thou speak against my profit Then the Treasurer began to set before him at large the various troubles of his Reign while in minority and what an hand the Clergy had in all the disorders that he had not been long a free Prince And that though his Majesty had done very much in thâ— time in setling the Highlands and the Borders yet desired him to consider of what a dangerous consequence it might be if his Nobility should get intelligence that some greedy fetches had been insinuated to him under pretence of Heresie to dispoile them of their Lives and Inheritances And thereby endanger his own Estate at the instance of those whose Estates were in danger and who would hazard him and his to save their own I mean continued the Treasurer the Prelates who are afraid least your Majesty according to the Example of the King 's of England and Denmark and other Princes of the Empire should make the like Reformation among them and therefore they are clearly against your having any familiarity with the King of England or to have your Affairs so settled as to give you leisure to look into and reform the abuses of the Church Then he went on and shewed him how the Revenues of the Crown were wasted and the vast Estates of the Clergy their addictedness to the Pope their sly carriage in insinuating themselves into all secrets of State the wisdom of the Venetians in that particular in excluding the whole Levitical Order from their Senate-house the gross abuses of the Church of Rome the scandalous lives of the Scotch Clergy and last of all urged how dishonourable and dangerous it would be to his Majesty not to keep his word with
so but advanced nearer the Kings Person and said Sir What offence have I done who had so much of your Favour when I parted from you with your permission The King Answered Why did you refuse to send me the Maiden whom I wrote for and gave despightfull Language to him I sent for her Sir said he there is none about your Majesty dare avow such a thing to my face As for the Maiden I told the Prior that I was well enough to be the Messenger my self to convey her to your Majesty but thought him an unmeet Person whom I knâ—w to be a lover of Women and the greatest deflowrer of Wives and Maidens in Scotland Then the King said Hast thou then brought the Gentlewoman with thee Yes Sir said he Alas saith the King They have told me so many lies of thee that they have got a Warrant from me to commit thee to Prison but I shall mend it with a contrary Command Then said the Treasurer lamentingly My life or Imprisonment is but a small matter but it breaks my heart that the world should hear of your Majesties facility For he had heard that during his absence they had caused the King to send to England and to give over the designed interview at York The Prelates having gained this point they jog the King forwards to prosecute the reformed and get James Hamilton Bastard Brother to the Earl of Arran and a fit Instrument for their purpose to be Judge in matters of Religion About the same time came into Scotland one James Hamilton Cousin-German to the foresaid James who after long banishment at length got leave to return to his Country for a time to prosecute a Law-Suit he had against the Bastard James But when he found after his Arrival what dangers himself and other true Professors of the Gospel were in he dispatch'd his Son to the K. who was then going over to Fife and having got to him before he was gone on board he acquaints him tremblingly who was by Nature very suspicious that it was a matter of great moment and would prove dangerous to the whole Kingdom unless the King would take care to secure Hamilton and take away his Commission The King who was then hastning to Fife sent the young man to Edenburg to the Lords of the Sessions and ordered James Lermouth James Kinnedy and Thomas Aresky to meet and charged them to give as much heed to what the Messenger should Declare as if he himself were present and sent them a Ring which they knew from off his Finger for a Token These having set their heads together secure James who had just dined and was ready for his Journey in his own House and send him prisoner to the Castle But when they had learned by their spies that the King upon earnest application made to him on his behalf was inclined to discharge him and that besides the danger the publick might be in they themselves had reason to fear least if so Factous and powerfull a man and now provoked by so great an ignominy did come off clear he would be sharply and severely revenged They posted to Court and perswaded the King by laying the nearness of the danger the wicked disposition cruel mind and Wealth of the Man as much as possible they could before him not to discharge him without a Tryal The King therefore going to Edenburg and from thence to Seaton commands him to be tryed for his life and having been Convicted lost his head The Crime laid to his charge was that he had on a certain day determined to break the Doors open and to murder the King and had secret cabals with the Dowglasses that were publick Enemies Strange proceedings those were tho' the Man died in a manner unlamented as being obnoxious to most people and having lead a most wicked Life only the Priesthood were much concerned at his fall as having placed all the hopes of their Fortunes in his Welfare But however he might have been an ill man otherwise by the sequel it was interpreted that the King had done little less then murdered him for from henceforth he was grievously afflicted with turbulent dreams whereof amongst the rest this was one He saw this same James Hamilton rush into his presence with a drawn Sword and first cut off his right Arm and then the left and when he had threatned to return in a short time and cut off his head he vanished The King when he avoke was in a great fright and while he revolved with himself upon the Event of his dream presently comes News to him that both his Sons one at St. Andrews and the other in Sterling were dead almost in the very same moment of time This was black and ominous upon him and now we come to shew you his Exit which was violent as well as the rest that went before him When Henry VIII found himself thus basely disappointed by his Nephew he was not a little incensed thereat and prepared an Army to invade Scotland There were near two years spent with nothing but Incursions on both sides there being neither a certain Peace nor a Just War between them at length the Army under the Command of the Duke of Norfolk drew near to the Marches the Scots encounter the Duke with an Herault to expostulate concerning the Motives of the War and withal dispatched the Ld. Gowrdon with some small Forces to defend the Frontiers The Herault was detained till the Eng. Army came to Berwick to prevent his giving them Intelligence of their strength And in October the Duke entring Scotland continued there ransacking the Country without any opposition till the middle of November by which time King James had Levyed a great Army and was resolved on a Battle The Nobility did all they could to disswade him from it and especially shewed a great unwillingness that he should any way hazzard his own Person the loss of his Father in like manner being fresh in their memories and Scotland too sensible of the Calamities that ensued upon it The K. proving obstinate they detain him by Force being desirous rather to run the risque of his displeasure then of his life This tenderness of him in the Language of rage and indignation he Terms Cowardice and Treachery and threatned when once he should get loose to fight the Enemy with his own Family only The Lord Maxwell seeking to allay him promised with Ten Thousand men only to invade England and with far less then the English forces to divert the War The K. seems to consent hereto and being offended with the rest of the Nobility he gives the Lord Sinclair a private Commission which was not to be opened till such time as they came to give Battle wherein he made him General of the whole Army Sinclair having decryed Five Hundred English Horse Commanded by Sir Thomas Wharton and Sir William Musgrave on the adjacent Hills he breaks his Commission open and Commanded it to be publickly read
hereunto As for their part it should be their earnest desire and study to pretermit no occasion of perpetuating the Peace betwixt the two Neighbour Nations and that there was but one sure way to induce an amnesty of all past differences and to stifle the spring of them for ever by the Queen of England's Declaring by an Act of Parliament Confirmed by the Royal assent That their Queen was Heiress to the Kingdom of England next after her self and her Children if ever she had any And when the Ambassador had urged the equity and reasonableness of such a Law and how beneficial it would be to all Britain by many Arguments he added in the close That she being her nearest Kinswoman ought to be more intent and diligent than others in having such an Act made and that the Queen his Mistress did expect that Testimony of good will and respect from her To which the Queen of England made Answer to this purpose I wonder she hath forgot how that before her departure out of France that after much urging she promised that the League made at Leith should be Confirmed She having faithfully engaged it should be so as soon as e're she returned to her own Country I have continued she been put off with Words long enough now it is time if she had any regard to her Honour that her Actions should answer her Words To which the Ambassador replied That he was sent on that Embassy but a very few Daâ—â—s after the Queens arrival before she had entred upon the Administration of any publick affairs that she had been hitherto taken up in treating of the Nobility many of whom she had never seen before who came from diverse parts to perform their dutiâ—ull Salutations to her but that she was chiefly employ'd about settling the State of Religion which how troublesome and difficult a thing it is said he Your self well know Hence he proceeded to shew that his Mistress had had no vacant time at all before his departure neither had she yet called sit Men for her Council to Consult about various affairs especially since the Nobility who lived in the remotest parts of the North had not been yet able to attend her before his coming away with whose advice matters of sâ—ch publick moment could and ought to be transacted which words somewhat incensed Queen Elizabeth and said What need hath the Queen to make any Consultation about that which she hath obliged her self to under Hand and Seal he replyed I can give no other answer at present for I received no Command about it neither did our Q. expect that an account thereof would now be required of me and you may easily consider with your self what Just causes of delay she at present lies under and after some other Words the Queen returned to the main point and said I observe what you most insist upon in behalf of the Queen and in seconding the Requests of the Nobles you put me in mind That your Queen is descended from the Blood of the King 's of England and that I am bound to love her by a natural Obligation as being my near Kinswoman which I neither can nor will deny I have also made it evident to the whole World that in all my Actions I ne'er attempted any thing against the good and Tranquility of her self and her Kingdom those who are acquainted with my inward thoughts and inclinations are conscious that tho' I had just cause of offence given by her using my Arms and claiming a Title to my Kingdom yet I could hardly be perswaded but that these seeds of hatred came from others and not from her self However the case stands I hope she does not pretend to take away my Crown whilst I am alive nor hinder my Children if I have any to Succeed me in the Kingdom But if any Calamity should happen to me before as she shall never find that I have done any thing to prejudice the right she pretends to have to the Kingdom of England so I never thought my self obliged to make a disquisition into what that right is and I am of the same mind still and so shall leave it to those who are skillfull in the Law to determine As for your Queen she may expect this confidently of me that if her cause be just I shall not prejudice it in the least I call God to witness that next to my self I know none that I would prefer before her or if the matter come to a dispute that can exclude her Thou knowest said she who are the Competitors by what assistance or in hopes of what Force can such poor Creatures attempt such a mighty thing After some further discourse the Conclusion was short That it was a business of great weight and moment and that this was the first time she had entertained serious thoughts about it and therefore she had need of longer time to dispatch it Some Days after she sent for the Ambassador again and told him That she extreamly wondered why the Nobility should demand such a thing of her upon the first arrival of the Queen especially knowing that the causes of former offences were not yet taken away But continued she What pray do they require that I having been so much wronged should before any satisfaction received gratify her in so large a manner This demand is not far from a threat If they proceed on in this way let them know that I have Force at home and Friends abroad as well as they who will defend my just right To which he answered That he had shewn clearly at first how that the Nobility had insisted on this hopefull Medium of Concord partly out of Duty to their own Queen in a prospect to maintain her â—weal and increase her Dignity and partly out of a desire to contribute and settle publick Peace and Amity and that they dealt more plainly with her then with any other Prince In this Cause proceeds said he your known and experimented good will towards them and also upon the account of their own safety For they knew they must venture Life and Fortune if any body did oppose the right of the Queen or if any War did arise betwixt the Nations on that Account And therefore their desires did not seem unwarantable or unjust as tending to the cradicating the seeds of all Discords and the settling of a firm and solid Peace She rejoyned If I had Acted any thing that might diminish your Queens right then your demand might have been Just that what was amiss might be amended but this postulation is without an Example that I should wrap my self up in my Winding-Sheet while I am alive neither was the like asked before by any Prince however I take not the good intention of your Nobility amiss and the rather because it is an Evidence to me that they have a desire to promote the Interest and Honour of their Queen And I do put as great a value upon their
prudence in providing for their own security and of being tender of shedding Christian Blood which could not be avoided if any faction should arise to Challenge the Kingdom but what such party can there be or where should they have Force But to let these considerations pass suppose I were inclinable to assent to their demands do you think I would do it rather at the Request of the Nobles than of the Queen her self But there are many other things that avert me from such a Transaction First I am not ignorant how dangerous a thing it is to venture upon the dispute the disceptation concerning the right of the Kingdom I always mightily avoided for the controversy has been already so much canvassed in the months of many concerning a Just and Lawfull Marriage and what Children were Bastards and what Legitimate according as every one is addicted to this or that that party that by reason of these disputes I have been hitherto more backward in Marrying Once when I took the Crown publickly upon me I Married my self to the Kingdom and I wear the Ring I then put on my Finger as a Badge thereof however my Resolution stands I will be Queen of England as long as I live and when I am dead let that Person Succeed in my place which hath most right to it and if that chance to be your Queen I will put no obstacle to it But if another hath a better Title 't were an unjust Request to me to make a publick edict to his prejudice If there be any Law against your Queen 't is unknown to me and I have no great delight to sift into it but if there should be any such Law I was sworn at my Coronation that I would not change my Subjects Laws As for the Second Allegation that the Declaration of my Successor will knit a stricter bond of Amity betwixt us I am afraid rather it will be a seminary of hatred and discontent What do you think I am willing to have some of my Grave Cloaths always before my Eyes Kings have this peculiarity that they have some kind of sentiments against their own Children who are born Lawfull Heirs to Succeed them Thus Charles VII of France somewhat disgusted Lewis XI and Lewis XII Charles VIII and of late Francis ill resented Henry and how it is likely I should stand affected towards my Kinswoman If she be once Declared my Heir just as Charles VII was towards Lewiss XI besides and that which weighs most with me I know the inconstancy of this people I know how they loath the present State of things I know how intent their Eyes are upon a Successor 'T is natural for all men as the Proverb is To worship rather the rising than setting Sun I have learned that from my own times to omit other Examples when my Sister Mary was sat at the Helm how eager did some Men desire to see me placed on the Throne How sollicitous were they in advancing me thereto I am not ignorant what danger they would have undergone to bring their design to an issue if my Will had concurred with their Designs Now perhaps the same Men are otherwise minded just like Children when they dream of Apples in their sleep they are very Joyfull but waking in the morning and finding themselves frustrate of their hopes their mirth is turned into mourning Thus I am dealt with by those who whilst I was yet a private Woman wished me so well If I looked upon any of them a little more pleasant than ordinary they thought presently with themselves that as soon as ever I came to the Throne they should be rewarded rather at the rate of their own desires than of the Service they performed for me But now seeing the event hath not answered expectation some of them do gape after a new change of things in hopes of a better Fortune for the wealth of a Prince tho never so great cannot satisfy the unsatiable desires of all Men But if the good will of my Subjects do flag towards me or if their minds are changed because I am not profuse enough in my Largesses or for some other cause what will be the event when the malevolent shall have a Successor named to whom they may make their grievances known and in their anger and pet betake themselves What danger shall I then be in when so powerfull a Neighbour Prince is my Successor the more strength I add to her in assertaining her Succession the more I detract from my own security This danger cannot be avoided by any precautions or by any bands of Law yet those Princes who have hope of a Kingdom offer'd them will hardly contain themselves within the bounds either of Law or Equity for my part if my Successor were publickly declared to the World I should think my affairs to be far from being settled and secured A few days after the Ambassador asked the Queen Whether she would return any Answer to the Letter of the Scottish Nobility I have nothing said she at present to answer only I commend their Diligence and Love to their Prince but the matter is of such great weight that I cannot so soon give a plain and express answer thereunto but when the Queen shall have done her Duty in Confirming the League she obliged her self to Ratifie then 't will be seasonable to try my Affection towards her in the mean time I cannot gratifie her in her Request without Diminution to my own Dignity The Ambassador reply'd He had no Command about that Affair nor ever had any Discourse with his Mistress concerning the same neither did he then propound the Queen's Judgment concerning the Right of Succession but his own and had brought Reasons to enforce it but as as for the Confirmation of the League by her Husband 't was inforced from the Queen of Scots without the Consent of those to whom the Ratifying or Disannulling thereof did much concern neither was the thing of such consequence as therefore to exclude her and her Posterity from the Inheritance of England I do not enquire said he by whom how when by what Authority and for what Reason that League was made seeing I had no command to speak about any such matter but this I dare affirm that though it were confirmed by her in Compliance with her Husbands Desire yet so great a stress depending on it his Queen in time would find out some reason or other why it should and ought to be dissolved I speak not this said he in the name of the Queen but my intent is to shew that our Nobility have cause for what they do that so all Controversies being plucked up by the Roots a firm and sure Peace may be established amongst us As this aggravated the Spirits of Queen Elizabeth so it was no doubt a great Mortification to Queen Mary but truckle she must and so she confirmed the League resigning any Pretensions to wear the Arms of England and Ireland
the present Possessor to part with his Inheritance and she desired his Father-in-Law and Friends to perswade him to it But this matter not meeting with the desired success the Queen took the repulse as a great Affront to her and which was worse David took it very hainously also These things being known abroad the Commonalty began to bewail the sad state of Affairs and expected that things would grow worse if Men eminent for their Families Estates and Credit should be outed of their ancient Patrimony to gratifie the Lust of a beggerly Varlet Yea many of the Elder sort called to mind and told others of the time when Cockburn wickedly slew the Kings Brother and of a Stone-cutter was made Earl of Marr which raised up such a flame of a Civil War that could not be extinguished but by the Death of the King and almost the Destruction of the Kingdom These things were spoken openly but Men did privately mutter much worse yet the King would never be perswaded to believe it unless he saw it with his own Eyes so that one time hearing that David was gone into the Queen's Bed-Chamber he came to a little Door of which he always carried the Key about him and found it Bolted on the inside which it never used to be whereupon he knocked but no body answered and so he was forced to go his ways but conceived great Wrath and Indignation in his Heart that he could not sleep that Night From that time forward he consulted with some of his Servants for he durst trust but a very few many of them having been corrupted by the Queen and put upon him rather as Spies over his Actions than Attendants upon his Person how to rid David out of the way His design they approved of but to find out a probable way to effect it was the difficulty When that Consultation had been managed for some days others of his Servants who were not privy to the Design suspecting the matter and there being evident signs of it went and acquainted the Queen therewith and withall told her that they would bring her to the place where they were and they were as good as their words For to that end they observed and watcht the opportunity when others were shut out and the King had only his Confidents about him and ordered it so that the Queen as if passing through his Chamber to her own surprized him with her Partizans whereupon she inveighed bitterly against him and highly threatned his Domesticks telling them all their Plots were in vain for she knew all their Minds and Actions and would remedy them well enough in due time Things being brought to this desperate pass the King thought fit to acquaint his Father the Earl of Lennox with his sad Condition and after some Conference they both concluded that the only remedy for the present Malady was to reconcile that part of the Nobility which were present and to recal those that were absent But great expedition was required in the thing because the day was near at hand wherein the Queen had resolved to Condemn the Nobles that were absent having appointed a Convention of the States for that purpose against the Wills of the English and French Ambassadors who interceeded in the case for they well knew that the accused had not committed such heinous Offences and besides foresaw the danger that would ensue thereupon About the same time did Queen Elizabeth send her a very obliging and long Letter full of good Advice in reference to the present State of her Kingdom and endeavouring to reduce her from a wrathful to a reconcileable Temper The Queen coming to understand that the Nobility knew that such Letters were come and that they guessed at the Contents of them she counterfeited a civiller respect to them than ordinary and began to read the Letters in the presence of many of them But when she was got about the middle David stood up and bid her Read no more she had read enough she should stop which strange carriage of his seemed to them rather Arrogant than New for they knew how imperiously he had carried it towards her heretofore yea and sometimes how he would reprove her more sharply than ever her own Husband durst do At that time the Cause of the Banished Lords was hotly agitated in the Parliament House some to gratifie the Queen's Humour would have the punishment due to Traytors past upon them others stiffly contended that they had done nothing worthy to be so severely used But David in the mean time went about to all of them one by one to feel their Pulses what every Man's Vote would be concerning the Exiles if he was chosen President by the rest of the Convention And he told them plainly the Queen was resolved to have them Condemned that it was in vain for any of them to struggle against it and besides who ever did should be sure to incuâ— the Queen's Displeasure thereby His aim herein was partly to confound the weaker Minds betwixt hope and fear and partly to exclude the most resolute out of the number of the Judges Select or Lords of the Articles or at least that the major part might be of such a Gizzard as to please the Queen and this audacious procedure and wickedness in so mean a Fellow was feared by some and hated by all Whereupon the King by his Father's Advice sent to James Douglas and Patrick Lindsey his Kinsmen the one by the Father and the other by the Mothers side who advise with Patrick Ruven an able man both for Advice and Execution but he was brought so low with long Sickness that for some months he could not get out of his Bed However they were willing to trust him amongst some few more in a matter of so great a Concernment both by reason of his great Prudence as also because his Children were Cousin-Germans to the King But here the King was told by them what a great Error he had committed before in suffering his Kinsmen and Friends to be driven from Court in favour of such a base Rascal as Rizzio yea that he himself did in effect thrust them out of the Court with his own Hands and so had advanced such a contemptible Mushroom so as that now he himself was abashed and despised of him They had also much other discourse concerning the State of the publick and the King was quickly brought to acknowledge his Fault and to promise to act nothing for the future without the Consent of the Nobility But those wise and experienc'd Counsellors thought it not safe to trust the verbal promises of an uxorious young man as believing that he might be prevailed upon in time by his Wife to deny this Capitulation to their certain Ruin and therefore they thought it adviseable to draw up the Heads of their Agreement in Writing to which he willingly and forwardly subscribed The substance whereof was That Religion should be established as it was provided for
at the Queen's return into Scotland That the Persons lately Banish'd should be Recall'd because their Country could not well want their Service and that David must be destroy'd for as long as he was alive the King could not maintain his Dignity nor the Nobility live in Safety having all set their Hands to this Schedule wherein the King professed himself the Author of the Homicide they presently resolved to attempt the Fact both to prevent the Condemnation of the Nobility that were absent as also lest delay might give an opportunity to discover the design and therefore when the Queen was at Supper one evening the Earl of Argyle's Wife and David sitting with her and that in a narrow private room and that there were but a few Attendants about them for the place would not hold many James Douglas Earl of Morton with a great number of his Friends were walking in an outward Chamber their faithful Friends and Vassals were commanded to stay below in the Yard to quiet the Tumult if any should arise The King comes out of his Chamber which was below the Queen's and goes up to her by a narrow pair of Stairs which were open to none but himself and was followed by Patrick Ruven armed with but four or five Companions more at most and entring into the Closet where they were at Supper and the Queen being somewhat moved at the unusual appearance of armed Men and also perceiving Ruven in an uncouth posture and meagre by reason of his late Illness but yet in his Armour asked him What was the matter for the Spectators thought that his Fever had disturbed his Head and put him besides himself but they were soon convinced of that mistake for he immediately commanded David to rise and come out for the place where he sat was not fit for him The Queen presently got up and sought to defend him by the interposal of her Body but the King took her in his Arms and bid her be of good chear they would do her no hurt only the Death of that Villain was resolved on and thereupon they haled David into the next Room then into the outer-Room and there those that waited with Dowglas made an end of him with many Wounds which was against the Mind of all those that Conspired his Death for they had resolved to Hang him up publickly all knowing it would have been a grateful Spectacle to all the People There was a constant Report at that time That one John Damiot a French Priest counted a Conjurer told David once or twice that now he had feathered his Nest it was time for him to be gone and withdraw himself from the Envy of the Nobles who would at length prove too hard for him and that he should make answer The Scots were greater Threatners than Fighters He was also warned a little before his Death That he should take heed of a Bastard to which he replied That as long as he lived no Bastard should have so much Power in Scotland as that he had need to be afraid of him for he thought his Danger was predicted from the Earl of Murray the Queen 's Natural Brother but the Prophecy was either fulfilled or eluded by George Dowglass's giving him the first Blow who was a base begotten Son of the Earl of Angus after he had began then every one rushed in to strike him either to Revenge their own particular Grief or the publick Concern This was the end of the so highly honoured David Rizzio whose Original and Profession we have given you an account of before and to which last with some other of the now recited passages no doubt of it Henry IV. of France afterwards alluded when one in his presence taking occasion to extol the Wisdom of King James and calling him by the Name of Salomon he said Well he might be termed so seeing he was the Son of David the Fidler David was no sooner killed but a tumult arose all the House over for the Earls of Huntley Athol and Bothwell who were together at Supper in another part of the Palace were rushing out but they were kept within their Chamber by those who guarded the Courts below and had no harm done them When Ruven who you see was a prime Manager of this Affair and who did as it were give David his Death's Wound by commanding of him out of the Queen's Presence as aforesaid went out of that Privy-Room into the Queen's Bed Chamber where not being able to stand because of his Weakness he sat down and called for something to Drink whereupon the Queen fell upon him with such Words as her present grief and fury suggested to her calling him a Perfidious Traytor asking him How he durst be so Impudent as to be in her Presence sitting whereas she her self stood this he excused as not done out of any Contempt or want of the Sense of his Duty but out of the weakness of his Body but gravely and wisely advised her that in managing the Affairs of the Kingdom she would rather Consult the Nobility who had a concern in the publick than Vagrant Rascals who could give no pledge of their Fidelity and who had nothing to hazard either in Estate or Credit neither was the Fact then committed without a President that Scotland was a Kingdom bounded by Laws and was never wont to be govern'd by the Will and Pleasure of any one Man but by the Regulation of the Law and Consent of the Nobility and if any former King had done otherwise 't is certain he had smarted severely for it Neither were the Scots at this day so far degenerated from their Ancestors as to bear not only the Government but even the Servitude of a Stranger who was scarce worthy to be their Slave This Speech did enrage the Queen more than before whereupon the company departed having placed Guards in all convenient places for fear any Tumults should arise In the mean time what was transacted flew all over the Town and as every ones Disposition was right or wrong they took Arms and away they went to the Palace where the King shewed himself unto them out of a Window and told the multitude That he and the Queen were safe and that there was no cause for their Tumultuous Assembly for what was done was done by his Order and what that was should be known in due time and therefore at present every one should go to his own House upon which command they withdrew except some few that staid to keep Guard Next morning the Nobles that returned from England taking the opportunity offered to come to their Trial in the Town-Hall being ready to plead their Cause for that was the day appointed but none appearing against them they openly protested it was not their Fault for they were ready to submit to a Legal Trial and so every one returned to his own Lodgings The Queen under these Perplexities sent for her Brother Murray and after a long Conference gave
Salisbury Worcester Suffolk Sir George Carew and Sir Julius Caesar to Interrogate with Cobham upon the said Head Cobham protested he never did nor could accuse Sir Walter but said That Villain Wade after a long Sollicitation so to do but not prevailing got him by a trick to write his Name upon a piece of Paper which he dreaming of no harm did so that if any Charge came under his Hand it must have been forged by Wade by Writing something above his Name without his Consent or Privity The Lords returning to the King made Salisbury their Spokesman who elusively said Sir My Lord Cobham hath made good all that ever he said and so the matter rested Sir Walter being no ways relieved hereby but the King further possest with his guilt but surely the baseness of those Lords and the King's credulity were unpardonable Crimes Soon after this Hodge-podge of a Plot the King and Queen were Crowned in great Pomp at Westminster And the same year a Conference was managed at Hampton-Court between the Prelatical and Puritan Party the latter conceiving great hopes that because of the King's Education in the Scots Discipline he would be of their side but they mistook quite their mark for he was by that time become Heart and Soul Episcopal and to give evident Demonstration of his entire Conversion issues out a Proclamation of which no Prince was ever so prodigal and which at last as naturally happens were as little regarded for Uniformity in Religion according to Law Established then at length comes a Parliament between whom and the King notwithstanding some mutual Caresses for a time arose several Jars and Jealousies but the discovery of the Gun-Powder Treason attributed to the King's Wisdom and Foresight seemed for a time to heal all the Breaches which hellish Contrivance against the King and Kingdom will fall pertinently enough to be noted in this place The Popish Party finding their Petition for a Toleration of Religion rejected grew enraged thereat and now nothing would serve but the Destruction of King Prince and the Representative Body of the whole Nation in Parliament and to that end they hid 36 Barrels of Gun-Powder under the Parliament House the principal Contriver whereof was Robert Catesby a Gentleman of a plentiful Estate who made choice of Thomas Piercy Winter Grant Ambrose Rookwood I am told the Ancestor of the late Ambrose Rookwood executed for Conspiring the Death of our Renowned Sovereign King William Wright Tresham Sir Everard Digby and others who are all bound to Secresie by those Sacraments which are the greatest Ties upon the Soul and St. Garnet the Jesuit was their Confessor Piercy was to hire the Cellars under the Parliament House to lay Wood and Coals in for his Winters Store and Guido Faux a desperate Ruffian who was to give Fire to the Train was appointed to be his Man to bring in Wood and Coals The Gun-Powder bought in Flanders was brought in the Night from Lambeth and covertly laid under the Wood and every thing made ready against the 7th of February whereon the Parliament was to meet but the Parliament being providentially Prorogued to the 5th of November following this dispersed the Conspirators for the present and made them almost at their Wits end but reassuming again their former Courage they resolve to carry on their Villany and to bear up with Patience till the day came They were sure the King and Prince must perish with the blow as for the Duke of York Piercy undertook to dispatch him but the Lady Elizabeth they resolved to save that under her Minority and Innocency they might the better establish their Bloody Principles of Piety and Policy and to that end they appointed a great Hunting Match to be at Dunsemore-Heath in Warwickshire to be nearer the Lord Harrington's House where the Lady Elizabeth then was on the 5th of November aforesaid Thus Solacing themselves in this Bloody Expectation and thinking all Cock-sure one tender-hearted Murderer among the rest writ a Letter to the Lord Monteagle wishing him to have a care of himself and to forbear his Attendance at that Parliament for God and Man had concurred to punish the Wickedness of the time and they should receive a terrible blow and yet not see who hurt them The Lord Monteagle thinking there might be something in the Letter oâ— dangerous Consequence though he understood it not carried the same to the Earl of Salisbury who also could not tell what to make of it but upon the King 's coming to Whitehall from Royston where he had been Hunting of a Hare he shewed him the Letter who being naturally of a fearful Temper and suspicious Mind ordered the Earl of Suffolk and Lord Monteagle to make a search about the Parliament House who entring into the Cellar and observing the Stores as aforesaid enquired of the Wardrobe Keeper Mr. Winyard who was also House-keeper whose they were Winyard replied he had let the Cellar to one Thomas Percy and close in a Corner there stood Faux who being asked who he was said Percy 's Servant The Lords for the present left all things as they found them but departed full of Suspicion the Lord Monteagle assuring himself the forementioned Letter must come from Percy for there were some little intimacy between them and gave the King and Council a Relation of their Proceedings who resolved that night to make a further search and committed it to the management of Sir Thomas Knevet a Gentleman of approved Fidelity and who with a suitable Assistance coming to the Cellar about midnight met Faux at the Door on whom he presently seized and proceeding in his search pulled out the Core of all that Horrid Contrivance whereupon Faux confessed all being only sorry it came not to perfection and saying God would have concealed it and the Devil only discovered it In his Pockets they found a Watch which were not common then and a Tinder-Box Engines to minute out his time to strike the fatal blow The Conspirators finding all detected hastened for all that to the Hunting Match aforesaid furnishing themselves with Horses by breaking open several Stables and taking their choice but the Sherriffs of Warwickshire and Worcestershire pursued them so hard that at last they were forced to earth themselves at Littleton's House at Halbech where Percy and Catesby were slain with a few more and the rest taken Prisoners and afterwards Hanged This happy Deliverance was Celebrated with great Joy and Foreign Princes though Popish would Congratulate the Discovery and the Parliament made an Act for the perpetual Solemnizing of the day of Deliverance with publick Thanksgivings So things continued for a time and the King of Denmark the Queen's Brother coming over to visit the King and his Sister the Summer following added a greater gust to the Recreations and Pastimes of the Court now wallowing in all sensual Pleasures as if the Devil was quite laid and ne'er more Storms to be feared from any Quarter but the
Eighty no less than Fifty Ships were missing for seven days But this was but the beginning of the Misfortunes of this Miserable Expedition for the Confusion of Orders was such as the Officers and Soldiers scarce knew who to Command or whom to Obey so that when they came to Cadiz a Conquest which would have paid the Charge of the Voyage and to the Honour of the English offer'd it self for the Spanish Shipping in the Bay lay unprovided of defence so as the surprising of them was both easie and feasible but this was neglected and when the Opportunity was lost Sir John Burroughs Landed the Army and took a Fort but was forced to quit it because of the Disorder and Intemperance of the Soldiers who upon that return'd on Board again and sailed away for England re insecta which occasion'd no small clamour from the People and especially in that none was punished for Mismanagement But how dishonourable soever this Expedition was the King and his Minister lost much more Reputation by lending a Fleet to the French King to beat that of the Rochellers under Monsieur Sobiez the Great Duke of Roan's Brother whereby a foundation was laid to ruin the Protestant Interest in France and which all the power that e're they could afterward make when the Tables were turned could not relieve though the Duke himself who was much sitter for the Delicacies of a Court than the toyls and stratagems of War was at the head of it and perished by the hands of Felton at Portsmouth just as he was ready to Embark the second time in person for that purpose It 's true the design was pursued by the Earl of Lindsey who several times attempted to force the Barricadoes of the River before Rochel but all in vain or if he had it would have been to no purpose for the Victuals wherewith they should have been relieved were all tainted and all the Tackle and other Materials of the Fleet defective so that they could not stay long there The many and unheard-of Violations of the Priviledges of the Subject by Loans Benevolences Ship-money Coat and Conduct-money c. with the continual Jars between this King and all his Parliaments during his Reign so as that there has been scarce three days of mutual harmony between them throughout which cannot be said of any other King since the Conquest how bad soever his Imprisoning Fining and banishing of the Members and his riding the Nation for above fifteen years together by more than a French Government because they are noted else where I think no where so well as in the History of the four last Reigns Written by that Learned Gentleman and my worthy good Friend when alive Mr. Roger Coke I shall not recite the same in this place as not falling exactly under the notion of this Treatise Tho I am to imform you these were the things together with the imposing the Service-Book upon the Scots where the Quarrel was begun by an Old Woman casting her Stool at the Priest when he was reading of it as they said that were the foundation of those dreadful Wars waged so many years within the Bowels of the three Kingdoms which do not fall under our present consideration neither and of the King 's subsequent destiny the Particulars whereof with some other concurring and intervening accidents we shall give you at large After the War had been manag'd between the King and Parliament with various fortune for some years and several Treaties set on foot to compose those unhappy and fatal Differences at last came the fatal day wherein the Quarrel came to be decided between them at Naseby in Northamptonshire which was on Saturnday June 14. 1645. Sir Thomas Fairfax was the Parliaments General and the King commanded his own Army in Person who in the beginning of the Fight prevailed for Prince Rupert Routed the Parliaments Left Wing commanded by Ireton but Pursuing to far left the Kings Left Wing open to be charged by Cromwel who falling furiously on and the rest Rallying obtained a most absolute Victory But among the vast number of Prisoners and Horses taken with Arms and Ammunition that which was even a greater loss to the King then the Battle was that one of his Coaches with his Cabinets of Letters and Papers fell into the Parliaments hands whereby his most Secret Counsels with the Queen which were so contrary to those he declared to the Kingdom were discovered For in one of his Letters he declared to her his intention to make Peace with the Irish and to have 40000 of them over into England to prosecute the War there In others he complained he could not prevail with his Mungrel Parliament at Oxford so he was pleased to call those Gentlemen who had stuck to him all along to Vote that the Parliament at Westminster were not a Lawful Parliament That he would not make Peace with the Rebels the Parliament without her approbation nor go one jot from the Paper She sent him That in the Treaty at Vxbridge he did not positively own the Parliament it being otherwise to be constru'd tho' they were so simple as not to find it out and it was Recorded in the Notes of the King's Council that he did not acknowledge them a Parliament Which Papers the Members took care to Print and Publish to the World and shewed by a publick Declaration what the Nobility and Gentry who followed the King might trust too and I dare say this stuck so close in the Minds of many that nothing contributed more to his Ruine then this double dealing of his Now the King's Garrisons surrender by heaps Oxford was the last which being blocked up by the Parliaments Forces the King thought himself in no security in it For the Parliament refused to admit him to come to London unless he signed their propositions wherefore the French Ambassador in the Scots Quarters advising him to throw himself into the Scots Power it was Hobson's Choice one even as good as the other and so being accompany'd by one Hudson a Minister and Mr. John Ashburnham he threw himself into the Scots hands who having got him into their Power resolve to make a double Bargain of him viz. to have him to order Montross to disband his Army and retire into Scotland and then to Sell him to the Parliament for as much Money as they could get for him The first is no sooner ask'd but granted but the bargain for the Sale of him and surely never was any King in this World so unhappy as to be sold by his own Subjects before himself being a mighty business to the Scots it lasted from the 5 th of May 1646 to January following when being concluded the Parliament who now had a full right to him after they had bought him confine him to â—oldenby-house an House of his own in Northamptonshire under a select Guard of their own choosing So that as Mr. Cook observes he that before had sifted the worthy
lines to this unfortunate King who now had no more to do then patiently to submit to what time produced but how pleasing soever these Votes were to the Army the Scots and diverse parts of the English Nation were not content with them and so they rise in Arms in Essex Kent Suffolk Norfolk Wales and the North and declare for the King and People Part of the Fleet also Revolted to Prince Charles but all these Revolts were quelled by a Victorious Army in a short time But while the Army was busied abroad the Members having gotten possession of the Fleet and the City of London being well affected to them they joyn with the Scotish Commissioners and rescine the Votes of the Non-addresses to the King and appointed a conference with him at Newport in the Isle of Wight to continue for forty days and to that purpose take him out of Prison and allow him the Liberty of the Island and the King upon the matter with reluctancy enough grants the Scots and the Members their own Demands But no endeavours of his Subjects nor the joynt desires of the Scots and Members could protect this unhappy Prince from his approaching Ruine for the Army now every where Victorious over the Scots and Royalists draw together and make a Remonstrance against all Peace with the King that Justice might be done upon Him the Crown-land and Church-land might be sold to Pay their Army and that the present Parliament be Dissolved and another Called But the Members were intent upon the King's Answer to their Propositions and laid aside the Armies Remonstrance which they take as a slighting of them and then seized the King in the Isle of Wight and make Him a Prisoner in Hurst-Castle an unhealthy place and March to London putting Garrisons in Noblemen's Houses and Whitehall and Post themselves about the Pallace-yard But the Members for all this Met upon the First of Decemb. 1648. and Voted the King's Concessions to be a sufficient ground for a Peace and then Adjourn'd for a Week yet when they were to Meet again they found all the Avenues to the House beset with Soldiers who Excluded all that were not of their Faction from entring the House which were not one fourth part and made the residue Prisoners This Juncto called afterward the Rump Parliament having in this manner Purged the House Assume to themselves the Supream Power of Ordering the English Affairs Confirm the Votes of Non-Addresses and raze the Votes of having a Conference with the King and the Declaration that the King's Concessions were a sufficient ground for a Peace out of the Journals of the House and Vote First That all Power resides in the People Secondly That the Power belongs to the Peoples Representatives in the House of Commons Thirdly That the Votes of the Commons have the Force of a Law without the King Fourthly That to take up Arms against the Representatives of the People or the Parliament was High-Treason Fifthly That the King Himself took up Arms against the Parliament and therefore was guilty of all the Blood shed in the Civil War and ought by His own Blood to expiate the fame But the Ordinance for the King's Trial being sent up to the Lords for their Concurrence they Rejected it January the 2 d and Adjourned for 10 days but first sent back that they would give Answer Whereupon the Commons search the Lords Journal-Book and find these Votes 1. To send an Answer 2. That their Lordships do not concur to the Declaration 3. That their Lordships Reject the Ordinance for Tryal of the King But the Commons for all that go on and Vote the Lords Dangerous Order the King to be brought to London under a Guard Read and Ingrossed the Ordinance for his Tryal on the 6 th of January and the Manner was referred to the Commissioners who were to Try Him and to that end to Meet in the Painted Chamber on Munday January the 9 th who Resolved that Proclamation should be made in Westminster-Hall that the Commissioners were to Sit again to Morrow and that all those who had any thing to say against the King should be heard In this manner Mr. Denby who was Sergeant at Arms to the Commissioners Rode into the Hall with his Mace and some other Officers all bare attended with Six Trumpets on Horseback who Sounded in the midst of the Hall the Drums of the Guard in the mean time Beating without in the Pallace-yard at the Old Exchange and in Cheapside The Mayor Aldermen and Common Council of London Petition'd the House of Commons for Justice against the King to Settle the Votes that the Supream Power was in them and the City resolved to stand by them to the utmost and because nothing should obstruct the intended Work Hillary Term was Adjourned for Fourteen days and Proclamation made thereof in the Cities of London and Westminster and other Market-Towns but that this poor Prince might have some glimmering of hope the Scots Parliament begun January 2 d. understanding what was done at London in reference to the King's Tryal Dissent from the said proceedings and Direct some Papers To William Lenthall Esquire Speaker of the House of Commons which the House took as an Affront and Denyal of their Authority and so thought not sit to Read them but yet Voted to send Commissioners into Scotland to preserve a Good Correspondence between both Nations Several Ministers from their Pulpits Declaimed also against the Proceedings against the King's Person some of the Nobility offer'd themselves Pledges in his behalf and January 19 the Scottish Commissioners deliver'd some Papers and a Declaration from the Parliament of Scotland wherein they express a dislike of the present Proceedings and declare That the Kingdom of Scotland had an undoubted Interest in the King's Person who was not deliver'd to the English Commissioners at Newcastle for the Ruine of his Person but for the more speedy Settlement of the Peace of his Kingdoms That they extreamly Dissented and Declared against the Tryal of Him in regard of the Great Miseries that were like to ensue thereupon and desired leave to make their Personal Addresses to Him The like Papers were also Presented to the General but all signify'd nothing for the Commissioners for the Tryal proceeded to make all things in a readiness and to that purpose Order'd that the Sword and Mace tho' they had the King's Arms thereon should be brought into the Court at His Tryal and the King to be brought from St. James's where he was then a Prisoner to Sir Robert Cotton's House at Westminster They erected a Tribunal called The High Court of Justice over which was appointed One hundred and fifty Judges at the upper end of Westminster-Hall the Courts of Chancery and Kings-Bench being ordered into one and these Judges were impower'd to Convent Hear Judge and Execute Charles Stuart King of England All things being now fitted up the King on Saturday the 20 th was brought from St. James
through the Park in a Chair to Whitehall and from thence carried by Water under a Guard to Sir Robert Cotton's House at the back end of Westminster-Hall the Judges in the mean time met in the Painted Chamber attending upon their President Serjeant Bradshaw in his Scarlet Robe who had the Sword born before him by Col. Humphrey the Mace by Serjeant Denby and twenty Men with Partizans for his Guard When they came into the Court the President sat him down in a Crimson Velvet Chair of State fixed in the midst of the Court with a Desk before him and a Cushion of Crimson Velvet thereon and the Seats on each side of him were Benches covered with Scarlet-cloth And after silence made the Great Gate of the Hall was set open for any to enter in after which Col. Thompson was commanded to bring forth the Prisoner who was conducted with twenty Partizans and other Guards and was by the Serjeant with his Mace received to the Bar where was a Red Velvet Chair set for him He looked sternly upon the Court and up to the Galleries then sat him down but presently got up again and looked downward on the Guard and multitude of Spectators not shewing the least regard to the Court all the while then was the Act of Parliament read over for the Trial of Charles Stuart King of England by the Clerk who sat on the right side of the Table covered with a Turky Carpet placed at the feet of the President upon which lay the Sword and Mace and the several Names of the Judges in the Roll were called over and Eighty answered to their Names When that was over then the King's Charge was brought wherein he was accused in the Name of the People of England of Treason Tyranny Murders Rapines c. and more especially for levying War against the Parliament And the President stood up and said Sir You have heard your Charge containing such matters as appears in it and in the close it is pray'd that you answer to your Charge which this Court expects The King replied By what Authority did they bring him to a Trial who was their King against the Publick Faith so lately given him when he commenced a Treaty with both Houses of Parliament Urged them to shew what Lawful Authority they had to call him to an account which if they did he would readily answer otherwise advised them to avert the Judgments that might hang over their heads for such their proceedings against him The President rejoyned that he was called to an account by the People of England by whose Election he was admitted King The King here insists upon his inherent birth-right and that the Kingdom was Hereditary for above a thousand years and that he stood more apparently for the Liberty of the People of England by rejecting an unlawful and arbitrary Authority than the Judges or any other whatsoever did by asserting of it That no Lords appear'd there who to constitute a Parliament should have been present and some King also but that neither the one nor the other nor both the Houses of Parliament nor any other Judicature on Earth had any Authority to call the King of England to account much less some certain Judges chosen by his accusers masked with the Authority of the Lower House and the same proculcated However he wills them again to produce their Authority and he would not be wanting to his Defence for as much as it was the same offence with him to acknowledge a Tyrannical Power as to resist a lawful one But the President made answer That he was not to question the Jurisdiction of the Court that they were satisfied with their Authority as it was upon God's Authority and the Kingdom 's in doing of Justice and that this was their present work To which the King said That it was not his own nor their apprehensions neither that ought to decide it and so the President ordered the Prisoner to be taken into Custody and then the Court adjourned till the Monday following being the 22. of January to the Painted Chamber and from thence to the same place again and the King was carried back in the same manner as before to St. James's The Court accordingly met on Monday in the Painted Chamber and there considering the King's Resolution to deny the Jurisdiction of the Court or of that which did constitute it of which debate they had no proper cognizance nor could they being a derivative power which made them Judges from which there was no Appeal they therefore order that if the King offer to dispute the same again the President should tell him That the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament had constituted that Court whose power might not be permitted to be disputed by him and that if he refused to answer it should be accounted a Contumacy to the Court that if he answered with a Salvo his pretended Prerogative above the Court he should be required to give a Positive answer yea or no that he should not have a Copy of his Charge till he owned the Court and declared his intentions to answer This being concluded on the King is again brought to the Bar in the same manner where the Solicitor Cook moved that the Prisoner might make a positive answer or that the Charge might be taken pro Confesso and so the Court proceed to Justice and the President did briefly repeat the passages of the last day and commanded the King to answer to the Articles of Charge unless he had rather hear the Capital Sentence given against him But the King still persisted to Interrogate concerning their Authority that he had weighty Reasons why he should not acknowledg this new form of Judicature that they had no Law for it and that they could not have an extraordinary Authority Delegated from the People seeing they had not consulted so much as every tenth Man in that matter But the President put him in mind of his doom and told him the Court was abundantly satisfied of their Authority nor were they to hear any Reasons that should detract from their Power And when the King urged to give in his Reasons in Writing it would by no means be admitted and so the President commanded the Prisoner to be taken away The third Days Trial which was Tuesday was in effect the same as the last mentioned in respect to the Court's demands and the King's answer so that the Court adjourned till next Morning at Ten of the Clock but the Examination of Witnesses and other intervening business prevented their then sitting so that it was Saturday Morning January 27. before they assembled and 68. of the Judges answered to their Names As the King was brought into the Court the Soldiers cried for Justice and Execution and the King desired to be heard a few words and so goes on to shew how a sudden Judgment could not be soon recalled c. But the President magnified the Patience the Court had had
towards him advised him now at length to submit otherwise he should hear the Sentence of Death resolved on by the Court against him but he still refused to plead and desired he might have liberty to say some things for the good of the People before both Houses but the President said this would but delay and retard Justice But the King answered that he had not sought occasions of delay else he would have made a more Elaborate contestation of the Cause but that there could be no hurt in a delay of a day or two rather than precipitate Judgment which might lay the Nation under perpetual Miseries and so desired to withdraw and the Court to consider The King was carried to Cotton-house and the Judges withdrew to the Court of Wards and in half an hour returned and when the King insisted still that he might be first heard before his Parliament and not prevailing the President went on and shewed how contumacious he had been how hateful his Crimes were and asserted the Parliamentary Authority producing Examples both Domestick and Foreign especially out of Scotland wherein the People had punished their Kings and then affirmed that the Power of the People of England was not less over their King That the Guilt of this King was greater than of all others as being one who according to Caligula's wish had attempted to cut off the neck of the Kingdom by waging War against the Parliament for all which he was in his Charge called Tyrant Traytor Murderer and a Publick Enemy to the Commonwealth and that it had been well if that any of those terms might have been spared At which words the King said How Sir but the other went on and argued that Rex est qui bene regit Tyrannus qui populum opprimit and so lodged Arbitrary Government on him which he sought to put upon the People That his Treasons were his breach of trust to the Kingdom as his Superior and was therefore called to an account Minimus majorem in judicium vocat That his Murders were many as being guilty of the Blood shed in the War between him and his people which could not be cleansed but by the Blood of him who shed that Blood he wished him to have God before his Eyes and called God to witness that the Court came meerly out of the Conscience of their Duty to that place and imployment which they were resolved to effect and called for God's assistance in his Execution Here the King made a motion to speak but was told his time was now past and his Sentence was coming on which the President commanded to be read under this form Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament have appointed them an High Court of Justice for the Trial of Charles Stuart King of England before whom he had been three times Convented and at the first time a Charge of High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanors was read in the behalf of the Kingdom of England c. as in the Charge which was read throughout to which Charge he the said Charles Stuart was required to give his Answer but he refused so to do and so exprest several passages at his Trial in refusing to answer for all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge that the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murderer and Publick Enemy shall be put to death by severing his Head from his Body And then the President said the Sentence now read and published is the Act Sentence Judgment and Resolution of the whole Court to which the Members of the Court stood up and assented by holding up their Hands Then the King was taken away and the Court broke up As the King was lead along some of the Mobb carried it very rudely and unchristianly towards him and that Night which was Saturday January 27. he was Lodged in Whitehall next day the Bishop of London Preached before him in his Chamber and the same day the President and all the Members of the High Court of Justice fasted in the Chappel at Whitehall On Monday Morning he was conveyed to St. James's and in the mean time Sir Hardress Waller Colonel Harrison Colonel Dean Commissary General Ireton and Col. Oaks were to consider of the time and place for Execution and the President and Judges met on Monday Morning Jan. 29. in the Painted Chamber who together with the Committee resolved that the open Street before Whitehall was the fittest place that the King should be there Executed on tho next day between Ten and Two a Clock upon a Scaffold covered with Black The King who was now apprehensive of the approach of his fatal end exprest his desires by a Member of the Army That in regard Sentence of Death was past upon him and that the time of Execution might be near that he might see his Children and so receive the Sacrament and to prepare himself for Death and that the Bishop of London might pray with him in private in his Chamber all which was granted him When the fatal day appear'd which was Tuesday Jan. 30. about Ten of the Clock in the Forenoon he was called upon to come forth from St. James Palace now his Prison and was Conducted on Foot over the Park to Whitehall Guarded with a Regiment of Foot part whereof marched before the rest behind with Colours flying and Drums beating his private Guard of Partizans being next him Dr. Juxton Bishop of London on the one side and Col. Tomlison on the other they went up by the Stairs to the Park Gallery and so into his Cabinet-Chamber where he continued at his Devotion and refused to Dine only about Twelve-a-Clock he Eat a Bit of Bread and drank a Glass of Claret From thence he was conveyed into the Banquetting-House and the Great Window Enlarged out of which he ascended the Scaffold the Rails whereof were hung round and the Floor covered with Black with the Block and Axe set in the middle and the Executioners wearing Vizzards standing by He looked round about upon the People who were kept a considerable distance off by the thick Guards and Troops of Horse that beset the Scaffold and turning to the Officers and more particularly to Col. Tomlison begun with what necessity there lay upon him to say somewhat lest his silence might be made an argument of his guilt and with a Protestation of his innocency in reference to any design he had to retrench the just Priviledges of Parliament yet acknowledged his punishment to be just from God and instanced only in his giving way to the death of the Earl of Strafford appealed to the Bishop of London who stood by for his forwardness to forgive his Enemies yet professed a great concernedness for the Weal of the Kingdom shewed how the then Managers of the State were in the wrong to think to govern by the Sword advised them to restore his Son to the Inheritance of his Ancestors and the People to their Rights and due Liberties
to run away with the prey from both of them The People of England were no more satisfied before with their imaginary happiness in the King's Restoration but they were now upon the ill management of Affairs the much Treasure that had been spent to so little purpose and more especially upon our Conjunction with the French to the manifest hazard of the Protestant Religion as well as the Civil Rights of Europe as much uneasie and suspitious of the Court-proceedings And it did not a little incense them that the French made such a Progress in Flanders and got all by Land while we got nothing but Blows at Sea and therefore the House of Commons on the 31. of October 1673. Voted that considering the present State of the Natition they would not take into further Consideration any Aids or Charges upon the Subject except it did appear that the obstinacy of the Dutch did render it necessary nor before the Kingdom should be effectually secured from Popery and Popish Counsels and other Grievances redressed which procedure thunder-struck the King and his Frenchified Council so as that a Peace with the Dutch was quickly huddled up and so he then set up for a Mediator of Peace between the rest and the Treaty spun out to a very great length at Nimeguen and was at last concluded after some years Conferences without King Charles consent by Beverning the Dutch Agent which spared him a labour of entring into an actual War with Franee as the Parliament would have had him and to which he was as unwilling as he had been before forward in his engaging against the Dutch a Protestant State The remainder of his succeeding Reign was as uneasie to himself and to the Nation upon the account first of the Popish Plot the many endeavours to stiffle it the Bill of Exclusion and the Division of the Nation into Whig and Torry hereupon then that called the Presbyterian Plot both Plots they said against his life which if true he was the more unhappy for which last the Noble Lord Russel suffered and the Great Earl of Essex had his Throat Barbarously cut in the Tower of London the King's Prison and King Charles had the unhappiness to be there that day where he had not been hardly in twenty years before And last of all the forfeiture and seizure of Charters which tho carried on with great fury in his Reign that thereby he might have a Parliament of his own choosing as Cromwell had and so do what he pleased yet he did not live to compleat his designs Tho' the Censures upon the manner of his Death are various yet most are agreed says the Author of the Introduction to King Charles II. Character there was some fraud in it some ascribing it to the intreagues of France who as they Undid his Father by a Wife Ruined the Son by a Mistress and therefore alleadge that the French King being weary of feeding him with Pensions and dreading his natural Parts if upon any disgust he should come to unite with his Parliaments against France he thought it his Interest to take him off and make way for a Successor who as he made open profession of his own Religion would be more pliable to his dictates Then as touching the method of effecting it they say that the Dutchess of P. who bewitched him with her Amours and had not only drained the substance of his Body but likewise the substance of his Purse either of which being once accomplished the Love of a St â—t to her Paramour vanishes so that having a mind to change Gallants or seeing no more hopes of former advantages she gave him such Provocatives as made him act beyond his natural Strength and threw him into those Apoplectick Fits which carryed him off There are others who ascribe his Death to the Romish Faction who being angry at his having so often deceived them and impatient till they came to a tryal of skill for establishing their Religion while Lewis XIV was in the height of his Power and Glory did therefore administer the fatal Dose which sent King Charles II. a Packing and brought his Brother to the Throne under whose auspicious Conduct they made no question of restoring the Church of Rome to the full possession of all she had formerly enjoy'd in these three Kingdoms It 's certain there were some accidents fell out some time before the King's Death that raised some Jealousy in the breast of the Romanists who thought by that he would upon the presenting of the first opportunity face about as they found by experience he had more then once done and fall in with the Interest of a Party he now for some years by their instigation had been endeavouring to destroy and root out of the World And what rendred their suspitions of him the more incurable was that a Pamphlet having been spread abroad a little before Christmas 1684. setting forth that the Earl of Essex had not cut his own Throat but had been Murdered by Russians set on by the Papists c. the King upon the hearing of it should say Well I am resolved to examine Essex's Cause once more And that he might meet with no obstruction in the way he ordered the Duke his Brother to prepare to go for Scotland which the other whether smelling the design or that the train to blow the King up was already layd by him absolutely refused to do this occasioned high words between them insomuch that the late M. of H. who was well known to be a great favourite coming on the Sunday before the King Dyed to wait upon him after Evening Service he found him in his Closet alone under great concern of Mind puffing after a more then ordinary rate and looking pensive with his Face towards the ground which the M. observing made him stand still till the King looking up asked hastily How now my Lord How do you do to which the M. answering the better to see his Majesty well and soforth the King returned again to his former posture but at length broke forth into these Words My Lord will you be ingenious with we and answer me one question to which the Marquess replying he would if he could Then said the King I charge you upon your Alleagiance to tell me how I stand affected with the People of England The M. after some pause answered Sir you have been always ranked among the mercifull and Clement Princes and have given evident Testimonies of your being so upon various occasions but I must tell your Majesty that of late your Government has been somewhat uneasy to your People Well said the King one thing I am resolved on I 'll once more throw my self upon the People of England and to that end will go this week into the City and I 'le call a Parliament at the Guild-Hall the M. was somewhat surprized at these words and said Sir If that be your Resolution I pray God to bless it but let me beg of
once more we have attempted it in five rencounters already and fail'd but in the sixth we shall prevail and so having gather'd some Force together he advanced towards Sterling where he gave Edward the II. who was then King of England such a Defeat as Scotland never gave the like to our Nation and so continued War with various Fortune with Edward the III. till at last Age and Leprosie brought him to his Grave But some time before his Death he got the Crown settled upon his Son David then a Child and for want of his having Issue upon Robert Stuart his Sister's Son and this by Act of Parliament and the Nobles sware to it accordingly His Son David of between eight and nine Years old inherited that which he had with so much Difficulty and Danger obtain'd and wisdom kept He was in his Minority govern'd by Thomas Randolf Earl of Murrey whose severity in punishing was no less dreaded than his Valour had been honoured but he soon after dying of Poyson and Edward Baliol the Son of John coming with a Fleet and being strengthned with the assistance of the English and some Robbers the Governor the Earl of Mar was put to the Rout so that Baliol makes himself King and David was glad to retire into France Amidst these Parties Edward the III. backing of Baliol Scotland was pitifully torn and the Bruces in a manner extinguished till Robert Stuart afterward King of Scotland with the Men of Argyle and his own Friends and Family began to renew the claim and brought the Matter into a War again which was carry'd on by Andrew Murray the Governor and afterward by himself so that David after nine Years Exile adventured to return where making frequent Incursions he did at length in the fourth year after his Return march into England and in the Bishoprick of Durham was routed and fled to an obscure Bridge shewed by the Inhabitants to this day where he was taken Prisoner by John Copeland and continued so for the space of eleven Years Soon after his Releasment and Return home he calls a Parliament wherein he enacted several Laws for the punishment of such as had fled from him at the Battle of Durham and more particularly levelling at Robert Stuart as being one of them who had been the Cause of that great Overthrow He got that Act passed in his Father's time whereby the Crown was appointed for want of Issue of his Body lawfully begotten to descend to the said Robert Stuart to be repeal'd and John Southerland Son to Jane his youngest Sister made Heir apparent in his stead and the Nobility swore to the observance of the said Law This made the Earl of Southerland so confident of the matter that he gave almost all his Lands away among his Friends and Acquaintance But alas he was wretchedly mistaken for his Son being afterwards one of those sent as Hostages into England for the security of the payment of King David's Ransom he died there of the Plague and Robert Stuart attain'd the King's Favour again and succeeded as Heir to the Crown being the first of the Name of the Stuarts that ever sway'd a Scepter But things did not go on so smoothly with Robert Stuart upon the Death of Southerland his Competitor first and of King David afterward but that he met with another Rub in his way from William Earl of Dowglas who when the Lords were assembled at Lithguo about the Succession came thither with a great Power and urged he ought to be preferr'd before Stuart as being descended from the Baliols and Cummins But finding at length that his own Friends and particularly the Earls of March and Murray his Brethren with the Lord Erskein who all three were in great power as being Governors one of Dunbritton another of Sterling and the third of Edinburg opposed him he thought it most advisable to desist from his Claim And so Robert Stuart was Crown'd at Scone on Lady-day in the Year 1370. being the 47th Year of his Age. But that Dowglas might be a little soothed up under his present Disappointment and kept from disturbing the common Tranquillity the King bestows Euphemia his eldest Daughter in Marriage upon him Whether it were thro' an advanced Age or Sloth we find he did but little since his Accession to the Crown but his Lieutenants and the English were perpetually in action during the course of his Reign which was according to Buchanan nineteen Years and four and twenty Days And tho' it's true we do not find his Death to have been violent or any ways accelerated by Grief of Heart but natural in an old age having lived seventy-four Years yet surely he laid the Foundation for the many Parricides Fratricides and other dreadful Calamities that befel his Posterity in a very great measure by preferring his Illegitimate Children by Elizabeth Moor his Concubine before those he had lawfully begotten on Euphemia Ross his Wife And the Case was briefly thus At the time of his attaining the Crown the foresaid Euphemia Daughter to Hugh Earl of Ross was his lawful Wife by whom he had two Sons Walter afterward created Earl of Atholl and David Earl of Strathern but before he was married he kept one Elizabeth Mure for so the Scotch write the Name as his Concubine and had by her three Sons John Earl of Carrick Robert Earl of Mentâ—ith and Fife and Alexander Earl of Buchan with several Daughters Now Queen Euphemia departed this Life three Years after her Husband became King who forthwith marry'd Elizabeth Mure his old Paramour either to legitimate the Children he had by her which it seems was the manner in those days or else for old acquaintance her Husband Gifford for you must know he had got her matched to cover her shame dying about the same time as the Queen had done This step drew on another and there was no stoping now but the Children formerly begotten on this Woman in Adultery must have the Crown entailed upon them by Parliament in prejudice to the other two who by any thing that appears in History were finer Gentlemen and fitter as they had a juster Claim to govern then either of these I know the Lord Viscount Tarbert in a late Pamphlet has taken upon him to vindicate the Legitimacy of Moor's Children against all the Authority of the Scotch Historians who lived at or near those times and ever since who could not be ignorant of so material a thing as this and to this end he Cites several Records It 's not my business to answer his allegations but I am sure the Records would never have named John that afterwards succeeded Tanquam haeres if he had been true and undoubted Heir And so I leave any one to judge if the Records do not thereby make much more against his Legitimacy than it does for it But right or wrong the Sluts Will must be gratified and so John succeeds his Father in the Scottish Kingdom but not by the
name of John for that forsooth was ominous for John King of France was a Prisoner in England but by the name of Robert It 's true there is no great matter in the thing it self either one way or other for an Alias or a double name cannot prejudice an honest and vertuous Man and when Judge Catiline took exception at one in this respect saying that no honest Man had a double name and came in with an Alias the party asked him what exception his Lordship could take to Jesus Christ Alias Jesus of Nazareth The Father was scarce well cold in his Grave or the Son warm in his Throne but his Progeny begot by him in the heat of his Blood began in their Stations to act their Tragical part This King in his Fathers life-time had the misfortune to be kicked on the Leg by an Horse of Sir James Douglass of Dalkeith and so lamed his Body as he was lame in his Intellectuals being a dull stupid Man and unfit to Govern insomuch that he had but the name of King the whole Administration being lodged in his Brother Robert Earl of Fife who did what he pleased with him and his as you 'll see by and by Alexander the youngest brother and Earl of Buchan a Man of a Fierce Nature could not long contain it but he begins to disturb the Government of his Brethren upon a slight displeasure conceived against the Bishop of Murray and seeing he could find no opportunity to kill him he revengfully sets fire to the Cathedral Church which was the stateliest Pile of Building in all the North of Scotland A Son he had whose name was Duncane or Dunach ten times more profligate if it were possible than himself and guilty of the basest and most degenerous actions He upon the death of his Grand-father lets the Reins loose and supposing now there was room for Rapine and Villany Heads a strong band of Thiefs and comes down to the Country of Angus spoils and ravages the Country as if he had been a professed Enemy and being elevated by some petty success they had against Walter Ogilby and Walter Lichton who opposed them they proceeded to perpetrate greater Villanies than before till at last being dispersed by the Earl of Crawford many of them were persued and slain and the rest taken and suffered condign Punishment King Robert had now Governed by his Governour for the space of Light Years when a Parliament was held at Perth wherein to manifest his Favour he made his Eldest Son David who was then Eighteen Years of Age Duke of Rothsay and his Brother the Governour Duke of Albany Virgin Titles that till this time had been unknown in Scotland saith Buchanan and which boded no good success to the Masters of them but generally proved very ominous About some three years after dyed Queen Annabella and Walter Tralie Archbishop of St. Andrew's the one while he lived keeping up the Ecclesiastical Discipline in the Church and the other the Dignity of the Court so that the death of two such useful and Illustrious Persons ushered in great Calamities in the Land and such a Tragedy as can scaâ—ce be met with in the Records of Time The Queen in her life-time had had a particular eye over and care of the Education of her Son David Duke of Rothsay and by a severe Discipline restrained his boisterous and untoward nature in a great measure But now the check was taken off he gave himself over to all manner of licentiousness His Fathers indulgence to him proved an incitative to his Lust and lack of Authority despoiled him of that Reverence that should have been paid unto him and made his admonitions of none effect So that at last he grew to that height of outrageousness and impiety that laying aside all manner of fear and shame he made it his business to defile mens Wives dâ—flower Virgins Nuns and all other kind of Women and where he found opposition he made use of Force and Violence These Tragedies could not go long undiscovered and therefore several complaints were prefered against him to his Father who at last perceiving it beyond his power to restrain those exorbitant Courses and that such violations would unavoidably bring both Father and Son to utmost Contempt and might have a very bad Consequence to attend them he Writes to his Brother the Governour and now Duke of Albany to take the young Man into his own governance and keeping till such time and in expectation he should be reclaimed and brought to a better temper This was that which the Governour for a long time had lacked as thinking if he were once taken out of the way his passage to the Crown might in time be made smooth and easie and therefore leaves no stone unturned to get him into his bloody Clutches at last he contrived the matter so that he seized him upon the Road near St. Andrew's and conveyed him to the Castle of the said place which he had taken into his own hands upon the death of the Bishop a little before under pretence of securing of it and in a short time after removed him thence into his own Castle of Falkland making him there a close Prisoner And now resolved he was to be rid of him and he could think of no method more expedient to effect his devilish design than by starving of him But that life which the barbarous cruelty of the Unkle had destined for a most miserable death the compassion of two young Women prolonged for a time One of them was daughter to the Governour of the Castle and who had the charge of the young Duke who as often as she had an opportunity to go into the Gardens adjacent to the Castle did put into him some oaten Cake folded up in a Vail which she carelesly wore on her head to keep off the Sun through a small chink rather than a Window The other was a poor Nurse who through a long Read fed him with the Milk from her own Breasts When the young Man's Punishment as well as his Life had by this hard shift been for some days prolonged which rather served for the increasing than allaying of his hunger the Women were at last discovered by the Spies they had every where about them and were both villanously put to death the Father shewing as much unhumane cruelty towards his daughter as she had shewn mercy to his Royal Prisoner bitterly cursing her perfidy as he called it as endeavouring thereby to shew himself faithful to a faithless Brother Unkle and Governour The young Man being thus deprived of all humane relief was constrain'd through the violence of hunger not only to eat all such filth as he could find within his Prison but at last to set upon his own flesh and to gnaw off his own Fingers and so ended his wretched life and died as I may say a double Death This barbarous act needs no Comment it bespeaks Villany to the height in