Gods Holy Word might keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace It being a sad thing in his opinion that three Christian and Protestant Kingdomes under one Christian and Protestant King should have three several Confessions of Faith 4. Abolished several idle and barbarous Customs putting the Natives upon ingenious ways of Improving that rich Land by Flax Hemp c. infinitely to the Advantage of the King and Kingdom 5. Recovering near upon 40000 l. per year to the Church which by ungodly Alienations was made saith a Bishop of their own as low as Poverty it self bringing over with him as great Affections for the Church and all Publike Interests as he had Abilities to serve them 6. Put Ireland Anno 1639. in three moneths by a Parliament he got together in that short time into such a posture for Men and Money as was a Pattern to the following Parliament of England which resented that Service so much that the House of Commons gave him the Thankes of the Kingdome in their own House and waited upon him two of their most eminent Members supporting him to his place in the House of Lords In fine he wrought that wilde and loose people to such a degree of Peace Plenty and Security as it had never been since it was annexed to this Crown and made it pay for the Charges of its own Government which before was deducted out of the English Treasury Their Peace and Lawes now opening accesses to Plenty and Trade he remitted indeed nothing of that Authority Strictness Discipline or Grandieur that might advance the Interest or Honor of his Master yet he admitted so much moderation into his Counsels and Proceedings as that Despair added to former Discontents and the Fears of utter Extirpation to their wonted Pressures should not provoke to an open Rebellion a people prone enough to break out to all exorbitant Violence both by some principles of their Religion and the natural desires of Liberty both to exempt themselves from their present restraints and prevent after-rigors And when the Tumults of Scotland and the Discontents of England called for the same Counsel here that he had with success applyed to the distempers of Ireland how clearly did he see thorow the Mutinies and Pretences of the Multitude into the long-contrived Conspiracies and Designs of several orders of more dangerous men whose Covetousness and Ambition would digest as he fore-saw the rash Tumults into a more sober and solemn Rebellion How happily did he divine that the Affronts offered the Kings Authority on the score of Superstition Tyranny Idolatry Male-administration Liberty words as little understood by the Vulgar as the Design that lay under them were no other than Essays made by certain sacrilegious and needy men to confirm the Rapines upon Church and State they had made in Scotland and to open a door to the same practises in England to try how the King who had already ordered a Revocation of all such Vsurpations in Scotland and had a great minde to do the like in England would bear their rude and insolent Attempts whether he would consult his Power or his Goodness assert his Majesty or yield to their importunity How nimbly did he meet with the Faction by a Protestation he gained from all the Scots in England and Ireland against the Covenant of their Brethren in Scotland at the same time in several Books he caused to be printed discovering that the Scottish Faction that so much abhorred Popery proceeded in this Sedition upon the worst of Popish principles and practises And that this Godly League which was so much applauded by the people was a Combination of men acting over those Trayterous Bloody and Jesuitical Maximes of Mariana Suarez Sa Bellarmine which all good people abhorred Adding that those very persons that instructed the poor populary to quarrel with their Sovereign about Liberty should as it followed afterwards lay a more unsupportable slavery upon them than their most impious slanders could form in the imagination of the Credulous that they might fear from the King The power God had invested him with he intreated the King to own and the ways the Laws of God and the Land allowed him to maintain that power to make use of employing all the able men that pretended to skill either in Law or Government to see if Prerogative had any way yet left to save an unwilling People for knowing how prevailing the Seditious were always to disturb the Counsels of the Parliament he feared that from their proceedings the common Enemies would be encouraged as formerly to higher Insolencies and the envious Demagogues would contemn their own safety to ruine the Kings Honor therefore giving vigorous Orders for raising the Ship-money and a great Example towards Advancing a Benevolence subscribing himself 20000 l. and procuring the Subscription of 500000 l. from the Church the Court the City and Countrey besides some thousands by Compositions with Papists especially in Stafford-shire Lancashire York-shire c. and by Forfeitures observed by him in London Derry and other places held by Patent from His Majesty When he saw a Faction by the diligence of the Kings enemies and the Security and Treason of his pretended Friends who made it their business to perswade His Majesty that there was no danger so long until there was no safety formed into Councels and drawn up into Armies when he saw one Kingdom acting in open Rebellion and another countenancing and inclining to it when he discovered a Correspondence between the Conclave of Rome and the Cardinal of France between the King of France and the Rebels of Scotland between the Leaders of the Scottish Sedition and the Agents of the English Faction one Pickering Laurence Hampden Fines c. being observed then to pass to and fro between the English and the Scottish Brethren and saw Letters signed with the Names though as some of them alledged since without the consent of the Five Members c. when the Government in Church and State was altered the Kings Ships Magazines Revenue Forts and faithful Servants were seized on the Orders of State and Worship of God were affronted by a barbarous multitude that with sticks stools and such other instruments of Fury as were present disturbed all religious and civil Conventions and the Kings Agents Hamilton Traquair and Roxborough pleased no doubt with the Commotions they at first raised and by new though secret seed of Discontents improved increased the Tumults by a faint Opposition which they might have allayed by vigorous punishments all the Declarations that were drawn in the Kings Name being contrived so as to overthrow his Affairs In a word when he saw that the Traytors were got into the Kings Bed-chamber Cabinets Pockets and Bosom and by false representation of things had got time to consolidate their Conspiracy and that the Kings Concessions to their bold Petition about the Liturgy the High-Commission the Book of Canons and the â—ive
years before he was imployed thither That as he hath been just and faithful to his Master the King by increasing his Revenue so hath he also much bettered the Trade and Shipping of that Kingdome 11. That he prohibited the exportation of some Native Commodities as Pipe-staves c. and then required great summes of money for license to export them to the Inhansing of the prices of those Commodities half in half The Earles Reply That Pipe-staves were prohibited in King James his time and not exported but by License paying six shillings eight pence a thousand and that he had not raised so much thereby to himself as his Predecessors had done for such Licenses 12. That the said Earl to regulate the Trade of Tobacco prohibited the Importing of it without License In the mean time taking up and buying it at his own rate to his own use and forbidding others to sell any Tobacco by whole-sale but what was made up in Rolls and sealed at both ends by himself Besides other Monopolies of Starch Iron Pots which they said brought the Earl in 100000l sterl besides that though he inhanced the Customes in general yet he drew down the Imposts on Tobacco from 6d to 3d. in the pound The Earles Reply That before his time the King had but ten or twenty pounds per annum for that Custome which now yeilded twenty thousand pounds For the Proclamation it was not set out by his meanes principally or for his private benefit but by consent of the whole Council The prices of Tobacco not exceeding two shillings in the pound And this he conceives cannot be made Treason were all the Articles granted but onely a Monopoly for which he was to be Fined 13. That Flax being the Native Commodity of Ireland and he having much of it growing on his own ground or at his command ordered by Proclamation that none should be vented upon pain of forfeiting it but what was wrought into Yarn and Thread a way not used in Ireland whereby he had the sole sale of that Commodity The Earles Reply That he did endeavour to advance the Manufacture of Linnen rather then of Woollen because the last would be the greater detriment to England That the Primate of Ireland the Arch-Bishop of Dublin Chancellour Loftus and the Lord Mount-Norris all of the Council and Subscribers of the Proclamation were as liable to the Charge as himself That the reducing of that Nation by Orders of the Council-Board to the English Customes from their more savage usages as drawing Horses by their Tails c. had been of former practise That the Project was of so ill avail to him as he was the worse for the Manufacture thirty thousand pounds at least by the Loom he had set up at his own Charge 12. That the said Earl did in a War-like manner by Soldiers execute his severest Orders and Warrants in Ireland dispossessing se veral persons by force of Arms in a time of peace of their houses and estates raising taxes and quartering Souldiers upon those that disobeyed his Orders so leavying War against his Majesties Liege people in that Realm Testified Serjeant Savil. The Earles Reply That nothing hath been more ordinary in Ireland than for the Governours to put all manner of Sentences in execution by the help of Soldiers that Grandison Faulkland Chichester and other Deputies frequently did it Sir Arthur Teningham to this point deposed that in Faulklands time he knew twenty Souldiers assessed upon one man for reâ—using to pay sixteen shillings That his instruction for executing his Commission was the same with those formerly given to the Lord Faulkland and that in both there is express warrant for it That no Testimony produced against him doth evidently prove he gave any Warrant to that effâ—ct and that Serjeant Savil shewed only a Copy of a Warrant not the Original it self which he conceived could not make Faith in Case of life and death in that High Court especially it being not averred upon Oath to agree with the Original which should be upon Record That he conceived he was for an Irish Custom to be Tryed by the Peers of that Kingdome 13. That he obtained an Order of his Majesty That none should complain of any Oppression or Injustice in Ireland before the King or Council in England unless first the party made his address to him using to all his Actions his Majesties Authority and Name yet to prevent any from coming over to Appeal to his Majesty or to complain he by Proclamation bearing date Septemb. 17. 1636. Commanded all Nobility Undertakers and others that held Offices in the said Kingdom of Ireland to make their residence there not departing thence without License seconding that Proclamation with Fines Imprisonments c. upon such as disobeyed it as on one Parry c. Testified by the Earl of Desmond the Lord Roch Marcattee and Parry The Earles Reply That the Deputy Faulkland had set out the same Proclamation That the same Restraint was contained in the Statute of 25. Henry 6. upon which the Proclamation was founded That he had the Kings express Warrant for the Proclamation That he had also power to do it by the Commission granted him and that the Lords of the Councel and their Iustices not only yielded but pressed him unto it That it was done upon just cause for had the Ports been open divers would have taken liberty to go to Spain Doway Rheimes or St. Omers which might have proved of mischievous Consequence to the State That the Earl of Desmond stood at the time of his restraint Charged with Treason before the Councel of Ireland for practising against the Life of one Valentine Coke That the Lord Roch was then a Prisoner for Debt in the Castle of Dublin and therefore incapable of License That Parry was not fined for not coming without License but for several contempts against the Council-Board in Ireland and that in his Sentence he had but only a casting Voice as the Lord Keeper in the Star-Chamber 14. That having done such things as aforesaid in his Majesties Name he framed by his own Authority an unusual Oath whereby among other things people were to Swear That they would not protest against any of his Majesties Royal Commands but submit themselves in all Obedience thereunto An Oath which he Imposed on several Scots in Ireland designing it indeed against the Scottish Covenant on pain of great Fines as H. Steward 5000 l. c. Exile and Imprisonment c. The Earles Reply That the Oath was not violently enjoyned by him upon the Irish Scots but framed in Compliance with their own express Petition which Petition is owned in the Proclamation as the main Impulsive to it That the same Oath not long after was prescribed by the Councel of England That he had a Letter under his Majesties own hand ordering it to be prescribed as a Touch-Stone of their Fidelity As to the greatness of the Fine imposed upon Steward and others he
Allegiance or their little God Argyles power being now disparaged by two defeats to Peace dispersing several parties taking in several Garrisons challenging Bayly and the Covenanters whole Army maugre the treacherous revolts of his men and eminent friends every day and making a noble Retreat notwithstanding that all passes were stopped by wheeling dextrously up and down without any rest three days and nights with the most undaunted resolution in the world till being recruited he trepanned their whole Army at Alderne May 4. 1645 by some Umbrays under which he hid his men and the cunning misplacing of the Kings Standard made a defeat where he killed and took though Vrry an excellent Souldier was Commander in chief three times more men than he had himself seasonably succouring his men concealing disasters from them and keeping them from too far and rash pursuit as he did the like number under Bayly at Alsord Iuly 2. 1645. after he had tyred them with continual Alarms and possessed himself of advantagious grounds and passes making as he did always the best shew of his few men And afterwards the greatest Army he ever saw of the Covenanters together at Kilsith Septemb. 15. 1645. killing and taking above 5000 Foot and 400 Horse Coll. Iohn Ogleby an old Swedish Commander and Alexander the son of Sir Iohn Ogleby of Innar-Wharake The consequence whereof was the scattering of the Rebellion the chief flying to England and Ireland and the submission of the Kingdom which he with great courtesie and civility took after the overtures made to him of provisions for War into his protection setling all the Cities and Towns even Edenburgh it self in peace and safety without the least injury offered releasing such Prisoners as the expert old Souldiers the Earl of Crawford and Iames Lord Ogleby c. and inviting the Nobility viz. Trequair Roxborough Hume to joyn with him in the settlement of the Kingdom but the Kings friends in Scotland betraying him and the succour out of England under my Lord Digby failing him and which was worse the King being forced to throw himself upon the Scots commanding him without any security to his faithful friends to depart the Kingdom and in France wait his Majesties further pleasure that opportunity as many more of the like nature for re-establishing his Majesty was lost as he did discreetly avoiding the snares laid for him in his transportation being fair in France for the chief command of Strangers there assisting the Prince at the Hague in the debates about the expedition into England under Hamilton 1648. Thence travelling to Germany was offered by the Emperour the Command of 10000 men immediately under his Majesty against the Swedes after that procuring of the Dukes of Brandenburg and Holstein forty Vessels with men and Ammunition and 1500 compleat Horse-arms from the Queen of Sweden besides other assistances from several States and Princes which were imbezzeled before they came to his hands He threw himself away at last upon some persidious men pretending to his Majesties service in the North of Scotland where he was taken in disguise and so barbarously murthered by the Rebels of Scotland that the Rebels of England coming thither next year were ashamed of it Since very honourable buried in the Grave of his Fathers and renownedly famous both abroad and at home in the Chronicles of his Age the glory of Scotland and the grief of Europe the farthest Nations in the World admiring his worth and the greatest Kings bewailing Which happened May 21. 1650. Brave Soul whose learned Swords point could strain Rare lines upon thy murdered Soveraign Thy self hast grav'd thine Epitaph beyond The Impressions of a pointed Diamond Thy Prowess and thy Loyalty shall burn In pure bright Flames from thy renowned Vru Clear as the beams of Heaven thy cruel fate Scaffold and Gibbet shall thy fame dilate That when in after Ages Death shall bid A man go home and die upon his Bed He shall reply to Death I scorn 't be gone Meet me at the place of Execution There 's glory in the scandal of the Cross Let me be hang'd for so fell brave Montross It is fit to mention with him the two sons of Dr. Iohn Spotswood Chaplain to the Duke of Lenox in his Ambassies to France and England Minister of Calder Archbishop of Glascow Privy Counsellor of Scotland Archbishop of St. Andrews Primate and Metropolitan of all Scotland President in the several Assemblies at Aberdeen and Perth 1616. and 1618. where he was a great instrument in restoring the Liturgy and Uniformity in the Church of Scotland and at last having Crowned the King 1633. made 1635. Lord Chancellor according to a Prophetick word of one of the Gossips at his Birth That he would become the Prop and Pillar of his Church dying banished from his Country Nov. 18. Anno Dom. 1639. Aetat 74. Well known by his most faithful and impartial History of the Church of Scotland written by him upon the Command of King Iames to whom when he objected that he knew not how to behave himself when he came to speak of his Royal Mother who was sadly represented by the Historians of her times the King replied Speak the truth man and spare not 1. Sir Iohn Spotswood well satisfied that in the ruine of three Kingdoms he had lost his Estate and preserved his Conscience 2. Sir Robert Spotswood a Gentleman of great abilities both in the Art of Government and in the study of the Law by his 9 years study and experience abroad and his many years good education and practice at home Lord of the Sessions extraordinary in King Iames his time and constant President and Secretary of State in King Charles his time between whom and his friends in Scotland particularly the Marquess of Montross he kept in the most difficult times a constant correspondence for which he was beheaded at St. Andrews exhorting the people to his last to keep to their duty towards God and the King and to beware of a lying Spirit sent by the Lord in Judgment among their Ministry Res in exitu ae stimantur cum abeunt Ex oculis hinc videntur The Dukes Hamilton the former Iames after a suspition of disloyalty to the King his gracious Master that gave him very profitable Offices and conferred on him many great honours and trust 1. For posting in such haste privately into Scotland when the Parliament was discontented and the Duke of B. murthered in England 2. For employing several Scots into Germany and other parts to insinuate the grievances of the Kings Government and promote his own Interest by publishing up and down his Royal Pedigree and keeping in dependance upon him Officers enough to command a Royal Army 3. For taking the Kings Letters out of his pockets and discovering his secrets to his Enemies 4. For spending time to and fro in Messages about the Rebellion in the head of which his Mother rid with her
me And to call a destruction upon my self and young Children where the intentions of my heart have been innocent at least of this great offence may be believed will find no easie content to flesh and bloud But with much sadnesse I am come to a resolution of that which I think best becomes me to look upon that which is most principal in its self which doubtless is the prosperity of your Sacred Person and the Commonwealth infinitely beyond any private mans interest And therefore in few words as I put my self wholly upon the honor and justice of my Peers so clearly as to beseech your Majesty might be pleased to have spared that Declaration of yours on Saturday last and intirely to have left me to their Lordships So now to set your Conscience at liberty I do most humbly beseech you for the preventing of such mischief as may happen by your refusal to Pass the Bill by this means remove I cannot say praised be God this Accursed but I confesse this Unfortunate thing out of the way towards that blessed Agreement which God I trust will establish for ever between you and your Subjects Sir my Consent herein shall more acquit you to God than all the world can do besides To a willing man there is no injury done And as by God's grace I forgive all the world with all chearfulnesse imaginable in the just acknowledgement of your exceeding Favours And onely Beg that in your goodnesse you would be pleased to cast your Gracious regard upon my poor Son and his Sisters lesse or more and no otherwise than their unfortunate Father shall appear more or lesse guilty of his death God long preserve your Majesty Tower May 4. 1640. Your Majesties most humble and faithful subject and servant STRAFFORD And then with much reluctancy the King being overcome rather than perswaded Passed by Proxies In hane formam The Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford extorted by a prevailing Faction by force from the Parliament 16 and 17. CAR. 1. Repealed by a Free and Full-Parliament 13 and 14. CAR. 11. WHereas the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons in this present Parlament Assembled have in the names of themselves and all the Commons of England Impeached Thomas Earl of Strafford of High-treason for indeavouring to subvert the Ancient and Fundamental Laws and Government of his Majesties Realms of England and Ireland And to Introduce a Tyrannical and Arbitrary Government against Law into those Kingdoms and for exercising a Tyrannous and Exorbitant Power over and against the Laws of the said Kingdoms over the Liberties Estates and Lives of his Majesties Subjects and likewise for having by his own Authority commanded the Laying and Assessing of Souldiers upon his Majesties Subjects in Ireland against their Consent to Compel them to obey his unlawful Commands and Orders made upon Paper-Petitions in Causes between Party and Party which accordingly was executed upon divers of his Majesties Subjects in a warlike manner within the said Realm of Ireland and in so doing did Levy War against the Kings Majesty and his Leige People in that Kingdom And also for that he after the unhappy Dissolution of the last Parliament did slander the House of Commons to his Majesty and did Counsel and Advise his Majesty That he was loose and absolved from Rules of Government and that he had an Army in Ireland c. For which he deserves to undergo pains and forfeiture of High-Treason And the said Earl hath been an Incendiary between Scotland and England All which Offences have been sufficiently proved against the said Earl upon his Impeachment Be it therefore Enacted c. that the said Earl of Strafford for the heinous Crimes and Offences aforesaid Stand and be Adjudged and Attainted of High-treason And shall suffer such Pain of Death and Incurr the forfeitures of his Goods Chattels Lands Tenements and Hereditaments of any Estate of Freehold or Inheritance in the said Kingdomes of England and Ireland which the said Earl or any other to his use or in trust for him have or had the day of the first Sitting of this present Parliament or at any time since Provided that nothing be Declared Treason hereafter but what might have been Declared for had this Act never been Passing Saving to all Persons and Bodies Corporate excepting the Earl and all Rights Titles Interests they did injoy the first day of this Parliament Any thing herein Contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided That the Passing of this present Act determine not this Session of Parliament c. A Bill 1. So false in the matter of it grounded on the Evidence of Papists sworn enemies to the English Name and State that wanted only the death of this great Instrument of Government to commit those mischiefs they accused him of the Faction Carressing those very Rebels to assist them in shedding my Lord of Strafford's bloud that afterwards imbrued their hands in the bloud of so many innocent Protestants in Ireland 2. So shameful in the manner of it that as the Devil upbraids unhappy souls with those very crimes they tempted and betrayed them to so those very men made use of it to pollute the King's honour that had even forced him to it though the heaviest Censure was himself Who never left bewailing his Compliance or Connivance with this Murder till the issue of his bloud dried up those of his tears A Bill which might well accompany the other Bill about the Parliaments Sitting during pleasure this passing away the King's Honour and the other his Prerogative Neither was the Bill sooner Passed than his Execution was Ordered The King's intercession in a Letter sent by his own Son the Prince for so much intermixture of mercy with the publick Justice as to permit the Earl either to live out his sad life in a close Imprisonment or at least that his soul that found so much Injustice on earth might have a Week to prepare it's self for the mercy of Heaven Rather quickening the bloudy mens Counsels who thought not themselves safe as long as he was so and whose fears and jealousies created or entertained stories every minute of his escape or rescue than mitigating them And therefore the second day after a great man must be surprized secured as soon as accused tried as soon as secured condemned as soon as tried and executed as soon as condemned the very day Sir Henry Vane the Younger that contributed so much to this Murder was Executed afterwards After six months Imprisonment and twenty one whole days Trial wherein he answered the whole House of Commons for six or seven hours each day to the infinite satisfaction of all impartial Persons He was brought with a strong and solemn Guard to the Scaffold on Tower-hill In his passage thither he had a sight of the Arch-bishop of Canterbury whose prayers and blessings he with low obeysance begged and the pious Prelate bestowed them
with tears having a little Weeping bitterly before the King when the Bill of Attainder Passed before by Sir Dudley Carleton been informed what the Parliament demanded of the King and what the King had granted the Parliament Information that amazed him indeed at first but at last made him infinitely willing to leave this sad world and there managed the last Scene of his life with the same gallantry that he had done all the rest looking death in the face with the same presence of spirit that he had done his enemies Being accompanied besides his own Relations and Servants by the Primate of Armagh who however mis-represented in this matter was much afflicted all along for this incomparable person's hard measure who among other his vertues owned so singular a love to this Reverend and Learned Person that taking his leave of Ireland the last time he was there he begged his blessing on his Knees and the last minute he was in the world desired him to accompany him with his Prayers Addressing his last Speech to him Thus My Lord Primate of Ireland IT is my very great comfort I have your Lordship by me this day in regard I have been known these many years and I do thank God and your Lordship for it that you are here I should be very glad to obtain so much silence as to be heard a few words but I doubt I shall not the noise is so great My Lords I am come hither by the good will and pleasure of Almighty God to pay that last debt I owe to sin which is death and by the blessing of that God to rise again through the merits of Jesus Christ to righteousness and life eternal Here he was a little interrupted My Lords I am come hither to submit to that judgment which hath Passed against me I do it with a very quiet and contented mind I thank God I do freely forgive all the world a forgiveness that is not spoken from the teeth outwards as they say but from the very heart I speak in the presence of Almighty God before whom I stand that there is not a displeasing thought arising in me towards any man living I thank God I can say it and truely too my Conscience bearing me witness that in all my employment since I had the honour to serve his Majesty I never had any thing in the purpose of my heart but what tended to the joynt and individual prosperity of King and People although it hath been my ill fortune to be misconstrued I am not the first that hath suffered in this kind It is the common portion of us all while we are in this life to err we are very subject to be mis-judged one of another There is one thing I desire to free my self of and I am very confident speaking it now with so much chearfulness that I shall obtain your Christian charity in the belief of it I was so far from being against Parliaments that I did always think the Parliaments of England were the most happy Constitutions that any Kingdom or Nation lived under and the best means under God to make the King and People happy For my Death here I acquit all the world and beseech the God of heaven heartily to forgive them that contrived it though in the intentions and purposes of my heart I am not guilty of what I dye for And my Lord Primate it is a great comfort to me that his Majesty conceives me not meriting so severe and heavy a punishment as is the utmost Execution of this Sentence I do infinitely rejoyce in this mercy of his and I beseech God to return it into his own bosome that he may find mercy when he stands in most need of it I wish this Kingdom all the prosperity and happiness in the world I did it living and now dying it is my wish I do most humbly recommend this to every one who hears me and desire they would lay their hands upon their hearts and consider seriously whether the beginning of the Happiness and Reformation of a Kingdom should be written in Letters of Bloud Consider this when you are at your houses and let me never be so unhappy as that the last of my bloud should rise up in judgment against any one of you But I fear you are in a wrong way My Lords I have but one word more and with that I shall end I profess that I dye a true and obedient Son to the Church of England wherein I was born and in which I was bred Peace and prosperity be ever to it It hath been objected if it were an objection worth the answering that I have been inclined to Popery but I say truly from my heart that from the time I was one and twenty years of age to this present going now upon forty nine I never had in my heart to doubt of this Religion of the Church of England nor ever had any man the boldness to suggest any such thing to me to the best of my remembrance And so being reconciled by the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour into whose bosome I hope I shall shortly be gathered to those eternal happinesses which shall never have an end I desire heartily the forgiveness of every man for any rash or unadvised words or any thing done amiss And so my Lords and Gentlemen farewel farewel all the things of this world I desire that you would be silent and joyn with me in prayer and I trust in God we shall all meet and live eternally in heaven there to receive the accomplishment of all happiness where every tear shall be wiped away from our eyes and every sad thought from our hearts And so God bless this Kingdom and Jesus have mercy upon my soul. AN EPITAPH ON THE Earl of Strafford HEre lies wise and valiant Dust Huddled up 'twixt Fit and Iust Strafford who was hurried hence 'Twixt Treason and Convenience He spent his time here in a mist A Papist yet a Calvinist His Prince's nearest Ioy and Grief He had yet wanted all Relief The Prop and Ruin of the State The peoples violent Love and Hate One in extreames lov'd and abhorr'd Riddles lye here and in a word Here lies Bloud and let it lye Speechless still and never cry Exuâ—ge cinis tuumque â—â—us qui potis es scribe Epitaphium Nequit Wentworthi non esse facundus vel cinis Effare Marmor quem caepisti Comprehendere Macte Exprimere Candidius meretur urna quam quod rubris Notatum est litteris Elogium Atlas Regiminis Monarchichi hie jacet â—assus Secunda Orbis Britannici Intelligentia Rex Politiae Prorex Hiberniae Straffordii virtutum Comes Mens Iovis Mercurii ingenium lingua Apollinis Cui Anglia Hiberniam debuit seipsum Hibernia Sydus Aquilonicum quo sub rubicunda vespera accidente Nox simul dies visa est dextroque oculo flevit Laevoque laetata est Anglia Theatrum Honoris itemque
him though he either upon his friends intimation or his own observation of the danger he was in among those who are prone to insult most when they have objects and opportunities most capable of their rudeness and petulancy escaped in a disguise wearing a Vizard lawfully to save himself as others did then to destroy him and the kingdom that night or next morning betimes in a Skuller the Sea being less tempestuous than the Law to Holland where he safely heard himself charged with High-treason in four particulars 1. For not Reading as the Faction would have him the Libell Sir Iohn Clue drew up against the Lord Treasurer Weston in the Parliament 4. Caroli 2. For threatning the Judges in the matter of Ship-money 3. For his judgment in the Forrest business when he was Lord Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas 4. For drawing the Declaration after the Dissolution of the last Parliament And staid so long until he saw 1. The whole Plot he indeavoured to obviate in the buds of it ripened to as horrid a Rebellion as ever the Sun saw 2. The Charges against Buckingham Weston Strafford himself c. ending in a Charge against the King himself whose Head he would always affirm was aimed at through their sides 3. The great grievance of an 120000l in the legal way of Ship-money redressed and eased by being commuted for a burden of 60. millions paid in the Usurped ways of Assessements Contribution Loans Venturing Publick Faith Weekly Meals the Pay of the three Armies Sequestrations Decimations those Bells and Dragons of the Wealth and plenty of England 4. The great fear that the King would make a great part of the kingdom Forrests turned into greater that the Conspirators would have the whole kingdom into a Wilderness 5. And the Declaration he drew about the evil Complexion of the last Parliament made good with advantage by the unheard of and horrid outrages of this In a word he lived to see the Seditious act far worse things against the King and kingdom than his very fear and foresight suspected of them though he gave shreud hints and guesses And to see God do more for the King and kingdom than his hope could expect for he saw the horrid Murder of Charles I. and the happy Restauration of Charles II. enduring eight years Banishment several months Confinement and Compositions amounting to 7000l THE Life and Death OF Sr FRANCIS VVINDEBANK WHEN neither sincerity in Religion which he observed severely in private and practised exemplarily in publick nor good affections to the Liberties of the Subject in whose behalf he would ever and anon take occasion to Address himself to his Majesty to this purpose Your poor Subjects in all humbleness assure your Majesty that their greatest confidence is and ever must be in your grace and goodness without which they well know nothing that they can frame or desire will be of safety or value to them Therefore are all humble Suiters to your Majesty that your Royal heart will graciously accept and believe the truth of theirs which they humbly pretend as full of truth and confidence in your Royal Word and Promise as ever People reposed in any of their best Kings Far from their intentions it is any way to incroach upon your Soveraignty or Prerogative nor have they the least thought of stretching or enlarging the former Laws in any sort by any new interpretations or additions The bounds of their desires extend no further than to some necessary explanation of that which is truly comprehended within the just sence and meaning of those Laws with some moderate provision for execution and performance as in times past upon like occasion hath been used They humbly assure Your Majesty they will neither loose time nor seek any thing of your Majesty but that they hope may be fit for dutyful and Loyal Subjects to ask and for a Gracious and Iust King to grant When neither the Services he performed in publick not the Intercessions he made in private in behalf of the People of England could save so well-affected religious able active publick-spirited charitable and munificent a Person as Sir Iohn Finch Baron Finch of Foreditch It s no wonder Sir Francis Windebank was loath to hazzard his life in a scuffle with an undisciplined Rabble which he freely offered to be examined by any free and impartial Courts of Justice where the multitude should receive Laws and not give them and reason should set bounds to passion truth to pretences Lawes duly executed to disorders and charity to fears and jealousies when the sacredness of some great Personages and the honour of others when the best Protestants and the best Subjects were equally obnoxious to the undistinguished Tumults which cried out against Popery and Ill-counsel but struck at all men in power and favour Sir Francis rather ashamed than afraid to see the lives and honours of the most eminent persons in the Nation exposed to those rude Assemblies where not reason was used as to men to perswade but force and terror as to beasts to drive and compel to whatsoever tumultuary Patrons shall project left the kingdom as unsafe where Factions were more powerful than Laws and persons chose rather to hear than to see the miseries and reproaches of their Country waiting for an Ebbe to follow that dreadful and swelling Tide upon this Maxime That the first indignation of a mutinous multitude is most fierce and a small delay breaks their consent and innocence would have a more candid censure if at all at distance Leave he did his place and preferment like those that scatter their Treasure and Jewels in the way that they might delude the violence of their greedy pursuers troubled for nothing more than that the King was the while left naked of the faithful ministry of his dearest Servants and exposed to the infusions and informations of those who were either complices or mercenaries to the Faction to whom they discovered his most Private Counsels Those aspersions laid upon him by those that spoke rather what they wished than what they believed or knew he would say should like clouds vanish while his reputation like the Sun a little muffled at present recovered by degrees its former and usual luster Time his common saying sets all well again And time at last did make it evident to the world that though he and others might be subject to some miscarriages yet such as were far more repairable by second and better thoughts than those enorminous extravagancies wherewith some men have now even wildred and almost quite lost both Church and State The event of things at last demonstrating that had the King followed the worst counsels that could have been offered him Church and State could not have been brought into that condition they were presently in upon the pretended Reformation Among the many ill consequences whereof this was not the least remarkable viz. that those very slanderers reputation and credit I mean that little
they did he was resolved not to betray the Charge committed to him by and confirmed to him by Ancient Descent And answering the pretended Presidents interruption and false suggestion That he was called to an account by the Authority of the People of England by whose Election he was admitted King That the kingdom descended not to him by Election but by Hereditary Right derived from above a thousand years That by refusing an unlawful power he stood more apparently than they for the Priviledges of the People of England whose Authority was shewed in Parliament Assemblies but that there appeared none of the Lords whose presence and not only theirs but the Kings also was required to the Constituting of a Parliament but that neither one nor both Houses nor any Iudicatory upon Earth had power to call the King of England to account much less some certain Iudges chosen by his Accusers and masked with the authority of the Lower House That he could not make his defence unless they shewed their authority since it would be the same offence to acknowledg a Tyrannical power as to resist a Lawful one And upon the prating Fore-mans bold suggestion That they were satisfied in their own authority Replying rationally That it was not his own apprehension nor theirs neither that ought to decide the Controversie Whereupon the most Excellent King was commanded away with Tomlinson and Hackers guard parting with the Conspiracy without moving his Hat with these words Well Sir and saying on the sight of the Sword I do not fear that And nothing else observable save that the Silver Top of his Staffe falling off at the reading of the Charge he wondred at it and seeing none to take it up he stooped for it himself and put it in his Pocket Munday Ian. 22. after three bloudy Harangues at their Fast Ian. 21. on Gen. 9. 6. Mat. 7. 1. Psal. 149. 6 7. Three Texts as miserably tormented that day as his Majesty was the next these men always first being a torment to Scripture the great Rule of Right and then to all that lived according to it They being perplexed with the Kings Demurrer to their unheard of Jurisdiction resolved among themselves after some debate to maintain it as boldly That if the King offer to dispute the same again the President shall tell him That the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament have Constituted the Court whose power may not be permitted to be disputed by him That if he refused to Answer it shall be accounted a Contumacy to the Court. That if he Answer with a Salvo of his Prerogative above the Court he shall be required to Answer possitively Yea or No. Whereupon the King appearing to the no little disturbance of the Spectators and astonishment of the Conventicle its self not without interruption from the desparate Ringleader of the pack insisted on these Heads without any other Answer for their own power than their own authority That he less regarded his Life than his Conscinece his Honor the Laws and Liberties of the People which that they might not all perish together was a sufficient reason why he could not make his defence before these Iudges and acknowledge a new form of Iudicature For what power had ever any Iudges to erect a Iudicature against their King or by what power said he was it ever granted Not by Gods Laws which on the contrary command obedience to Princes nor by the Laws of the Land which injoyn all Accusations to be read in the Kings Name nor do the Laws give any power to the Lower House of judging even the meanest Subject Nor lastly doth their power flow from any authority which might be pretended extraordinary delegated from the people since they had not asked the consent so much as of every tenth man in this matter and that if power without Laws may set up Courts he knew not how any man could be safe in his Life or Estate it being not his own but the whole kingdoms that he stood upon The Traytor in grain still ever and anon interrupting the Kings Speech and telling him That the Court was abundantly satisfied of their authority and would not admit of any reasons that should detract from their power At last prest upon him to be mindful of his Doom But where said the King in all the world is that Court in which no place is left for reason You shall find Sir answered the President that this very Court is such a one Whereupon after several appearances which they had to see whether they could satisfie their dissenting Members or whether they could alter the judgment of the resolved King Remember said he then when he was going away that it is your King from whom you turn away your ear in vain certainly will my Subjects expect justice from you who stop your ears to your King ready to Plead his Cause It s very remarkable how that in this and all other transactions of his Majesty he appeals to the Reason and Law of the world which is impartial to all Mankind His adversaries to themselves vouching both the truth of their Charge and the Jurisdiction of their Court with their own authority being neither able to prove his Majesty guilty except by their own testimony or if guilty to be tried by any Court on earth but by their own Assertion Nay they that alledged the Parliament of England for the Authority against whom the King should transgress and that by which they proceeded would not receive the Kings earnest and reiterated Appeal to the Lords and Commons who made up that Parliament Long were they troubled how they might assert their power longer how they might execute it some would have Majesty suffer like the basest of Malefactors and that in his Robes of Habiliaments of State that at once they might dispatch a King and Monarchy together Others malice proposed other horrid violences to be offered to him but not to be named among men the men were indeed huge ready at inventing torments being a company of Executioners got together rather than Judges and a pack of Hangmen rather than a Court till at last they thought they should gratifie their ambition to triumph over Monarchy sufficiently if they Beheaded him and so waving all his Pleas for himself and the Allegations of Mankind for him after several unworthy Harangues consisting of nothing else but bold affirmations of that power whereof they had no one ground but those affirmations and reflections on the Kings Demurrer as a delay to their proceedings when indeed he hastened them by offering that towards the peace of the kingdom in one hour that was not thought of in several years Notwithstanding his seasonable caution to them That an hasty Sentence once past might be sooner Repented of than Recalled Conjuring them as they loved the Liberty of the People and the Peace of the Kingdom they so much pretended for they would receive what he had to
conscience I could subscribe to the Church of Rome what should have kept me here before my imprisonment to indure the libelling and the slander and the base usage that hath been put upon me and these to end in this question for my life I say I would know a good reason for this First my Lords is it because of any pledges I have in the world to sway me against my conscience No sure for I have neither Wife nor Children to cry out upon me to stay with them And if I had I hope the calling of my conscience should be heard above them Is it because I was loth to leave the honor and profit of the place I was risen too Surely no for I desire your Lordships and all the world should know I do much scorn the one and the other in comparison of my conscience Besides it cannot be imagined by any man but that if I should have gone over to them I should not have wanted both honor and profit and suppose not so great as this I have here yet sure would my conscience have served my self of either less with my conscience would have prevailed with me more than greater against my conscience Is it because I lived here at ease and was loth to venture my loss of that not so neither for whatsoever the world may be pleased to think of me I have led a very painful life and such as I would have been content to change had I well known how and would my conscience have served me that way I am sure I might have lived at far more ease and either have avoided the barbarous Libelling and other bitter grievous scorns which have been put upon me or at least been out of the hearing of them Not to trouble your Lordships too long I am so innocent in the business in Religion so free from all practise or so much as thought of practise for any alteration unto Popery or any blemishing the true Protestant Religion established in England as I was when my mother first bore me into the world And let nothing be spoken but truth and I do here challenge whatsoever is between Heaven or Hell that can be said against me in point of my Religion in which I have ever hated dissimulation And had I not hated it perhaps I might have been better for worldly safety then now I am but it can no way become a Christian Bishop to halt with God Lastly if I had any purpose to blast the true Religion established in the Church of England and to introduce Popery sure I took a wrong way to it for my Lords I have staid more going to Rome and reduced more that were already gone then I believe any Bishop or Divine in this Kingdom hath done and some of them men of great abilities and some persons of great place and is this the way to introduce Popery My Lords if I had blemished the true Protestant Religion how could I have brought these men to it And if I had promised to introduce Popery I would never have reduced these men from it And that it may appear unto Your Lordships how many and of what condition the persons are which by Gods blessing upon my labors I have setled in the true Protestant Religion established in England I shall briefly name some of them though I cannot do it in order of time as I converted them Henry Berkinstead of Trinity Colledge Oxon seduced by a Iesuite and brought to London The Lords and others conceiving him to be Berchinhead the Author of all the Libellous Popish Oxford Aulieusses against the Parliament at the naming of him smiled which the Archbishop perceiving said My Lords I mean not Berchinhead the Author of Oxford Aulicus but another Two Daughters of Sir Richard Lechford in Surrey sent towards a NVNNERY Two Scholars of Saint Iohns Colledge Cambridge Toppin and Ashton who got the French Ambassadors pass and after this I allowed means to Toppin and then procured him a fellowship in Saint Iohns And he is at this present as hopeful a young man as any of his time and a Divine Sir William Webbe my kinsman and two of his Daughters And his Son I took from him and his Father being utterly decayed I bred him at my own charge and he is a very good Protestant A Gentleman brought to me by Mr. Chesford his Majesties Servant but I cannot recal his name The Lord Mayo of Ireland brought to me also by Mr. Chesford The Right Honorable the Lord Duke of Buckingham almost quite gone between the Lady his Mother and Sister The Lady Marquess Hamilton was setled by my direction and she dyed very religiously and a Protestant Mr. Digby who was a Priest Mr. Iames a Gentleman brought to me by a Minister in Buckingham-shire as I remember Dr. Heart the Civilian my Neighbours Son at Fulham Mr. Christopher Seaburne a Gentleman of an ancient Family in Hereford-shire The Right Honorable the Countess of Buckingham Sir William Spencer of Parnton Mr. Shillingworth The Sons and Heirs of Mr. Winchcombe and Mr. Wollescott whom I sent with their friends liking to Wadham-Colledge Oxford and received a Certificate Anno 1631. of their continuing in conformity to the Church of England Nor did ever any one of these I have named relapse again but only the Countess of Buckingham and Sir William Spencer it being only in Gods power not mine to preserve them from relapse And now let any Clergy-man of England come forth and give a better accompt of his zeal to the Church To the Accusation against him about Imposing a Liturgy upon the Church of Scotland he gave in this true Narrative DOctor Iohn Maxwell the late Bishop of Rosse came to me from his Majesty It was during the time of a great sickness which I had Anno 1629. which is eleven years since The cause of his coming was to speak with me about a Lyturgie for Scotland At this time I was so extream ill that I saw him not And had death which I then expected daily seased on me I had not seen this heavy day After this when I was able to sit up he came to me again and told me It was his Majesties pleasure that I should receive some instructions from some Bishops of Scotland concerning a Lyturgrie that he was imployed about it I told him I was clear of opinion that if his Majesty would have a Lyturgie setled there different from what they had already it was best to take the English Lyturgie without any variation that so the same Service-book might pass through all his Majesties Dominions To this he replied that he was of a contrary opinion and that not he only but the Bishops there thought their Country-men would be much better satisfied if a Lyturgie were made by their own Bishops but withal that it might be according to the form of our English Book I added if this were the resolution I would do nothing till I might by Gods blessing have
they had done great things for their Sovereign they might suffer greater THE LIFE ACTIONS AND DEATH OF Sir THOMAS WENTWORTH Earl of STRAFFORD Protoâ— Martyr for Religion and Allegiance SIR Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford owed his Birth to the best govern'd City London his Breeding to the best modelled School York and a most exact Colledge St. Iohns in Cambr. his Accomplishments to the best Tutors Travel and Experience and his Prudence to the best School a Parliament whither he came in the most active and knowing times with a strong Brain and a large Heart His Activity was eminent in his Country and his Interest strong in King Charles's Parliament where he observed much and pertinently spake little but home contrived effectuallyâ— but closely carried his Designs successfully but reservedly He apprehended the publick Temper as clearly and managed it to his purposes as orderly as any man He spoke least but last of all with the advantage of a clear view of others Reasons and the addition of his own He and his leading Confidents moulded that in a private Conference which was to be managed in a publick Assembly He made himself so considerable a Patriot that he was bought over to be a Courtier so great his Abilities that he awed a Monarchy when disobliged and supported it when engaged the Balance turning thither where this Lord stood The North was reduced by his Prudence and Ireland by his Interest He did more there in two years then was done in two hundred before 1. Extinguishing the very Relicks of the War 2. Setting up a standing Army 3. Modelling the Revenue 4. Removing the very Root and Occasions of new Troubles 5. Planting and Building 6. Setling Ecclesiastical and Civil Courts 7. Recovering the hearts of the People by able Pastors and Bishops by prudent and sober Magistrates by Justice and Protection by Obligations and Rewards 8. Recovering the Churches Patrimony and Discipline 9. Imploying most able and faithful Ministers and Instruments 10. Taking an exact view of all former Presidents Rules and Proceedings 11. An exact correspondence with his Majesty and the Favourites of England None was more conversant in the Factions Intrigues and Designs than he when a Common-wealths-man none abler to meet with them than he when a States-man he understood their Methods kenned their Wiles observed their Designs looked into their Combinations comprehended their Interest And as King Charles understood best of any Monarch under Heaven what he could do in point of Conscience So his Strafford apprehended best of any Counsellour under the Sun what he could do in point of Power He and my Lord of Canterbury having the most particular account of the State of Great Britain and Ireland of any persons living Nature is often hidden sometimes overcome seldom extinguished yet Doctrine and Discourse had much allayed the severity of this Earls Nature and Custom more None more austere to see to none more obliging to speak with He observed pauses in his discourse to attend the motion and draw out the humour of other men at once commanding his own thoughts watching others His passion was rather the vigour than the disorder of his wel-weighed Soul which could dispense its anger with as much prudence as it managed any Act of State He gave his Majesty safe counsel in the prosperity of his Affairs and resolute advice in Extremity as a true Servant of his Interest rather than of his Power So eminent was he and my Lord of Canterbury that Rebellion despaired of success as long as the first lived and Schism of licentiousness as long as the second stood Take my Lord of Strafford as accused and you will find his Integrity and Ability that he managed his whole Government either by the Law or the Interest of his Country Take him as dying and you will see his Parts and Piety his Resolution for himself his Self-resignation for the Kingdoms good his Devotion for the Church whose Patrimony he forbad his Son upon his Blessing Take him as dead you will find him glorious and renowned in these three Characters The first of the best King I looked upon my Lord of Strafford as a Gentleman whose great Abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than ashamed to imploy him in the greatest Affairs of State for those were prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great Errors and many Enemies whereof he could not but contract great store while moving in so high a Sphere and so vigorous a lustre he must nedds as the Sun raise many envious Exhalations which condensed by a popular Odium were capable to cast a Cloud upon the brightest Merit and Integrity Though I cannot in my judgment approve all he did driven it may be by the necessities of Times and the Temper of that People more than led by his own disposition to any heighth 〈◊〉 â—igour of Action c. The second of the best Historian He was a person of a generous Spirit fitted for the noblest Exercises and the most difficult parts of Empire his Counsels were bold yet just and he had a vigour proper for the execution of them Of an eloquence next that of his Masters Masculine and excellent He was no less affectionate to the Church than to the State and not contented while living to defend the Government and Patrimony of it he commended it also to his Son when he was about to die and charged his abhorrency of Sacriledge His Enemies called the majesty of his Mind in his Lieutenancie pride and the undaunted execution of his Office on the Contumacious the Insolency of his Fortune He was censured for that fatal errour of following the King to London and to the Parliament after the Pacification at York And 't was thought that if he had gone over to his Charge in Ireland he might have secured both himself and that Kingdom for his Majesties Service But some attribute this Counsel to a necessity of Fate whose first stroke is at the Brain of those whom it designs to ruine and brought him to feel the effects of popular Rage which himself in former Parliaments had used against Government and to find experience of his own devices upon the Duke of Buckingham Providence teacheth us to abhor over-sine Counsels by mischiefs they often bring upon their Authors The third of Common Fame A Gentleman he was of rare Choice and singular Endowments I mean of such as modelled fashioned accomplished him for State-concernments of a searching and penetrating Judgment nimble apprehension ready and fluent in all results of Council most happy in the vein of Speech which was alwayes round perspicuous and express much to the advantage of his sense and so full stocked with Reason that he might be rather said to demonstrate than to argue As these Abilities raised him to State-Administration so his addressing his applying those Abilities so faithfully in promotion of the Royal Interest soon rendred him
Table-book and Common-place rather than his heart Iulius Caesar said other mens wives should not be loose but his should not be suspected And this great Lord advised the Primate of Ireland that as no Clergy man should be in reality guilty of compliance with a Schism so should not he in appearance Adding when the Primate urged the dangers on all sides as Caesar once said You are too old to fear and I too sickly A true saying since upon the opening of his Body it was found that he could not have lived according to the course of Nature six moneths longer than he did by the malice of his Enemies his own Diseases having determined his life about the same period that the Nations distemper did and his Adversaries having prevailed nothing but that that death which he just paying as a debt to Nature should be in the instant hallowed to a Sacrifice for Allegiance and he that was dying must be martyred and just when he put off his Coronet Put on a Crown Philip the I. of Spain said he could not compass his design as long as Lerma lived nor the Scots theirs as long as Strafford acts and with his own single worth bears up against the Plot of three Kingdoms like Sceva in the breach with his single resolution duelling the whole Conspiracy That now being resolved into two Committees the one of Scots the other of English first impeach him Decemb. 17. of High Treason in the House of Lords though so Innocent and so well satisfied in his own present integrity that when he might have kept with an Army that loved him well at York to give Law to those conspitors he came to receive Law from them and when he might have been secure in his Government and in the Head of an Army in Ireland he came to give an account of that Government and Army in England laying down his own Sword to be subject to others and teaching how well he could Govern by shewing how well he could obey yea when he might have retired and charged his Adversaries as Bristow did Buckingham with that conspiracy for the overthrow of Government wherewith they charged him He being able to prove how P. H. H. K. S. H. S. that thirst most for his blood had correspondence with and gave counsel to the Kings Enemies in Scotland and Ireland and England when they could prove no more for the alteration of the Law against him than that he gave advice to the King according to his place to support them yet he tamely yeilded his whole life to be scanned by those that could not be safe but when he was dead and having mannaged the great trust reposed in him by the Laws of Antient Parliaments was not afraid to submit himself to the censure of this Rather than hide his head in some Forreign Nation that offered him Sanctuary saying That England had but one good head and that was to be Cut off meaning His he would loose in his own scorning for services done his own King to beg protection of another The brave man judging that he deserved death that minute he feared it and that he was fit to be Condemned that day he refused to be Tryed appeared in Parliament and Counsel with that resolution that afterwards he appeared at the Bar with till the Scots thinking their guilt could not be pardoned till his Innocence was Impeached and that their vast Accounts amounting to 514128l 9s could not pass till he was laid up to give up his as he was in Decemb. 1640 and the Scots going with the English first Impeached and afwards Ian. 30. compleated their Charge against him which drawn up in two hundred sheets of paper was brought to the Peers by Pym and how Sir Henry V. short Notes multiplied were read Feb. 24. to the Peers before the King and Feb. 25. to the Commons consisting of 28. Articles to which having Counsel allowed him in matter of Law after three dayes debate about it and they allowed to plead but in matters they were restrained to by the House he answered in Westminster-Hall before the King Queen the Prince and Courtiers in an apartment by themselves and the whole Parliament an Audience equal to the greatness of the Earls Person and the Earl of Lindsey being Lord High Constable for the day the Earl of Arundel Lord High Steward on the 22. of March as to matter of Fact in general and the Court adjourning to the next day then in particular to 13 Articles put to him of a suddain as first that he had withdrawn 24000l out of Exchequer of Ireland for his own use Secondly That the Irish Garrisons had in the years 1635 1636. c. been maintained with English Treasure Thirdly That he had preferred infamous and Popish persons such as the Bishop of Waterford c. in the Irish Church To which notwithstanding the surprize of a Vote wherein the Parliament of Ireland charged him of High Treason a Copy whereof was delivered sealed to the Lords at that very instant with purpose to discompose him An emergency that transported him indeed to say in passion That there was a Conspiracy against him which when the Faction aggravated as if he charged with High Treason by both Houses of Parliaments should charge both Parliaments with a Conspiracy though he execused it as meant of particular and private persons â—raving pardon for the inconsiderateness of the expression He answered with an undaunted Presence of spirit with firm Reason and powerful Eloquence to this purpose that the Money he had taken for himself was no other than what Money he had paid for the King before Secondly That he had eased the Kingdom of those Garrisons wherewith it had been burthened during his Predecessors time Thirdly That the Bishop of Waterford had deceived him and satisfied the Law and the next day after Marchâ— 24. to these Articles all the forementioned 28. Articles being 〈◊〉 urged he replyed thus The First Article insisted on That 31. Aâ—â—â—â—sâ—â—33 â—â—33 he being Lord President of the North and Justice of Peace publickly at the York Aâ—â—â—zes declared that some Justices were all for Law but they should find that the Kings little singer should be heavier than the loines of the Law testified by Sir David Fowls c. The Earles Reply That Sir David Fowls was his profest Enemy that his words were clearly inverted that his expression was That the little â—inger of the Law if not moderated by the Kings gracious Clemency was heavier then the Kings loins That these were his words he verified First by the occasion of them they being spoken to some whom the Kings favour had then enlarged from imprisonment at York as a motive to their thank fulness to his Majesty Secondly By Sir William Pennyman a Member of the House who was then present and heard the words which Sir William declaring to be true the House of Commons required Iustice of the Lords against him because he had Voted the Articles as
conceived it was not more then the hainousness of their Offences deserved yet had they Petitioned and submitted the next day it would wholly have been remitted 15. That he perswaded his Majesty to an offensive War against the Scots declaring that the Demands made by the Scots this Parliament was a sufficient Cause of a War besides that on the 10th of Octob. 1640. he said That the Nation of Scots were Rebells and Traytors adding that if it pleased his Master to send him back again as he was going to England he would leave the Scottish Nation neither Root nor Branch excepting those that took the aforesaid Oath The Earles Reply That he called all the Scottish Nation Traytors and Rebells no one Proof is produced and though he is hasty in speech yet was he never so defective of his reason as to speak so like a mad Man for he knew well his Majesty was a Native of that Kingdom and was confident many of that Nation were of as Heriock Spirits and as Faithful and Loyal Subjects as any the King had As to the other words of his rooting out the Scots Root and Branch he conceives a short Reply may serve they being proved by a single Testimony onely which can make no sufficient faith in case of life Again the witnesse was very much mistaken if not worse for he deposeth that these words were spoken the tenth day of October in Ireland whereas he was able to evidence he was at that time in England and had been so neer a month before 18. That when the Parliament 13 April 1640. entred upon the Grievances in Church and State the Earl to whom with the Arch Bishop of Canterbury the King referred the business of that Parliament advised his Majesty to press the Commons to supply his Majesties occasions against the Scots before they Redressed any Grievances And when they were in debate about the Supplies perswaded his Majesty to dissolve them by telling him they had denyed to supply him Adding after the dissolution of that Parliament that the King having tried the Affections of his people he was loosed and absolved from all Rules of Government and was to do every thing that Power would admit and that since his Majesty had tried all ways and was refused he should be Acquitted both by God and Man and that he had an Army in Ireland which he might imploy to reduce this Kingdom to obedience The Earles Reply That he was not the Principal Cause of Dissolving the last Parliament for before he came to the Council-table it was Voted by the Lords to Demand twelve Subsidies and that Henry Vane was Ordered to Demand no lesse But he coming in the interim he perswades the Lords to Vote it again Declaring to his Majesty then present and them the danger of the Breach of Parliament Whereupon it was Voted that if the Parliament would not grant twelve Subsidies Sir Henry Vane would descend to eight and rather than fail to six But Sir Henry not observing his Instructions demanded twelve only without abatement or going lower That the height of this Demand urged the Parliament to deny and their denial moved his Majesty to Dissolve the Parliament so that the chief occasion of the Breach thereof `was as he conceived Sir Henry Vane He confesseth that at the Council-table he Advised the King to an Offensive War against the Scots but it was not untill all fair means to prevent a War had been first attempted Again others were as much for a Defensive War and it might be as free to Vote one as the other Lastly Votes at a Council-board are but bare Opinions and Opinions if pertinaciously maintained may make an Heretick but cannot a Traytor And to Sir Henry Vanes Deposition he said it was onely a single testimony and contradicted by four Lords of the Iunto-tables depositions viz. The Earle of Northumberland the Marquess of Hamilton the Bishop of London and the Lord Cottington who all affirmed that there was no question made of this Kingdome which was then in obedience but of Scotland that was in Rebellion And Sir Henry Vane being twice Examined upon Oath could not remember whether he said this or that Kingdome and the Notes after offered for more proof were but the same thing and added nothing to the Evidence to make it a double Testimony or to make a Privy-councellors Opinion in a Debate at Council High-treason 19. That after the Dissolution of the Parliament April 5. 1640. The said Earl Advised the King to go on vigorously to Levy Ship-money and other Illegal Payments suing in Star-chamber and Imprisoning several that neglected either to gather or pay those Levies Particularly the Londoners who for not Collecting the Ship-money so vigorously as they should have done and refusing to give in the names of such Citizens as were able to Lend Moneyâ— upon the Loan of an 100000l demanded of them were threatned by him at the Council-table That they deserved to be put to Fine and Ransom and that no good would be done with them till an Example were made of them till they were laid by the Heeles and some of the Aldermen Hanged up The Earles Reply That there was a present necessity for Money that all the Council-board had Voted with yea before him That there was then a Sentence in Star-chamber upon the Opinion of all the Iudges for the Legality of the Tax of Ship-money and he thought he might advice the King to take what the Iudges had declared was by Law his own He consessed that upon the Refusal of so just a Service the better to quicken the Citizenâ— to the Payment of Ship-money he said They deserved to be Fined Which words perhaps might be circumspectly delivered but conceives cannot be a motive to Treason especially when no ill consequence followed upon them And it would render Men in a sad condition if for every hasty Word or Opinion given in Council they should be Sentenced as Traytors But that he said It were well for the Kings Service if some of the Aldermen were hanged up he utterly denieth Nor is it proved by any but Alderman Garway who is at best but a single Testimony and therefore no sufficient Evidence in Case of Life 20. That he had Advised the King to seise upon the Bullion in the Mint and when the Merchants whose Bullion was seized on to the value of 50000l waited upon him at his house to represent to him the consequence of discrediting the Mint and hindering the Importance of Bullion Answered them that it was the course of other Princes in those exigencies to which the undutifulness of London kinder to the Rebells than to his Majesty had reduced the King And that he had directed the Imfusing of money with Brasse Alleadging to the Officers of the Mint when they represented to him the Inconvenience of that Project that the French King had an Army of horse to Levy his Taxes and search mens Estates and telling my Lord Cottington that
stood by that that was a point worth his consideration The Earles Reply That he expected some proof to evidence the two first particulars but he hears of none For the following words he confessed probably they might escape the Door of his Lips nor did he think it much amiss considering the present posture to call that Faction Rebels As for the last words objected against him in that Article he said that being in conference with some of the Londoners there came to his hands at that present a Letter from the Earl of Lichester then in Paris wherein were the Gazettes enclosed relating that the Cardinal had given order to â—evy Money by Souldiers This he onely told the Lord Cottington standing by but he made not the least Application thereof to the English affairs 21. That being Lieutenant-General of the Northern Forces against the Scots 1639. he Imposed 6d per diem on the Inhabitants of York-shire for the maintenance of Trained Bands by his own Authority threatning them that refused with imprisonment and other penalties little below those inflicted for High-Treason The Earles Reply That his Majâ—sty coming to York it was thought necessary in regard the Enemy was upon the Borders to keep the Trained-bands on foot for the defence of the Country and therefore the King directed him to Write to the Free-holders in York-shire to declare what they would do for their own defence that they freely offered a months pay nor did any man grudge against it Again it was twice propounded to the great Council of Peâ—rs at York that the King approved it as a just and necessary act and none of the Council contradicted it which he conceived seemed a tacit allowance of it That though his Majesty had not given him special Order therein nor the Gentry had desired it yet he conceived he had power enough to Impose that Tax by Vertue of his Commission But he never said that the Refusers should he guilty of little less than High-â—reason which being proved by Sir William Ingram he was but a single Testimony and one who had formerly mistaken himself in what he had deposed 22. That he being Lieutenant-General against the Scots suffered New-Castle to be Lost to them with design to incense the English against the Scots And that he ordered my Lord Conway to Fight them upon disadvantage the said Lord having satisfied him that his Forces were not equal to the Scots out of a malicious desire to Engage the two Kingdomes in a National and Bloudy War The Earles Reply That he admired how in the third Article he being charged as an Incendiary against the Scots is now in this Article made their Confederate by Betraying New-Castle into their hands But to answer more particularly he said That there were at New-Castle the 24. of August ten or twelve thousand Foot and two thousand Horse under the Command of the Lord Conway and Sir Jacob Ashley and that Sir Jacob had writ to him concerning the Town of New-castle that it was Fortified which also was under his particular Care and for the passage over the River of Tine His Majesty sent special direction to the Lord Conway to secure it and therefore that Lord is more as he conceives responsible for that miscarriage than himself These replies were so satisfactory in themselves and so nobly managed by him that they exceeded the expectation of the Earles Friends and defeated that of his Enemies Insomuch that finding both the number and the weight of their former Articles ineffectual their multitude being not as they designed able to hide their weakness they would needs force him the next day notwithstanding a â—it of the Stone that made it as much as his life was worth to stir abroad which though testified by the Leiutenant of the Tower they measuring the Earles great spirit that scorned to owe his brave Life to ignoble Acts by their own mean one believed not and when convinced aiming at his ruin rather than tryal regarded not to answer others I mean those obscure Notes that Sir Henry Vane whose covetousness having as great a mind to a part of the Earles Estate as others ambition had to the snips of his Power betrayed his trust and honour to satisfie his malice took under his Hat at Council-board May 5. 1040. the day the last Parliament was Dissolved treacherously laid up in his Closet maliciously and by his own Son Harry who must be pretended forsooth as false to the Father as ever the Father had been to his Master and when sent to one Closet finding a little Key there to have ransacked another where these Notes lay conveyed to Master Pym slyly by Master Pym and the Commons who would needs have a conference with the Lords that very afternoon urged so vehemently that the Lords who thought it reasonable that the Earles Evidence might be heard as well as his Adversaries were bassled to a compliance with the Commons in this Vote that the Earl should appear April 13th as he did And when these Notes were Read viz. No danger of a War with Scotland if Offensive not Defensive K. C. H. How can we undertake an Offensive War if we have no money L. L. Ir. Borrow of the City an hundred thousand pounds go on vigorously to Levy Ship-money your Majesty having tried the affections of your People you are absolved and loose from all Rules of Government and to do what Power will admit Your Majesty hath tryed all ways and being refused shall be Acquitted before God and Man And you have an Army in Ireland that you may Imploy to reduce this Kingdom to obedience for I am confident the Scots cannot hold out five months The Town is full of Lords put the Commission of Array on foot and if any of them stir we will make them smart Answered thus calmly and clearly his nature being not overcome nor his temper altered by the arts of his Adversaries That being a Privy Counsellor he conceived he might have the freedom to Vote with others his opinion being as the exigent required It would be hard measure for Opinions Resulting from such Debates to be prosecuted under the notion of Treason And for the main Hint suggested from these words The King had an Army in Ireland which he might Imploy here to reduce this Kingdom he Answereth That it is proved by the single Testimony of one man Secretary Vanâ— not being of validity in Law to create faith in a Case of Debt much less in Life and Death That the Secretaries Deposition was very dubious For upon two Examinations he could not Remember any such words And the third time his Testimony was various but that I should speak such words and the like And words may be very like in Sound and differ in Sense as in the words of my charge here for there and that for this puts an end to the Controversie There were present at this Debate but eight Privy Counsellors in all two are not to be produced
the Arch-bishop and Windebanke Sir Henry Vane affirmeth the words I deny them then there remain four for further Evidence viz. The Marquess Hamilton the Earl of Northumberland the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Cottington who have all declared upon their honour that they never heard me speak those words nay nor the like Lastly suppose though I granted it not that I spake those words yet cannot the word this rationally imply England because the Debate was concerning Scotland as is yielded on all hands because England was not out of the way of obedience as the Earl of Clare observed well and because there was never the least intention of Landing the Irish Army in England as the foresaid Lords of the Privy Council are able to attest Concluding his defence with a sinewy summary and a close recapitulation of what he had said and a gallant Speech to this purpose My Lords THere yet remains another Treason that I should be guilty of The endeavouring to subvert the Fundamental Laws of the Land That they should now be Treason together that is not Treason in any one part of Treason Accumulative that so when all will not do it is woven up with others it should seem very strange Vnder favour my Lords I do not conceive that there is either Statute-law or Common-law that doth declare the endeavouring to subvert the Fundamental Laws to be High-treason For neither Statute-law nor Common-law written that ever I could hear off declareth it so And yet I have been diligent to enquire as I believe you think it doth concern me to do It is hard to be questioned for Life and Honour upon a Law that cannot be shewn There is a Rule I have learned from Sir Edward Cooke De non apparentibus non existentibus eadem ratio Jesuâ— Where hath this fire lain all this while so many hundreds of years without any smoak to discover it till it thus burnt out to consume me and my Children extreame hard in my opinion that punishment should proceed promulgation of Laws punishment by a Law subsequent to the acts done Take it into your consideration For certainly it is now better to be under no Law at all but the will of men than to conform our selves under the protection of a Law as we think and then be punished for a Crime that doth proceed the Law What man can be safe if that be once admitted My Lords It is hard in another respect that there should be no Token set upon this Offence by which we should know it no Admonition by which we should be aware of it If a man pass down the Thames in a Boat and it be Split upon an Anchor and no Buoy be set as a token that there is an Anchor there that party that owes the Anchor by the Maritine Laws shall give satisfaction for the damage done but if it were markâ— out I must come upon my own peril Now where is a mark upon this crime where is the token this is High-treason If it be under water and not above water no humane providence can avail nor prevent my destruction Lay aside all humane wisdome and let us rest upon Divine Revelation if you will condemn me before you forewarn the danger Oh my Lords May your Lordships be pleased to give regard unto the presage of England as never to suffer our selves to be put on those nice points upon such contractive interpretations and these are where Laws are not clear or known If there must be trials of Wits I do humbly beseech you the subject and matter may be somewhat else than the lives and honours of Peers My Lords We find that the Primitive times in the progression of the plain Doctrine of the Apostles they brought the Books of Curious Arts and burned them And so likewise as I conceive it will be wisdome and providence in your Lordships for your posterity and the whole Kingdomes to cast from you into the fire those bloudy and most misterious Volumes of constructive and arbitrary Treasons and to betake your selves to the plain letters of the Law and Statute that telleth us where the crime is and by telling what is and what is not shews us how to avoid it And let us not be ambitious to be more wise and learned in the killing arts than our forefathers were It is now full two hundred and forty years since ever any man was touched for this alledged crime to this height before my self we have lived happily to our selves at home and we have lived gloriously to the world abroad Let us rest contented with that our fathers have left us and not awaken thâ—se sleepy Lions to our own destructions by taking up a few musty Records that have lain so many Ages by the Walls quite forgotten and neglected May your Lordships be nobly pleased to add this to those other misfortunes befallen me for my Sins not for my Treasons that a President should be derived from me of that disadvantage as this will be in the consequent to the whole Kingdome I beseech you seriously to consider it and let not my particular cause be looked upon as you do though you wound me in my interest in the Commonwealth and therefore those Gentlemen say that they speak for the Commonwealth yet in this particular I indeed speak for it and the inconveniencies and mischiefs that will heavily fall upon us For as it is in the first of King Henry the fourth no man will after know what to do or say for fear Do not put My Lords so great difficulties upon the Ministers of State that men of wisdome honour and virtue may not with chearfulness and safety be imployed for the publick If you weigh and measure them by Grains and Scruples the publick affairs of the Kingdom will be laid waste and no man will meddle with them that hath honours issues or any fortunes to loose MY Lords I have now troubled you longer than I should have done were it not for the interest of those dear pledges a Saint in Heaven left me I should be loath my Lords there he stopped What I forfeit for my self it is nothing but that my Indiscretion should forfeit for my Child it even woundeth me to the very soul. You will pardon my infirmity something I should have said but I am not able and sighed therefore let it pass And now my Lords I have been by the blessing of Almighty God taught that the affâ—iction of this life present are not to be compared to the eternal weight of that glory that shall be revealed to us hereafter And so my Lords even so with tranquillity of mind I do submit my self freely and clearly to your Lordships judgements and whether that righteous Iudgement shall be to life or death Te Deum Laudamus A defence every way so compleat That he whom English Scots and Irish combined against in their Testimonies such English as cavied his virtues and power such Scots as feared his wisdom
the Cause and at last produced the overthrow of all their Priviledges they Locked the Door of the House kept the Key thereof in one of their own Pockets held him then Speaker by strong hands in the Chair till they had thundred out their Votes like dreadful Anathemaes against those that should Levy and what was an higher Rant those that should willingly submit to pay it When they check him for admitting the King's Message and move him to put it to the Vote whether their undutiful and ill-natured Declaration about Tunnage and Poundage and what they called Invasion should be carried to the King or no He craved their Pardon being Ordered expressely by his Majesty to leave the House when it was rather a Hubbub than a Parliament and by the noise they made at the close of each Factious Resolve you would take it to be a Moor-fâ—elds Tumult at a Wrestling rather than a Sober Counsel at a Debate when they kept in the Sergeant of the Mace locked the Door shut out the King's Messenger and made a general Out-cry against the Speaker who when the Parliament was Dissolved drew up such a Declaration as satisfied the People that the ground of this Disturbance was not in this or that States-man that they complained but in their own Burgesses who upon removal of those States-men as Duke of B. c. rather increased than abated their Disorders and such an account of the Seditious Party as vindicated the Honour of the King The Ring-leaders of the Sedition Protesting that they came into the House with as much zeal as any others to serve his Majesty yet finding his Majesty offended humbly desired to be the subjects rather of his Majesties mercy than of his power And the wiser sort of their own side censuring them as Tacitus doth Thraseas Paetus as having used a needless and therefore a foolish Liberty of their Tongues to no purpose Sibi Periculum nec aliis Libertatem When he had done so much to assist the Government in Publick Counsels he was not wanting to it in his Private Affairs so obliging he was to the Countrey by an extraordinary Hospitality so serviceable to King and Countrey by his quick and expedite way in all the Commissions of the Peace c. he was intrusted with So happy and faithful in the management of the Queens Revenue so zealous for the promoting of any Design that advanced either the King's Honour or Service that with the unanimous Choice of King and Kingdom then agreeing in few things else he was preferred Lord Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas in place beneath in profit above the Chief Justice of the King's Bench by the same token that some out of design have quitted that to accept of this amongst whom was Sir Edward Mountague in the Reign of King Hen. 8. who being demanded of his Friends the reason of his self-degradation I am now saith he an old man and love the Kitchin above the Hall the warmest place best suiting my age His Writ so much the King confided in him running not Durante bene placito but Quam diu se bene gesserit and his Preferment owed to his Merit not his Purse being the Iudge to use King Iames's speech of Judge Nichols that would give no money because they onely buy justice that intend to sell it he would take none In that Place he had two seemingly inconsistent qualities a great deal of Patience to attend the opening of a Cause he would say He had the most wakening Evidence from the most dreaming speakers and a quick dispatch of it when opened Insomuch that some thought to see in his time in the Common-Pleas and other Courts where he sate what was seen in Sir Moore 's in the High-Court of Chancery That the Courts should rise because there were no more Causes to be tried in them He was very careful to declare the true grounds of the Law to the King and to dispense the exact Justice of it to the People He observed that those who made Laws not onely desperate but even opposite in terms to Maxims of Government were true friends neither to the Law nor Government Rules of State and Law in a well-ordered Common-wealth mutually supporting each other One Palevizine and Italian Gentleman and Kinsman to Scaliger had in one night all his hair changed from black to gray This Honourable Person immediately upon his Publick Imployment put on a publick Aspect such as he who saw him but once might think him to be all pride whilst they that saw him often knew him to have none So great a place must needs raise Envie but withal so great a spirit must needs overcome it Envie and Fame neither his friend neither his fear being compared by him to Scolds which are silenced onely with silence being out of breath by telling their own tales Seriously and studiously to confute Rumors is to confirm them and breed that suspition we would avoid intimating that reality in the story we would deny His supposed Crimes when Chief Iustice as now and upon my Lord Coventry's death when Lord Keeper hear how satisfactorily he answereth in a Speech he made after leave had to speak in the House of Commons in his own defence where indeed there is the account of his whole Life Mr. Speaker I Give you thanks for granting me admittance to your presence I come not to preserve my self and fortunes but your good Opinion of me For I profess I had rather beg my bread from door to door with Date obolum Ballisario your Favour than be never so high and honourable with your displeasure I came not hither to justifie my Words Actions or Opinions but to open my self freely and then to leave my self to the House What disadvantage it is for a man to speak in his own Cause you well know I had rather another should do it but since this House is not taken with words but with truth which I am best able to deliver I presume to do it my self I come not with a set Speech but with my heart to open my self freely and then to leave it to the House but do desire if any word fall from me that shall be misconstrued I may have leave to explain my self For my Religion I hope no man doubts it I being religiously Educated under Chadderton in Emanuel Colledge thirteen years I have been in Grayes-Inn thirteen years a Bencher and a diligent Hearer of Doctor Sibbs who if he were Living would Testifie that I had my chiefest incouragements from him and though I met with many oppositions from many in that house ill-affected in Religion yet I was always supported by him Five years I have been of the King's Counsel but no Actor Avisor or Inventor of any Project Two places I have been preferred unto Chief Justice and Lord Keeper not by any Suit or Merit of my own but by his Majesties free gift In the discharge of those places my hands have never
touched my eyes have never been blinded with any Reward I never byassed for friendship nor diverted for hatred for all that know me know I was not of a vindicative nature I do not know for what particulars or by what means you are drawn into an ill opinion of me since I had the honour to sit in that place you sit in Master Speaker in which I served you with all fidelity and candor Many witnesses there are of the good Offices I did you and resumed expressions of Thankfulness from this House for it for the last day I had share in it no man expressed more symbols of sorrow than I did After three days Adjournment the King desired me it might be Adjourned for a few days more whether was it then in his Majesty much less in me to Dissolve the House But the King sent for me to Whitehall and gave me a Message to the House and commanded me when I had delivered the Message forthwith to come to him and if a question was offered to be put he charged me upon my Allegiance I should put none I do not speak this as a thing I do now merit by but it is known to divers men and to some Gentlemen of this House All that I say is but to beseech you to consider what you would have done in this strait betwixt the King my Master and this Honourable House The Shipping business lieth heavy upon me I am far from justifying that my opinion if it be contrary to the Judgment of this House I submit I never knew of it at the first or ever advised any other I was made Chief Justice four days before the Writ went out for the Port I was sworn sixteen days after and the Writs Issued forth without my privity The King Commanded the then Chief Justice the now Chief Baron and my self to look on the Presidents and to certifie him our Opinions what we thought of it That if the whole Kingdom were in danger it was reasonable and fit to lay the Charge for the Defence of it upon the whole Kingdom and not upon the Port only And Commanded the then Chief Justice my self and the now Chief Baron to return him our Opinions Our Opinions were and we thought it agreeable to Law and Reason That if the whole were in danger the whole should contribute This was about Iune In Michaelmas following the King but by no Advice of mine Commanded me to go to all the Judges for their Opinions upon the Case and to Charge them upon their Allegiance to deliver their Opinions but this not as a binding opinion to themselves but that upon better consideration or reason they might alter but only for his Majesties satisfaction and that he must keep it to his own private use as I conceive the Judges are bound by their Oaths to do I protest I never used any promise or threats to any but did only leave it to the Law and so did his Majesty desire That no speech that way might move us to deliver any thing contrary to our Consciences There was no Judge that Subscribed needed sollicitations to it there were that Refused Hutton and Crook Crook made no doubt of this thing but of the introduction I am of opinion that when the whole Kingdom is in danger whereof the King is Iudge the danger is to born by the whole Kingdom When the King would have sent to Hutton for his Opinion the then Lord Keeper desired to let him alone and to leave him to himself That was all the ill office he did in that business February 26. upon command from his Majesty by the then Secretary of State the Judges did assemble in Sergeants-Inn where then that opinion was delivered and afterwards was inrolled in the Star-chamber and other Courts at which time I used the best arguments as I could where at that time Crook and Hutton differed in Opinion not of the thing but whether the King was sole Judge Fifteen months from the first they all Subscribed and it was Registred in the Star-chamber and other Courts The reason why Crook and Hutton Subscribed was because they were over-ruled by the greater number This was all I did till I came to my Argument in the Exchequer where I argued the Case I need not tell you what my Arguments were they are publick about the Town I delivered my self then as free as any that the King ought to Govern by the positive Laws of the kingdom and not alter but by consent of the Parliament and that if he made use of it as a Revenue or otherwise that this judgement could not hold him but never declared that money should be raised I heard you had some hard opinion of me about this secret business it was far from my business and occasions but in Mr. 〈…〉 absence I went to the Justice-seat when I came there I did both King and Commonwealth good service which I did with extream danger to my self and fortunes left it a thing as advantageous to the Commonwealth as any thing else I never went about to overthrow the Charter of the Forrest but held it a sacred thing and ought to be maintained both for the King and People Two Judges then were that held the King by the Common-law might make a Forrest where he would when I came to be Judge I declared my Opinion to the contrary that the King was restrained and had no power to make a Forrest but in his own Demesn lands I know that there is something laid upon me touching the Declaration that came out the last Parliament it is the King's affair and I am bound without his Licence not to disclose it but I hope I shall obtain leave of his Majesty and then I shall make it appear that in this thing I have not deserved your disfavours and will give good satisfaction in any thing I know that you are wise and that you will not strain things to the uttermost sence to hurt me God did not call David a man after his own heart because he had no failings but because his heart was right with God I conclude all this That if I must not live to serve you I desire I may dye in your good opinion and favour A Speech so franck and clear that it might have removed all suspition so pathetick that it might have melted cruelty into compassion so humbly and submissively managed that they could not but pity him who were resolved to destroy him weeping at the pronouncing of it and when it was over Hyena and Crocodile-like shedding tears and bloud in an instant that day Voting the Author a Traitor and without any regard to the honour of his place and trust the reverence of his years the strictness of his profession and life the many services he did that party of whom he was reckoned one and the many favours he received from them the extent of his charity and the exemplariness of his devotion employ their common Messengers to take
Bruerton by Will bequeathed to Sidney Colledge well nigh three thousand pounds but for haste or some other accident it was so imperfectly done that as Doctor Samuel VVard informed me it was invalid in the rigour of the Law Now Judge Bramston who married the Serjeant's Widdow gave himself much trouble gave himself indeed doing all things gratis for the speedy payment of the money to a farthing and the legal settling thereof on the Colledge according to the true intention of the dead He deserved to live in better times The delivering his judgement on the King's side in the case of Ship-money cost him much trouble and brought him much honour as who understood the consequence of that Maxime Salus populi suprema lex and that Ship-money was thought legal by the best Lawyers Voted down Arbitrarily by the worst Parliament they hearing no Council for it though the King heard all men willingly against it Yea that Parliament thought themselves not secure from it unless the King renounced his right to it by a new Act of his own Men have a touch-stone to try gold and gold is the touch-stone to try men Sir Noy's gratuity shewed that this Judges inclination was as much above corruption as his fortune and that he would not as well he needed not be base Equally intent was he upon the Interest of State and Maxims of Law as which mutually supported each other He would never have a witness interrupted or helped but have the patience to hear a naked though a tedious truth the best Gold lieth in the most Ore and the clearest truth in the most simple discourse When he put on his Robes he put off respects his private affections being swallowed up in the publick service This was the Judge whom Popularity could never flatter to any thing unsafe nor Favour oblige to any thing unjust Therefore he died in peace 1645 when all others were engaged in a War and shall have the reward of his integrity of the Judge of Judges at the great Assize of the World Having lived as well as read Iustinian 's Maxim to the Praetor of Laconia All things which appertain to the well-government of a State are ordered by the Constitution of Kings that give life and vigour to the Law Whereupon who so would walk wisely shall never fail if he propose them both for the rule of his actions For a King is the living Law of his Countrey Nothing troubled him so much as shall I call it the shame or the fear of the consequence of the unhappy Contest between His Excellent Majesty and his meaner Subjects in the foresaid case of Ship-money No enemy being contemptible enough to be despised since the most despicable command greater strength wisdom and interest than their own to the designs of malice or mischief A great man managed a quarrel with Archee the King's Fool but by endeavouring to explode him the Court rendred him at last so considerable by calling the enemies of that person who were not a few to his rescue as the fellow was not onely able to continue the dispute for divers years but received such encouragement from standers by the instrument of whose malice he was as he oft broke out into such reproaches as neither the Dignity of that excellent person's Calling nor the greatness of his Parts could in reason or manners admit But that the wise man discerned that all the Fool did was but a symptome of the strong and inveterate distemper raised long since in the hearts of his Countreymen against the great man's Person and Function This Reverend Judge who when Reader of the Temple carried away the title of the best Lawyer of his time in England and when made Serjeant with fifteen more of whom the Lord Keeper Williams said That he reckoned it one of the Honours of his time that he had passed Writs for the advancement of so many excellent persons Anno 29. Iac. Termino Michaelii had the character of The fairest pleader in England Westminster-Hall was much envied by the Faction upon the same ground that Scaevola was quarrelled with by Fimbria even because totum telum in se recipere he did not give malice a free scope and advantage against him who when the Writ for Ship-money grounded upon unquestionable Presidents and Records for levying Naval Aids by the King 's sole Authority were put in execution and Hambden and Say went to Law with the King the one for four pound two shillings the other for three pound five shilling The inconsiderable summes they were assessed at to the Aid aforesaid went no further than upon this Case put by the King Charles Rex WHen the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned and the whole kingdom in danger whether may not the King by Writ under the Great Seal of England Command all his Subjects in the kingdom at their Charge to provide and furnish such number of Ships with Men Victuals and Ammunition and for such time as he shall think fit for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom from such danger and peril and by Law compel the doing thereof in case of refusal or refractoriness and whether in such cases is not the King the sole Judge both of the danger and when and how the same is to be prevented and avoided To declare his opinion thus MAy it please your most Excellent Majesty we have according to your Majesties Command severally and every man by himself and all of us together taken into our serious consideration the Case and Questions Signed by your Majesty and inclosed in your Letter And we are of opinion That when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned and the whole kingdom in danger your Majesty may by Writ under your Great Seal of England Command all the Subjects of this your kingdom at their Charge to provide and furnish such number of Ships with Men Victual Munition and for such time as your Majesty shall think fit for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom from such peril and danger and that by Law your Majesty may compel the doing thereof in case of refusal or refractoriness And we are also of opinion that in such case your Majesty is the sole Judge both of the danger and when and how the same is to be prevented and avoided Iohn Bramston Richard Hutton George Vernon Iohn Finch Willam Iones Robert Barkley Humphrey Davenport George Crook Francis Crauly Iohn Denham Thomas Trever Richard Weston And afterwards in the Lord Says Case Ter. Hil. Anno 14. Car. Regis in Banco regis with Iones and Berkley to declare That the foresaid Writ being allowed legal the judgment of the Judges upon it consisting of four branches First That the Writ was legal by the King's Prerogative or at leastwise by his Regal power Secondly That the Sheriff by himself without any Jury may make the Assessement Thirdly That the Inland Counties ought to do it at their own Charge and
Oration used not one R Now the letter R is called the dogged and snarling letter This person could not indure a base and unworthy expression of the worst-deserving of all the adversaries because though it became them well to hear ill yet it did not become the other side to speak so it being below a good cause to be defended by evil speaking which might anger but not convince and discover the ill spirit of the party that managed the cause instead of keeping up the merit of the cause that was managed He was sad all his time but grew melancholy in the latter end of it conscience speaking than loudest when men are able to speak least and all sores paining most near night when he was not of Edward the II. mind who looked upon all those as enemies to his Person who reproved his Vices but of Henry V. who favoured those most when in years and a King that dealt most freely with him when young and a Prince A melancholy that was rather serious than sad rather consideration than a grief and his preparation for death rather than his disease leading to it wherein his losses were his greatest satisfaction and his sufferings his most considerable comfort Being infinitely pleased with two things King Charles the Martyrs rational and heroick management of his Cause and Sufferings and the Peoples being more in love with him and his cause since it miscarried than when it prevailedâ— an argument he thought that it was reason and not power something that convinced the conscience and not something that mens estates or persons that was both the ornament and the strength of the Kings side the reason he chearfully paid three thousand five hundred and forty pounds for his Allegiance as he had chearfully kept to it the only two instances of his life that pleased him If any body demand how he could suffer so much as he did at last and do as much as he did at first and how he could lay out so much to pious uses whom it had cost so dear to be a good subject The Spanish Proverb must satisfie him That which cometh from above let no man question Though indeed he was so innocent in that age that he could not be rich and of the same temper and equal fortune with Judge Cateline that Judge in Queen Elizabeths time that had a fancy full of prejudice against any man that writ his name with an alias and took exception against one on this very account saying That no honest man had a double name or came in with an alias And the party asked him as Cambden tells the story in his Remains What exception his Lordship could take against Iesus Christ alias Iesus of Nazareth A kinsman of whom having a cause in the Kings-bench where he had been Lord Cheif Justice was told by the then Lord Chief Justice That his kinsman was his predecessor in that Court and a great Lawyer And answered by the Gentleman thus My Lord he was a very honest man for he left a small estate There is one more of this name Sir George Berkley too who as it was his policy that in all discourses and debates he desired to speak last because he might have the advantage to sum up all the preceding discouses discover their failures and leave the impression of his own upon the Auditory So it shall be his place to be the last in this short mention in reference to whom remembring the old saying Praestat nulla quam pauca dicere de Carthagine Being not able to say much I will not say little of him this Gentlemans virtue forbidding a short and lame account of him as severely as Iohannes Passeravicius Morositis in Thuanus a good conceited Poet and strangely conceited man allowed not under the great curse that his Herse should be burdened with bad funeral verses Sir George Berkley of Benton in the County of Sommerset 450 l. 00 00 With 60 l. per annum setled Only it will not be amiss to insert an honorable Person in this place who though he appeared not with his Majesty so openly at first yet acted cordially and suffered patiently for him to the last I mean the Right Honorable GEORGE Lord BERKLEY Baron of Berkley Mowgray and Seagrave ONe of those honest persons that though ashamed of the Kings usage in London were sorry for the necessity of his removal out of it which left the City liable to the impostures and practices and his friends there obnoxious to the fallacies and violences of a Faction that had all along abused and now awed the Kings leige people that could not before by reason of their pretences discern what was right nor now by reason of their power own it This noble person did not think it adviseable to go from Westminster because his estate lay near the City yet he served the King there because his inclination especially when he was disabused was for Oxford He was of his Majesties opinion at the first Sitting of the Long Parliament that to comply with the Parliament in some reasonable and moderate demands was the way to prevent them from running into any immoderate and unreasonable The stream that is yielded to run smoothly if it be stopped it fometh and rageth but his honest nature being deceived in the confidence he had in others whom he measured by himself that is the advantage the cunning man hath over the honest pitied their unreasonableness rather than repented of his own charity and hope and ever after went along with them in accommodations for peace but by no means concurred in any preparations for war insomuch that when he despaired of reason from the Houses he was contented to deal with the particular Members of them being willing to hearken to Master Waller and some others Proposal about letting in the King to the City by an Army to be raised there according to the Commissions brought to Town by the Lady Aubigney when he could not open his way by the arguments used by him and others in the Convention Being a plain and honest man the factious papers and discourses took not with him they were so forced dark canting and wrested The Kings Declaration being embraced and as far as he durst published and communicated by him because clear rational and honest He might possibly sit so long at Westminster as to be suspected and blamed for adhering to the Rebellion but he was really with the Earls of Suffolk Lincoln Middlesex the Lords Willoughby Hunsdon and Maynard impeached at Westminster of High-treason in the name of the Commons of England for levying war against the King Parliament and Kingdom It may be thought a fault that he vouchsafed the Juncto his company when they debated any overtures of peace but it was his commendation that he retired when the Earl of Essex was Voted General the King the Bishops and Delinquents lands seized on the New Seal made the War prosecuted c. And appeared only to ballance
a good Cobler wherein he would strangely meet with all difficulties imaginable so that it was truly said of him That had he been Privy Counsellour to any other Prince he had been an Oracle carrying with H. 4. all his best Counsel on one Horse A King that was received out of Spain with infinite triumphs when our hopes and Prince and out of his wardship with more when our enjoyment and King March 25. 1625. none of the weaknesses of Youth attended with power and plenty having enervated his solid virtue and so the Kingdom promised its self what it enjoyed as long as he enjoyed himself all the benefits of a happy government His Marriage the first act of state in his Reign except his Fathers Funeral whereat he was a Close-mourner hallowing the ascent to his Throne with a pious act of grief unusual for Kings but such as he who preferred Piety before Grandeur was prudent and happy with the most excellent Lady who shared in the comforts only of his good fortune and in all of his bad Reverencing him not his greatness Henrietta Maria youngest Daughter to H. 4. of France whom he had seen by chance in his way to Spain and who hearing of his adventure thither was pleased to say That he might have had a Wife nearer home to whom he was married at Nostredame in Paris by Proxy and at Canterbury by himself never straying from her as he told his Daughter Elizabeth in his thoughts being chast in his discourse hating all obscenity that might offend the Ears much more in converse allowing no vanity that might blot the honour of any of his Subjects and by whom God blessed him and us with 9 Children viz. 1. Charles Iames born May 13. 1628. 2. Charles II. May 29. 1630. 3. Iames Duke of York 4 September 13. 1633. 4. Henry Duke of Glocester Iuly 8. 1639. 5. Mary Princess of Aurange November 4. 1631. 6. Elizabeth Ian 28. 1635. 7. Anne March 17. 1637. 8. Katherine 9. Henrietta Dutchesâ— of Anjou Iune 16. 1644. His first Parliament notwithstanding it was made up of soft Noble and troublesome Commons both made perverse and wanton by long peace and plenty and desire of change of factious demagogues whose humour men of boundless and ambitious hopes made use of he moderated with a clear account given of the whole administration of Government and a benign answer made to all their Petitions to a concession of a few subsidies towards the VVar with Spain which they set him upon and which notwithstanding the disasters of his Navy by storms going out too late and for want of pay coming home too soon undisciplin'd and wasted and the Plagues raging in London ended in an honourable Peace His Coronation frugal he reserving his Treasure for more necessary occasions than Pomp not out of his own inclination for his repair of Pauls his Navy and other instances demonstrate him magnificent but out of his fatherly regard to the condition he found his Kingdomes Treasures in drained by the Scots and not chearfully supplyed by the English without harsh conditions so unwilling were we when we knew not what to do with our Money to secure the whole of our Estates by allowing him a part and yet improved by him so farr as to serve the majesty of the Crown for 15. Years to support a VVar with two of the greatest Potentates in Europe to supply the King of Sweden and bear the charge of the first Scotch Expedition without any considerable contribution from the people They that made him first Necessitous in order to the making of him Odious decried him for covetous because he rewarded not men according to their boundless expectation but according to their exact merit being liberal not vain and loving to do good to the whole Kingdom rather than to particular persons as Steward of a publick treasure rather than a Lord of his own making his Virtue serve the necessities of the Realm which others Vices would not His second Parliament notwistanding the contracts between Buckingham and Bristol the bitterness of the Remonstrators of the Lower House against him and his Instruments of State yet he sweetened so farr he granting their Petition of Right they bestowing on him five Subsidies that their modesty and his goodness strived which should exceed each other A King Of so much honour that when his French Subjects abused his Queen he durst bravely yet liberally dismiss them though he might look for a War to follow which he valued not when by his Caresses he had melted and obliged the Queen to a contentment choosing a foreign war rather than houshold broyles 2. Of so much sence for Religion as to lay out when his estate was low and his debts high 400000l. upon the relief of the French Protestants in embassies of Peace and designs of VVar though both unsuccessfull the unhappiness of his Ministers not any fault of his 3. Of so much prudent goodness as to restore Delinquents such as A. B. Abbot Lord Say to favour to prefer Wentworth and Savile to advance Dr. Potter and other moderate men a course that if it did not oblige but encourage the faction finding such rewards for being troublesome it was because they had but one grievance really however they pretended many and that was Government it self 4. Of so peaceable and good a nature as to choose rather to settle peace at home and abroad by prudence rather than to finish war by violence this the way of bruits more fashionable in the eye of the world the other the way of men more satisfactory to his own breast 5. Of so much Justice that the greatest witnesse the Earl of Castlehaven was not secure if he offended the Laws of God or Man and of so much clemency that the worst witness Hammilton and the Lord Balmarino was safe if he did but offend him he thinking a Kingdom was so troublesome that no man would sin either to enjoy or keep it He subjected his L. Keeper C. and a L. Treasurer to Tryal for Bribery yet would he hardly admit that his enemies should be brought to tryal for Treasons he designed men no harm and he believed all good of them Men in his time feared Laws not Men. He would say Let me stand or fall by my own Counsel I will choose any misery rather than Sin His Acts were alwayes vouched by his Judges and Divines lawful before he would allow them expedient Nay the VVorld saw by his condescentions that he desired not a power to do harm but that as he proved once to a Lord of the Faction he thought that if he had no power to do ill sometimes he might not have power when he needed to do good and Subjects fears of mischief may destroy their hopes of benefit His Prerogative and his Peoples Liberty which made such a noise in the VVorld agreed well in his breast the last being as
I do so again Neither was he thus exceedingly religious as a man only but as a King Neither was Religion only his private Devotion but his publick Government wherein he aimed at 1. The peace of the Church wherein those parts and abilities that he saw lost in malice and dissentions might be very useful to the promoting of Religion and Godliness And 2. the honour maintenance and splendour of the Church For the first of which he consulted sufficiently in his favours to Arch-bishop Laud Bishop Neile Bishop Iuxon For the second by his endeavour to recover the Patrimony of the Church in England Ireland and Scotland where his religious intentions gave occasion to their rebellion who rather than they would part with their private sacrileges resolved on the publick ruine And for the third by his great charge in the repair of St. Pauls and other places To say nothing of his godly resolution to buy all Lands and Tythes alienated from the Church with his own Estate by such degrees as his other expences would give him leave the greatest testimonies of a design to make Religion as universal of his Empire next those from his own mouth First Before God The Kings Protestation at Christ-Church when he was to receive the Sacrament at the Bishop of Armaghs hands MY Lord I espy here many resolved Protestants who may declare to the World the resolution I now do make I have to the utmost of my power prepared my Soul to become a worthy receiver and so may I receive comfort by the blessed Sacrament as I do intend the establishment of the true Protestant Religion as it stood in its beauty in the happy daies of Queen Elizabeth without any connivance of Poperie I bless God that in the midst of these publick distractions I have still liberty to communicate and may this Sacrament be my damnation if my heart do not joyn with my lips in this protestation Secondly Before the VVorld The Kings Declaration to the Reformed Churches CHARLES By the special providence of Almighty God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith To all those who profess the true Reformed Protestant Religion of what Nation condition and degree soever they be to whom this present Declaration shall come Greeting Whereas We are given to understand that many false rumours and scandalous Letters are spread up and down amongst the Reformed Churches in foreign parts by the politick or rather the pernicious industry of some ill affected persons that We have an inclination to recede from that Orthodox Religion which We were born baptized and bred in and which We have firmly professed and practised through the whole course of Our Life to this moment And that We intend to give way to the introduction and publick exercise of Popery again in Our Dominions Which conjecture or rather most detestable calumny being grounded upon no imaginable foundation hath raised these horrid Tumults and more than Barbarous Wars throughout these flourishing Islands under a pretext of a kind of Reformation which would not prove only incongruous but incompatible with the Fundamentall Laws and Government of this our Kingdom We desire that the whole Christian World should take notice and rest assured that we never entertained in our imagination the least thought to attempt such a thing or to depart a jot from that Holy Religion which when we received the Crown and Scepter of this Kingdome we took a most Solemn Sacramentall Oath to Profess and Protect Nor doth our most constant Practice and daily visible Presence in the Exercise of this sole Religion with so many asseverations in the head of our Armies and in the publick attestation of our Lords with the circumspection used in the education of our Royall Offspring besides divers other undeniable arguments only demonstrate this but also that happy Alliance of Marriage we Contracted between our eldest Daughter and the Illustrious Prince of Aurange most clearly confirmes the realty of Our intentions herein by which Nuptial engagement it appears further that Our endeavours are not only to make a bare profession thereof in Our own Dominions but to enlarge and coroborate it abroad as much as lyeth in Our power This most holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy thereof We solemnly protest that by the help of Almighty God We will endeavour to Our utmost power and last period of Our life to keep entire and immoveable and will be careful according to Our duty to Heaven and the tenour of the aforesaid most saCRed Oath at Our Coronation that all Our Ecclesiasticks in their several Stations and Incumbencies shall preach and practice the same Thirdly Before the Kingdom The Kings Declaration and Protestation before the whole Kingdom I Do promise in the presence of Almighty God and as I hope for his blessing and protection that I will to the utmost of my power defend and maintain the true Reformed and Protestant Religion established in the Church of England and by the grace of God in the same will live and dye I desire to govern by the known Laws of the Land and that the liberty and propriety of the Subject may be by them preserved with the same care as mine own just Rights And if it please God by his blessing upon this Army raised for my necessary defence to preserve me from this Rebellion I do solemnly and faithfully promise in the sight of God to maintain the just privilege and freedome of Parliament and to govern by the known Laws of the Land to my utmost power and particularly to observe inviolably the Laws consented unto by me this Parliament In the mean while if this time of War and the great necessity and straits I am now driven unto beget any violation of these I hope it shall be imputed by God and man to the Authors of this War and not to me who have so earnestly laboured for the peace of this Kingdom When I willingly fail in these particulars I will expect no aid or relief from any man or protection from Heaven But in this resolution I hope for the chearful assistance of all good men and am confident of Gods blessing Sept. 19. The Result of all which Holy Designs was these his own brave words viz. Though I am sensible enough of the danger that attends my Care of the Church yet I am resolved to defend it or make it my Tombestone A Prince of so much resolution and conduct that as he feared not a private man lodging Hamilton in his own Chamber all that time he was accused by Rey of Treason and saying to those that admired his confidence That Hamilton should know he as little feared his power as he distrusted his Loyalty and that he durst not notwithstanding the advantages of Night and solitariness attempt his life because he was resolved to sell it so dear It was his goodness that he desired not war and his fortune that he prospered not in it but his
Imprisoned and Impeached for the peoples sake in spight of the peoples teeth both those that were at first against him being undeceived and those that were always for him indeed the whole Nations of England and Scotland venturing their lives to rescue the King when he was imprisoned in their name accused for shedding their bloud when they were killed by their fellow Subjects because they desired to save his A King that saw a Parliament accuse him of Breach of Priviledges when he came but to demand five men suspected for holding Intelligence with a Forraign Nation and yet the same Parliament suffer tamely its own Army to pull out by the ears more than half of the best Members that remained there for promoting the peace of their and Vote it the Priviledge of the Subjects to make tumults from all parts of the kingdom about Westminster to fright King and Bishops from the Parliament and a Breach of their Priviledge for the same people in throngs there from as many parts of the kingdom to Petition the return of the one and the other He from whom they extorted so much liberty in pretence for the Subject had neither liberty for himself being confined to hard Prisons and harder Limitations and Propositions nor for the Subjects who had they injoyed their own freedom had never endured his captivity He that could not deny the kingdom a Free-Parliament consisting of above an hundred Lords Spiritual and Temporal and five hundred Commons lived to see that very Parliament Exclude all its Lords and Reduce the five hundred Commons to thirty who in the name of the people when there was not one in five thousand of them but would have ventured his life against it threaten his life whom they had sworn when they entred that House to defend prepare to judge him who called them there to consult with them talk as if they would put a period to his days who gave them their being little dreaming that while they aimed at his Royal Neck they cut off their own for what is a Parliament called to advise with the King if there be no King to advise with He must be tried in whose name all others are tried by that Law himself hath made by those people that had sworn protested and covenanted with hands lift up to the most high God in publick and pawned their souls and all that they had privately to restore him whose only fault was that he went from that Parliament that murdered him when he returned to them Riddles Cromwell Whaley Ireton c. and the Army weep and grieve but the Hiena weeps when it intends to devour at the hard conditions the Houses put upon him and the Houses are displeased with the Armies hard usage of him and yet both ruin him the one bringing him to the Block and holding him there by the Hair of the Head and the other cutting off his Head The Scots durst not trust the Cavaliers with him nor the Houses the Scots nor the Army a King at lowest advanceth that party where he is though a prisoner the Houses nor the Juncto all the Army nor N. the Juncto being never safe till he put his finger into the Royal Neck to see after execution whether the head were really severed from the body All the quarrel was that the Cavaliers kept the King from the Parliament and the meaning of it it seems was That they kept him from the Block A Prince they destroyed that they durst not despise all the Grandees in the Army not daring to own the least murtherous thoughts towards him publickly when they set Agitators i. e. two active Souldiers out of every Regiment in the Army now modelled into such desparate Sects and Villanies to consult about the horrid Fact in private and to draw a bloudy Paper as the Agreement of the people which was but a conspiracy of Traitors Cromwell assuring the King as he had a soul that he should be restored And his Son Ireton at the same time Drawing up a Remonstrance that he should dye The Army treat him like a Prince and that they might deceive his devout soul the more securely allow him the service of his Chaplains and the Liberty of his Conscience the greatest injoyments left him in this world with a design the more successfully to use him like a Traitor Ah brave Prince that none durst have abused had they owned what they design whom the Houses had saved had they not been Cajoled by the Army and the Army had it not been Cajoled by the Houses The King granted too much saith Sir H. V. to him at the Isle of Wight and too little saith the same man to the Houses and the King must dye when whatsoever they asked they meant his life If the Tears Prayers Petitions Treasures or Bloud of the Nation if the intercession of forraign Princes if the importunity of all the good Relations that these Regicides had whereof one pressed hard on O. C. himself though without effect whence ever after he disowned his Relation and Name if the endeavours of Loyal souls to do that justice upon the Traitors that durst judge their King as one Burghill on Bradshaw as soon as he heard he was to be President who if not betrayed by his friend Cook had died the Villains robes in his own bloud before he could have done it in the Kings If the great Overtures of the Earls of Lindsey and Southampton the Duke of Richmond and the Marquiss of Hertford to ransom their Soveraign all ways imaginable even with their own bloud Offering that as they his Servants did all that was done under him so he as King being capable of doing no wrong they might suffer all for him If the horror that seized all Princes of the world Turkish and Heathenish as well as Christian upon the news of it with the hatred and scandal thence arising to the English Nation if the dissent of the Lords and all other persons of any quality that went along with them till now and had never suffered this to have happened the King but that by the just hand of God as bad had happened them that very Army that they imployed to turn his Majesty out of his just Power pulled them out of their usurped one If the Declarations of their own Judges if the strong Prayers and Sermons that could raise Armies against his Majesty indeavouring to advance the like for him if the Rational Pathetick and Powerful Remonstrances from all parts of the kingdom if the pressing of their own Oaths the scandal of Religion the ruin of the Nation if any Laws or Presidents had been of force to have prevented this Crimen post homines natos inauditum it had been only a Theory in some male-content Jesuits melancholy Chamber of Meditation and not the subject of this Book But stay Reader and take that Treason in the retail of it that thou art amazed at in the gross See a King having treated at the
offer to both adding that we should think long before we resolve of great matters and an hasty Judgment may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconvenience to the kingdom that the Child unborn may repent of adjuring them as they would answer it at the dreadful day of Judgment to hear what he had to say The Club of Assassinates proceed to this horrid Sentence Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament have appointed them an High Court of Iustice for the Trying of Chales Stuart King of England before whom he had been three times Convented and at first time a Charge of High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanors was read in the behalf of the kingdom of England c. Here the Clerk Read the Charge Which Charge being Read unto him as aforesaid He the said Charles Stuart was required to give his Answer but he refused so to do and so exprest the several passages at his Tryal in refusing to Answer For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge that the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murtherer and a Publick Enemy shall be put to death by the Severing his Head from his Body To which horrid Sentence the whole Pack stood up by agreement among themselves before made and though they agreed in nothing else either before or since unanimously Voted the bloudy words words of so loud a guilt that they drowned all the earnest Proposals of Reason and Religion offered by a Prince that was a great master of both reason being a more dreadful Sentence against than that they pronounced against him and then used the sameforce to hurry the King away that they had imployed to bring him thither answering his Allegations with that violence wherewith they composed and made good their own The King always great was now greater in the eye of the world for the great Reason he offered the honorable Conduct 〈◊〉 managed and the freedom of Speech he used much beyond other times the captivity of his Person contributing much to the liberty of his Discourse All the great throng that pittied but could not help afflicted Majesty with whom they saw themselves drawn to the slaughter groaned upon the Sentence but with the peril of their lives It being as fatal then for any persons to own respect or kindness to Majesty as it was for the King to carry it and as dangerous for others to be good Subjects as for him to be a good King They that were to force him out of his Life forced others out of their Loyalty endeavouring fondly to depose him from his Subjects hearts as they had done from his Throne Several persons having since deposed that to set off their ridiculous Scene they had those who were appointed to force poor creatures to cry Iustice Iustice who as the excellent Prince observed would have done as much for money for their own Commanders a word one of them in Command then said since he cried because if it had been heard the Traytors had been at the Bar and the Judges of the Land at the Bench and deterr others from saying God save the King Notwithstanding which force this last voice was the most hearty and the other most forced Observable it is that to make his Majesty parallel with his great Pattern whom he represented equally in his Sufferings and in his Goodness and Power a wretch that was within a little while executed by his own Partner Spit in his Face whereat his Majesty not moved only wiped the Spittle and said My Saviour suffered much more for me The Excellent Prince while the Traytors before him were as much slaves to their base Malice Envy Fear Ambition and Cruelty as the poor People were to them exercising as ample a Dominion over himself now as he had heretofore over three kingdoms looking not as if he were before the Miscreants but they before him and he to give as he did and not receive a Doom I cannot forget how an Ancient Father saith That some creatures would not suffer God to be a God unless he please them These are the Creatures that would not endure Gods Vice-gerent should be so unless he served them Thus having formerly forgotten the Oaths of God that were upon them laid aside the Allegiance which they owed gone against the sense of the Law of the Clergy the Nobility the Gentry and most of the sober people of the Nation Besides above half of both Houses before they could fight the King But infinite were the obstructions they were to break through so carefully hath God guarded Kings before they could murther Him they must suppress the unanimous desires of the whole Nation expressed in the looks wishes and prayers of all men and the declared sense of several Countries in their respective Petitions which many thousands delivered in London with the hazard of their Lives and maintained in North-wales under Sir Iohn Owen in South-wales under Laughorne and Poyer in the Navy under the Prince in Kent Essex and Surrey under several of the Nobility and Gentry of those and the adjacent Counties they must steal the King that won ground from his Adversaries by his carriage as much as they had done upon him by their Arts and power reducing to an entire obedience to his Government all that conversed with his Excellent Person from those men that were now as ready to engage for him as ever they did against him as they did at Holdenby when it was said so considerable is a suffering King his very miseries being more powerful than his Armies by the Faction that now they had the King in their power they had the Parliament in their Pockets they must renounce those promises they made upon their Souls and as they and their Posterity should prosper that pittying the barbarous usage of His Majesty they were resolved never to part with their Arms till they had made his way to the Throne and rendred the condition of his party the more tolerable Promises that to enâ—nare the charitable Prince that suspected not that falshood in others that he found not in himself they gilded with the like specious but entrapping kindnesses as the permission of what they knew was as dear as his Life to the pious King the Ministry of his Chaplains Commerce by Letters with his Queen the Visits of his Party the service of his Courtiers some whom they also admitted to their Council of War to mould Propositions which they will urge in his behalf and alter them to the Kings gust and at his advice the intermingling with their Remonstrances such good words as these That the Queen and the Royal Family must be restored to all their Rights or else no hope of a solid Peace They must sacrifice Eleven of the most Worthy Members in the House of Commons and seven Noble Lords to the lusts and cavils of mercenary Soldiers that would not hearken formerly to the delivering of half so many to answer the Articles of their
Subject of England call life or any thing he possesseth his own if power without right daily make new and abrogate the old fundamental Law of the Land which I now take to be the present case Wherefore when I came hither I expected that you would have endeavoured to have satisfied me concerning these grounds which hinder me to answer to your pretended Impeachment but since I see nothing I can say will move you to it though Negatives are not so naturally proved as Affirmatives yet I will shew you the reason why I am confident you cannot judge me nor indeed the meanest man in England For I will not like you without shewing a reason seek to impose a belief upon my Subjects There is no proceeding just against any man but what is warranted either by Gods Laws or the Municipal Laws of the Country where he lives Now I am most confident that this days proceedings cannot be warranted by Gods Laws for on the contrary the authority of the obedience unto Kings is clearly warranted and strictly commanded both in the Old and New Testament which if denied I am ready instantly to prove And for the question now in hand there it is said That where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou Eccles. 8. 4. Then for the Laws of this Land I am no less confident that no learned Lawyer will affirm that an Impeachment can lye against the King they all going in his Name and one of their Maxims is That the King can do no wrong Besides the Law upon which you ground your proceedings must either be old or new if old shew it if new tell what authority warranted by the Fundamental Laws of the Land hath made it and when But how the House of Commons can erect a Court of Judicature which was never one it self as is well known to all Lawyers I leave to God and the World to judge And were full as strange that they should pretend to make Laws without King or Lords House to any that have heard speak of the Laws of England And admitting but not granting that the People of Englands Commission could grant your pretended power I see nothing you can shew for that for certainly you never asked the question of the tenth man of the kingdom and in this way you manifestly wrong even the poorest Plough-man if you demand not his free consent nor can you pretend any colour for this your pretended Commission without the consent at the least of the major part of every man in England of whatsoever quality or condition which I am sure you never went about to seek so far are you from having it Thus you see that I speak not for my own Right alone as I am your King but also for the true Liberty of all my Subjects which consists not in the sharing the power of Government but in living under such Laws Such a Government as may give themselves the best assurance of your lives and propriety of their goods Nor in this must or do I forget the Priviledges of both Houses of Parliament which this days proceedings doth not only violate but likewise occasion the greatest breach of their Publick Faith that I believe ever was heard of with which I am far from charging the two Houses For all the pretended crimes laid against me bear date long before the late Treaty at Newport in which I having concluded as much as in me lay and hopefully expecting the two Houses agreement thereunto I was suddenly surprized and hurried from thence as a Prisoner upon which account I am against my will brought hither where since I am come I cannot but to my power defend the Ancient Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom together with my own just Right Then for any thing I can see the Higher House is totally excluded And for the House of Commons it is too well known that the major part of them are detained or deterred from Sitting so as if I had no other this were sufficient for me to protest against the lawfulness of your pretended Court. Besides all this the peace of the kingdom is not the least in my thoughts and what hopes of settlement is there so long as power reigns without rule of Law Changing the whole frame of that Government under which this kingdom hath flourished for many hundred years nor will I say what will fall out in case this lawless unjust proceeding against me do go on And believe it the Commons of England will not thank you for this change for they will remember how happy they have been of late years under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the King my Father and my self until the beginning of these unhappy troubles and will have cause to doubt that they shall never be so happy under any new And by this time it will be sensibly evident that the Armes I took up were only to defend the Fundamental Laws of this kingdom against those who have supposed my power hath totally changed the ancient Government Thus having shewed you briefly the Reasons why I cannot submit to your pretended Authority without violating the trust which I have from God for the welfare and liberty of my people I expect from you either clear reasons to convince my judgment shewing me that I am in an error and then truly I will readily answer or that you will withdraw your proceedings With what composedness of Spirit and patience he heard the pretended Charge and all its Slanders and Reproaches smiling at the words Tyrant Traytor c. with what Authority he demanded by what lawful Power grounded on Gods Word or warranted by the Constitutions of the Kingdom they proceeded with what earnestness he admonished them both what Guilt and what Judgments they would bring upon this Land by proceeding from one sin to another against their lawful Sovereign With what resolution he told them He would not betray the Trust reposed in him for his own Prerogative his Peoples Liberty and the Priviledges of Parliament as long as there was breath in his body until they could satisfie God and the Countrey Adding that there was a God in heaven that would call them to an account And that it was utterly as unlawful to submit to a new and unlawful Authority as to resist a lawful one Neither his apprehension nor theirs being likely to end the Controversie How zealously he told them That if the free People of England now secure of nothing when all things were subject to an Arbitrary Power were not concerned as well as himself he would have satisfied himself with one Protestation against any Jurisdiction on earth trying a Supream Magistrate but in a case of so extensive a Concernment it was unreasonable to impose upon men bold Assertions without evident Reasons it being not enough to say The Court assert their own Jurisdiction and you must not be permitted to offer any thing against it it s not
But if it be only matter of Conquest then it is a great Robbery as a Pyrate said to Alexander that he was the greater Robber himself but a petty one And so Sir I think the way you are in is much out of the way Now Sir to put you in one way believe it you will never do right nor God will never prosper you until you give God his due the King his due that is my Successors and the People their due I am as much for them as any of you you must give God his due by rightly regulating his Church according to his Scriptures which is now out of order To set you in a way particularly now I cannot but only this A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle this when every opinion is freely and clearly heard For the King indeed I will not then turning to a Gentleman that touched the Axe said Hurt not the Axe that may hurt me For the King the Laws of the Land will clearly instruct you for that therefore because it concerns my own particular I only give you a touch of it For the People and truly I desire their Liberty and Freedom as much as any body whatsoever but I must tell you that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having of Government those Laws by which their Life and Goods may be most their own It is not for having share in Government Sir that is nothing pertaining to them A Subject and a Soveraign are clean contrary things and therefore until they do that I mean that you do put the People in that Liberty as I say certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sir it was for this that I am now come here If I would have given way to an Arbitrary way to have all Laws changed according to the power of the Sword I needed not have come here and therefore I tell you and I pray God it be not laid to your charge that I am the Martyr of the People Introth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer for I will only say this to you that in truth I could have desired some little time longer because I would have put this that I have said in a little more order and a little better digested then I have done and therefore I hope you will excuse me I have delivered my Conscience I pray God you may take those courses that are best for the good of the Kingdom and your own salvations Dr. Iuxon Will your Majesty though it may be very well known your Majesties affections to Religion yet it may be expected that you should say somewhat for the worlds satisfaction King I thank you very heartily my Lord for that I had almost forgotten it Introth Sirs my Conscience in Religion I think is very well known to all the word and I declare before you all that I dye a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my Father and this honest man I think will witness it Then turning to the Officers said Sirs Excuse me for this same I have a good Cause and a gracious God I will say no more Then turning to Col. Hacker he said Take care they do not put me to pain and Sir this if it please you Then a Gentleman coming near the Axe The King said Take heed of the Axe pray take heed of the Axe Then speaking to the Executioner said I shall say but very short prayers and when I thrust out my hands Then the King called to Dr. Juxon for his Night-cap and having put it on he said to the Executioner Do's my Hair trouble you who desired him to put it all under his Cap which the King did accordingly by the help of the Executioner and the Bishop Then the King turning to Dr. Juxon said I have a good Cause and a gracious God on my side Dr. Juxon There is but one Stage more this Stage is troublesome and turbulent it is a short one but you may consider it will soon carry you a very great way It will carry you from Earth to Heaven And there you shall find a great deal of cordial Joy and Comfort King I go from a Corruptible to an Incorruptible Crown where no disturbance can be no disturbance in the world Dr. Iuxon You are Exchanged from a Temporal to an Eternal Crown a good Exchange The King then said to the Executioner Is my Hair well Then the King took off his Cloak and George and giving his George to Dr. Juxon said Remember Then the King put off his Doublet and being in his Wastcoat put his Cloak on again and looking on the Block said to the Executioner You must set it fast Executioner It is fast Sir King When I put my hands out this way stretching them out then ... After that having said two or three words as he stood to himself with Hands and Eyes lifted up immediately stooping down laid his Neck upon the Block And then the Executioner again putting his Hair under his Cap the King said thinking he had been going to strike Stay for the Sign Executioner Yes I will and please your Majesty Then the King making some pious and private Ejaculations before the Block as before a Desk of Prayer he submitted without that violence they intended for him if he refused his Sacred Head to one stroke of an Executioner that was disguised then as the Actors were all along which Severed it from his Body In the consequence of which stroke great villanies as well as great absurdities have long sequels the Government of the world the Laws and Liberties of three Kingdoms and the Being of the Church was nearly concerned So fell Charles the First and so expired with him the Liberty and Glory of three Nations being made in that very place an instance of Humane Frailty where he used to shew the Greatness and Glory of Majesty All the Nation was composed to mourning and horror no King ever leaving the world with greater sorrows women miscarrying at the very intimation of his death as if The Glory was departed Men and women falling into Convulsions Swounds and Melancholy that followed them to their graves Some unwilling to live to see the issues of his death fell down dead suddenly after him Others glad of the least Drop of Bloud or Lock of Hair that the covetousness of the Faction as barbarous as their Treason made sale of kept them as Relicks finding the same virtue in them as with Gods blessing they found formerly in his person All Pulpits rung Lamentations and the great variety of opinions in other matters were reconciled in this That it was as horrid a fact as ever the Sun saw since it withdrew at the sufferings of our Saviour and the King as compleat a man as mortality refined by industry was capable to be Children amazed and wept refusing comfort at this even some of his Judges could not
health and opportunity to wait upon the King And here give me leave I humbly beseech you to tell your Lordships that this was no new conceit of his Majesty to have a Lyturgy framed and Canons made for the Church of Scotland For he followed the example and care in the business of his Royal Father King Iames of blessed memory who took Order for both at the Assembly held at Perth Anno 1618. As appears in the Acts of that General Assembly and the Sermon which the late Reverend Arch Bishop of St. Andrews preached before it pag. 40. 68. When I was able to go abroad and came to his Majesty I represented all that passed His Majesty avoided the sending of Dr. Maxwell to me and the business but then agreed to my opinion to have the English without alteration And in this case I held the business for two if not three years at least Afterwards the Scottish Bishops still pressing his Majesty that a Lyturgie made by themselves and in some things different from the English Service would relish better with their Country-men they prevailed with his Majesty at last to have it so notwithstanding all I could say or do to the contrary Then his Majesty commanded me to give the Bishops of Scotland the best assistance I could in this way work I delayed as much as I could with my Obedience When nothing would serve but it must go on I did not only acquaint his Majesty with it but writ down most of the amendment or alterations in his Majesties presence And do hope there is no one thing in that Book which may not stand with the Conscience of a right good Protestant Sure I am his Majesty approved them all and I have his warrant under his Royal hand for all that I did about that Book As for the way of introducing it I ever advised the Bishops both in his Majesties presence and at other times that they would look carefully to it and be sure to do nothing in any kinde but what should be agreeable to the Laws of that kingdom And that they should at all times as they saw cause be sure to take the advice of the Lords of his Majesties Council in that Kingdom and govern themselves accordingly Which course if they have not followed that can no way as I conceive reflect upon me And I am able to prove by other particulars as well as this that for any thing concerning that Nation I have been as careful their Laws might be observed as any man that is a stranger to them might be To the grand Charge his endeavor to reconcile the Church of England to the Church of Rome which certainly is a noble design or a plot to introduce Popery he made this general defence Sept. 2. 1644. My Lords I Am charged for endeavouring to introduce Popery and reconcile the Church of England to the Church of Rome I shall recite the sum of the Evidence and Arguments given in for to prove it First I have in my first Speech nominated divers persons of Eminency whom I reduced from Popery to our Church And if this be so then the Argument against me is this I converted many from Popery Ergo I went about to bring in Popery and to reconcile the Church of England to the Church of Rome Secondly I am charged to be the Author of the c. Oath in the New Canons parcel of which Oath is to abjure Popery and that I will not subject the Church of England to the Church of Rome A more strict Oath then ever was made against Popery in any Age or Church And then the agreement against me is this I made and took an Oath to abjure Popery and not to subject the Church of England to the Church of Rome therefore I was inclinable to Popery and endeavoured to subject the Church of England to the Church of Rome Thirdly The third Canon of the late New ones was made by me which is against Popery and then the Argument is I made a Canon against Popery Ergo I was inclinable to and endeavoured to introduce it Fourthly I was twice seriously offered a Cardinalship and I refused it because I would not be subject to the Pope and Church of Rome Ergo I was addicted to Popery and endeavoured to reduce the Church of England into subjection to the Church of Rome Fifthly I writ a Book against Popery in Answer to Fisher the Jesuit and then the Argument is this I writ a Book against Popery Ergo I am inclinable to Popery and laboured to introduce it Sixthly It is alledged I concealed and cherished the Plot of the Jesuits discovered by Habernfield and therefore I intended to bring in Popery and reduce the Church of England to the Church of Rome I answer either this Plot was not real and if so then Romes Masterpiece is quite blown up and published in vain Or else it was real and then I was really in danger of my life for opposing Popery and this Plot. Then the Argument from it must be this I was in danger of my life for cherishing the Jesuits Plot of reducing the Church of England to the Church of Rome Ergo I cherished and endeavoured to effect this Plot. Seventhly I laboured to make a reconciliation between the Lutherans and Calvinists Ergo I laboured to introduce Popery and make a reconciliation between the Church of England and the Church of Rome These were his general Defences besides his particular Answers to each Article of his Charge consisting of near nine hundred and designed to make up in number what they wanted that the good Prelate might sink under a Cumulative Impeachment as his good friend L. L. I. did under a Cumulative Treason so Accurate so Pertinent so Acute so Full so Clear so Quick and so Satisfactory and well Accommodated ad homines as argued he had great abilities beyond expectation A Clear Understanding above distractions a Magnanimous Spirit out of the reach of misfortunes a Firm Memory proof against the infirmities of this age and the injuries of the times a Knowledge grasping most things and their circumstances and a Prudence able to put them together to the most advantage and in fine a Soul high and serene above his afflictions and what was more the sence of them his passions too like Moses he that was quick and zealous in Gods and the Kings cause was most meek and patient in his own mastering himself first and so if there had been any place for reason overcoming even his adversaries Had not they injured him so much that they thought themselves not safe unless they did injure him more and secure themselves from the guilt of their Libels Tumults Imprisonments and Impeachments by the more dreadful one of his Death So men are robbed first of their Goods and upon second thoughts lest they should complain and retaliate of their Lives And indeed he could not expect there should be a great distance between his Prison and
most willingly drink of this Cup as deep as he pleases and enter into this Sea yea and pass through it in the way that he shall lead me But I would have it remembred Good people that when Gods Servants were in this boysterous Sea and Aaron among them the Egyptians which persecuted them and did in a manner drive them into that Sea were drowned in the same waters while they were in pursuit of them I know my God whom I serve is able to deliver me from this Sea of bloud as he was to deliver the three Children from the furnace Dan. 3. And I most humbly thank my Savior for it my â—â—â—â—lution is as theirs was They would not worship the Image which the King had set up nor will I forsake the Temple and the â—â—â—uth of God to follow the bleating of Ieroboams Calves in Da◠〈◊〉 in Bethel And as for this people they are at this day miserably misled God of his mercy open their eyes that they may see the right way For at this day the blinde lead the blinde and if they go on both will certainly into the ditch St. Luke 6. 39. For my self I am and I acknowledge it in all humility a most grievous sinner many ways by Thought Word and Deed And yet I cannot doubt but that God hath mercy in store for me a poor penitent as weâ—e as for other sinners I have now upon this sad occasion ransacked every corner of my heart and yet I thank God I have not found among the many any one sin which deserves death by any known Law of this Kingdom And yet hereby I charge nothing upon my Judges For if they proceed upon proof by valuable witnesses I or any other innocent may be justly condemned And I thank God though the weight of this Sentence lie heavy upon me I am as quiet within as ever I was in my life And though I am not only the first Archbishop but the first man that ever died by an Ordinance in Parliament yet some of my Predecessors have gone this way though not by this means For Elphegus was hurried away and lost his head by the Danes Simon Sudbury in the fury of Wat Tyler and his followers Before these St. Iohn Baptist had his head danced off by a lewd Woman And St. Cyprian Archbishop of Carâ—hage submitted his head to a persecuting sword Many Examples Great and Good and they teach me patience For I hope my cause in Heaven will look of another dy than the colour that is put upon it here And some comfort it is to me not only that I go the way of these great Men in their several Generations but also that my Charge as foul as it is made looks like that of the Jews against St. Paul Acts 25. 8. For he was accused for the Law and the Temple i.e. Religion And like that of St. Stephen Acts 6. 14. for breaking the Ordinances which Moses gave i.e. Law and Religion the Holy Place and the Law ver 13. But you will say do I then compare my self with the integrity of St. Paul and St. Stephen No far be it from me I only raise a comfort to my self that these great Saints and Servants of God were laid at in their times as I am now And it is Memorable that St. Paul who helped on this accusation against St. Stephen did after fall under the very same himself Yea but here 's a great clamor that I would have brought in Popery I shall answer that more fully by and by In the mean time you know what the Pharisees laid against Christ himself Iohn 11. 48. If we let him alone all men will believe on him Et venient Romani And the Romans will come and take away both our place and the Nation Here was a causeless cry against Christ that the Romans would come and see how just the Judgment of God was They crucified Chriâ—t for fear lest the Romans should câ—meâ— And his death was it which brought in the Romans upon them God punishing them with that which they most feared And I pray God this clamor of Venient Romani of which I have given no cause help not to bring them in For the Pope never had such a Harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now upon the Sects and Divisions that are amongst us In the mean time by Honor and Dishonor by good Report and evil Report as a deceived and yet true am I passing through this world 2 Cor. 6. 8. Some particulars also I think it not amiss to speak of 1. And First This I shall be bold to speak of the King our gracious Soveraign he hath been much traduced also for bringing in of Popery But on my Conscience of which I shall give God a present account I know him to be as free from this Charge as any man living And I hold him to be as found a Protestant according to the Religion by Law Established as any man in his Kingdom And that he will venture his life as far and as freely for it And I think I do or should know both his affection to Religion and his grounds for it as fully as any man in England 2. The second particular is concerning this great and populous City which God bless Here hath been of late a fashion taken up to gather hands and then go to the Great Court of the Kingdom the Parliament and clamor for Justice as if that great and wise Court before whom the Causes come which are unknown to the many could not or would not do justice but at their appointment a way which may endanger any innocent man and pluck his bloud upon their heads and perhaps upon the Cities also And this hath been lately practised against my self the Magistrates standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from parish to parish without check God forgive the setters of this with all my heart I beg it but many well-meaning people are caught by it In St. Stephens Case when nothing else would serve they stirred up the people against him Act. 6. 12. And Herod went the same way When he had killed St. Iames yet he would not venture upon St. Peter till he found how the other pleased the people Acts 12. 3. But take heed of having your hands full of bloud Isa. 1. 15. For there is a time best known to himself when God above other sins makes inquisition for bloud And when that inquisition is on foot the Psalmist tells us Psal. 9. 12. That God Remembers but that 's not all he remembers and forgets not the Complaint of the poor i.e. whose bloud is shed by oppression ver 9. Take heed of this 'T is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 12. but then especially when he is making inquisition for bloud And with my prayers to avert it I do humbly desire this City to remember the Prophecy that is expressed Ier. 26. 15. 3.
The third particular is the poor Church of England It hath flourished and been a shelter to other Neighbor Churches when storms have driven upon them But alas now it is in a storm it self and God only knows whether or how it shall get out And which is worse than a storm from without it is become like an Oak cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body And at every cleft profanneness and irreligion is entring in While as Prosper speaks men that introduce profaneness are cloaked over with the Name Religionis Imaginariae of Imaginary Religion for we have lost the substance and dwell too much in Opinion And that Church which all the Jesuits machinations could not ruine is now fallen into danger by her own 4. The last particular for I am not willing to be too long is my self I was born and baptized in the bosom of the Church of England Established by Law in that Profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to die What clamors and slanders I have endured for laboring to keep an Uniformity in the external service of God according to the Doctrine and Discipline of this Church all men know and I have abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High-Treason in Parliament a Crime which my soul ever abhorred This Treason was Charged to consist of two parts an endeavor to subvert the Laws of the Land And a like endeavor to overthrow the true Protestant Religion Established by Law Besides my answers to the several Charges I protested mine innocency in both Houses It was said Prisoners protestations at the Bar must not be taken I must therefore come now to it upon my death being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it I do therefore here in the presence of God and his holy Angels take it upon my death that I never endeavored the subversion either of Law or Religion and I desire you all to remember this protest of mine for my innocency in this and from all Treasons whatsoever I have been accused likewise as an Enemy to Parliaments No I understand them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I dislike the misgovernments of some Parliaments many ways and I had good reason for it for Corruptio optimi est pessima And that being the highest Court over which no other hath Jurisdiction when 't is misinformed or misgoverned the subject is left without all Remedy But I have done I forgive all the world all and every of those bitter Enemies which have persecuted me And humbly desire to be forgiven of God first and then of every man And so I heartily desire you to joyn in prayer with me His Graces Prayer upon the Scaffold O Eternal God and Merciful Father look down upon me in Mercy in the Riches and Fulness of thy Mercies Look upon me but not till thou hast nailed my Sins to the Cross of Christ but not till thou hast bathed me in the Blood of Christ not till I have hid my self in the Wounds of Christ that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me And since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost I most humbly beseech thee give me now in this great instance full patience proportionable comfort and a heart ready to die for thine honor the Kings happiness and this Chuches preservation And my zeal to these far from arrogancy be it spoken is all the sin humane frailty excepted and all incidents thereto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I come now to suffer I say in this particular of Treason But otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially what ever they are which have drawn down this present Judgment upon me And when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own eyes Amen And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood in this more than miserable Kingdom O Lord I beseech thee give grace of Repentance to all blood-thirsty people But if they will not repent O Lord confound their designs defeat and frustrate all their designs and endeavors which are or shall be contrary to the glory of thy great Name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and his Posterity after him in their just Rights and Priviledges the Honor and Conservation of Parliaments in their just Power the Preservation of this poor Church in her Truth Peace and Patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed People under their ancient Laws and in their native Liberties And when thou hast done all this in meer mercy for them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulness and with religious dutiful obedience to thee and thy Commandements all their days So Amen Lord Jesu Amen And receive my soul into thy bosom Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. The Lord Arch-bishop's Prayer as he Kneeled by the Block LOrd I am coming as fast as I can I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to see thee But it is but Vmbra Mortis a meer shadow of death a little darkness upon Nature but thou by thy Merits and Passion hast broke through the jaws of death So Lord receive my soul and have mercy upon me and bless this kingdom with plenty and with brotherly love and charity that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them for Jesus Christ his sake if it be thy will Many there was to see so able an Head struck off at one blow as it was upon these words of his spoken aloud Lord receive my Soul And more crouded to see so good a man buried at his own Church of Barking in London by the Common-prayer which was Voted down at the same time that he was Voted to dye in hope both of that resurrection which he hath had already with the Cause he dyed for being removed in Iuly 1663. from Barking in London to Saint Iohns Colledge in Oxford with his friend and successor in that Colledge the Deanery of the Chappel Bishoprick of London and Arch-bishoprick of Canterbury raised by him where he was Interred with these Monuments The first by Dr. M. Lluelin then Student of Christ-church An Elegy on the most Reverend Father in God William Lord Arch-bishop of Canterbury Attached the 18. of December 1640. Beheaded the 10. of January 1644. Most Reverend Martyr THou since thy thick Afflictions first begun Mak'st Dioclesian's days all Calm and Sun And when thy Tragick Annals are compil'd Old Persecution shall be Pitty stil'd The Stake and Faggot shall be Temperate Names And Mercy wear the Character of Flames Men Knew not then Thrift in the Martyrs Breath Nor weav'd their Lives into a four years Death Few ancient Tyrants do our Stories Taxe That slew first by delays then by the Axe But these Tiberius like alone
High Chamberlain of England 1631. Upon the Trial of a Combate between Donald Rey and David Ramsey he was constituted Lord High-Constable of England for the day 1635. He is Commander in Chief of forty sail assisted by the Vice Admiral the Earl of Essex to secure the Kingdoms Interest Trade and Honor in the narrow Seas against all Pyrates and Pretenders that either Invaded our Rights by the Pen or might incroach upon them with the Sword And in the years 1637 1638 1639 1640 1641. when he had looked through the whole Plot of the Conspirators on the one hand and comprehended the gracious Overtures and design of his Majesty on the other when the Expedients he offered were neglected the warnings he gave of the consequence of such proceedings slighted the earnest Arguments he urged publickly and privately were not regarded and all the Interest and Obligation he had in the Conspirators forgotten withdrew after his Majesty that he might not seem to countenance those courses by his presence which he could not hinder being not able to stop the Current of the â—umults he was resolved not to seem to approve it but followed his Royal Master to York to injoy the freedom of his Conscience where we finde him among other Noble Persons attesting under their hands his Majesties averseness to War as long as there was any hope of Peace and when neither He nor any of his Loyal Subjects when neither Law nor Religion neither Church nor State could be secured from the highest violations and prophanations men could offer or Christians endure without a War and the King not having his Sword in vain but drawing it for a terror to evil doers and an encouragement to them that did well He and his Son the Lord Willoughby of Eresby afterwards Earl of Lindsey first joyned with the rest of the Nobility in a Protestation of their resolution according to their Duty and Allegiance to stand by his Majesty in the maintenance of the Established Laws and Religion with their Lives and Fortunes and accordingly raised the Countreys of Lincoln Nottingham c. as his retainers in love and observance to whom the holding up of his hand was the displaying of a Banner as other Honorable and Loyal Persons did other parts of England untill his Majesty with an incredible diligence and prudence up and down the Kingdom discovered to the deluded people his own worth deserving not only their reverence but also their Lives and Fortunes incouraging the good with his discourses exciting the fearful by his example concealing the Imperâ—ections of his Friends but always praysing their virtues and prevailing upon all not too guilty or too much debauched so far as to raise an Army that amazed his Enemies who had represented him such a Prodigy of Folly and Vice that they could not imagine any person of Prudence or Conscience would appear in his service expecting every day when deserted by all as a Monster he should in Chains deliver himself up to the Commands of the Parliament and surprized even his Friends who despaired that ever he should be able to defend their Estates Lives or Liberties by a War who to make his people happy if they had not despised their own mercies had by passing Acts against his own Power to Impress Souldiers his right in Tonnage and Poundage the Stannary Courts Clerk of the Market the Presidial Court in the North and Marches of Wales deprived himself of means to manage viz. of a Revenue without which no Discipline in an Army as without Discipline no Victory by it and who esteemed it an equal misery to expose his people to a War and himself to ruine Yet an Army by the large Contributions and extraordinary endeavors of this Noble Lord and other Honorable persons to be be mentioned in due time which being under several who could abide no Equal as none of them could endure a Superior having no Chief or indeed being all Chiefs the Swarm wanted a Master 〈◊〉 a Supream Commander who should awe them all into obedience It was observed by Livy that in the great Battel the Criâ—â—cal day of the worlds Empire betwixt Hannibal and Scipio that the Shouts of Hannibals Army was weak the voices disagreeing as consisting of divers I angâ—ages and the shouting of the Romans far more terrible as being all as one voice When they who agreed in few other particulars conspired in this that the Earl of Lindsey pitched upon as Lord General of the Army by his Majesty was an expedient worthy the choice and prudence of a Prince to command and train a fresh Army to credit and satisfie a suspecting people when they saw the Kings Cause managed by persons of such Integrity Popularity and Honor as they could trust their own with In which Command his first service was the drawing up of Articles for Discipline to be observed by the Army wherein he took care 1. Of Piety as the true ground of Prowess 2. Of Chastiâ—y remembring how Zisca intangled his enem is by commanding so many thousand Women to cast their Keâ—cheifs and Partlets on the ground wherein the other Army were caught by the Spurs and ensâ—ared Little hopes that they will play the Men who are overcome by Women 3. Civility that he might win the Country in order to the reducing of the Faction it being sad to raise more enemies by boisterousness in their Marches and Quarters than they engaged by their Valour in the Field so increasing daily the manyâ— headed Hydra 4. Sobriety without which he said the Engagement would prove a Revel and not a War and besides the scandal render the best Army unfit either for Council or Action and uncapable of meeting with a sober enemies active designs much less of carrying on any of their own so loosing the great advantages of war as G. Adolphus called them Surprizes Next the Discipline of the Army he took care of their numbers a great Army being not easily manageable and the Commands of the General cool and loose some virtue in passing so long a journey through so many and next that of their suitableness and agreeableness one with another and after that of their order that they might help one another as an Army rather than hinder one another as a Croud and then their Provision and Pay that they might not range for Necessaries when they should fight for Victory Thirty thousand men as brave Gonzaga said thus disciplined and thus accommodated are the best Army as being as good as a Feast and far better than a Surfeit In the Head of this Army a foot with a Pike in his Hand having trained up his Souldiers by Skirmishes before he brought them to Battle he appeared at Edge-hill Octob. 23. 1642. too prodigal of his Person which was not only to fill one Place but to inspire and guide the whole Army But that it is a Maxime of the Duke of Roan That never great person performed great undertaking but by making war in
Essex being told when he would have advanced with his sickly Army to recover him that he was past it he himself running for security first to Bristol and thence riding with a few Gentlemen for recruit to London leaving the few Garrisons that party had in those parts to Sir Ralphs mercy who took five of them by Assaults and seven upon Surrendry with three thousand Prisoners five thousand Armes six Ships with sixty four Peices of Ordnance in a fortnights time He was excellent at contriving at the Scaling of Walls as his Souldiers were in executing and yet more excellent in taking hearts being so civil even to the most obstinate that they chose rather to be conquered by him than protected by others ever detesting their bloudiness that came valiant to strong Holds and departing cruel thence knowing no difference either of Age or Sex in their anger though they did in their Lust only it is not be forgotten here how this expert Commander loosing the advantage of Lands-down for want of Ammunition taught his Souldiers to beat and boil Bed-cords to make Match of them From the Devizes Sir Ralph marched into Hampshire and Sussex facing Petworth entring Midhurst and at last sitting down before Arundel Castle in the extreamest part of Suffex which he carryed beating Col. Norton into Chichester and wheeling off in spight of the Enemy that provoked him to fight with disadvantage among lined Hedges and Thickets where he saw many brave men lost to no purpose at Cheriton-down in appearance to Winchester but really to Basing and so to Oxford whence Anno 1645. we finde him after the considerable Recruits he had left the King advancing Westwards and besieging Taunton where when we have observed that his Magazine being blown up he was grievously hurt in the face carrying an honorable scar to his grave our Pen shall leave him giving way to his own Secretary who hath communicated to the world this following account of him 1645. His Majesty the present comfort of the Kingdom being worsted and the Prince the future hope of it appeared taking progress into the West to understand the Countrey before he should govern it and to let the Country understand him the pawn of their future felicity whom it should obey the Lord Hoptons presence raised as many brave men in Cornwall to wait on the Son their Duke as his wise civil and obliging conduct had done on the Father their King under whom designing to relieve Exeter in a body of 10000 Horse and Foot when they were met by my Lord Fairfax at Torrington with 20000. where my Lord despairing of breaking through them drew out four or five Closes off the Enemy lining the hedges and flanking his Foot with Horse who disputed every hedge first with the Dragoons and then with the Reserves and at last with the whole body of the other Army pouring upon them Regiment upon Regiment and when they had lost the hedges maintained the Barricadoes at the end of the Town with push of Pike and the Butt end of their Muskets for three hours and when over-powred there my Lord brought up the Rear and made good the retreat though his Horse was shot under him so that the Foot had time to pass over the adjoyning River and the Horse to guard them my Lord making use of every Avenue in the Town or near to stop the Enemies Career whom if his advice had been followed he had surrounded and overcome with their own Victory And withdrawing to Cornwall he Rendezvouzed again and made 5000. able Horse a body under the Command of so wise as well as Valiant a Commander as the Lord Hopton appeared to be in the late Service might if there had been any hope of the Kings Affairs and since there was not commanded their own terms when the Prince withdrew from them to Scilly at Truero among others this Article offered my Lord himself is remarkable considering it proceeds from an Enemy Lastly for your self besides what is implyed to you in common with others you may be assured of such mediation to the Parliament on your behalf both from my self and others as for one whom for personal worth and many virtues but especially for your care of and moderation towards the Country we honor and esteem above any other of your party whose error supposing you more swayed with Principles of Honor and Conscience we most pity and whose happiness so far as is consistent with the publick welfare we should delight in more than in your least suffering My Lord after much dispute in hope either of assistance from abroad or of an accommodation between the King and Parliament as it was called at home upon the advance of near upon 40000. men towards him disbanded being allowed forty Horse and Arms and twelve men for himself for a while and not long after pardoned for Life but condemned in his Estate A favor like that I read of the Duke De Alva vouchsafed the City of Harlem when he promised them their lives and yet sterved many of them to death saying That though he had promised to give them their lives he had not promised to give them meat Gentle was this Excellent Persons Extraction in the West of England and man-like his Education in the Low-Countries that School of War where Sir William Waller and he learned as is said of Iugurtha and Manus in one Camp what they practised in two The one being no less eminent for his Service under his late Majesty of blessed memory than the other was for his against him The one was the best Souldier the King had the other the most experienced that the pretended Parliament boasted of None fitter to ballance Sir Ralph Hoptons success none likelier to understand his stratagems none abler to undermine his designs than his Fellow-souldier Sir William who understood his method as well as he was acquainted with his Person Both were equally active both equally vigilant But what better Character of this Hero than that which his Master gave him in his Patten for Baron which is his History as well as his honor CArolus Dei gratia Angliae c. Cum nominis nostri posteritatis interest ad clara exempla propaganda utilissime Compertum palam fieri omnibus proemia apud nos virtuti sita nec perire fidelium subditorum officia sed memori benevolo pectore fixissime insidere His praesertim temporibus cum plurimum quibus antehac nimium indulsimus temerata aut superta fides pretium aliorum Constantiae addidit Cumque nobis certo constat Radulphum Hopton Militem de Balneo splendidis antiquis Natalibus tum in caetura sua vita integritatis moris eximium tum in hac novissima tempestate fatalique Regni Rebelli motu rari animi fideique exemplum edidisse Regiae dignitatis in eaque publicae Contra utriusque adversarios assertorem vindicem acerrimum Quippe qui non solum nascenti huic furori
nec dum omnibus manifesto optimis Consiliis fortis in Curia Senator restiterit sed insinuante se latius veneno crescente ferocia domum ad sâ—os reversus fortior miles in agro suo Somersetensi vicinis partibus omni ope manu iniquissimam causam oppugnaverit in Arce praesertim Sherborniana sub Auspiciis Marchionis Hertfordiae egregiam operam navaverit Mox ulterius progressus pollenti in Devonia factionis Tyrannide munitissima civitate in faedus illecta jam undique bonis subditis perniciem minante ipse pene in Regione Hospes Contracto e Cornubio milite primoribus statim impetum eorum repressit jacentesque afflictas nostras partes mirifica virtute recreavit Et licet summis necessitatibus Conflictanti exigua pars Negotii hostes erant tantum abfuit ut vel illis vel istis succumberet ut contra Copias auctiores bellico apparatu instructissimas saepius signis Collatis in acie dimicans semper superior excesserit Testis Launcestionia Salt ash Bradock aliaque obscura olim nomina loca nunc victoriis illius perduellium cladibus nobilitata vix etiam ab his respiraverat cum novus belli furor lassas jam fere continuis praeliis laxatas vires Numerossimo excercitu adortus uberiorem triumphandi dedit materiam Cum ille in campis Stratoniae in difficillimis licet angustiis redactus inops militaris instrumenti Consumpto jam pulvere tormentario armatos inermis vallo munito inter sola causa virtute animatus ita retudit concidit castris exuit ut totam belli molem cum ipsis Authoribus profligavit Quicquid fugae illius residuum erat inter urbis unius maenia eaque arcta obsidione astricta Concluso Qua quidem pugna memorabili praeter quod miserum popellum jugo intollerabili levaverat sedes suas expulsis Ecclesias Pastoribus pacem omnibus firma mentum pacis obsequium restituerit Et jam sequenti armorum nostrorum felicitate quae partes Regni occidentales maturius ad officium verum Dominum redierunt viam apperuisse momentum ingens extitisse libentissime profitemur In hac opera laudabili cum praefatus Radulphus perstitert adhuc invicto animo industria indefessa nullo arduo quantum vis labore periculo excusatus cumque mille argumentis testatum fecerit Honorem salutemque nostram sibi omni fortuna capite potiorem nos virum fortissimum optimeque affectum animum benigno stu dio prosequi amplius demereri volentes hunc praeconio merito ornandum propriori ad nos gradu extollendum censuimus Sciatis igitur nos de gratia nostra speciali ac ex certa Scientia vero motu praefatum Radulphum Hopton ad statum gradum stylum Dignitatem Titulum Honorem Baronis Hapton de Statton in Comitatu nostro Cornubiae c. In cujus rei Testimonium has Literas nostras fecimus Patententes Teste meipso apud Oxon quarto die Septembris Anno Regni nostri Decimo nono Jones HIs two great Actions the one at Liscard the other at Stratton cannot be better described than by an Eye-witness whose words are these as he saith out of a Manuscript corrected with Sir Ralphs own hand communicated to him by his Secretary Mr. Tredus At Liscard a little before the Fight began the Kings party took it into seasonable consideration that seeing by the Commission the Lord Mohun brought from Oxford four Persons viz. the said Lord Mohun Sir Ralph Hopton Sir Iohn Berkley and Colonel Ashburham were equally impowered in the managing of all Military matters and seeing such equality might prove inconvenient which hitherto had been prevented with the extraordinary moderation of all parties in ordering a Battel it was fittest to fix the Power in one Chief and general consent setled it in Sir Ralph Hopton He first gave order that publick prayers should be read in the Head of every Squadron and it was done accordingly and the Enemy observing it did style it saying of Mass as some of their Prisoners did afterwards confess Then he caused the Foot to be drawn in the best order they could and placed a Forlorn of Musqueteers in the little Inclosures wringing them with the few Horse and Dragoons he had This done two small Minion Drakes speedily and secretly fetched from the Lord Mohun's House were planted on a little Burrough within random-shot of the Enemy yet so that they were covered out of their sight with small parties of Horse about them These concealed Minions were twice discharged with such success that the Enemy quickly quitted their ground and all their Army being put into a Rout the Kings Forces had the Execution of them which they performed very sparingly taking 1250. Prisoners all their Canon and Ammunition and most of their Colours and Arms and after publick thanks taking their repose at Liscard Stratton Fight succeeds on Thursday the 16. of May 1643. THe Kings Army wants Ammunition and hath a steep-hill to gain with all disadvantage and danger The Horse and Dragoons being not five hundred and the Foot two thousand four hundred THe Parliament Army well furnished and Barricado'd upon the top of the hill their Foot 3400 and their Horse not many indeed having dispatched 1200 to surprize the Sheriff and Commissioners at Bodmin ON the Kings side order was given to force the passage to the top of the hill by four several Avenues the ascent was deep and difficult resolutely did his Majesties Forces get up and obstinately did the Enemy keep them down The fight continued doubtful with many countenances of various events from four in the morning till three in the afternoon amongst which most remarkable the smart charge made by M. G. Chudleigh with a stand of Pikes on Sir Bevile Greenvil who fell nobly himself and had lost his Squadron had not Sir Iohn now Lord Berkley who led up the Musqueteers on each side of Sir Bevil seasonably relieved it so resolutely re-inforcing the Charge that Major General Chudleigh was taken Prisoner Betwixt three and four of the Clock the Commanders of the Kings Forces who embraced those four several ways of ascent met to their mutual joy almost on the top of the hill which the routed Enemy confusedly forsook In this service though they were Assailants they lost very few men and no considerable Officer killing of the Enemy about three hundred and taking seventeen hundred Prisoners all their Canon being thirteen pieces of Brass Ordnance and Ammunition seventy Barrels of Powder with a Magazine of Bisket and other Provision proportionable For this Victory publick Prayer and Thanksgiving was made on the hill then the Army was disposed of to improve their success to the best advantage Nothing had sunk his great spirit but the fate of Kingdoms with whose ruine only he was contented to fall and disbanded his Souldiers upon honorable terms Five things made my Lord
meetings of the Vails and Woulds very commodiously to defend and command the Country especially my Lords three darlings as he called them the Woods the Cloathing and the Iron-work of that Country with near a 1000. men and 5000 l. in Plate he waits upon his Majesty at Shrewsbury and thence the Lord Say being too hard for him at home surprizing his house and making an intollerable havock an essay to that plundering wherewith my Lord made them odious in those parts all along to Edgehill Branford and Oxford where his Majesty observed that his Counsels were well-grounded and happy and his performances quick and well-designed His Castle in the mean time too narrow a Sphere for his own activity under the Command of Captain Bridges and some sixty Souldiers being besieged by Massie with 300 Musqueteers and three Companies of Dragoons and two Sakers after a long Siege several Assaults and Batteries when they were almost smoothered by the smoke of Hay and Barns burned about the house yielded Ian. 1642. a loss revenged by my Lord at Newbury Sept. 20. 16â—â— when with the Earls of Caernarvon and Northampton the true Heir of his Fathers valor Commanding his Majesties Horse there the King said Let Chandois alone his Errors are safe From which Battel he went to Glocester to secure several Garrisons which he kept round about Sudeley to hinder the Correspondence between Glocester and Warwick and consequently between it and London gathering a Cloud about Glocester that only eye-sore to his Majesties Affairs in those parts and disposing of himself at Chettenham the Lord Herbert and Sir Iohn Winter in the Forrest the Irish Forces on this side Berkley and the Oxford at Painswick and Stroud so effectually that he recovreed Sudeley and distressed Glocester till he was called with other Lords Ian. 22. 1643. to the Parliamentary Convention at Oxford made up of such honorable Members as could not with safety and honor sit where they were called by Writ as the King to advise with whom they were called could not at Westminster where he subscribed a Letter of Accommodation to the Earl of Essex Ian. 27. to the Privy-Council and the Conservations of the Peace of the Kingdom of Scotland in pursuance of the Act of Pacification against the Scots Invasion Ian. 29. and to the men at Westminster Feb. 6. 1643. all full of all the reason condescention and all lawful compliance in the world for the Peace of the Kingdom as were the several Messages for Treaty of Peace a free and full Parliament sent during that Session of Parliament which concluded April 15. 1644. with an humble Petition to his Majesty to continue his Care and Resolutions for the maintenance of the true Religion the established Laws frequent Parliaments and Synods strict Discipline in the Army with as much regard as can be to the ease of the Subjects in whose behalf they prayed that the present exigencies of War and Necessity might not be drawn into example For these publick Services he made a shift to deserve besides frequent Imprisonments a Sequestration from his Countreys service and being turned to herd with the Commons this heavy Composition George Lord Chandois 3975 10 00 and what escaped Sequestration he bestowed in generous relief of Reverend and excellent Persons who wanted not their own Estates as long as he had any of his many Cavaliers he entertained all according to their respective qualities he did indeavor to serve and promote among others the accomplished Mr. H. Compton dear to him for his relations sake and dearer for his vertues vertues that sweetned sad times and made the owners of them happier in injoying themselves than the world This excellent Person admitted to his own affections he indeavored to recommend to a Ladies of his acquaintance who vouchsafed him whose Fortune and Person was below few Matches in the Kingdom that respect for my Lords sake while his Lady lived that to his great trouble she would needs force upon himself when she dyed which Mr. Compton was so transported with though my Lord protested against her kindness to him and directed Mr. Compton to prevent it by pressing his Marriage with her telling him one morning as they were abed together that he should finde she was a Woman and fickle above the meekness of his nature and of Religion that in the precepts and examples of it hath taught mankind to suffer the greatest evils before they do the least and supposed its Professors so meek humble patient and charitable that it hath nothing against shedding of bloud more than the Injunctions of nature and Moses he being looked upon as an Apostate who renounceth Christ that quits his patience to give way to wrath to take up a course begun by wicked and branded Cain the first Dueller who as the Syriack Chaldee and LXX read that Text said to his Brother Let us go into the field and continued against all the Civil and Sacred Laws that obtained among all sober people only by the Goths and Vandals who not enduring the ingenious way of ending Controversies by Reason and Law brought in the barbarous kinde of decisions by handling hot Iron walking bare-foot on burning Coals scalding Water and the brutish Combat or Duel and first affront my Lord and since he was like Love not easily provoked afterwards challenge him who in point of honor as young Gallants cant must answer him and shew that he understood not the value of his honorable life only satisfie two or three Hectors that forsooth he feared not death setting up his own Honor against the humor of Orlando Furioso Christs express precept and example of meekness and patience as if it were not an higher honor to pass by and pity trivial offences than only to quarrel with them since by the last we are even with our adversary and by the first above him Loath was my Lord at first and loath both when they had slept at Brentford where Mr. C. had an ominous Dream a fair warning to awaken his reason that like Christ was asleep in this storm of his passion from him who sometimes speaks by dreams sometimes by Visions in the night to sacrifice their lives to their own and a Ladies follies till edged on by some of their unhappy company who swore What Childrens play nay but you shall fight They did very honorably indeed fore-go their Lives the one to the Sword of his Friend and the other to the mercy of the Law Mr. Compton who was told by him that he needed not to have used a Sword to search into his breast which when if he should open he would say he said that he had killed a Friend though he never loved the man as Friend that he feared as an Enemy but was not heard by him who thought it was his art to wooe lying at his mercy as he did which troubled him most of all that he must beg his life of those that had forfeited theirs at the cruel
capacity as this war was some of the Devils Black Guard may be listed among Gods Souldiers yet there were fewer oaths among them than in any Army then in England They say the Cornish-tongue affordeth but two natural oaths or but three at the most The sobriety of this Army which Sir Bevile would say were greater if less some being rather a burden than strength to it made them valiant its the foul Gun and the guilty Conscience that recoils as when Sir William Waller intended to break the Western Association at Landsdown was beaten out of his Lines and Hedges by Sir Bevill and not only so but forced likewise out of an high hill fortified on all sides the passage up very narrow and dangerous between a Wood lined with Musqueteers on the one hand and Hedges on the other gained after four desperate Repulses by Horse Foot and Canon by Sir Bevill and maintained with a Stand of his own Pikes with a gallantry and honor admired by his very enemies until he was unfortunately â—lain in the Head of his Men with the excellent Serjeant Major Lower at his feet and honorable Mr. Leake the Earl of Scarsedales Son with his enemies Colours about his armes to whom this mention is due Mr. Barker Lieutenant Col. Wall Mr. Bostard Captain Iames and Cholwell being found dead not far from him both sides bewailing him and the whole University of Oxford honoring his memory with a Book of Verses whereof these I pitched upon for his Epitaph NOt to be wrought by Malice Gain or Pride To a Compliance with the Triving Side Not to take Armes for Love of change or spight But only to maintain afflicted Right Not to dye Vainly in pursuit of Fame Perversly seeking after Voice and Name Is to resolve Fight Dye as Martyrs do And thus did he Souldier and Martyr too He might like some reserved Men of State Who look not to the Cause but to its Fate Have stood aloof Engaged on neither side Prepared at last to strike in with the Tide But well-weighed Reason told him that when Law Either's Renounced or Misapplied by th' awe Of false-nam'd Patriots that when the Right Of King and Subject is suppress'd by Might When all Religion either is refused As meer pretence or meerly as that used When thus the fury of Ambition swells Who is not active modestly Rebels VVhence in a just Esteem to Church and Crown He offered all and nothing thought his own This thrust him into Action whole and free Knowing no Interest but Loyalty Not loving Arms as Arms or Strife for Strife Nor Wasteful nor yet Sparing of his Life A great Exacter of himself and then By fair commands no less of other men Courage and Iudgment had their equal part Counsel was added to a generous heart Affairs were justly timed nor did he catch At an affected fame of quick dispatch Things were Prepar'd Debated and then done Not rashly Broke or vainly Overspun False Periods no where by design were made As are by those that make the VVar their Trade The Building still was suited to the Ground VVhence every Action issued full and round We know who blind their men with specious Lies With Revelation and with Prophecies Who promise two things to obtain a third And are themselves by the like Motives stir'd By no such Engine he his Soldiers drawes He knew no Arts but Courage and the Cause With these he brought them on as well-train'd Men And with those two he brought them off again When now th' Incensed Legions proudly came Down like a Torrent without Bank or Dam When understood Success urged on their Force That Thunder must come down to stop their Course or Greenvile must step in then Greenvile stood And with himself opposed check'd the Floud Conquest or Death was all his thoughts so Fire Either O'rcomes or doth it self Expire His Courage work't like flames cast Heat about Here there on this on that side none gave out Not any Pike in that renowned Stand But took new force from his inspiring Hand Souldier encourag'd Souldier Man urg'd Man And he urg'd all so much example can Hurt upon Hurt Wound upon Wound did call He was the Butt the Mark the Aim of all His Soul this while retir'd from Cell to Cell At last flew up from all and then he fell But the devoted Stand enraged more From that his Fate plied hotter than before And proud to fall with him sworn not to yeild Each sought an honored Grave so gain'd the Field Thus he being fallen his action Fought anew And the Dead Conquered whiles the Living slew This was not Natures Courage nor that thing We Valor call which Time and Reason bring But Diviner Fury fierce and high Valor transported into Extasie Which Angels looking on us from above Vse to convey into the Souls they love Doctor Lluelin ANd with this constant Principle possess 't He did alone expose his single Breast Against an Armies force and bleeding lay The Great Restorer of th' declining day Thus slain thy Vasiant Ancestor did Lie VVhen his one Barque a Navy durst defie When now encompass'd round he Victor stood And bath'd his Pinnace in his Conquering blood Till all his purple Current dried and spent He fell and left the Waves his Monument Where shall next famous Greenviles Ashes stand Thy Grandsire fills the Sea and thou the Land And there is a third Greenvile the Right Honorable Iohn Earl of Bathe Sir Beviles Son and Heir who having gone on so honorably all the War the Chronicle whereof swells with his name pursuing those great Actions his Father had begun in King Charles I. time that my Lord Dighy and that King writing to the Queen about making him of the Princes Bed-Chamber declare him then the most deserving young Gentleman in England and waited upon King Charles I. so faithfully that as he had been witness of his Majesties gracious intentions and thoughts towards his distracted Kingdoms abroad in his banishment so he was the first Messenger between his Majesty and his Kingdoms in order to his miraculous return home who should be the instrument of the Sons Restauration but Sir Bevile Greenviles Son who had so nobly dyed in defence of the Father And if there be any knowledge above among the blessed of what is done here below among us its King Charles the Martyrs satisfaction that his Son is restored to his Throne and it adds to Sir Bevill Greenviles bliss that his heir is the first messenger in the Kingdom met in Parliament of the Gracious Letters that accomplished that Restauration And here will be the most proper place to mention Sir Richard Greenvile Sir Beviles Brother who staid with the Parliament till two Treaties and the great condescention of his Majesty brought him over first to correspondence and when an opportunity offered its self of performing his Majesty a considerable service by carrying over with him the Government of a very advantageous Port-Town to actual service
watchfulness setled integrity circumspect activity advantageous temperance and good conversation gained the repute of the best Commander of Horse in the world in which capacity he had the Command of a Colonel in the Shew as he called it against Scotland and of General of Horse in the real War against the English and that in the North assisting the Earls of Cumberland and Newcastle to form an Army where the best Horse were to be raised from whence after some notable defeats of the Lord Fairfax which some said were remembred at Colchester he carryed 2000. Horse to assist his Majesty with whom we finde him eminent both for his direction and execution about the hill near Newbery and Eâ—born-Heath which he maintained with one Regiment well disposed and lined with Musqueteers and a Drake with small shot against the gross of Eâ—â—ex his Armyâ— the Leading-man of which he Pistolled himself in the Head of hiâ— Troop giving close fire himself and commanding others to do the like After this first battel of Newbery and his recovery froâ— his seven wounds received there being at Cawood Castle when it was assaulted with extraordinary skill and valor he forced his way through the enemies quarters to such places as he thought convenient with such confidence and magnanimity that his very name became a terror in the North raising by the very Alarm three Sieges and reducing two strong Garrisons At Marston-Moor being commanded to lead the Kings Left Wing against the Parliaments Right consisting of Fairfax his Troops and Scots he routed them for two miles together with a violent Charge and afterwards saved most of those that were saved in that fatal battel making it his business to pick up a Regiment of Veteranes saying He must make much of a Souldier for he was long in the making and not one in twenty lived to it At Newark he gave as great a proof of his good Discipline as he did of his personal Valor strict though not severe in his Commands being none of those that reckoned it the very spirit of Policy and Prudence where men refuse to come up to Orders and Law to make Orders and Law come down to them and for their so doing have this infallible Recompence that they are not at all the more loved but much the less feared and which is a sure consequence of it accordingly respected Disobedience if complied with is infinitely incroaching and having gained one degree of Liberty upon indulgence will demand another upon claim Free in his rewards to persons of desert and quality very zealous on all occasions against the Rebellion being usually known to deliver himself in these words That he preferred the style of Loyalty before any Dignity earth could confer upon him In his Charge serious and vigilant remiss in nothing that might expedite or improve his dispatch in Affairs of Government as compassionate as couragious never killing the man he durst spare and very ready at all times to afford what himself could not receive Free-quarter to which I need adde only his brave and successeful Attempt in the famous march from Berkley Castle with part of his Regiment between Slym-bridge and Bevâ—rston Castle upon Col. Massies Garrisons with his incomparable Gallantry at Tidbury his brave answer at Berkley Castle at the refusal of two summons viz. That he would eat Horse-flesh â—irst and Mans-flesh when that was done before he would yield But having trod many uncouth parts for his Majesties restitution and breaking his Parol with the General upon good advicâ— had before to satisfie his Conscience in that point he formed an hopeful Association among the Gentlemen of his own Country the beginning whereof was indeed so distracted that he advised them to retire quietly to their own homes until they had a fairer opportunity who intreated him to command them promising to live and die with him one and all as he did securing them on all hands by a party of choice Horse from the Incursions of the Enemy and disposing them in Quarters most for their advantage and safety all along till taking the Earl of Warwicks House and Arms in his way they came from Burnt-wood to Colchester which shutting the gates against him he reduced with his very appearance and when the next day begirt he entertained the Enemies whole Army with such Conduct and Resolution in the hedges and Suburbs round the Town that had they all fallied out as he advised them they had as some Prisouers acknowledged bidden fair for the overthrow of that whole Army But the enemy falling next day to form a Leaguer he considering there was no marching out of the Country about being Champion ground wherein for want of Horse they would be instantly cut off Victualled and furnished the Town in spight of the Army from the Stores and Countrey adjoyning and made its ruines above belief defensible to give time to other Countreys while the Army was there to Associate expecting the Northern relief and likewise to weather the Army its self by hard duty unseasonable weather and continual sallies sending out some excellent Persons to countenance the Levy of more Forces in other Countries and keep intelligence from whom several small parties came in through the Leaguer and ordering all the Town Arms into the Magazine and listing the Towns-men into Companies Iuly 7. Sir Charles and Sir George Lisle made a grand Sally that cleared one side of the Leaguer Streets Hills Hedges and all to the loss of near a thousand six hundred killed several stealing into the Town and many running home Iuly 12. Sir Charles took care for a convenient distribution of the Provision left among the Towns-people and Souldiers and of Declarations to be sent into Kent and Essex and to the Army promising from his Majesty Arrears and Indemnity to such as laid down their Armes or would joyn with them towards the Peace and Settlement of the Kingdom Iuly 29. Sir Charles advised that the Horse should break out through the Leaguer towards the North but in vain the false Towns-men that should make their way as Pioneers deserting them August 17. He and the Lord Capell in a Letter to the General desired twenty days respite to inform themselves about their intended Relief and that being denied the Relief failing the great Northern Army beaten their Ammunition spent to a Barrel and a half of Powder and their Provision to two Horses and one Dog the whole Kingdom stupid and Sir Charles his admirable overture after a general protestation that they would not accept of dishonorable terms nor desert one another of a general Sally to perish nobly or honorably Relieve themselves being when all things were ready to a minute for the executing of it defeated yielded and by the Generals order retired to the Kings-head till Sir Charles was sent for with Sir George Lisle Colonel Farre and Sir Bernard Gascoin to a Councel of War by which he was Condemned to dye immediately Sir Charles asking
affrighted by it It being very observable that a learned Doctor of Physick present at the Opening and Embalming of this Lord and the Duke Hamilton delivered at a publick Lecture That the Lord Capel 's was the least heart and the Duke the greatest that ever he saw agreeable to the observation in Philosophy that the spirits contracted within the least compass are the cause of the greatest courage Three things are considerable in this incomparable person 1. His un-interrupted Loyalty keeping pace with his life for his last breath was spent in proclaiming King Charles the Second in the very face of his enemies as known to him to be Virtuous Noble Gentle Just and a great Prince A perfect Englishman in his Inclination 2. His great merit and modesty whereof King Charles the First writes thus to his Excellent Queen There is one that doth not yet pretend that deserves as well as any I mean Capel Therefore I desire Thy assistance to finde out something for him before he ask 3. The blessing of God upon his Noble but Suffering Family who was a Husband to his excellent Widow and a Father to his hopeful Children whom not so much their Birth Beauty and Portion though they were eminent for these as their Virtues Married to the best Blood and Estates in the Land even when they and the Cause they suffered for were at the lowest It s the happiness of good men though themselves misâ—rable that their Seed shall be Mighty and their Generation Blessed A Religious man that used to say as his Tutor Dr. Pashe under whom he was bred at Clare-hall in Cambridge That when he had kept the Sabbath well he found the greater blessing upon all he did afterwards that was as good in all his private Relations as in his several publick Capacities especially in that of a husband of which state he saith That it doubled his joyes divided his grief and created new and unthought of contentments A sober Gentleman that loved not to hear a man talk a greater variety of things than he could rationally discourse and used only those Recreationâ— of which he could give a Philosophical account how they refâ—eâ—hed his minde or recovered his body so good natured that he would have all his Servants and Dependants his Friends none stricter in the Discipline of his Family none more obliging in the sweetness of his converse Who would say he observed that the disobedience of men to us was no other than the punishment of our disobedience to God The meekest man living that had the arâ— as well as the grace by yielding to pacifie wrath Of an happy mean and temperament between the too thin and open and the too close hating a troublesome nature as bad as an Infection A diserect person that would not suffer the infelicity of one of his Affairs to distemper him so as to loose all consideration to guide him in the rest that had always a friend to advise and an example to imitate retaining the decency of his own natural evenness saying That he was a wise-man that was able to make wise-men his instruments A good Father that expected so much blessing in the Education of his Children as he made prayers for them Possinâ—â—â—â—oâ— Lachrimarum Liberi perire A good Christian that set apart half an hour every day of his retirement to think of Eternity a good temper that would fairly guide and not directly contradict any manâ— little regarding applause knowing as he would say notably that the vulgar are easily tired with constant vertue and as easily taken with a started novelty and living not to various opinion or favor but conscience and wisdom one that hated the flatterer who would say struck him before and the lyâ—r that hit him behind both in sâ—nsibly both dangerously A Nobleman that resolved to be happy by two things 1. A moderate using of the present and 2. An indifferent expectation of what is to come and thought him a great Crafts-master that could shadow the opposition that businesses have one with another that esteemed that only his that he had Liberally or Charitably given that observed it was not expenceâ— but a carelesseness how and what we spend that ruineth an Estate that desired to gain respect not by little observances but by a constant fair carriage that entertained reports always with Quaeries and a temperate Belief that would say that every action of his that was unhappy precipitated and rash that made his afflictions tolerable by making his desires moderate that used to say that he scarce knew a man capable of a true friend That writes of the most exalted fortune that it hath little contentment without some popular good will and therefore he advised the greatest man to be careful how he gave a publick disgrace to the meanest person He would say that there are so many circumstances in the way to an Estate or Greatness that a peremptory man that went alone seldom attained either that no man is so unhappy as that he must lye to live and that there was a civil art to be free in courtesie loving in Society and heedful in observation This excellent Personage declaring openly in the House of Lords That the Kings Majesty had granted so much for the security and peace of the Kingdom that they who asked more intended the disturbance of it following his Majesty to York and with other Lords attesting the integrity of his Majesties Proceedings there in order to Peace and promising to assist him with his Life and Fortune against all other pretended Authority in case it came to a War notwithstanding a summons from Westminster to which he and others made a civil return and an impeachment of High-Treason for going from Westminster to York at the Kings Command whereof he took no notice settling his Estate in Sir Edward Capell and other Trustees who I finde compounded for 4706 l. 07s II d. Advanced his Majesty between eight and nine hundred Horse and 12000 l. in Money and Plate and if he had had the happyness of being imployed in his own Country the fatal error of that time as he was far off in the borders of Wales we had heard more of him however we finde him subscribing the Declarations of the Parliament at Oxford 1643. and the Messages for Peace from the Army in the field attending his present Majesty to cornwall where he was hurt in two or three several Engagements once venturing himself very far to save the Foot managing the Correspondence between him and the Members at Westminster in order to an accommodation with great Caution against their subtile design who would divide the Princes Interest and his Fathers following him to Scilly Iersey and the Fleet then falling to him whence he betakes himself home to form the design 1647 1648. that was then brewing in the three Kingdoms for the safety and liberty of the Kings Majesty offering among others this consideration to a very eminent
Person viz. That this great truth that the imprisoning killing or deposing of any Supream Governor who is Gods Minister in a Nation is against the Will and Word of God should be offered by the Clergy of England to be proved by Scripture and if not regarded to be sealed with their bloud and with the Joynt-attestation of all Protestant Churches and Universities as the great principle of Christian Doctrine about the Peace and Government of Kingdoms and Nations And as he saith in his Letter Feb. 11. 1647. thinking of little else in this world than what he should do for the preservation of his Sacred Majesty than whose sufferings there was nothing greater he said except his vertues as a Christian a Subject an Englishman a Nobleman and an obliged Servant he caused a Rumor to be spread of his design which put the General upon calling him in from his Parole and upon his frank appearance he was dimissed till the Parliament should send for him so being free from his engagement which was as sacred to him as his Allegiance he went to Colchester with all the Horse he had and there incouraged the Souldiers by his own example going with an Halberd on his shoulder to the watch and guard in his turn paying six pence or twelve pence a shot for all the Enemies Bullets the Souldiers could pick up Charging the first day of the siege aâ— Head-gate where the Enemy was most pressing with a Pike till the gate could be shut which at last was but pinned with his Cane and after the Murther of Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle when Whaley and Ewres were sent to tell him and the rest of the Lords and Gentlemen that they should have quarter as Prisoners answering them himself That since the condition of those two Gentlemen and theirs in reference to that service were alike they wished they had all run one hazard and they had thanked the General more for saving the Lives of the two Knights whom they had already executed than for the grant of their own From Colchester my Lord was sent to the remotest Prison they could imagine from his own Countrey and thence fetched up to the Tower where after a handsome escape over the water to Lambeth wherein he was betrayed by the wretched Water-man that carryed him over who discovered him by his munificence the Gold he gave him he spent not his time in thoughts for his own Life but for that of his Majesties conjuring a Lord then sitting to second their Vote against the Ordinance for Tryal of his Majesty with a resolute Declaration to all Kings Princes States Potentates and Nobility to be signed by all the Lords Judges Lawyers Divines Gentry and people of England and this he pressed with most pathetick Arguments whereof one was very remarkable viz. That he understood by his dear-bought experience of those men of the Enthusiasm that let them but meet a well-grounded and justificable Zeal Courage and Resolution greater than their misguided fury to stemme the Torrent of it they would recollect and as he said observing some hesitation in their proceedings who found it easier to Conquer a people than to govern them against their Interest by a small part of themselves it being easier to overthrow another Government than to settle their own in an excellent Letter from the Tower Ian. 9. 1648. full of a Noble and Heroick Spirit which he concludes with this expression That it grieved him that he could do nothing else but rub his fingers upon Paper an imployment that fitted not his Genius Give saith he but the people an honorable example they will follow you and vindicate both you and themselves from being as such a silly Generation that they should suffer themselves to be cozened out of their good known and established Laws and in the place of them be imposed upon by Imaginations and Dreams to which he added another Letter Ian. 15. to a very great man in the Army every line whereof runs with this vigor against their proceedings YOur Party is small and giddy the thing its self is monstrous the Lords and Commons under whom you fought are against you all Princes and Protestants will abhor you Scotland will be dis-united from England Ireland will be lost Trade will be stopped by all Kings and States with people of so dangerous principles all Nations will be ready to invade us many of the Judges to sit upon the King will leave you the Empire of the Sea will be lost the Nation will be infamous to Posterity the Protestant yea Christian Religion will receive a deadly blow to be revenged by all people that profess it no man is sure of his life or any thing he hath the most prudent Form of Rules the world hath known will be overthrown a vast number of people are concerned in those Rules no example will be-friend you all Potentates will be against you and the Prince to be murthered so excellent and knowing in the Art of Government so loved reverenced and desired that of all the Princes that that ever ruled the people that were so happy in the first sixteen years of his Reign were they to chuse would pitch upon him and which is more the only person in whom his enemies may finde security being otherwise like to be torn to pieces by their Fellow-subjects upon the least change the express word of the great God in whose hands you are is against you Prov. 8. 15. 1 Sam 24 5 6. Prov. 24. 21 22. Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. c. the Laws of the Land your own Judges yea your own Oaths Protestations Covenants Promises and Pretences all along fly in your faces the Prince the two Dukes and the numerous Royal issue should deter you the Precipice of endless Wars and Desolations you are at the brink of should affright you Words big with his heart which you may see at large at the end of his incomparable Book of Meditations as appears by this close I would to God my life could be a sacrifice to preserve his could you make it an expedient to serve that end truly I would pay you more thanks for it than you will allow your self for all your other Merits from those you have most obliged and dye Your most Affectionate Friend How readily he would have dyed for him we may see in his chearfulness to dye with him for being brought before an High Court of Justice as it was called within a moneth after having offered brave Arguments from the Law of the Land the Government of the Nation the nullity of their Court the benefit of his Peerage and the Law that governed the world meaning the Sword by which he was promised quarter for life he heard the Villains ridiculous Sentence with a nobler spirit than they pronounced it telling them That they needed not have used those formalities to murther him And March the ninth the day appointed for the Assassination having conjured his Lady in two Letters That
be no exceptions From Nottingham-shire he passed with some Troops to countenance the Commission of Array in other Counties and particularly in Oxford-shire to secure the University from the Rebels and the Scholars and their Plates for his Majesty when assaulted by the Forces of Northampton and betrayed by the Town of Brackley so that he lost his Carriages and Cabinet he writes to Mr. Clark of Craughton in whose Custody they were to restore them Which if you do saith he I shall represent it to his Majesty as sty as an acceptable service if not assure your self I shall finde a time with advantage to re-pay my self out of your Estate and consider that as Rebellion is a weed of an hasty growth so it will decay as suddenly and that there will be a time for the Kings Loyal Subjects to repair their losses sustained by Rebells and Traytors Upon the sending of which Letter to the Parliament and their proclaiming him and his Adherents Traytors for their Allegiance to their Soveraign he marched to Worcester a very commodiously situated place taking it in and Garrisoning it decoying thither the Lord Say Colonel Nath. Fines and Sandys into a trap by a mistake of Prince Rupert for the Earl of Essex and gaining the first Victory and Reputation to his Majesties Side and Party which was judged never able either to form an Army or to aim at Victory How valiantly and warily he led on the Kings Horse at the first Newbery Fight when Col. Middleton protested there was no dealing with Biron who would give no advantage is well known and how prudently and industriously he pursued his Majesties Interest about Wales where he was Field Marshall General may be guessed by the Command given him of that Important Place both for passage into Ireland and Westchester and power over the Circuit of four Counties for Contribution where his Honorable and Obliging Deportment his judicious Works his frequent Sallies his great Word Cconsider so much you know as you consider his magnanimous performance in most Storms in Person his great Art of keeping both Town and Garrison contented with Cats Dogs yea and those failing with but one meal in three dayes while there was any hope of Relief refusing nine summons and not answering the tenth till his messenger returned with assurance that there was no hope of relief when he yielded upon the most honorable terms for himself and the whole Garrison that were given in England except those he afterwards gained at Caernarvon having indured a long and gallant Siege the benefit whereof he injoyed with a notable escape or two to rally the decayed and scattered spirits of the Kingdom into further attempts for his Majesty travelling invisibly and with incredible speed from place to place for a year together not sleeping four nights together in a place for a year till the fatal drowsiness hanging over the Kingdom put him upon taking his rest too and withdrawing to France to follow his ingenious Studies which the War had interrupted in the course but not in the effect of them his admirable discourse to his Mother discovering him as compleat a Scholar him as compleat a Scholar as he was an accomplished Gentleman dying oppressed with the sad thoughts of the consequence of the horrid Murther of his sacred Master about 1650. whose Monument is supported by four excellent Brothers I. Sir Philip Biron a Gentleman of a wide and capacious soul to grasp much and of an enlarged heart to communicate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Servant of love a great Master of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Art of love as if with Socrates he that knew every thing knew nothing but how to love After many signal services in York-shire in each whereof there was always observed something of a judicious stratagem in a general Storm by the whole Parliament Army upon Tork he was killed in the Head of his Regiment which never went out but he would tell them That never brave man came to any thing that resolved not either to Conquer or perish July 19. 1644. II. The Right Honorable Sir Richard now Lord Biron of Rochdale succeeding his noble Brother in that honor King Charles I. Octob. 24. 1643. invested him with to be Chronicled for his Government in and many surprizes of the enemy about Newark III. Sir Nicholas Biron as excellent a Commander of Foot as Sir Iohn was of Horse one of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Life-guard of the world by his Piety and by his Prudence a person whom his late Majesty in all Engagements would have always near him IV. Sir Robert Biron all Colonels in his Majesties Army this last excellent Person higher in his relation to God by his second Birth contingit sanguine Coelum than to his Noble Family by his first All these Heroes deserving that Epitaph the great Family De Haro have always upon their Graves viz. Regum subditi amici THE Life and Death OF Dr. IOHN BRAMHALL Lord Archâ—bishop of Armagh c. HE was bred in Cambridge in Sydney Colledge under Mr. Hulet a grave and a worthy man and he shewed himself not only a fruitful Plant by his great progress in his Studies but made him another return of gratitude taking care to provide him a good Imployment in Ireland where he then began to be greatly interested It was spoken as an honor to Augustus Caesar that he gave his Tutor an honorable Funeral and Marcus Antonius erected a Statue unto his and Gratian the Emperor made his Master Ausonius to be Consul And our worthy Primate knowing the obligation which they pass upon us who do Obstetricari gravidae animae help the parturient Soul to bring forth fruit according to its seminal powers was careful not only to reward the industry of such persons so useful to the Church in the cultivating infantes plamarum young Plants whose joynts are to be stretched and made streight but to demonstrate that his Scholar knew how to value his Learning when he knew so well how to reward the Teacher Having passed the course of his studies in the University and done his Exercise with that Applause which is usually the reward of pregnant Wits and hard he was removed into York-shire where first in the City of York he was an assiduous Preacher but by the disposition of the Divine Providence he happened to be engaged at North-Alerton in Disputation with three pragmatical Romish Priests of the Jesuits Order whom he so much worsted in the Conference and so shamefully disadvantaged by the evidence of the Truth represented wisely and learnedly that the famous Primate of York Arch-bishop Matthews a learned and an excellent Prelate and most worthy Preacher hearing of that Triumph sent for him and made him his Chaplain in whose service he continued until the death of the Primate but in that time had given so much Testimony of his great Dexterity in the Conduct of Ecclesiastical and Civil Affairs that he grew dear
there before they were aware of him and so couragiously that he came back disputing nine Passes and after twelve Skirmishes maâ—gre all the opposition made against him routing first and last in that famous Expedition 9000. men A little before Naseby fight my Lord declared for breaking into the Associated Counties and so through them to the North to chase away the Scots when that battel was resolved on where he said when he was desired to Lead the Left Wing of Horse in that sight that by reason of the Leicester Plunder the averseness of his men from fighting save in their own Country and the tired condition of the whole Army would ruin his Majesty as it did he being never able to make head for him but once afterwards 1648. when with Sir Phillip Musgrave having surprized Carlisle and Berwick he joyned 3000. brave English to Hamilton's Scots beating Lambert back to Appleby and taking several strong holds by the way as he had done the kingdom had his advise been hearkened to in marching directly to York and so to London whereas they wandered in Cumberland and Westmerland as Colonel Stuart when afterwards upon the Stool of Repentance for that Expedition being asked gravely by the Ministers whether by his Malignancy he went not out of the way answered that he went wrong to Westmerland when he should have gone to York that Scots Army being beaten as soon as seen there being no more effectual resistance made by the 16000. horse and foot under Hamilton of whom the King said when he heard that he was Commander in Chief that he expected no good from that Army than was made by Sir Marmaduke with the 2000. English that he had raised and commanded Sir Marmaduke Langdale was taken Prisoner and by caressing his Guards made an ingenious and bold escape to his Majesty beyond Sea where he carried that seriousness in his countenance he was a very lean and much mortified man the enemy here called him Ghost and deservedly they were so haunted by him that gravity in his converse that integrity and generosity in his dealing that strictness in his devotion that experience moderation and wariness in his Counsel that weight in his discourse as much endeared to strangers his Royal Masters Cause and his own person in all the Countries he travelled as he did many and all the Armies he engaged in as he did in most then afoot in Europe till he was restored with his Majesty 1660. when appearing in Parliament as Baron Langdale of Holmes till his Majesty by the Act of Indemnity and disbanding the Army was fully setled he returned to his considerable Estate in York-shire satisfied for 160000. l. loss in his Majesties service with the conscience of having suffered it in a good cause and acquitted himself bravely and played the man if thou do ill the joy fades and not the pains if well the pain doth fade the joy remains His Discipline was strict and exact It was present death to wrong the meanest person in the least thing where he had any Command saying that he must make the people believe that his Army was raised to protect them and therefore it was not fit in an Army of his wherein every Souldier was a Gentleman He died 1661. Deterrimi saeculi optimi heroes G. Dux Somersetensis H. Comes Cumberlandiae Marmaduke Baro Langdale Pulverem Sparge Lector abi â—egi vult modesta virtus non legi cujus hoc dogma ama nesciri Sir Thomas Glemham having most of the noble blood of England in his Veins had most of the virtues that belonged to such blood in his Soul having had experience of the German Wars then the great Nursery of our English Gentlemen he was the fitter for service in our wars being an admirable Commander of Horse and a discreet and watchful Governor of a Garrison forcing York he was made Governor of it and Commander in chief of his Majesties Forces upon the borders whence he writ to Argyle as smart a discourse as was written during the wars about the Scots Invading England against their Allegiance the late Pacification and the many obligations of his Majesty upon them upon the invitations of a few inconsiderable men that carried on designs of Innovation contrary to the known Laws Government Liberties and Priviledges of the Kingdome disabusing those parts and people as to the â—alse rumors and aspersions spread by the Scots among them Against whom and all the Northern Forces whom he made to shrink like Northern Cloath He kept the City of York 18 weeks till after he had gallantly withstood 22 Storms Counter-mines 4 slain 4 or 5000 of the enemies he was forced after the fatal Battel all Marston-moor which he would not have had fought to surrender up the City upon very honorable conditions for themselves and good for the City and Country whose Trade Freedom Estates and Government were secured in the Articles as their Persons were at the surrender Iuly 16. 1644. As he did the Garrison of Carlisle after 9 moneths seige in which time he kept it to astonishment against Pestilence Famine and all the power of Scotland upon the same terms to the Scots and the head Garrisons of Oxford upon the Kings order the noblest terms that ever Garrison was delivered on to Sir Tho. F. his Army over which his Majesty placed him because of his moderation sobriety popularity good temper reputation and his skill in fortification many additions to the works of that Garrison being made by him whereof one was of most dangerous consequence to the enemy viz. the breaking of the ground before the Trenches into pits full of stakes that nei-Horse nor Foot could attempt the Works nor a close seige especially in the Winter-floods be laid to them After an Arrest in London contrary to the Oxford Articles and sometimes Imprisonment in the Fleet thereupon he passed to Holland and there falling sick Sir M.L. and he for some reasons little frequenting the Court died some twelve years agoe by the same token that a Horse-farrier that belonged to him formerly in the North being commended to him for a great Doctor in Holland the honest man when he saw him desired to be excused calling for a more expert Physitian and telling him privately entreating his privacy that the doses he used to administer to the Northern Horse did agree infinitely well with Dutch bodies His Brother the Reverend Dr. Glemham is now Dean of Bristol and Bishop Elect of St. Asaph Tho. Glemham Cuj castra Carleolente Eboracense Monumentum sunt Oxonium Epitaphium Sir Henry Slingsby the Head of an ancient and numerous family of which Sir Arthur Slingsby Col. Tho Slingsby Col. Slingsby in York-shire whre he was High-Sheriff 9 Iacobi and always a good Justicer a noble Landlord a serious man much conversant with Holy men and our best Divines a generous Master a Gentleman of a large Estate spent most of it in the Kings service and the rest
burn the City â—earing that he should not dye in his Majesties favour for dying under a suspition of such a thing so unworthy of him and disowned their authority preparing himself for that death he had so often looked in the face both in England and in France for he Commanded in both kingdoms with a becoming frame and temper ennobled with honorable and devout circumstances by the assistance of a faithful Minister that honored his Family and in the company of many Reverend and Noble Friends with the Offices of the Church of England every day from his first imprisonment to his death Iuly 10. 1654. all with as much reverence zeal thankfulness holy sorrows and joys as his great soul could hold When with a religious confidence took his leave chearfully and particularly of all his honorable and good friends he passed through the Guards on whom he bestowed money twice bare-headed out of an humble respect to the people that pittied him on each side till he rather leaped up than ascended the Scaffold upon Tower-hill smiling with a pretty glance of his Eye which was a natural loveliness in him on the Executioner and his Instrument and saying Welcome honest Friend that will do the deed I 'le warrant it And being refused by the Sheriffs Edward Sleigh and Thomas Allen to speak to the people Let us saith he to the Reverend Minister with him speak to God as they did for half an hour afterwards professing he died a faithful Subject to King Charles II. for whom he said he would lay down if he had them a thousand lives and a Son of the Church of England for both whose Restauration he prayed and desiring the people to remember a poor Soveraign abroad who he said deserved to be remembred bowed himself to the stroke of death with Christian meekness and courage extraordinarily mixed together the same time and place but not with the same weak spirit that Don Pantaleon sa dyed wih who for fighting with Mr. Gerard on the New-Exchange where one Mr. Greenaway no ways concerned in the quarrel was killed was brought to dye with him though on a different occasion on Tower hill Upon which day Mr. Peter Vowel a Bedford-shire man School-Master of Isâ—ington being betrayed by a blind Minister he relieved at his house and disowning the pretended High-Court of Justice whom as Ierome of Prague did his adversaries he cited to appear before the great Tribunal was murthered at Charing-Cross a pitiful Minister of theirs sent under pretence of comforting to trepan him passing as severe a sentence on his Soul as they had done on his body dying as they would tell him and he confessed confidently instructing the Souldiery in the dangerous principles they went on in and professing his adherence to the King and the Church desiring that none should be disheartned at his death being assured that sanguinis Martyrum which he said they shed as the Heathens did in their bloudy sacrifices should be semen Ecclesiae commending his soul to Gods mercy and his numerous family to his providence saying He was sure the King should be restored and that his poor family should be better provided for than it could be by him he and Mr. Gerard leaving these principles behind them 1. That men might be excellent if they looked to their thoughts before they became desires and happy if they had but a right Opinion of things and understood That all the good and evil of mans life though it may have its occasions without hath truly and really its causes prevented or lessened or turned into good by a vertuous disposition 2. And that they looked into Opinions before they turned into Passions Major Henshaw escaped by flying and Mr. Somerset Fox by Argument that Massacre as did Mr. Manley a Merchant The noble Gentleman Sir Humphrey Bennet a Brigadire in his Majesties Army Mr. Woodcock Mr. Carrent Mr. Friar Mr. Io. Sumner and Mr. Oliver Allen Mr. Hatgil Baron Mr. Stapely Mr. Mansel Mr. Iackson and Mordant 1658. Mr. Sidney Fotherby and Mr. Tudor a Chirurgeon In which yet Col. Benlow fell Oct. 1651. having been observed active in the engagement at Worcester being shot to death at Shrewsbury a Person very observant in his carriage of that Rule in Mr. Herbert Slight not the smallest loss whether it be In Love or Honour take account of all Shine like the Sun in every corner see Whether thy stock of Credit swell or fall Who say I care not those I give for lost And in his habit of this Affect in things about thee cleanliness That all may gladly board thee as a flow'r Slovens take up their stock of noysomness Before hand and Anticipate their last hour Let thy minds sweetness have his operation Vpon thy Body Cloaths and Habitation And Sir Timothy Fetherston-haugh I think of Corkes-would in Cumberland Knight having paid 700 l. for the service of King Charles I. laid down his life for King Charles II. which he ventured magnanimously in the Field at Wiggan in Lancashire with the Earl of Derby with whom he being taken prisoner there lost it resoluteâ—ly by beheading after a Court-Martial at Chestâ—r where he denounced judgment on the Murtherers that passed sentence upon him setting the foulness of their fact with as much power on their Consciences as they did his Loyalty upon his Person and praying as heartily for the Kings person then in danger as for his own soul doing all he could honorably to save his life that he might not be felo de se and nothing dishonorably that he might not be a Traitor to Allegiance comforting himself with that saying of Pope Nicholas Martyrum solennia non funebria tanquam morientium sed utpote in vera vita nascentium natalitia vocantur and be it here remarqued that Sir Henry Fetherston and Col. Iohn Fetherston put as fair for Martyrdom as Sir Timothy which on all occasions to serve his Majesty they declined not by their own Cowardise but escaped by the Divine Providence winning and wearing the name of Confessors One whose Son lay very sick being told by a Physician that his Son was a dead man said I had rather a Physician should call him so an hundred times than a Judge on the Bench once whose pronouncing him for a dead man makes him one Sir Henry Hide Brother as I take it to the Lord High Chancellor bred a Turky Merchant and after the gaining of a considerable Estate and Experience made their Consul at Morea where his integrity and prudence gained him such respect in those parts that his Majesty having some occasion of correspondence at the Port sent him to use his own word Internuncio thither without any design against either the Merchants whom he had a charge to be tender of or Sir Thomas Bendish who had been a Prisoner in the Tower and paid a 1000 l. for his Loyalty to his Majesty by whose Commission he was there Ambassador and who hath published an Apology to clear
the First that firm Protestant who could not be moved from his Religion though he was in the heart of Spain and France was in his bosom either by power or love said of him when going under his Roof at Naseby fight that he found not so much faith as he did in him though a Papist bred at Saint Omers and travelled for many years in Spain and Italy no not in Israel For it was he whose frugality whereof his plain Freeze cloaths at Court were a great example enabled him and his Loyalty which he said whatever other Romanists practised was incorporated into his Religion often relating with pleasure that Gospel for the day when the Imperialists beat the Bohemians was Reddite Caesari quae sunt Casaris Deo qui sunt Dei urged him when his Majesties Protestant Subjects made him afraid and ashamed to stay in London to send men with ready money when the King wanted it and the Country-people would do no more without it to bear the charges of his Majesties and his Followers carriages and other accommodations to York besides that he was seen to give Sir Iohn Biron 5000 l. Sterling to raise the first horse that were raised for the King in England and his own Officers 40000 l. Sterling to raise two Armies 1642. and 1643. for his Majesty in Wales over and above 40000 l. Sterling in gold at three several times sent his Majesty in person and the unwearied pains the close imprisonments the many iminent dangers of his life and most of these hardships endured when he was eighty years of age and the great services he performed in South-wales where the greatness of his fortune and family improved by the sweetness and munificence of his person raised him an interest that kept those parts both a sanctuary to his Majesties person when he was in streights and the great relief of his Cause both with men and money when he was in want till that victorious Army that had reduced the whole kingdom besieged him who hearing of his Son the Lord Glamorgans landing with considerable Irish forces writes to them That if they would make him undelaid reparations for his Rents they had taken he would be their quiet Neighbor adding that he knew no reason he had to render his House the only House he had he being an infirm man and his goods to Sir Thomas Fairfax they being not the Kings to dispose of and that they might do well to consider his condition now eighty four years of age At last upon very honorable Articles three months time without being questioned for any action in relation to the war being allowed them to make their composition surrendring the very last Garrison in England or Wales that held out for his Majesty for whom the Marquiss lost his great estate being Plundered and Sequestred and in his old age Banished his Country being excepted out of all the Indemnities of his enemies and as I am told left out of the care of his friends among whom he died poor in Prison whither he was fetched in a cold Winter 1648. supported only by his chearful nature whereof his smart Apothegms and Testimonies as when his Majesty had pardoned some Gentlemen upon their good words that had prejudiced his service in South-Wales the Marquiss told him That was the way to gain the Kingdom of Heaven but not his Kingdom on Earth and used to reprove him out of some old Poet as Gower Chawcer c. often repeating that passage of Gower to him A King can kill a King can Save A King can make a Lord a Knave And of a Knave a Lord also And when he saw a ghastly old woman he would say How happy were it for a man going to Bed to his Grave to be first Wedded to this Woman When he was in Bala in Merionith-shire and the people were afraid to come at him for fear he was a Round-head Oh said he this misunderstanding undoeth the world And when the Major came and excused the Town to him Do you see now said he if the King and Parliament understood one another as you and I do they would agree as you and I do What when forbid Claret for the Gout said he shall I quit my old friend for my new enemy When a Mâ—â—quet-bullet at the siege of Ragland glancing on a Marble-pillar in the withdrawing Room where my Lord used to entertain his friends with pleasant discourses after meals hit his head and fell flat on the ground he said That he was flattered to have a good head-piece in his younger days but he thought he had one in his old age which was Musquet-proof Excusing a vain-glorious man as he would put a charitable construction upon most mens actions he said That vain-glory was like Chaff that kept a mans spirit warm as that did the Corn Adding if you set a man on his Horse let him have his Horse When a conceited Servant told him once that he should not have done so and so I would answered he give gold for a Servant that is but nothing for one that seems to be wiser than his Master Two men very like another the one a Papist the other a Protestant one of them set the other to take the Oath of Supremacy for him whereupon said the Marquiss If the Devil should mistake you one for the other as the Iustices did he would marr the coâ—â—â—it When it was told him he should be buried at Windsor Then said he I shall take a better Castle when dead than ever I lost when alive He desired Sir Thomas Fairfax to comprehend his two Pigeons within the Articles who wondering at his chearfulness was told That he suffered chearfully because he did before reckon upon it His goverment of his family was remarkable Dr. Bayley protesting that in three years he saw not a man drunk he heard not an oath sworn and though it was half Protestant half Papist he observed not a crosse word given the whole house being as the Master not only chearful but sober and indeed to keep them so he would wind up the merriest reparties with a grave and serious conclusion no Servants better disciplined or incouraged than his With him it is fit to mention 1. His Son the Earl of Glamorgan since Marquiss of Worcester who was as active in raising Irish forces for his Majesty having made the pacification there wherein it was thought he went beyond his Commission as his Father was in raising the Welch nay indeed Commanded the Welch to Glocester and other plaees with success in the years 1642 1643. as he would have done the Irish had he not been obstructed 1644. as he writes to the Lord Hopton c. to the Relief of Chester for which services he was Misunderstood by his friends Sequestred and Banished by his enemies continuing with his Majesty in that condition till his Restauration A great Mechanick eminent both at home and abroad for the Engines and Water-works
the old Religion against what he supposed the new in his Under him the Welch at Brentford made good the Greek Proverb with right Brittish valour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that flieth will fight again those who being little better than naked cannot be blamed for using swift heels at Edgehill must having resolution to arm their minds as soon as they had armour to cover their bodies be commended for using as stout arms as any in this fight which cost the Family though Sir Thomas died not long after 2000 l. 5. Sir Evan Lloyd of Yale a sober Gentleman and one of the first that waited on his Majesty at Wrexam for which he suffered deeply several times till his Majesties Restauration by whom he was made Governour of Chester a City of which it is said that it was more honour to keep a Gate in it than to command a whole City elsewhere seeing East Gate therein was committed formerly to the Earl of Oxford Bride Gate to the Earl of Shrewsbury Water Gate to the Earl of Derby and North Gate to the Major He died as soon as he was invested in his Government 1663 4. Godfrey Lloyd Charles Lloyd and Tho. Lloyd were Collonels in the Kings Army and Coll. Rob. Ellis a vigilant sober active and valiant Commander 240 l. Sir Francis Lloyd Caerm 1033 l. Walt. Lloyd Lleweny Carding Esq 1033 l. 6. Col. Anthony Thelwall a branch of the Worshipful Family of the Thelwalls of Plasyward near Ruthin in Denbighshire known for his brave Actions at Cropredy where his Majesty trusted him with a thousand of the choicest men he had to maintain as he did bravely the two advantagious Villages Burley and Nelthorp and at the second Newberry fight where he did wonders with the reserve of Sir G. Lisles Tertia and had done more had he not been slain for not accepting of Quarter Not long after Daniel Thelwall of Grays-Inn Esq paid 540 l. composition Io. Thelwall of Pace-Coch Denb Esq 117 l. The Right Honorable Thomas Wriothsley Earl of Southampton Knight of the Garter Lord High Treasurer of England and Privy-Counsellor to both Kings Charles I. and II. bred in the strictest School and Coll. Eaton by Windsor and Magdalen Colledge in Oxford to a great insight into general and various Learning and in the Low-Countries and France to a great happiness in Experiences and Observations in the Affairs of War Trade and Government the result of which and his retired studies by reason of the troubles of the Age and the infirmities of his body much troubled with the Stone with a sharp fit whereof he died 1667. was as King Charles the First who conversed with him much in his Closet called it and King Charles the Second who came often with the Counsel to his House and Bed side found it Safe and clear Counsel a sober and moderate Spirit the reason together with the general opinion of his great integrity and unblemished reputation he was so much reverenced and courted by the Parliament as they called it and so often imployed in seven Publick Messages and three solemn Treaties between the King and Parliament a serious temper and deep thoughts understanding Religion well he was reckoned the best Lay-Divine by his Polemical and Practical Discourses after the Kings death in England and practising it better Prayers Sermons and Sacraments being performed in no Family more solemnly than in his house private preparations before the monethly Communion used no where more seriously than that of all that belonged to his noble retinue in his Closet his stipends to the poor Clergy and Gentry in the late times were constant and great near upon besides what he sent beyond Sea 1000 l. a year his charity to the Poor of each place where he had either his residence or estate Weekly Monethly Quarterly and Yearly above 500 l. a year among those few Ministers reduced into distress by the late fire he bestowed besides particular largesses and a resolution to take them if unprovided to any Preferments that should fall in his Gift an 100 Pieces in Gold giving always his Livings to the choicest men recommended to him by the Fathers of the Church whose judgements he much relied upon in those Cases in the Kingdom he reckoned it certainly a more blessed thing to give than receive when besides his great Hospitality during his life and his manifold and large Benefactions at his death he gave away so much for publick good and as I am told received not one farthing all the while either as Lord Treasurer or Privy Counsellor for his own private advantage He was one of the Honorable Lords who offered his life to save his Majesty pleading that he had been the Instrument of his Government and hazzarded it to bury him His Composition was 3466l in Money and 250 l. a year in Land taken from him and his losses in the War 54000 l. Sir Walter VVrotsley not VVriothsley of VVrotsley Stafford 1332 l. 10 â— with 15 l. per annum Land taken from him Sir Frederick Cornwallis Treasurer of the Houshold Comptroller and Privy Counsellor to his Majesty whose old Servant he had been and his Fathers and Uncles before him at his Restauration and made Baron Cornwallis of Eye in Suffolk at his Majesties Coronation The Temple of Honor being of right open to him in time of Peace who had so often hazzarded himself in the Temple of Vertue in the time of War particularly at Copredy-bridge where the Lord Willmot twice Prisoner was rescued once by Sir Frederick Cornwallis and the next time by Sir R. Howard Sir F. being as the last Pope said of this a Man of so chearful a spirit that no sorrow came near his heart and of so resolved a mind that no fear came into his thoughts so perfect a Master of Courtly and becoming Raillery that he could do more with one word in Jest than others could do with whole Harangues in Earnest a well-spoken man competently seen in modern Languages of a comely and goodly Personage died suddainly of an Apoplectical fit Ian. 7. 1661. Pope Innocent being in discourse about the best kind of death declared himself for suddain death suddain not as unexpected that we are to pray against but suddain as unfelt that he wished for To him I may adde Sir Will. Throgmorton Knight Marshall to his Majesty who died 166â— A Gentleman of an Ancient Family to whom a great spirit was as Hereditary as a great Estate who did much service to his Majesty in England and was able to do more to him and his Friends in Holland where he was formerly a Souldier and then an Inhabitant worth is ever at home and carryâ—th its welcome with it wherever it goeth who had lost his life sooner with a Bullet got into his body had not he done as they say Mr. Farnaby the Grammarian did who coming over from the Dutch Camp poor and wounded at Billingsgate met with a poor Butterwoman of whom he bought as
London 1644 1645 1646. and to rise in Arms for him about Kingston where being defeated taken at St. Neots after a tedious imprisonment notwithstanding his sickness and infirmities tried for his life and beheaded in the Pallace-yard Westmin recommending with his last words to the deluded People the Kings Government and the established Religion The Right Honorable Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham who with Sir Io. Hotham the Earl of Stamford Sir Hugh and Sir H. Cholmley Sir Christopher Wray Sir Edward Ayscough c. all Converts afterwards in being as active in setling the Militia of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in obedience to the Parliament as other persons of quality were in prosecuting the Commission of Array in obedience to his Majesty was warned by a Letter under his Majesties hand dated at York Iune 4. 1642. to desist from Assembling the people in those parts upon any pretence whatsoever upon his allegiance and answered with much modesty and humility that though he could not presently desist without falsifying the trust reposed in him by the Parliaments particular Directions according to an Ordinance voted by the Lord Keeper Littleton and the Lord Chief Justice Banks whose judgments swayed his younger one as he said to this action so unsuitable to his Majesties liking yet nothing should pass by his Commands but what should tend to his Majesties honour and safety Agreeably to which ingenious Declaration when he saw into the bottom of the factious designs he was so active for his Majesties honour and safety in the House of Lords and the City of London 1645 1646 1647. that with the Earls of Suffolk Lincoln and Middlesex the Lords Berkley Hunsden and Maynard all a while deluded by the Iuncto and because they presumed to be undeceived at last punished by them being impeached of high Treason for levying War against the King by endeavouring to make the City and Kingdom for him chose rather to hazzard himself 1648 1649 for a conquered and a captive Soveraign assisting and attending his Son in Holland and the Fleet as long as there was any likelihood of serving him than to have a share any longer in a conquering and prosperous Rebellion though it cost him several imprisonments and molestations besides 5000 l. composition Prosecuting his Loyalty by providing Arms for his Majesties Friends 1655 1657 1658 1659. at his own charge till the Restauration when having a large Estate and great experience in he was made Governour of the Caribee Islands 1660. where going during the late War upon a design of recovering St Christophers newly seized by the French he was cast away with most of his Fleet by an Hurricane 1666. being succeeded in his Government and Honor by his brother the Right Honorable G. Lord Willoughby of Parham 1666. A blessed Cause this to use the words of that ornament of his ancient and worshipful Family in Suffolk and Norfolk Mr. Hammond L'Estrange who enobled his sufferings as well as the cause he suffered for by his Writings especially his Alliance of Liturgies a Book full of that Various Reading not common in men of his quality and his History of King Charles I. a piece compiled with that ingenuity prudence and moderation as was not vulgar in the Writers of his Time that won its conquering Enemies all but one that sacrificed his Reason and Conscience to his ambition who yet in the midst of his greatness had not one minutes rest from those Fears his Conscience and common foresight that Right and Truth which are greater notwithstanding all his Arts and Methods of settling himself should prevail And there being nothing left now for the Kings Cause to conquer but those principles of Religion and those Ministers that supported the Faction those stood not out against its Evidence and Arguments for 1. Mr. Alexander Henderson a Moderator of that is in effect Archbishop in all the Assemblies in Scotland one in all the Treaties of England one of the ablest Presbyterians in both Kingdoms being overcome with his Majesties Arguments at Newcastle where he was Ordered to converse with and convert his Majestie when as all his Confinements his Pen gained those Victories which were denied his Sword went home heart-broken with Conscience of the injuries he had done to the King he found every way so excellent To whom I may joyn 2. Iohn Rutherford a Layman who was so far won by his Majesty then their Prisoner as to hazzard his life seven times for his rescue for which after a great reputation he gained in the King of France his service and great integrity and ability in serving his own Master he was 1660. made Governour of Dunkirk and 1662. Governour of Tangier and Earl of Tiveot both which Garrisons he fortified impregnably being a man of a great reach in Trade Encamping and Fortification and of an unwearied Industry and Diligence laying the design of the Mole in the last of those places which when finished will be a Piece of the greatest concernment in Christendom He was cut off 1664 5. in a Sally out as he was a very forward and daring man upon the perfidious Moors whom he had reduced to the most honourable peace that ever was enjoyed at Tangier to recover a Wood that was a great shelter to the Enemy and would have been of vast advantage unto us They that begin Wars know not how to end them without horrid scandals to Religion and an unparallel'd violence offered to all the Laws and Rights in the World On which consideration many returned to sober principles of Allegiance and indeed all rational men acquiesce in the present establishment according to their respective consciences actively or passively in gratitude to his Majesty and the Government for their former Indemnity that since his Majesty as a Father looked on all his Subjects as sons yet caressed his Prodigals those Subjects that came to themselves and acknowledged their errour with extraordinary kindness and tenderness out-doing all his promises and engagements Let the World see that his promises made and performed were not the effects of necessity but the fruits of a gracious and Princely mind like his Grandfather H. IV. of France not only pardoned the former Errours of those that were seduced against him and his Father but preferred and trusted them too They may make good his late Majesty of blessed memory his Royal word and engagement for them Medit. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that will be more loyal and faithful to his Majesty than those Subjects who being sensible of their own errours and his injuries will feel in their souls vehement motives to repentance and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects Mr. Cauton and Mr. Nalton was banished and Mr. Christopher Love born in Wales and bred under Dr. Rogers in New-Inn◠Hall Oxon. Minister first of St. Ann Aldersgate and afterwards of St. Lawrence Jury was beheaded for owning the Kings Interest by those with whom he opposed it so far as
and Hopes d â—â—â—eupon he in disdain threw the Cap down and trampled it under fâ—eâ— An Omen said some what an enemy be would he to the Arch-bishops O der which had never since it needed such a better friend though he suspended the Arch-bishop e When the Chaplains received direction from the King not to dispute without great necessity but if they did George should hold the Coâ—clusien and Charles c. f Mr. Vines saying That he was the best Divine in England III His Carriage while Prince g To whom he was very dear h The Q of Bohemia whose Brideman he was i Who might 〈◊〉 plaâ— uites â—b◠〈◊〉 bâ—â—cts of the peoples disconâ—â—nt k As his own Grandmother the Q of 〈…〉 to England l This K. James was not sinsible of â—ill Arâ—hec Clapped his Cap on his head for â—â—â—ting the Prince goe to Spain and saying That if he returned he would take off â—he Cap from â—he King of England 's head and set 〈◊〉 â—n the K. of Spain's Which â—ad the King melanchâ—lly 〈◊〉 heard hâ— Pâ—â—nce was at Sea IV His Carriage when King 1 His Marriage his Chastiâ—y and Gods blessing him with Children m Given the D. of Chevereux n Trinity Sunday 16â—5 o No Subject fought him for injuring â—hem he having by his power and example â—â—â—ured them in all their Relations 2 His first Parliament p Muâ—ining against their Commander the Lord Wimbleton q With a Plaguâ—bred by theâ— Discontent As discontented mâ—n are most subject to that Distemper 3 His Coronation and Frugality 4 His second Parliament V The Benefits of his Government 1 â—â—s dismission of the Insolent French r Besides Land Merigaged for 120000 l. to the Câ—â—â— and 30000 l. borrowed of the East-India Company s In that tryal of â—umbâ—â— which he judâ—â—d unlawful wherein one Rey would have proved that one Ramsey would have hâ—d him serve D. Hamilton to attain the Kingdom of Scotland whose right to it they blazoned abroad t Which his Enemies knew so well that it was bâ—â— effecâ—ing him Propo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repugnant to his Conscience and thâ—y need not fear a Peace VI The blessing of God 〈◊〉 him and his fortunâ— u Many Arts revived VII His Mercy and Love to his People Humiâ—ity and Patience w Oliver they say could not endure to hear a man speak sence Plato was like to eye because he â—â—med wiser than the Sicilian Tyrant x Being deluded as he said to unworthy thoughts of him but nâ—w convineed to a great reverence of him y There are methodical and siâ—â—wy extracts of his drawâ—â— out of Bishop Laud Mr. Hooker and Bish Andrews therein he draw together all the arguments giving light and strength to them even while he â—â—tomised them z Witness his â—â—um vednass at Prayer when â—he sad News of the Duke of Buckinghams death was brought to him bidding the Chaplain go on when he stopped at the disturbance a Meaning the Bishop of Armagh 〈…〉 IX His Valouâ— Resolution and Conduct b The Senate of Rome thank'd a Consul though he was beaten that he did not despair of the Commonwealth c This was at Edgehill Oct. 13. 1641. a In France a Who had an honest design to undo the whole Conspiracy X What great things the King granted and did for the Nation during the 23 years that he reigned f For which the last Parliament would have given him 600000 l. g At the Isle of Wight XII His Sufferings h As appears by a Letter under Londons handâ— to desire Protection of the French King i And a Lady that formerly had followers for beauâ—y and â—ow for intelligence k â—s Fulke and Ven did a He called them Rebls in the first Speech Oct 3 1640. 〈◊〉 was forced to explain himself afterwards b As he was to that first 1640. by Sir H V. who exâ— asperated them by demanding twice more Subsidies than he had order to d◠〈◊〉 so occasioned their Dissolution And to the Parliament of Scotland by H. and Tra. who under the pretence of being Mediators and Commissioners put the worse constructions they could upon his actions to the Parliament and upon theirs to him a Who after the King death finding their Masters jugglers would have done in much for them as they had done for the King until the Officers would have laid them aside which they could not do till several of them were executed a Where â—nâ— lay with a Sword and Pistal without ready is murder the King if became out while others perswaded him to escape out through that window within b A Vote once before Passed but surreptitiously and repealed by the whole House a And yet neither Lords nor Iudges four hundred fifty of eight hundred Commons confess nor a man in England except twenty Rebels owned it b Villains that overthrowed all the Laws of this Nationâ— to try the King for doing it When he died rather than he would do it c They complain of his Arbitrary Power when there was nothing more Arbitrary than for them First To Vote themselves but twenty in number to be the whole kingdom Secondly To Vote a Conventicle where there were neither Lords nor King nor ten lawfully chosen Commons for a Parliament Thirdly To Vote the Kings defensive war which he made with the assistance of his People a Treason against his People Fourthly To Vote him guilty of that bloud that they shed Fifthly To Vote him a Traytor when there is no Treason but against him And what was more than all the rest to Vote themselves after a Nation had been an hereditary Monarchy for a thousand years the Supream Power of it in an hour d When they began the war against him who with his people was forced to defend himself or be accessary to that overthrow of all Religion and Government which though not believed he saw they aimed at then and all the world saw they designed now e Not till the Traytors had set a force upon the whole Nation those very persons against whom he began the war abhorring the thoughts of calling him in question for it and thinking it a great favour if they could be secured from being called in question for it themselves Observe the impudence of the men these slaves and instruments that durst not fight against the King but in the names of the Lords and Commons yet dare murther him in their own and that for levying war against those Lords and Commons to whom before they could meddle with the King they offered violence themselves f The Parliament as they called it had received such Concessions in order to a peace that this murder could never have been attempted upon the King till these wretches had attempted another violence upon them The Parliament they say delayed this Iudgment when God knows they always abhorred it and these men first turned out of the House for refusing to consent to this murder and then they commit the murder in
before peoples eyes to move or exasperate them the dead and pardoned are forgotten My Lord had vast Affections for the Protestant Interest as appeared by his Proposals in Councel his wishes rather than his hopes and what he would rather then what he could do yet he suspected the Swedes and Scots Assistants as rather an Army of Mercenaries than the Auxiliaries of Friends Two things he said undid us 1. That our Divines had been so careless in opening the ground of Religion that Novelties had got such advantages over ancient Truths as to charge primitive Practices for Innovations 2. That our Lawyers were so byassed in their explications of the ground of the Law that old Laws such as those of Knighthood whereby the Subjects holding of the King as all do originally were either to be Knighted or fined for it and that for Ship-money shall be cried down for new Exactions My Lord applauded his Majesties generous Goodness in stopping the Combate between the Witnesses about Hamiltons Design to entertain all the Scots abroad to serve him against his Prince at home but he feared his easiness afterwards in trusting him He like H. 7. being at once what few men are most suspicious most knowing and most stout whereas usually the suspicious man is one that knows little and fears much Much did he resent the Differences between Protestants and Protestants and more with Bishop Bancroft encouraged he the Dissentions between the Seculars and Jesuits as he did in Civil Matters between some Scots and English advising that the Press might be open to them to discover the nakedness of their Parties and shut to our Disputants the Sabbatarians and Anti-Sabbatarians the Arminians and Anti-Arminians lest we betray our own Opinions it was his Maxime For Schools positive and practical Divinity onely for Presses and Pulpits A Maxime of as great concernment to the Church as his Contributions for Pauls which to say no more were worthy the Earl of Strafford and Bishop Laud's friend From being a Member of the Councel in the South he was advanced Lord President of the North and thence a while after Lord Deputy of Ireland In the North begun that Animosity between him and Vane about Raby that was not allayed but with his bloud Here he would have strengthned the Law by Prerogative always making good the Prerogative by Law some there complained to him of the Kings Government and he told them They complained of the Laws adding That the little Finger of the Law if not moderated by the Kings Clemency would be heavier than the Kings Loyns He endeavoured to indear his Majesties Government to his best Subjects and render it dreadful to the worst Parts and Merits imployed against the Government by mistake he informed and encouraged to better Imployment but Parts and Merits poysoned by Pride and Ambition he suppressed and sleighted saying He loved not a man of large Parts and a narrow and selfish Spirit He had Worth that was sure to raise Envy and a Prudence to allay it moderating the power he had himself and maintaining that of other Magistrates who might be his Skreen Who as he ingrossed not Business to exercise his Power so he intangled it not to raise a suspicion of his Cunning carrying things on in a plain and open rather than a private and close way not that he feared the effects of Envy on himself calling Envy a Shadow that reflâ—cted 〈…〉 prejudice it and as shadows did more 〈…〉 falls upon than to those stately things it 〈…〉 judging it his Monitor rather than his Danger Son 〈…〉 in the wary Conduct of his Affairs rather thâ—n 〈…〉 avoided them in the smooth course of his 〈◊〉 which wâ—nt above the hazard but not the interruptions of Envy The first Institution of the Presidents Place in the North was to suppress Rebellions and my Lords first caâ—e in â—â—at Place was 〈◊〉 prevent them How carefully did he look out 〈…〉 wise Clergy-men that might instruct and guide how 〈◊〉 did he choose knowing and noble Gentlemen that might govern and 〈◊〉 that rude Corner of the Kingdom equally obnoxious to the 〈◊〉 â—â—ations of the old Superstition that erept thither 〈…〉 the Seas and of the late Innovations that stole in 〈◊〉 from beyond the Tweed both dangerous to the People and 〈…〉 Government Instruction he would say must 〈◊〉 wa◠〈◊〉 Government and Government back Instruction by the 〈…〉 the hearts of men and by the second it â—yes their 〈…〉 the King trusted in his own Person the Eaâ—l 〈…〉 Nobility Gentry and Clergy of the North at onceâ— to 〈◊〉 and secure himself rendring hâ—s Authority plâ—â—â—sible by administring Government to the People by those 〈◊〉 that had most Interest in them and could best awe because they alwayes obliged them admitting many to his assistance and 〈◊〉 to â—is trust His Observations upon the Humors of the â—â—â—â—hern People prompted him to advise his Majesty to a Progress 〈◊〉 â—cotland Anno 1633. to encourage the Loyal Part of that 〈◊〉 on this side the Tweed by his Presence to settle the disloyal 〈…〉 other side by his Laws he having Intelligence from Scoâ—â—â—â—â— tâ—ey are the words of a great Lord then trusted with the Crown of that Kingdom that if the King should long deferr his Coronation the Scots might perhaps incline to make choice of another King This â—rogress by taking in the most popular and great Noble-men of the North to attend His Majesty he managed with a noble Conduct advancing all along the Kings Majesties Interest and Honor of such mighty consequence it is how a Prince appears to his people When he had composed the Affairs of Scotland some defects appearing by dayly Tumults and Commotions in the Government of Ireland this accomplished Person in the Affairs of Rule discovering dayly greater and greater Abilities equal to a Minister of State after he had brought my Lord of Holland to a Submission at the Council-Table and in some measure reduced the Factions that broke out dayly at Court where to use his dear Friend Archbishop Land's words Private Ends appeared every day more and more â—o the prejudice of the publike Service was intreated to the Supream Care under His Majesty of that Kingdom a Trust he managed so well That 1. he discharged Fourscore thousand Pounds the King owed and raised Twenty thousand men and as many thousand Pounds that the King wanted in the year 1634. 2. Reduced the Popish and Protestant Parties to so even a temper that upon some Disorders that year he was able to summon such a Parliament as was able to allay and fix the several Factions to a due temperament guiding the zeal of each Party by such Rules of Moderation as were ever observed most effectual to preserve and restore the health of all States and Kingdoms 3. Prevailed with the Church of Ireland to admit of the 39 Articles of the Church of England that as he would say They that agreed for the main in the truth of