our blessed Saviours own oracle Mat. 12. 2. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither hid which shall not be knowne God knowes and so may you on your better consideration that I have made use of nothing but authentick authority or took up any passage on bare trust neither with the least intention to injure the memory of him who is at rest but only in vindication and manifestation of truth and to make that more visibly knowne to you which long since hath not been unknowne to many which happily if they would might speak more and that as this most unfortunate Prince was of all others most his owne enemy so had providence decreed it that he should be most injurious to his friends a most implacable enemy to Parliaments and utterly averse to all partnership in government other than Hers which was the principall instrument of his ruine the undoing of his posterity and the lamentable destruction of three flourishing Kingdoms As to the present Government and change of the Royalty or any other of your impetuous exclamations with the exceptions you take to the present Form different from the forms of ancient Parliament and as it was so lately altered without King Lords and the major part of the excluded Commons and that those which now sit at Westminster are no other than usurped powers acting in Tyranny as all of your party spares not to belch out both in private and publick I shall instantly give you both a short and satisfactory answer to every of them and first to the Government which you know to be gotten by Conquest and as heretofore I have told you by the same weapon wherewith the King intended to make it absolutely Monarchicall and A la Francoys As to the difference between the old and this new Form of Parliament I answer that the King himself was the first projector both in lessening altering and laming of the Parliament witnesse his taking into his Councell of State the Earles of Hartford Essex Bath the Lords Say St. Maur Falkland and Culpepper all of them known to be the most noted Common-wealths men of both Houses within two moneths of the Parliaments sitting down and within one year after to corrupt neer the moity of the Members of both Houses to make up his Mungrel Parliament at Oxford of set purpose to confuse and ruine all Parliaments by themselves As to the late purging of the Houses it is acknowledged that in the midst of such a confusion as was both raised cherished and fomented by the King himself and the Malignant party it was done by the power of the Army and as I take it on this ground that the major part of both Houses voted for the readmittance of the King on such condition which himself refused which the lesser and more foreseeing part well understood would in the end come to no other issue than the setting him up into his old power so to enable him a new to embroyle the Kingdomes having so long before engaged the Prince in his Quarrell and disciplin'd him in his designes in so much as no other hopes were then left the Parliament but either a perpetuating of the War and more bloodshed or the invassalage of the Nation which necessarily would be the consequence on the admittance either of the Father or the Sonne upon these grounds 't is confest that the Soldiery ended the controversie in assisting the weaker party in Parliament though doubtlesse the more able in judgement and foresight of the future evills and calamities which in all probability might and would befall the Nation which to prevent on the evidence of the Kings obstinacy it was resolved to remove the Effects by taking away the Cause in calling the principall Author of all the former bloodshed to his publick tryall to stop which issue it was farther resolved to cut him off together with his whole posterity and to cast that pilot overboard that not more out of ignorance than wilfulnesse would obstinately have sunke the Ship of the Publick in the vast Ocean of his Prerogative had it not been timely rescued and warp't into the safe Harbour of a Republick and in change the Regall Government into a Commonwealth as you now see it established by power and by the same power probable it is they will uphold it which as it is commonly conceived was the true state and managery of that businesse Where you may observe it as a very remarkeable event that even the major part of of both Houses which had stood so constant to the trust of their Countries to the very Vote of No more Addresses and were inclined to readmit the King as we may beleeve by Gods just judgement were taken away by force as the King himselfe by fraud had long before drawne away so many of the Members purposly to lame and weaken all Parliaments in the future Sir These are passages of a very transcendant nature and too high for our understanding and we know Gods ways and works are unsearchable yet as the Wise man tells us There is nothing new under the Sun and is there any thing whereof it may be said see this is new it hath been already fold time and was before us howsoever when you have spoken the worst you can of those which now sit in Parliament you cannot deny but the most of them are of the old legall Electron and the relicts of the old Form they which have been the cause of the maiming or lessening the number and quality of the old Form you may thanke them for it and not blame those that remaine faithfull to their trust for some kinde of Government the people must have and you evidently see that God hath given them both Courage to stand fast to the last and power to enable them to act as they do which as heretofore I have told you wil either bend you to obedience or breake you in your resistance As to the Injustice wherewith you charge them and the Tyranny you so much exclaim against I take not upon me to be so much their Champion as to defend every of their actions or any Injustice of which not unlikely some of them may be guilty for where power is invested faults there may be and foule ones too yet this much may be said in their defence that those of known integrity fail not to look into the demeanour of the faul ty and by severe punishment to make them examples of Justice I shall say no more but that should they faile in doing righteousnesse Judgement stands at their owne doores and the same God which gave them the power they now have will as soon devest them of it as he bequeathed it unto them and Samuel will tell them If you doe wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King Now Sir for a close I shall onely tell you that it sufficeth me and all sober spirits that having thus long lived free from bloodshed and plunder under this Government which so lately under the Kingly power the whole Nation felt to their great grief and sorrow it behoves us then that we all rest content with Gods good will and pleasure and leave this great change to him as a worke of his own which I may say with Gamaliel If it be not of God it will surely fall but if from him he will establish it in spite of all those which shall withstand it t is most true that the Contributions and Taxes which you urge to be Tyrannically imposed on the whole Nation are very heavy to which I have already given you an answer viz. that we may all thanke your party for it that they are not onely continued but increast through your partyes onely means which cease not by their assiduall plots to disturbe the present peace and Government to their owne losse and grief of such as would willingly bear the burthen so they might enjoy their peace and quietnesse as having learned the sweetnesse of that old Addage defend me and spend mâ— In a word more I shall advise you in particular to rest content with that Government which Providence hath allotted us under which you may as yet live both secure and plentifull if you please dispose your self therefore to yeeld that Obedience which becomes all those that love the publick and their own domestick peace If not I feare me you will kicke against the pricks hurt if not utterly ruine your self and Family as many thousands of perverse Fools have done and fail not to remember that there is a Court of Iustice that spares none which shall disturbe the publick peace and that Government which we may safely beleeve God hath and will establish This is the Counsell of him who really hath a care of your preservation and so rests Your well-wishing Friend if you so please to esteem him Loe this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthned himselfe in his wickednesse P. 52. 7. The words of his mouth were smoother than Butter but War was in his heart his words were softer than oyle yet were they drawn Swords Psalm 55. 21. But thou O Lord shalt bring them downe into the pit of destruction bloody and deceitfull men shall not live out halfe their dayes verse 23. FINIS * Balzack Sir Walter Raleigh * Barclay adver Monarch lib. 3. cap. 8. * Grotius de jure belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. * The Earl of STRAFFORD * â—1 Kings 11. 4 5 6 7. * Mountague * Vide the Juncto * Sir John Broke Sir Ralph Hopton Mr. Partridge and Mr. Green were of that Committee * Rom. â—â— * 1 Sam. 8. 3 4 5. * Rom. 13 4. * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Vide the Juncto quinto Maij 1649 * The first copy was supprest expunged by the Bishops and the old Knight committed by K. JAMES to the Tower by the instigation of the Prelates * The Militia * Sir Rob. Cotton in the life of H. 3. * Psal. 28 Proverbs 28. 13. * The Earl of Strafford * Eccl. â— 9. 10. * 1 Sam. 1â— 15.
Pattents incircuited and extended to Salt Butter Sope Leather Wine Sugar Allum Sea-coale Malt Cards and Dice and what not In order to these that notable project of shipmoney a device of Finches invention and shaped for the nonce suitable to the Kings designs it extenden to such a latitude as that by this one illegall power he might rayse moneys in what proportion he would where and when he pleased without Parliaments and so was it stated by the terrour which that fluttering bird Finch imprest on the Iudges to declare it legall by their extrajudiciall sentences though for their honour be it spoken three of them as Crook Hutton and Denham withstood it as a most illegall and unheard-of taxation against and destructive to the fundamentall Lawes of the Land and Liberties of the People We shall now passe it over though it was an invention which of it selfe would require a story not unworthy to be left to posterity how ever as long as it was on foot the King made use of it to the purpose and in two if not three yeares whilest it was put in practice raised not so little at 1000000 of poundes It is without question that what by monopolies the inhancing of the Customes and Rate Books Knighthood money and projects of this nature as the Fines in the Star-Chamber High Commission and depopulations with the sale of the Crowne Lands besides Subsidies and the Royall standing Revenue with divers other incomes most oppressive to the people the King within the space of ten or twelve years raised more Treasure than any two of his Predecessors in fourty years and yet none of our Kings had lesse occasion and this King more wanting as having for twelve years together no warres considerable neither any in expectation more than such as wilfully and most unjustly he undertook about the 15th year of his reign against the Scots and that to no other end but to advance his grand designe of invassalating the 3. Kingdomes as hereafter more evidently may be made to appear The King having thus far waded into the depth of his arbitrary strains to the great regret of the people and having for ten or twelve years together laid aside all thoughts of making use of Parliament which might controule so many of his illegall and irregular exactions in farther advance of his grand designe both to rule and raise money at will and pleasure having by so long a tract of time taught the people to forget Parliaments or not to hope for them and as he conceived well to have forwarded his greater work by the experience he had made of the passivenesse both of his English and Irish Subjects by the activity of his chief Instruments Strafford Canterbury and Cottington which principally then carried on the design in either Kingdom both in the Church and State which by time and degrees had so amated the spirits of the people as they seemed patiently to bear though unwillingly and not without some publike murmuration what loads might in the future be laid upon them but evermore in the midst of their resentments to cast the odium of their oppressions rather on the Kings ministers than on himself with the retention of a reverent esteem towards him as the least author of their sufferings when as himself alone was principall which invited him with the more boldnesse and lesse fear to the perfecting and speedy accomplishment of his mayn designe We may in the way of our relation avouch it and that for truth that both the Father and the Sonne were the most carelesse Courtiers of their people of any of our Kings and as regardlesse of the love and reverent esteem the universall Nation carried towards them an inexcusable error and shewes out unto us what in probability were and would be the issues of their Ingratitude We all know that popularity in private persons and the applause of the people are the ingredients of suspition and an errour which al wise and cunning Statists shun and avoid as tending to obscure the worth and dignity of their Master but in Princes it is a Vertue that most of all other their deportments takes most and soonest in the peoples affections we may boldly say it that neither of these two Princes were ever guilty of that attractive Vertue onely it hath beene since observed that at his comming out of Scotl. 1641. he was very prodigall in putting off his hat as he past the streets But omitting Paraphrases we have but even now said it that as to the Queens side in Court it was excessively profuse the Kings more moderate yet not so frugall but that there were a sort about his person to whom he participated his secrets and committed the managery of his arbitrary worke which did sufficiently lick their fingers We shall omit the Duke for he died within two years of the Kings accesse Digby and Cottington which in the former reign had laid the foundations of their after greatnesse but they which in this reign and in the midst of the Kings necessities spent lavishly lived at high rates and amassed most were VVeston the Treasurer Manchester Strafford Goring and the Gentlemen of the Bed-chamber neither did the farmers of the Customs go away empty handed yet we may see that as all or most of these had a time of getting and filching from the Crown so likewise did their Master in the end administer a sad occasion to rid most of them of their ill-gotten gains Having thus brought the King to the 15th year of his most unhappy reign and shewed out by what means wayes and instruments he raised monyes to supply his necessities and prodigallities of the Court what hitherto he acted was in calme and peaceable times though not without murmuration We shall anoncome to the hostile that fatall and sanguinary part of his unfortunate reigne He had hitherto led on his designe in a fore-game yet still in his wonted way of want the Queen-mother arriving holp on his expences Strafford the Archbishop and Cotington as the Kings prime agents had fitted all necessaries in a readinesse both the English and Irish patient in what formerly they had suffered and ready to be ridden and spur'd to the quick the mode of the French Goverment being stil in the eye of the Kings design as left unto him by his Fathers legacy and now again revived and quickned by the Queen Mothers instigation a Lady fatall to all places wheresoever she resided Strafford having raised in Ireland an Army of Papists to helpe on and at a deah lift and about this time there were divers Commissions issued out to certain Lords and Gentlemen with power to impose new and unheard of Imposts on all the commodities of the Land and in addition to these Commissions were granted to the Earl of Arundell to take the military charge of the Northern parts into his hands another to the Earle of Worcester to raise an army of Papists in Wales as it is well known to master
the charge of this second war how that Paper the results of that Councell after stiled The Juncto came to be preserved by the means of Sir Henry Vane the younger and Mr. Pym who imparted it the ensuing Parliament as the star which guided them to know the authors and projectors of this other wilfull designes what preparations the Scots made to defend themselves and how with a puissant Army they first entred the Kingdom under the Command of Lesley who made his way by force with some losse of blood on both sides at Newburn and after that marched peaceably to Newcastle which he fortifyed and from thence sent a Petition in the name of the whole Nation to the King that their cause might be heard before more bloud should be drawn which before was utterly denied them with contemptuous acerbity The particulars whereof shall God willing in all sincerity be anon amply declared together with such discoveries as are not yet publikely known and so particularly manifested in many points as in the following Reply and Animadversions may appear both for the generall satisfaction and such Royalists to whom I have heartily addrest them as well for their own conversion as also in vindication and farther manifestation of Truth and to the everlasting honour of this Parliament whom God hath visibly enabled with courage both to foresee and withstand the violences of a Prince who in all his Expresses Protestations and overtures for Peace and Accommodation with the Parliament were inseparably accompanyed with dissemblings fraud wiles and reservations may be further manifested by the evident proofs of his Letters under his own hand writing his Commissions Missives and many other authentick Testimonies though many of them noted and long since exposed and set out to the world and answered in the Parliaments Declarations especially manifested in that of No more Addresses yet not so vulgarly seen as they may be on a more exact veiw and a diligent perusall and comparing the Kings publick expresses with his private practises as may apparently be seen by any that wil but take the pains either to read them in his own Character or mine Whence ariseth the great wonder of the times how and with what face either the King himselfe living should with such boldnesse stand on his justification or that any since his death indued with common sense and reason can have the Impudence to defend him dead who living so willfully fraudulently and obstinately persevered in pursuance of his own lustfull and pernitious designes in invassalating the poor people which untill himselfe gave and prosecuted the occasion of their falling from him and were inforced to withstand his violent courses was more beloved honoured and obeyed than any of our Kings A Prince that raised and wasted more Treasure wilfully spilt more Innocent blood devasted more the lands and habitations of his Subjects ruined more families and more imbroyled three flourishing Kingdoms than all of his Progenitors and yet for all these his prodigious cruelties and misdemeanors to be inshrin'd dead for a martyr both alive and dead adored for a Saint We shal now close up the first part of our Breviary as it relates to his reign designs before he erected his Standard the manner managery of the hostile part of his life though both long since sufficiently known and felt by many thousands of the poor innocent people of three Kingdomes yet for avoiding of repetitions and some other motives I have taken the leave to insert a short description thereof in the subsequent reply leaving out the manner of his arraignment by his Judges all of them to be adjudg'd a new at the great Tribnnall of the King of Kings whether the one as his Vice-gerent hath ruled and judged the people committed to his protection for their defence and hath dealt uprightly with them or not and whether the others as ordained by divine providence to do justice on him for his cruelties have condemned this King for his Tyranny and unrighteous dealing with three nations to whose justice in feare and trembling we must all submit Where we may with good reason make this Quaere Whether the cutting off of our bloody and blood-thirsty Prince together with the exclusion of his whole posterity can be a sufficient expiation in the eye of heaven for the blood of a million of poor innocent soules slaughtered for the satiating of one Princes lustfull will and pleasure since he that repents not hath said it that the Land shall not be clensed until the blood of one murtherer be shed this we may say and safely believe that Almighty God for the sins of the Nations in his wrath and just indignation sent this most unhappy King as his rod of judgement to reign over us and in his justice hath likewise burnt it and brought that fatall end upon him and his Fathers house according to his owne and often Imprecations We shall conclude this first scene of our Narrative with the Kingdoms fate Iratus Deus dedit ijs Regem The Authors reply to an invective Remonstrance against the Parliament and present Government wherein the whole managery of the late War is exactly described SIR HAving diligently perused the replication you sent me I perceive that you are no changeling but one and the self same man in your opinion both in justifying the late Kings Actions and in aspersing the Parliament with raysing the late War against him as a premeditated Plot long since hatch't by a factious party amongst them and to change the Government and pull up Monarchy and Episcopacy by the roots Strange Chimaeras indeed that dropt lately out of the Clouds and Vapours of your own and your parties gyddy-braines neither doe you rest there but you proceed to charge those which now sit at Westminster with many other fowle Calumnies to all which in their proper place I shall not faile to give you a particular answer though I could have wisht that you had fixt your cogitations on some other subject suitable to truth and the ingenuity you pretend unto and not after ten years revolution of time to fall flat on a meer suggestion of your owne without any other proof than a bare allegatiou and that so destitute of possibility either of thought or intent in the Parliament to effect as that the affirmation seems to me a meer malicious fiction of your own rather than a simple verity and so unbecoming a Gentleman of your quality as that in plainnesse I take the boldnesse to tell you you might on better reason with Copernicus his Disciples have aver'd another world to be in the Moon thâ—n to have devised and broached so vaine and senselesse an untruth But since t is more of your will than chance to fall on so groundlesse a fable and on a theam so old and over-worne might I have advised you should have turn'd your tone which would have been much more for your honour and aver'd that the King even from the very first
entrance of his reigne answerable to his Fathers instructions began his arbitrary worke and in pursuance thereof had laid sundry destructive and darke plots how to invassalate the three Nations and by degrees to reduce them all under one Intire arbitrary and absolute soveraignty and when they took not the effect he desired being discovered and opposed by this Parliament then to set up his Standard and array the poore people against themselves which never any King of England durst attempt otherwise than by publick consent and against a forraigne enemy and at last to wage open Narre against his owne subjects and the representative of the Nation Plundering Fyring and desolating the Kingdom to the utmost of his power had you avouched thus much you had hit on the right and shewed your selfe both a friend to truth and your Country but it seems you still stand close to your old destructive principles as at first you sided with the King living so dead you persist to make good his cause whether right or wrong it mattered not much with most of your party the truth is how good or bad soever his cause was it was the bare name of a King and hopes of preferment which drew your Iron into the field and t is the very same at present which invites all of you to flatter and sooth up your selves with the empty name of Loyalty to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score without looking to the preservation of the Liberty of your Country and proprieties of your own posterity and the sad consequence thereof as if the publick interest ought to be given up for the fulfilling of your desires and of one mans wilfull pleasure a strange dotage that hath possest you and more strange it is that you should now fall a fresh on a subject that loathes any man of ingenuity to think on it much more to treat on a theam so stale were it but in reference to the memory of him who is at rest But since I find that a kind of confidence possesses your intellectuals that all your allegations are unanswerable and that your provocations amounts to a challenge the fault must be yours not mine If in vindication of truth I lay open the grossnesse of all your errors in the manifestation of his which with such eagernesse and confidence you think your self able to defend being forced through your importunity and the nature of the taske you put upon me to run over the whole progres and managery of all the late Kings designs visible and long since very well knowne to all men of common understanding though I confesse I do not much marvell that your selfe amongst the rest of the facill beliefe have been deceived by the Kings woonted and plausible protestations especially as he handled the matter in the cunning and umbragious carrying on of all his close and hidden designs for I very well know many knowing Gentlemen which have had a long conflict with themselves what judgment to make on the first difference arising between the King and Parliament his Majesty so often protesting how much he intended the welfare of all his subjects how unwilling to embrew the Kingdom with blood how willing to embrace and conserve the peace of the Land how resolved to maintaine the true Protestant Religion how carefull and studious to uphold the Lawes and Liberties of the People how ready to preserve inviolable the privileges of Parliaments and how forward to supply his distressed Protestant Subjects in Ireland all which as a Copy of his counterfeit Countenance he so often protested and confirmed with Imprecations that truely the spirits of many wise men were amazed and a long time stood staggering what to be lieve in the case and doubtfull whether the Kings cause or the Parliaments was most just which party gave the first offence which began the Warre and of this number I confesse my self to be one which stood sometimes diffident in a controversy so variously attested but having made a diligent search into all the passages and transactions between both parties both from before the Sword was drawn and after to the year 1645 when the Kings Cabinet Letters were taken at Naseby and other manifests elsewhere I then began to bethink my self that which before I only admitted in a kind of Ambitious beliefe that the Parliament had then to deal with a King howsoever heretofore valued as a Prince of no deep reach who was not to seek without the help and influence of a malicious Councell to play his owne part I shall not say better but more dextrous and cunningly for his owne ends and to the reducing of the Kingdomes under his absolute power than any of those could direct him whom he most trusted with the mannagery of his designs and secrets truely Sir on that discovery on the publishing of his Letters let me tell you there were many thousands which fell off and from the opinion they held of his integrity and the Iustice of his Cause it being in the next degree to a miracle that after so full a disclosure of the Kings juglings and dissemblings there should any remaine to take his part and the wonder is the more remarkeable that since his death any man should believe him to be a Martyr but whom God hardens they shall be hardened let the Charmer Charme never so wisely some will be deafe and diffident of visible truthes never so clearly manifested of which number that you should perceveere to make one as by your sundry invectives it appears surely it hath not a little troubled me to see the excrescencies of your inveterate malignancy to break out even to obstinacy and so long to have blinded your judgment from discerning of truth from falshood and to have bard you from the right use of distinguishing between reason well weighed and fraud umbrated and attested with the usuall artifices of the royall protestations a faculty by your favour too too common with the King and those quaint pen-men which attended him with plausible Declarations frequently sent abroad ad faciendum populum to catch fools and as the Kings usuall phrase was to undeceive the people prepossest with the reality of the Parliaments Remonstrances when in truth the Kings ends were no other than to decoy the poor credulous Annimalls into an opinion of his good meaning towards them when he intended them most harme as we find it evident in the silly devises and quaint impresses of his money coyned at Oxford pretending that he took up arms in defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the People and the Priviledges of Parliament when the direct contrary appeared by all his Actions and when as it was manifest that before he began to quarrell with the Scots he tacitely intended and even then designed to suppress Parliaments or so to qualify them that they should be onely usefull to his own ends not to the people and likewise to invade the Liberties of
the subject adulterate the true Protestant Religion with the superstitious mixture of Popery as it manifestly appeared by his admittance of a Jesuiticall crew into his own Court Cappuchins at Somerset-house with large maintenance even in the face of the Court and eye of the Kingdom with a generall connivence amounting to a tacite toleration to all Papists together with idolatrous Masses both in his own house permitted andused throughout the Kingdom in most Papists houses without controule in imitation of Solomon after that by his Wives he was turn'd Idolater to set up the abomination of Ashteroth even in the face of Jerusalem And as to his invading of the Libertyes of the people with his many other oppressions and irregularities we all know and have good cause to remember them The Breviary of his Life and unfortunate Reigne manifestly declares as to his intent of suppressing of Parliaments and future oppression of the people the observations I intend to send you with his own Letters sufficiently demonstrates by whose motion and Counsels those exorbitances were first by his own Fathers Instructions pursued found in his Cabinet at Theobalds immediately after his departure and whereof one was to quit himself by degrees of all Parliaments as too bold Co-partners in the Government with their Kings to run the future course of his government answerable to that of France and to verifie this I shall point you to King James his own Speech in open Parliament 1609. March 21. Where you may see what preparations he had provided for his Successor to rule by parallelling himself with God who he saith Hath power to create or destroy make or un make at his pleasure to give life or send death to judge all and to be judged or to be accomptable to none to raise low things and to make high things low at pleasure and to God are both Soul and Body due the like power saith this King have Kings they make and unmake their Subjects they have power of raising and casting down of life and death Iudges over all their Subjects and in all causes and yet accomptable to none but God alone they have power to exalt low things and abase high things and to make of their Subjects like men at Chess a pawn to take a Bishop or a Knight and to cry up and down their Subjects as they doe their money Whence you may observe this Kings Principles which in the Speech it selfe every where extant you may find that even this King whom the world stiled the Platonicall King and was reputed a pious Prince took the hint of his tyrannicall principles from a Bishop who in the very face and audience of a Court of Parliament preacht all these fine arbitrary doctrines and yet in the Speech it self fol. quarto you shall find the King defends him Hence you way perceive by whose counsells the late King steered all the course of his government after his accession to the Crown with the reason of his seldome calling of Parliaments and his often dissolving of such as he did call without their due effects I shall now faithfully relate the whole progresse of the War and by what female advice he was directed to the reducing of all the three Kingdomes under his absolute power and for your better satisfaction shall by the way present you with the orignall cause of his hatred against this Parl. and by what strange means it was summoned and at a time when all wise men had given all Parliaments for lost which although long since and by many more able pens than mine have been sufficiently manifested to the world yet for your sake I shall adventure to present them a new as having little more in addition to the elabourate pains of others than in some particulars which I find not as yet produced to the light of the world Briefly then It is a knowne truth that the King in that his unnecessary raising of a warre against the SCOTS and through the prodigality of the Court especially the petulancy and lavishnesse of the Queens side had so exceedingly exhausted both his Exchequer and Credit and reduced himself to that extreme Indigence that he knew not whither to turn himself neither as in the Breviary of his Reigne is exactly laid down could that great head-piece the grand Master for carrying on of all his Arbitrary work shew him how to dis-intangle himselfe out of that harle wherein his owne wilfull Inclinations had incumbred him We all know that the King on the entrance of the Scots at Newborne in August 1640. took a posting journey Northward to his Army Strafford being Commissioned Generall in the room of the Earl of Northumberland whither they were no sooner arrived but they found the Souldiery in little better than mutiny for want of their pay the whole army then lying on Free-quarter on the County of York and the King without so much money as would pay halfe a Regiment the Scots possest of the Town of Newcastle the Nobility having been exhausted in their attendance the Summer before yet to shew their loyalty they again repair to York amongst the rest the Earls of Hartford and Essex in their journey take an occasion by the way to addresse themselves to the Queen to whom they declare the sad condition wherein both the King and Kingdome were then reduced and that they saw no possible means other then a Parliament whereby to repair the State relieve the King and peece up the rents and breaches between both Nations on this expostulation they prevailed with the Queen to write her Letters to his Majesty to move him to condescend to the summons of this Parliament the mention whereof they very well knew without such a mediatrix would be very displeasing unto him these Lords being thus provided with her Majesties Letters repair to Yorke and presented them to the King and upon consultation with the rest of the Lords then attending his Majesty five and twenty of them joyn in a Petition to that purpose The Scots likewise and 200 Gentlemen of the County of York concurring in the same sute for a present summons of a Parliament Thus was his Majesty as I may say beleaguered on all hands not anyone but Strafford dissenting in the end what between the Kings urgent necessities and a concurrency of Petitions together with the Queens Letters which weigh'd most with the King was this Parliament contrary to the expectation of all men produced to the admiration of the Kingdom though against the Kings expresse vow taken at the putting off his robes as before is mentioned when he dissolved his second Parliament and in a contemptuous deportment threw them from him protesting that it should be the last time of their putting off or on Hence we may discern through what difficulties and streights this Parliament took it's beginning we may well say by Gods speciall providence and by hers principally as the instrumentall cause thereof which
byassed as it became a Christian King But that you may further understand why the King so peremptorily stood to the upholding of Bishops and to keep the Militia in his own sole power for that 's the meaning of his not quitting the Sword which all the world knows to be no otherwise by the intent of the Lawes of the Land Reason and the Law of Nature an inseparable flower of the Crown than Fiduciary alwaies in reference to a trust given our Kings by Parliament out of confidence that it shall be used to no other intent or end than the defence of the Kingdom and not to be perverted against it as all the ancient and modern Statutes import both in their preambles and texts Cast your eyes on his own Directions to the Vxbridge Commissioners number 21. where you may evidently see that it was not so much the scruple of his Conscience and Coronation Oath as in relation to his own particular designes and interests viz. That as it is the Kings duty to protect the Church so it is the Churches to assist the King in the maintenance of his Authority wherefore my Predecessors have been alwaies carefull and especially since the Reformation to keep the dependency of the Clergy intirely on the Crown without which it will scarsely fit fast on his bead therefore you must do nothing to change this necessary dependance Observation Here you have the true reason wherfore the King so much insisted on the keeping up of Episcopacy and how likewise the cunning Gypsies the Bishops had instill'd it into his apprehension what sure cards they were to keep the Crown fast on his head as if the Crown and Myter had been such inseparables as that the one could not subsist without the other observe withall what a queint Aphorism they first coynd and broched it to King Iames viz. no Bishop no King and judge you whether no Porter no King had not been the better maxime when as it is perspicuous that most of our ancient Kings had no such Enemies as the Bishops witnesse Tho. Becket to Henry the second Lanfranke to Henry the first Roger of Salisbury to King Stephen Orleton to Edward the second with divers others which almost in every Reign opposed their Kings and addrest themselves to the Pope for their Palls and Investitures indeavouring in what possibly they could to free themselves from any dependancy on the Crown untill Henry the eighths time who first of all our Kings freed himself of that servitude which had beene so fatall to most of his Predecessors But look a little further and you shall finde in the Kings 19th Letter to the Queen on the same subject Febr. 25. 1645. from Oxford viz. Thou needs not doubt of the issue of this Treaty for my Commissioners are so well chosen though I say it that they will neither be thretned nor disputed from the grounds I have given them which upon my word is according to the little Note thou so well remembers and to this not only their obedience but judgements concur againe in the same Letter and be confident that in making peace I shall ever shew my constancy in adhering to Bishops and all our friends and shall not forget to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament but as thou lovest me let none perswade thee to slacken thine assistance for him who is eternally thine Observation Here we have a true Character of this unfortunate Kings naturall obduracy and the aversenesse of his Genius to alter any of his resolutions which once fixt he would effect on any hazzard whatsoever the Earle of Strafferd who best of all others of his arbitrary Ministers had most studied his inclinations needed not to have cherished this humour of the Kings when as in the prosecution of the wars against the Scots 1639. he counsels the King in haec verba Lose all I had or carry all again you may here see how he had aforehand bound up his Commissioners with such instructions from whence they were not to stir or yeeld in a jot as likewise how mindfull he was of the little Note and punctually to observe it a very fine note of remembrances I beleeve had we the honour to have seen it and were we not all of us of the English Nation a happy people to see our King governed by the directions and documents of a woman a strong Papist and of the house of Medicis by the Mother a most Emperious and dangerous generation of women and fatal to all places wheresoever they came a wife its true she was but such a one as ruled and over-ruled that stiffenesse of his constellation and effected more with him than either himself could doe or the most inward of his Councell of State durst attempt and on one caveat of hers would rather adventure the loss of his Crown than not to shew his constancy in the upolding of a Myter you may remember how much pains he was at with the Divines at Newcastle and the Isle of Wight and what tenents he held in his dispute with them concerning Episcopacy and that Bishops were of a Divine and Apostolik Institution which is true in some sense as those were which were instituted by the Apostles but that our late Bishops as they stood here from before and after King Edwards Reformation that they should be taken in with those of St. Pauls making in the generall notion or latitude of Bishops without any distinction as if those Bishops of the Papisticall Church were of the selfe-same nature and of like ordination as those of the Primitive times seemes to me a paradox 'T is true that at the time of the Reformation the dispute grew high at the black-Fryers amongst the Commissioners themselves whether Episcopacy should remain as it then stood or to reduce it to the originall patterne of the primitive Church as Bishop Latimer Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr would have had it but Bishop Ridly and the rest of the Commissioners most of them Bishops as Sir Iohn Heywood in his first Copy of his History of Edward the sixt layes it down would by no means assent unto it the other three maintaining that Bishops as then they stood were no other than chips of the papisticall block and of no affinity with St. Pauls Titmothy's or Titus Bishops neither could they be of any conformity with the ancient and primitive institution but the meer excrescencies sprouting out of the exuberancy of the Papacy long after the defection and adulteration of the primitive Church which defection from the ancient purity began immediately after Gregory the Great and I am very confident that there are none of our late Bishops so impudent as to maintaine that either the Britain or Saxon Kings whatsoever is fabled of King Lucius ever erected any Episcopall Sees or admitted of any Bishops that came hither before Austin the Monk and such others after him as were merely spriggs of the papacy and that long after the adulteration
soon after was it's greatest Enemy and not by the Kings choise and inclination as it is shamefully averr'd in his Pourtraicture whereas the bare name and mention of a Parliament was well known to be odious unto him and the very motion of calling any more prohibited by his own expresse charge to all of his Councell of State as that which he foresaw would be the onely impediment to the accomplishment of all his arbitrary designes so meerly brought to their ends but the summer before he waged the first warre against his native subjects the Scots an enterprise which the World knowes was the only Remora that checkt and choaked all his projections in the maturity of their birth which to recover on sight and his sense of the Parliaments proceedings he soon found he had no other way left him but by open War and force to suppresse them the mannagery whereof I shall now briefly present unto you The Parliament had its Summons from Yorke as all the Kingdom knows and the third of November 1640. sate downe at Westminster where according to the usuall Ceremonies the King in his own person in a set speech made a very gracious protestation viz. That he was fully resolved to put himself wholy on the love of his People and Parliament which if it proved not prosperous and a happy Parliament the fault should be none of his and that he was fully determined to commit the reformation of all things amisse to their regulation A profession which both took much with the House and all the Kingdom which had he been pleased to have performed and to have made good his word in not protecting the many delinquents questioned within a few moneths after the Parliaments first sitting downe as with justice honour and his Coronation oath he was obliged and in reference to his owne profit he might very well have forborne such tragicall issues could never have befallen himself and the 3. Kingdoms but having then entertained other designs and perceiving the Parliament to fly high and at his chief Ministers and woork-masters of his former arbitrary projects and on those which had fomented that unnecessary Warre against the Scots as the Earl of Straf ford and the Arch-bishop principally the Prelates and dissolute Clergy most of the Iudges and the Farmers of the Customes not for common faults but very high misdemeanours the King to crosse them most ignobly and against the justice of the Kingdome not only provoked but openly shewed himselfe both a defendor and protector of their Delinquencies and upon the distast he took on the commitment of Strafford was instantly known to have laid sundry plots and practises how he might dissolve the Parliament or utterly to destroy it which the Parliament perceiving and that the Queen under colour of accompanying the Princesse Mary into Holland was sent thither with the Crowne Jewels to buy Arms and procure forces to be sent him and Digby employed to the same purpose whereupon in prevention of the storme which they evidently then saw was like to fall on themselves and the Kingdom from beyond sea they moved his Majesty that the Kingdom might be put into a posture of defence and the militia deposited in such hands as they might confide in which he utterly refused to grant them as inseparables to the Crowne as he alleaged he was resolved to keep solely in his own power The Parliament in answer to this insist That the Kings power therein by the Law of the Land was only fiduciary allwayes in reference to trust the publik good safety of the Kingdō hence the contest by degrees grew to a separation and in furtherance of the dispute he also denyed the house to disband the Irish Army raised long before by Strafford and compos'd of Papists a storm which could not otherwise be expected but would if not timely prevented fall on them from Ireland whereof the Juncto at their very first sitting down had sufficiently informed them out of Straffords own mouth for what use and end that Army was raised viz. where he tels the King you have an Army in IRELAND to reduce this Kingdome when it was manifestly known to the world that it never was in a greater calm of peace and quietnes and the universall people in a more absolute obedience and as ready to be ridden as any slaves under the Grand Signior During this conflict the King would needs take a journey into Scotland notwithstanding the House by sundry petitions had earnestly moved him either to lay it aside or at least for some time to retard it but howsoever the King carried on his plots intentions in the dark with as much cunning as possibly could be devised yet they had then good reason to suspect that his journey Northward was to some other end than in leaving them to visit his Scotch Parliament as it after proved but on he would for Scotland and before he took his journey in a seeming providence to disburthen the Kingdome of the charge of the Scotch Army he first prest the house to disband with all their expedition that Army and to pay pay that of his own raising in the North but not a word of disbanding it upon this motion the House took it into their serious consideration apprehending it for a provident carefull and timely motion of the Kings and thereupon bethought themselves how first to disband and quit the Kingdome of the Scots untill Mr. Stroude standing up told the Speaker That they ought not in such haste to depart with the Scotch Army lest the sonnes of Zerviah in their absence would be too hard for them this speech the house soon apprehended and instantly resolved not to disband the one without the other army which the King perceiving being daily prest with Petitions of the Officers of his own Army fot their pay and himselfe not possibly able to content them as also that 25000 l. per mensem allowed to the Scots Army with 300000 l. by way of brotherly love given them by the Parliament in compensation of their losses through the Kings needlesse and unnecessary molesting them during the two Summers before amounted in the totall to so vast a sum as that neither himself was able to contribute a groat or the Parliament otherwise to discharge but by borrowing it on the Publique Faith It would amaze those which are happily ignorant of the managery of this work if I should tell them in what extremity of want the King was then reduced and how he durst adventure to struggle and after to trip up the heels of a Court of Parliament which without the least upraiding him with his profusions and irregular Regality were not only willing and ready to pay all those vast scores of debts contracted through his own wilful misgovernment but then had it in agitation how to improve his Revenues and to inable him to live of himself without squeezing his Subjects in honour splendour and plenty beyond any
his bloody and licentious reigne which necessarily to the Worlds end will give an occasion to rippe up his life and shew to the present and after ages what a Tombe these jugling imposters have erected for him and with what Epitaphes of impiety injustice blood and rapine it will be adorned instead of that glory wherewith they intended to perpetuate to his memory though sufficient and enough hath already been written in discovery of this grand Imposture and to every peece and parcell thereof so much answered as may satisfie all men in their right witts as to others that are out of them and have a desire to be cosened out of their understandings I think an Asian beliefe would better fit them than an European Faith a gallymaufried Alcoran rather than a true and rationall Remonstrance drest with no other Rethorick than the naked truth and shall men be silent when they see it overborne with the multitudinous denyalls flams and falshoods of his defeated and malitious parties Observations on the Kings going into the Scotch Army THe Kings disguized going from Oxford into the Scotch Army then at Newark as it was one of his last shifts so was it a very shrewd one considered as he had laid the design That he went first to them was doubtlesse more out of an apprehension and confidence he had to gain them to his assistance than out of any great good will he bore towards them but sure it was out of an inveterate hatred he bare towards the Parliament the evidence of this truth manifestly appears by the Kings Letter to Ormond Number 27. from Oxford April the 3d. 1646. I shall present you with the principall part thereof at your own leisure you may peruse the whole viz. Having lately received very good security that we and all that do adhere to us shall be safe in their Persons Honours and Consciences in the Scotch Army and that they shall really and effectually joyn with us and with such as will come unto us and joyn with them for our preservation and shall imploy their Army and Forces to assist us to the procuring of a happy and well-grounded Peace for the good of us and our Kingdoms in the recovery of our just Right we have resolved to put our selves to the hazard of passing into the Scotch Army now lying before Newarke and if it shall please God that we come safe thither we are resolved to use our best endeavour with their assistance and with the conjunction of the Forces under the Marquesse of Montrosse and such of our well affected Subjects of England as shall rise for us to procure it may be an honourable and speedy Peace with those who hither to refused to give ear to any means tending thereunto of which our resolution we hold it necessary to give you this advertisement as well to satisfie you and all our Councell and loyall Subjects with you and to whom we will that you communicate these our Letters yet failing in our earnest and sincere endeavours by a Treaty to put an end to the miseries of these our Kingdomes we esteemed our self obliged to leave no probable expedient unattempted to preserve our Crowne and Friends from the Vsurpation and Tyranny of those whose actions declare so manifestly their designs to overthrow the Laws and happy established Government of this Kingdome And now wee have made known to you our resolution we recommend to your speciall care the disposing and managing our affairs on that side as that you shall conceive most for our Honour and Service being confident the course we have taken though with some hazard to our person will have a good influence on that our Kingdome and defer if not altogether prevent the Rebels transporting of Forces from them into that Kingdom And we desire you to satisfie all our well-affected Subjects on that side of our Princely care of them whereof they shall receive the effect as soon as God shall enable us Observations We have here a most quaine piece of Machiavilisme moulded under the Kings wonted and specious pretences of the care he had for the good of his Subjects in procuring an honourable peace and for recovery of his just Rights from those as he sayes which hitherto refused to give way to any means tending thereunto But observe how he intended to accomplish this peace and to put an end to the miseries of the Kingdom and you shall evidently see that it was out of an assurance he had to win the Scots to side with him in a new War and in causing them to break their Faith plighted to the Parliament when at that very time they were to receive 300000 l. towards their entertainment this being but a piece of his design for to that assistance he flattered himself to receive from the Scots he also builds on that mercilesse Army under Montrosse and such of his well-affected Subjects of the English as shall rise for us they are his own words Speak your Conscience was not this a fine plot think you to procure an honourable and speedy peace when his ends were as visible as the Sun shine to continue the Warre and to pollute the Land with more blood under his wonted umbragious pretences of peace and as he says to recover his just rights and what were those rights more than by a new Stratagem to overmaster all under his power or at least to enforce such a peace as might suite to his own desires then he comes to say that he hath left no means unattempted and I beleeve it in his own sence and that was in the conjunction of both those Armies and his inviting of all his well-affected Subjects in England to rise for us and in pursuance of this deep plot he commands Ormond to communicate his Letters to the Councell there and to all his Well-affected Subjects of Ireland that they might know how carefully he was of them by the confidence he had in that course and what a good Influence it would have on that Kingdom viz. in the deferring if not to the utter disappointing of the Rebels transporting of supplyes to the relief of the distressed poor Protestants of Ireland and desites that all his Well-affected Subjects there should take notice of his Princely care of them whereof they should receive the effects so soon as God should enable him a very Princely care indeed if you mark it but you may here see that God would not be mockt neither enable him in his mischievous projects Speak freely whether this King meant well or acted like a Christian in his treacherous endeavour to divert in what possibly he could devise the Parliaments Forces sent for the assistance of their poor Brethren of Ireland when as he had so often protested and born the Parliament in hand how desirous and carefull he was to expedite their supplyes thither and by an Act of his own Assent had impowred the Parliament therewith which here againe in his wonted language he calls