were living But though they are all under Earth Faith forbid that their Names should be abused to a wrong Report To keep History uncorrupt from such baseness 't is daintily observ'd out of the Poets by Salmasius Clymac p. 819. Apud orcum defunctae animae jurare dicuntur ne quid suos quos in vitâ reliquerint contra fas adjuvent The Souls departed take an Oath not to help their surviving Friends against Justice But no such Protestation needs in this Cause There is a Petition to be produced written with the Hand of Dr. Walker a Gentleman living and well known wherein His Majesty is minded that he had cancell'd this Complaint and had given his Royal Hand to confirm it What could be more sure Yet it turn'd to nothing the Wound was never suffer'd to heal by the daily Whispering of Bishop Laud diligent in the King's Ear. You may read of one in Suetonius's Caligula Cui ad insaniam Caius favebat So the King suffer'd this Prelate in excess of Power to turn and return Causes as he would and was obnoxious by the bewitching of his Tongue to facility of Perswasions to grant and retract as he possest him Which was seen too late in this excellent Passage of His Majesty in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wish I had not suffer'd mine own Judgment to be overborn in some things more by others Importunities than their Arguments As Erasmus wrote honestly to a mighty Monarch Harry the Eighth Ep. p. 74. Eximia quaedam inter mortales res est Monarcha sed homo tamen And with much liberty our Poet Johnson in his Forrest p. 815. I am at feud With that is ill tho' with a Throne endu'd The Faults of the Blessed Charles were small yet some he had who having assured Lincoln he should never be question'd again about the matter brought against him by Lamb and Sibthorp yet remitted it to the Star-chamber The Defendant conceived it would spend like a Snail or the untimely Fruit of a Woman but when he found himself deceiv'd and that the Cause was glowing hot in Prosecution he sought the King's Clemency Quaedam enim meliùs fugiuntur quà m superantur it is in Erasm Ep. p. 18. He thought it better to fly the Trial than to get the Cause and he put up this which follows into the Hands of His Majesty The Humble Petition and Submission of John Bishop of Lincoln c. THAT although he is innocent from any Crime committed against your Majesty in thought word or deed yet abhorring as he finds by Presidents all other Bishops of this Realm have done Placitare cum Domino rege to have any Suit with his Sovereign Lord Master and Patron he casts himself in all humility at Your Majesties Feet and implores your Royal Mercy and Clemency Non intrare in judicium cum servo tuo coveting to ascribe his Deliverance to Your Majesties Clemency And whereas your most Excellent Majesty having in the fourth year of your happy Reign received the Opinion of the four Lords Committees concerning these very self-same Charges did in your Majesties Gallery at Whitehall admit this Defendant brought in by the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer one of the said Committees to kiss your Majesties Hand and did use unto him this Defendant in the presence and hearing of the said Right Honourable Lord these gracious words That your Majesty was pleased to forgive all that was past and would esteem of this Defendant according as he should deserve by his Service for the time to come He most humbly beseecheth your most Excellent Majesty that according to that so gracious Remission and Absolution no further Prosecution at your Majesties Suit may be used against him concerning the said Charges all which he doth the rather hope for from your Majesty because he is a Bishop that hath endeavoured not to live scandalously in his Calling and hath formerly had the Favour from Almighty God with his own Hands to close your Majesties Father's Eyes and to have written and drawn up that Commission and Contract for your Majesties Marriage whereupon ensued to this Kingdom a most unvaluable Blessing and heartily prayeth that God who hath delivered your Majesty from your late Sickness may bless you in all Health Happiness and Prosperity So far the Petition I will not teach the Reader what Sallads to pick out of it but only the Herb of Grace that the Bishop kist the King's Hand upon the assurance of his Peace that the Offence which was taken was buried and should never rise up in Judgment more Nihil periculi Soloni à Pisistrato Diog. Laert. Now who ever liked Julian the Cardinal that made Ladislaus K. of Polonia break his League with the Turk And who will defend B. L. that made his Soveraign break his word with his Subject It was he and none else that put in an unseasonable Bar to hinder Lincoln the fulness of the Benefit I know none that had the nearest part in B. L's Favour that can deny it And let them turn it about as they will is it possible they should excuse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Theodoret's Ep. 2. Children see no uncomeliness in their Parents But although they will see no ill in the Person they must in the Fact For what a Trespass is this in Justice to punish that which was forgiven Let the King do Righteous Judgment like God in whose Throne he sits before whom this holds inviolable Peccata dimissa nunquam redeunt No not original Sin when remitted in Baptism it shall not be imputed to them any more that are damned for actual Crimes whereof they did not repent So Grotius cites it out of Prosper in Matth. c. 18. v. 34. Extinctam semel obligationem non reviviscere sed propter postrema crimina affici The most that seems to be against this Rule but falls in with it is this That when former Sins are forgiven and new ones are superadded the latter shall be punish'd the more for the ungratefulness of the Sinner Non quod jam remissa puniantur sed quod sequens peccatum minùs graviter punâ—retur si priora remissa non fuissent says Maldonat My Sentence is at the last of all with Syracides c. 29.3 Keep thy word and deal faithfully revoke not your Kindness pluck not up the Seeds of a Benefit which you had sown with your own Hand It is worse to turn Mercy than Justice into Wormwood 111. Destiny is unavoidable A Bill is filed in the Star-Chamber and prosecuted for the King for Revealing his Councils The Defendant made him ready for his Answer and plyed the King with Petitions together in Parody like Virgil's Aeneas Et se collegit in arma Poplite subsidens At first he tried Bishop Laud if he would be so generous as to heal the Wound that he had made and anointed him with the Weapon-Salve of remembrance of Friendship past and protestation of the like for ever he courted him to
Ecclesiam Romano-Catholicam Parliaments naturally begat Entities and the want of Parliaments produceth Nullities Surely God and the King are must averse to such Parliaments Mark Gods Parliament the first Parliament in the World wherein the Three Persons in Trinity are consulting together Faciamus Hominem and you shall find it was to beget Entities Therefore God is scarce present in that Consultation that brings forth Nullities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher begins his Ethicks Every Consultation is for some Good some End some Entitie and most opposite to an Abortion or Nullity And therefore you may applaud those former Laws of Learning Piety Grace and Bounty which you handled before In my Opinion Mr. Speaker you have kept the good Wine and the best Law of them all till now which is Solon's Law Lex Oblivionis A Law of Forgetfulness That by His Majesties Grace and Favour freely offer'd unto us the last day all the Memory of these Unfortunate Abortions may be Buried in the River Lethe and never be had in any further Remembrance I will put you in Mind of a Story which Tully relates out of Thucydides and leave the Application to this Honourable Auditory When the Thebans having gâ—t the better of the Lacedaemonians Erected a Brazen Trophy for that Victory they were complain'd of apud Amphictyonas that is before the common Council of Greece Eo quod aeternum inimicitiarum Monumentum Graecos de Graecis Statuere non oportuit Because it was most unfit that between Greek and Greek there should remain any Record of perpetual Enmity Fifthly For the Common Law of England if we regard the Meridian for which it is Erected it is a Law as was said of those of Lycurgus Disciplinae Convenientissimae of a most apt and convenient Frame and His Majesty hath ever so approved of it Nay He is so precisely affected and disposed in this kind that as Paterculus writes of Cato Id solum ei visum est rationem habere quod haberet Justitiam He could never allow of any Devise or Project how plausible soever that was not justifiable at the Common Law 183. Sixthly For the Supply of Princes in this Kingdom His Majesty makes no Question but that by Parliament and Subsidy is the most Comfortable to the King and most Favorable to the Subject It Comforts the King as issuing from the Heart and it Easeth the Subject as brought by the Hands not of one or two but of all the People That which you call Benevolence or Good Will brings unto His Majesty neither so much Good nor so much Will as the other support And therefore the Kings of this Land though it hath been accepted by most of them have made of Benevolence but Anchoram Sacram a help at a dead lift when Parliaments being great Bodies and of slow Motions could not soon be Assembled nor Subsidies issuing from the Purses of Particulars be so suddenly Collected And it is very well known with what Reluctancy His Majesty was drawn to shoot out this Anchor never Assenting thereunto until he was in a manner forced by those intolerable Provocations from without and those general Invitations from whithin the Kingdom Remember therefore that good Lady in whose Defence the Money was spent that inimitable Pattern once of Majesty but now of Patience to the Christian World and you will say no Man can be found of that Malevolence as to find fault with this one Benevolence Seventhly His Majesty Returns you most hearty Thanks for your Care and Zeal of the True Religion And is much Rejoyced to hear That this Lower House as it is now Compos'd is such another Place as Tully describes the Town of Enna Non Domus sed fanum ubi quot Cives tot Sacerdotes It is no vulgar House but as Originally a Sacred Chappel wherein are Assembled in regard of their Zeal and Devotion look how many Men so many Church-Men And his Majesty gives you full assurance that he nothing so much Regards the Airy State or Glory of this Life as he doth that inestimable Jewel of our Religion which is to remain his only Ornament after this Life If there be any Scandals to the contrary not given but taken for want of due Information his Majesty wisheth as Aphonso the Wise King of Aragon did Omnes populares suos reges fuisse That every one of his People had been a King for then they might soon understand and be as soon satisfied with the Reasons of Estate His Majesty hath never spared the Execution of any Law but for the Execution of a greater Law to wit Salus Reip. the Good the Peace and Safety of the Church and Common Wealth And you know that is the ultimus finis all the rest are but fines sub fine For as the Orator well Observes Nemo Leges legum causâ salvas esse vult sed Reipublicae We do not desire the Observing of our Laws for the written Laws but for the Common-Wealths sake And for those Statutes made for the preservation of Religion they are all as you heard last day from that Oracle of Truth and Knowledg in full force and in Free Execution Nor were ever intended to be connived with in the least Syllable but for the further propagation of the same Religion What knowest thou O Man if thou shalt save thy Wife was a Text that gave no Offence in St. Paul'stime Remember the King's Simile which indeed is God's Simile Zach. 6. Kingdoms are like to Horses Kings resemble the Riders the Laws the Spurs and the Reins by which Horsemanship is managed A good Rider carries always a sure but not always a Stiff Hand But if Agar grow insolent by those Favours then in Gods Name out with the Bond-woman and her Sons For his Majesty is fully Resolv'd That as long as Life remains in his Body and the Crown upon his Head the Sons of the Bond-woman shall never be Heirs in this Island with the Sons of the Free-woman And our Royal Master gives us his Chaplains free leave to put him in mind of that of Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is still careful of the Good of Kings and Kings cannot be too careful of the Good and Service of God In the Eighth place his Majesty exceedingly comforted with the just Feeling and Resentment you express against the Usurpation of that invading Enemy who hath expell'd our most sweet Princess from her Jointure and her Olive Branches from their Rightful Inheritance Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor Surely if the Rule be true Attollit vires in milite causa That a good Cause makes good Souldiers it is no such impossibility to regain the Palatinate You say Sir Cato was positively of Opinion Carthaginem evertendam That whatever became of other designs Carthage must be overthrown And you are of Opinion and so are all good Men besides Palatinatum reglutinandum That the Palatinate must be Glued again to the Right Owner and pluck'd out of
Service and Affairs And in that respect as well as your common interest and duty we command your suitable compliance which we assure you shall be looked upon by us as a fresh acceptable Testimony of your Affections to Us and our Cause and preserved in our Royal remembrance with the rest of your Merits against the time when it may please God to enable Us to reflect thereon for your good Thus far his Majesty to make way for the Lord Byron a gallant Person a great Wit a Scholar very Stout full of Honour and Courtesie yet favour'd the English Interest above the Welsh in those Counties which did not take And the Dye of War run so false that he lost the Cast to one who had not the Ames-Ace of Valour in him Neither did the scatter'd Forces of those distressed Parts ever set them another Stake Prince Rupert observing the Royal Directions wrote largely as followeth May 16. 1644. To all Governours and Officers to all Sheriffs Commissioners of the Array or Peace all Vice-Admirals or Captains of Ships in the three Counties WHereas I understand by his Majesty's Letters unto me lately directed that the most Reverend Father in God John Lord Archbishop of York by reason of his great Experience and Imployments in the Affairs of this Kingdom as well under my Grandfather of famous memory as under his Majesty that now is hath been intrusted in the three Counties c. from the first beginning of these Troubles and gives his best Advice in Matters of Importance which have relation to the King's Service and the Peace and safe keeping of those Counties from all Invasions by Sea or Land And that he hath discharged that Trust reposed in him faithfully and successfully during the time of his abode in those parts My will and pleasure is That according to his Majesty's intimation to me you and every one of you in all matters of importance and moment touching or concerning his Majesty's or my Service under his Majesty in those Counties as also in all Matters of Questions Doubts and Variances which may fall out either among your selves or between your selves and the several Counties wherein you govern or command shall from time to come consult and advise with the said most Reverend Father in God and follow such his Advices and Counsels in the Premisses which shall be grounded upon the Laws of the Land or the pressing Necessities of these times and agreeing with our Directions and future Instructions from time to time RUPERT Nothing was wanting of Royal and Princely care to preserve the Archbishop in Conway-Castle yet all would not serve There was none whom Envy did more strive to hold down upon all occasions which his great Deservings brought upon him So true is that of Synesius de provid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue doth not quench Envy but rather kindle it One violent Person unframed all good Order who would submit to no Authority a hot Man for he was ever dry and he did not conceal it for he was always drinking 198. That Affront waited more leisure to break forth and suffered him to take a long and a tedious Journey in Winter to Oxford in obedience to these Lines which he received from his Majesty Decemb. 16. 1644. CHARLES R. WE having had frequent experience of your good Affection and Ability to serve us and having occasion at this time to make use of them here We have thought fit and do by these Presents require you to repair hither to Us to Oxon with all convenient expedition Desiring you to come as throughly informed as you can of the true condition of Our Affairs c. Presently he set forward though the ways were much beset and came in January with the first to the King for he had many things to represent and was not in his Element when he was consined in private Walls He took up his Lodging with the Provost of Queens-Colledge Dr. Christopher Potter a Master in Divinity and a Doctor of Piety He was received in the Court with much Grace where he saw his stay must be short For that City could not long receive so many Nobles and Gentry as came to make a Session of Parliament neither could so many of the King 's principal Friends be spared from their Countries Being then a good Husband of his time and having private Audience with his Majesty he gave him that Counsel to which Wisdom and Allegiance led him as Thraseas Paetus the famous Senator said Suum esse non aliam quà m optimam sententiam dicere One passage is fit to see the light which had much of prudence in it and too much of prophesie He desir'd his Majesty to be informed by him and to keep it among Advices of weight That Cromwel taken into the Rebels Army by his Cousin Hambden was the most dangerous Enemy that his Majesty had For though he were at that time of mean rank and use among them yet he would climb higher I knew him says he at Bugden but never knew his Religion He was a common Spokes-man for Sectaries and maintained their part with stubbornness He never discoursed as if he were pleased with your Majesty and your great Officers indeed he loves none that are more than his Equals Your Majesty did him but Justice in repulsing a Petition put up by him against Sir Thomas Steward of the Isle of Ely but he takes them all for his Enemies that would not let him undo his best Friend and above all that live I think he is Injuriarum persequentissimus as Porcius Latro said of Catiline He talks openly that it is sit some should act more vigorously against your Forces and bring your Person into the power of the Parliament He cannot give a good word of his General the Earl of Essex because he says the Earl is but half an Enemy to your Majesty and hath done you more favour than harm His Fortunes are broken that it is impossible for him to subsist much less to be what be aspires to but by your Majesty's Bounty or by the Ruin of us all and a common Confusion as one said Lentulus salvâ Repub. salvus esse non potuit Paterc In short every Beast hath some evil properties but Cromwel hath the properties of all evil Beasts My humble motion is that either you would win him to you by the Promises of fair Treatment or catch him by some stratagem and cut him short Now if it shall be objected Who reports this saving the Archbishop himself to magnifie his own parts that he was so excellent in fore-sight and as Ajax slighted his Rival Sua narret Ulysses Quae sine teste gerit I satisfie it thus His Servants and they that daily listned to his Discourses have heard it come from him long before the accident of saddest experience how some of them would live to see when Cromwel would bear down all other Powers before him and set up himself The King received it with a
Church under the Persian and Macedonjan Monarchies together with the Seleuctan and Ptolemaeâ—n Princes he had it at his Fingers ends But after that the Barren brought forth more Children then the Fruitful since the propagation of the Christian Faith among the Nations the Books are infinite which have compiled Occurrences of Evangelical Memorials yet our indefatigable Undertaker was not disheartned to read over all that was preserv'd but ransack'd Rolls and Libraries for all that was hid or lost Of such as faithful Custody had brought to light none escap'd him They are not the Divines of Magdepurg nor Baronius Annals though twice read over by him which furnished him with the Title of his Skill He knew more then they had observ'd from the Originals out of which they had digged their Ore Especially he was cunning in all Transactions done in the old Asian Churches and no less in the Greek even to the time of their Decay or Ruine rather under the Turkish Tyranny And because General and Provincial Councils the most Pure of them having been Celebrated in the East were the brightest Lanthorns of this kind of History he had observ'd in them as much as his Wit could penetrate into I say as much as he could for none was more ingenuous then he to confess his Defects And he did deplore when discourse of that Learning was on foot that the meaning of the Greek Canons nay nor of the Latin likewise was not opened to the World by an Artifice that was able to try their Metal That all Glossators hitherto had mistaken the Phraseologies and Terms of Imperial Laws and quaint Words having allusion to popular Speech in those days which are couched in them And since he minded me of such abstruseness in the Contexture of those Canons I have accused mine own oversight to my self that I thought I had known more of the true sense of those Canons then now I perceive I do There wants a Scholar like an Hound of a sure Nose that would not miss a true Scent nor run upon a false one to trace those old Bishops in their fuse A Divine he ought to be of the first Magnitude a Critic that should be an Hercules in the Greek Tongue a rare Canonist a most Learned Civilian mightily acquainted with all Pristine Ceremonies of a strong and inquisitive Judgment And since the matchless Salmasius is lately dead the Man whom I would have trusted with such a Work before all others who is sufficient for such a Task 19. The Histories of the Occidental Churches of great Bulk but little Credit he knew were both Partial and Adulterated many of them no better Authors then Luit prandus though it was his ill hap more then his Fellows to confess his Knavery for he says in his third Book that he set himself to write Ut de inimicis sumat vindictam landibus extollat eos qui se multis 〈◊〉 affâ—erant Such as this plain-dealing Fellow and all after him that struggled to raise up the Grandeur of the Româ—n Court Mr. Williams had read them and had hanged them all upon the File of his Memory and could vouch each or them to King James when a Question was ask'd about any of their Contents as if it had been the freshest thing in his Mind which he had perused but an hour before I think bonâ side there was no Man born more like to Eumâ—es in our Divine Poet Mr. Spencer's Description Recording all Things which this World doth weld laying them up in his Immortal Scrine where they for ever Incorrupted dwelt Let the Reader if he be not struck enough into Wonder already be advertized further that he could as readily and as dextrously recite Things which had been done in our British and English Churches from the first Infancy of them to his own days as if it had been written in the Palm of his Hand He carried in his Mind an Universal Idea of all Synods and Convocations that were ever held in our Land of all our Cathedrals their Foundations Conditions of Alteration Statutes Revenues c. As he had spared for no Travel to purchase this Skill so to fill his Vessel brim full he received all that Sir Harry Spelman Sir Robert Cotton and Mr. Selden his dear Friends could pour into him Some will say his Mind was set upon this Church and every particular of it might in some occasion concern him I will satisfie him that so proposes it that there was not a corner of an History Sacred or Secular in any Kingdom or State in Europe which he had not pried into and wherein he could not suddenly enlarge himself whether they were their Wars or Leagues of Amity whether their Laws Inheritances of their Crowns and Dignities their Lineages Marriages or what not The Chronicles of the Empire and German Princes the great Partidas of Spain all the Pieces of Antiquity he could rake out of French Abbies he was expert in them all as if he had got them by heart The issue of his Life bewrayed his End therein for he made this Study pay him Wages for all his Labour For he discerned his own Abuities to be fit for Publick Employment therefore he search'd into the notable Particularities of all Kingdoms Republicks and their Churches with all the Importances that hung upon them And he guessed right that King James would give all he could ask for such a Minister 20. The Tertia of his Industry and happy Studies and the Top-sail of them was the reading of the Fathers Greek and Latin Great was his Diligence in them marvellous was his Devotion to their Volumes These were the casting Counters with whom he reckoned all the Items of Christian Truth The least stood for a Pound the best for an hundred These were the Champions that first took the Field to fight the Lord's Battel all of them the Worthies of David whereof the stoutest had lifted up his Spear against 800 2 Sam. â— 23. and chased them These were after the Apostles the first-born Sons of the New-Jerusalem to whom by the Blessing of Primogeniture God had given the double Portion of Wisdom and his Spirit Mr. Williams remembred and would remember others of it when they needed such Advice that a Disciple of the Church of England must be their Disciple and would often cite out of the Canons concluded in Convocation an 1571. That Preachers should teach nothing in their Preaching which they would have the People Religiously to observe but that which is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old Testament and the New and that which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered out of that Doctrine This is our Directory Let our Adversaries make the best of it to their advantage as the Funambulatory Jesuit Câ—mpian presumes Ad patres si 〈…〉 ctum est praeliuns Let him crow over Capons we have long laugh'd at his Arrogancy 21. I have here a Passage to insert as well for the Good of others
till they had made their passionate Complaints That Popery was suffered to increase without Care and Controlement His Majesty knowing it to be a scandalous Untruth which blemished him in the good Opinion of his People and the contrary so well known at home and abroad that himself with his own Pen had cut the Head of that Superstition to the admiration of all the World Yet the Clamour being more stoutly than wisely maintain'd by the Undertakers it reached to this prejudice or rather mischief that the King bethought him that all their Grievances and they were many were as groundless as this and that the Proponents were not to be consulted with for the Publick Weal and so Dissolv'd them Generally the Grave and Moderate Gentry throughout the Realm dislike those hot Distempers which wrought so high in the House of Commons Yet were not satisfied with their abrupt Recess Such Physick is too Violent for the Body and naught for the Head For the Unruly shall less offend in their House than when they go home and exaggerate Reports of Misgovernment among their Neighbours And that Monarch sooths himself in Error that thinks he will close up the Wound of such a Breach with a Lip-Salve of a Protestation or by some Declaration that he will Redress Grievances by himself and by his Judges without troubling his Lord and Commons For it is ingrafted into the people not to account any thing for Reformation unless the Workmen whom themselves have chosen do mend the decays of the great Building 58 It is much that a King of great Experience and so full a Soul did discern this no sooner at last he came to it And after seven years Pause he was desirous to try the good Temper of another Parliament It was high time for many Respects Let not two among many be forgotten First he lacked Mony and being so profuse in Gifts he had lacked sooner it the Custom-House had not supported the Exchequer In ten years he had not he Received one Subsidy a very long time to live like a Shell-Fish upon his own Moisture without any publick Supply which truly he deserv'd as much or above his Predecessors For the Kingdom since his Reign began was Luxuriant in Gold and Silver far above the scant of our Fathers that liv'd before us Only the King wanted who bred all the Plenty It was dry upon the Fleece only and there was Dew on all the ground Jud. 6.40 Besides those Princes should be chearfully supplied whose Wisdom procures us safety and quiet by Treaties rather than by Effusion of Blood For as Or sins says well lib. 5. Hist Tributum pretium pacis est What is Tribute but a Debt duly paid to Princes for enjoyment of Peace Secondly and far above Mony the King desired to close with his people in such a strein of mutual good liking as might give him high Reputation in all Countries wherein he did negotiate by his Ministers A course that hath a long Span of forecast in it For a good Correspondence with all the Heads of the people is a Sign of the general Love of the Realm And a King that is beloved at home will be dreaded abroad The House of Austria to whom he had sent often for the Restitution of the Palatinat which they had invaded was so great in its own Opinion that where they Treated nothing came from them but that which was fastidious and insolent As at this time the King of Spain would deign to grant Peace to the States of the United Provinces not unless upon conditions unsupportable which were these four First to acknowledge him for their Patron and Protector Secondly To recal their Fleets and Merchants out of the East and West Indies surrendring what they had in either unto him and to Trade in those Parts no more Thirdly To permit the Roman Catholics free use of Religion in all their Provinces with Churches and maintenance Fourthly To open the Channel of free Navigation between Zealand and Antworp They that would demand no less for their Friendship where they had not one Foot of possession were like to vex them with more lofty Bravadoes and Grandiloquence in whose Territories their Armies had been most prosperous through breach of Promises Therefore our King was provident to fill himself with his just dimensions like the Praepotent Monarch of Great Britain fortified with the Concord and Affections of his Parliament that by his Ambassadors employ'd to prevent the Fears the Miseries and Oppressions of War he might not beg but demand He might not crave but postulate his Childrens Inheritance 59. I could not spare these Premises for the Illustration of the sequel The Parliament began to sit whose bearing was dutiful to the King but quick and minatory against some vile persons who had spoil'd the people by illegal oppressions These were Canker-worms Harpies Projectors who between the easiness of the Lord Marquess to procure and the readiness of the Lord Chancellor Bacon to comply had obtain'd Patent Commissions for latent Knaveries which Exorbitancies being countenanc'd in the Court were grown too strong for any Justice but the Parliaments to root them up There the Appeals of the vexed Subject were heard more like to Out-cries than Complaints which fell thick upon Sir Gyles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michel for Fines and Levies raised upon Inns and Ale-houses Arbitrary impositions and a President dangerous to spread even to Shops and Ware-houses Others remonstrated against a pack of Cheaters who procured the Monopoly of Gold-thread which with their spinning was palpably corrupted and embased These Gilt Flies were the bolder because Sir Edward Villers half Brother to the Lord Marquess was in their Indenture of Association though not Named in their Patent A Gentleman both Religious and true hearted to good ways who was ensnared by crafty Merchants and so far excus'd that after strict enquiry when this Adulterate Ware came to the Test it appear'd that he knew not of the Juggling of the Patentees who drew on grievances with Threads of Vanity and Scandal upon the Chief Government with Cords of Iniquity Together with these Vermin and much more than these the Lord Chancellor was question'd and without pity to his Excellent Parts the Castle of Munera as I borrow it from Mr. Spenser's Divine Wit must be quite defaced Monopolies and Briberies were beaten upon the Anvile every Day almost every Hour The obnoxious that were brought to the Bar of Justice with a multitude that feared to be in as ill condition saw no way for safety but to Poyson the King with an ill Opinion of the Parliament that it might evaporate into a Nullity They terrifie the Lord Marquess that the Grants of these things which are now Bastardized by the Knights and Burgesses nay by the Lords that envy him were begotten by his Favour and Credit That the Arrow of Vengeance is grazed near to himself which is shot at his Brother That it was time to look about him for at
the opening of that Session it was much Noted that the King had said before all the Members Spare none where you find just Cause to punish And if the two Houses should sit a year what good could be expected from them but two or three Subsidies That it were less danger for the King to gather such a Sum or greater by his Prerogative though it be out of the way than to wait for the exhibition of a little Mony which will cost Dishonour and the Ruin of his most Loyal and Faithful Servants 60. O what a Tempting Fiend is self-preservation These Mormo's and ill shap'd Jealousies hatch'd in Hell and prompted by the Father of mischief disquieted the King but Rob'd my Lord of Buckingham of all peace of Mind till the Dean of Westminster his good Genius conjur'd them down whose Wisdom luckily consulted gave him this Advice as I find it in a Breviate of his own hand Writing That the Parliament in all that it had hitherto undertaken had deserv'd praise as well for their dutiful demeanor to the King as for their Justice to his people His Majesties just and gracious Prerogative was untouch'd The Grievances of all that were Wronged with indifferency were Received which they must sift or betray the Trust of their Country which sent them The former Parliament was very Tart if not undutiful what then Shall we be fearful to put our hands into cold Water because we have been Scalded with hot There 's no Colour to quarrel at this general Assembly of the Kingdom for Tracing delinquents to their Form For it is their proper Work And the King hath very Nobly encourag'd them to it in his Speech that in the first day he made before them nay even proffering to have the blemishes of his Government Reformed by them for his own Words must literally bear that meaning as you well remember them if I may know my Errors I will Reform them But your Lordship is Jealous if the Parliament continue Embodied in this Vigour of your own safety or at least of your Reputation least your Name should be used and he brought to the Bandy Follow this Parliament in their undertakings and you may prevent it Swim with the Tide and you cannot be Drown'd They will seek your favour if you do not start from them to help them to settle the public Frame as they are contriving it Trust me and your other Servants that have some Credit with the most Active Members to keep you clear from the strife of Tongues But if you assist to break up this Parliament being now in pursuit of Justice only to save some Cormorants who have devoured that which must be regorged you will pluck up a Sluce which will over-whelm your self The King will find it a great disservice before one year expire The Storm will gather and burst out into a greater Tempest in all insequent Meetings For succeeding Parliaments will never be Friends with those with whom the former fell out This is Negative Counsel I will now spread Affirmative Proposals before your Honour which I have studied and consider'd Delay not one day before you give your Brother Sir Edward a Commission for an Embassage to some of the Princes of Germany or the North-Lands and dispatch him over the Seas before he be mist Those empty Fellows Sir G. Mompesson and Sir Fr. Michel let them be made Victims to the publick Wrath. It strikes even with that Advice which was given to Caesar in Salust when the people expected that some should be Examples of impartial Justice Lucius Posthumins Marcus Fauonius mihi videntur quâ—si magnae navis supervacua onera esse Si quid adversi coortâ—m est de illis pstissumon sactura sit quia pretii minimi sunt Let Lord Posthumius and M. Fauonius be thrown over board in the Storm for there are no Wares in the Ship that may better be spared Nay my Sentence is cast all Monopolies and Patents of griping projections into the Dead Sea after them I have search'd the Signet Office and have Collected almost forty which I have hung in one Bracelet and are fit for Revocation Damn all these by one Proclamation that the World may see that the King who is the Pilot that sits at the Helm is ready to play the pump to eject such Filth as grew Noysom in the Nostrils of his people And your Lordship must needs partake in the Applause for though it is known that these Vermin haunted your Chamber and is much Whisper'd that they set up Trade with some little Licence from your Honour yet when none shall appear more forward than your self to crush them the Discourse will come about that these Devices which take ill were stoln from you by Mis-representation when you were but New blossom'd in Court whose Deformities being Discover'd you love not your own Mistakings but are the most forward to re-call them 61. Before I proceed though Anger be an Enemy to Counsel I confess I cannot refrain to be angry O hearken not to Rhehoboams Ear-Wigs drive them away to the Gibbet which they deserve that would incite the King to Collections of Aid without concurrence of his Parliament God bless us from those Scorpions which certainly would beget a popular Rage An English mans Tribute comes not from the King's Exaction but by the peoples free Oblation out of the Mouth of their Representatives Indeed our Ancient Kings from the beginning did not receive but impose Subsidies When the Saxon Monarchs wanted Relief for repairing Castles Bridges or Military Expeditions they Levied it at their will upon the Shires as we may learn by some Names the only Remainder of those Old times Burg-boot Brig-boot Hen-fan Here-geld Horn-geld Danegeld Terms that meet us every where in our Ancient Chronicles The Normans you may Swear lost nothing that came in by wonted Signory but exacted as they saw Cause as William the Conqueror de Unaquâque hidâ sex solidos cepit imposed Six Shillings on every plowed Land saith Mathew Paris And William Rusus had his Auxilium non lege statutum an Aid without an Act of Parliament as Hoveden in the Life of Henry the Second And in this manner the Norman Race supplied themselves as they needed until King John's Reign who in his great Charter bound himself and his Successors to Collect no Aid nisi per commune concilium regni as it is in Matthew Paris With this agrees the Old Statute of 51 Henry the Third de tallagio non concedendo that Subsidies should not be Levied without the consent of Parliament Which being confirmed also in the 25 of Edward the First hath been inviolably observ'd by all the good and peaceable Kings of England to this very day And God forbid that any other Course should be Attempted For this Liberty was settled on the Subject with such Imprecations upon the Infringers that if they should remove these great Land-Marks they must look for Vengeance as if Entail'd by publick
would now quiet his eager Spirit but to put it to the question whether the Lordships were not content to open their Doors wide and to let all the Bishops out if they would The Lord Keeper Replied with a prudent Animosity That if he were Commanded he would put it to the Question but to the King and not to the House of Peers For their Lordships as well Spiritual as Temporal were call'd by the King 's Writ to sit and abide there till the same Power dissolv'd them And for my Lords Temporal they had no Power to License themselves much less to Authorize others to depart from the Parliament With which Words of irrefragable Wisdom that Spirit was conjur'd down as soon as it was rais'd But when the House was swept and made clean it returned again in our dismal Days with seven other Spirits worse than it self The Motion was then in the Infancy and we heard no more of it till it was grown to be a Giant and dispossessed our Reverend Fathers of their ancient Possession and Primigenious Right by Club-Law Let my Apostrophe plead with our Nobles in no Man's Words but Cicero's to Cataline In vastitate omnium tuas possessiones sacrosanctas futuras putas Could your Lordships imagine to limit Gun-Powder and Wild-Fire to blow up one half of the Foundation and to spair the other half When the Pillars of the Church were pluckt down could the Pillars of the State be strong enough to support the Roof of their own Dignity They should have thought upon it when they pill'd the Bark off the Tree that the Tree would flourish no more but quickly come to that Sentence Cut it down Why cumbereth it the Ground 92. Our Forefathers when they met in Parliament were wont to auspicate their great Counsels with some remarkable Favour of Priviledge or Liberality conferr'd upon the Church And because the Prelates and their Clergy were more concern'd than any in the Benefit of the Statutes made before the Art of Printing was found out they were committed to the Custody of their Religious Mansions The Reward of those Patriots was like their Work and God did shew he was in the midst of them They began in Piety they proceeded in Prudence they acted marvelously to the Maintainance of the Publick Weal and they Concluded in Joy and Concord But since Parliaments of latter Editions have gone quite another way to hearken to Tribunitial Orators that defamed the Ministry to encourage Projectors that would disseize them of their Patrimony when the Nobles from whom better was expected wax'd weary of them who were Twins born in the same Political Administration Samnium in Samnio We may look for England in England and find nothing but New England How are we fallen from our ancient Happiness How Diseased are we grown with the Running Gout of Factions How often have those great Assemblies been cut off unkindly on both sides before their Consultations were mellow and fit for Digestion We look for much and it came to little Was it not because the Lord did blow it away Hag. 1.9 It is not good to be busie in the Search of Uncertainties that are not pleasing yet they that will not trouble themselves to consider this Reason may find divers Irritations to Jars in the Causes below but I believe they will not reduce them better to the Cause of Causes from above From hence came Fierceness and Trouble upon this Session and God sent evil Angels among them Psal 78.49 For the House of Commons seem'd to the King to step out of their Way from the Bills they were preparing into the Closet of his Majesty's Counsels which put him to make Answer to them in a Stile that became his Soveraignty The King's Son-in-Law taking upon him the Title of King of Bohemia sore against the Father-in Law 's Mind the Emperor being in lawful Possession of that Kingdom over-run the greatest part of the Palatinate with some Regiments of Old Soldiers whereof the most were Spanish under the Conduct of Marquess Spinola Our King received the Injury no less than as a deep Wound gash'd into his own Body And all true English Hearts which did not smell of the Roman Wash were greatly provoked with the Indignity Prince and People were alike affected to maintain the Palsgrave in his Inheritance but several Ways They that are of one Mind are not always of one Passion The King assay'd to stop the Fury of the Imperialists by Treaty The Votes of the bigger Number of the House of Commons propounds nothing but War with Spain and this they could not do but in Civility they must first break off the Treaty of Marriage then in Proposition between the King 's dearest Son and the Infanta Maria. Neither of which pleased his Majesty in the Matter and but little in the Form that his Subjects should meddle in those high Points which he esteemed no less than the Jewels of his Crown before he had commended them to be malleated upon their Anvil The Matter that the Match with the Spanish Princess should be intended no more was dis-relishable because he esteemed her Nation above any other to be full of Honour in their Friendship and their Friendship very profitable for the enriching of Trade The Lady her self was highly famed for Virtue Wisdom and Beauty The Noble House of which she came had ever afforded fortunate Wives to the Kings of this Land and gracious with the People Her Retinue of her own Natives should be small and her Portion greater than ever was given with a Daughter of Spain And in the League that should run along with it the Redintegration of the Prince Elector in the Emperors Favor whom he had offended should be included Therefore his Majesty wrote thus to the Parliament We are so far engaged in the Match that we cannot in Honour go back except the King of Spain perform not such things as we expect at his Hands Some were not satisfied of which more in a larger Process that our Prince should marry a Wise of the Pontifician Religion For as Man's Soul contracts Sin as soon as it toucheth the Body so their severe and suspicious Thoughts were as consident as if they had been the Lustre of Prophetick Light that a Protestant could not but be corrupted with a Popish Wedlock Therefore the King took in hand to cure that Melancholy Fit of Superstitious Fear with this Passage that he sent in his Message at the same time If the Match shall not prove a Furtherance to Religion I am not worthy to be your King A well-spirited Clause and agreeable to Holy Assurance that Truth is more like to win than lose Could the Light of such a Gospel as we profess be eclips'd with the Interposition of a single Marriage A faint hearted Soldier coming near in his March to an Ambush unawares Plut vit Pelop. Cry'd out to his Leader Pelopidas Incidimus in hostes We are fallen among the Enemy No Man says his
find by his own Confession remaining in some Schedules that he was beholding to Lord Egerton's Directions to fill up the Worth of that Place which were these First To open his sincere and intimate Mind in all Advice which is indeed to give Counsel and not Words For he that speaks against his Conscience to please the King gives him a dry Flower to smell to Secondly Whatsoever was propos'd to examine primarily if it were just For he that dare make bold with God for Reasons of State is not to be trusted by Man There can be no Reason against Right Velleius says that Cato the Heathen was of that Opinion Cui id solum visum est rationem habere quod haberet justitiam 2. If it were for the Honour of the King for Crown-wisdom must not be soil'd with the Dust of Baseness but aim at Glory 3. If it were profitable as well for the Ages to come as for the present Use for present Occasions are mortal but a Kingdom is immortal If it hit not every Joynt of Just Honourable and Profitable he voted to lay it aside He kept other Rules at the Table but more dispensable As to mature great Matters with slow Deliberation at least to give them a second Hearing after himself and his Colleagues had laid their Heads upon their Pillows Next he called upon the King to follow the beaten Tract of former Precedents For new ways are visibly the Reproach of ancient Wisdom and run the Hazard of Repentance New Stars have appeard and vanish'd the ancient Asterisms remain there 's not an old Star missing Likewise it was his modest but frequent Motion that Counsels should not be whispered by one or two in a Corner but delivered openly at the Board by the sworn Ministers For what avails it when a Globe of Senators have press'd sound Judgment if some for their own Ends shall overthrow it who have made Blastus their Friend in Agrippa's Chamber Act. 12. The Lord Cooke's Jurisdiction of Courts Pag. 57. gives it for a special Note of his own Observation when he was a Privy Counselsellor that when a thing upon Debate and Deliberation is well resolv'd at the Council-Table the Change thereof upon some private Information is neither safe nor honourable As Seneca says Lib. 2. de Benif Vota homines parciùs faccrent si palam facienda essint If all Prayers were made in the Hearing of a publick Assembly many that are mumbled in Private wou'd be omitted for Shame So if all Counsels offer'd to Princes were spread out before many Witnesses Ear-Wiggs that buzz what they think fit in the retir'd Closet durst not infect the Royal Audience with pernicious Glozing for fear of Scandal or Punishment Well did the Best of our Poets of this Century decipher a Corrupt Court in his Under-woods Pag. 227 When scarce we hear a publick Voice alive But whisper'd Counsels and these only thrive Lastly He deprecated continually and obtained that private Causes should be distinguished from Publick that Actions of Meum and Tuum should be repulsed from the Council-Board and kept within the Channel of the Common-Law But to run along with the Complacemia of the Multitude with that which was most cry'd up in the Town by our Gallants at Taverns and Ordinaries he defy'd it utterly Populo super â—canea est calliditas says Salust The Peoples Heads are not lin'd with the Knowledge of the Kingdoms Government 't is above their Perimeter When they obey they are in their Wits when they prescribe they are mad Excellently King James in one of his Speeches Who can have Wisdom to judge of things of that Nature arcana imperii but such as are daily acquainted with the Particulars of Treaties and the variable and fixed Connexion of Affairs of State together with the Knowledge of the secret Ways Ends and Intention of Princes in their several Negotiations Otherwise small Mistakings in Matters of this Nature may produce worse Effects than can be imagined He gave this Warning very sagely to his People what Warning he received from his faithful Servant the Lord Keeper shall be the Close of this Subject His Majesty being careful to set his House within himself in good Order against he came to the Holy Communion on the Eve before he sent for this Bishop as his Chaplain to confer with him about Sacred Preparation for that Heavenly Feast who took Opportunity when the King's Conscience was most tender and humble to shew him the way of a good King as well as of a good Christian in these Points First To call Parliaments often to affect them to accord with them To which Proposal he fully won his Majesty's Heart Secondly To allow his Subjects the Liberty and Right of the Laws without entrenching by his Prerogative which he attended to with much Patience and repented he had not lookt into that Counsel sooner Thirdly To contract his great Expences and to give with that Moderation that the Prince his Son and his succeeding Posterity might give as well as He. In short to contrive how to live upon his own Revenue or very near it that he might ask but little by way of Subsidy and he should be sure to have the more given him But of all the three Motions there was the least Hope to make him hear of that Ear. For though he would talk of Parsimony as much as any yet he was lavish and could keep no Bounds in Spending As Paterculus observes of an Emperor that wrote to the Senate Triumphum appararent quà m minimo sumtu sed quantus alias nunquam fuisset To be a great Saver and a great Spender is hard to be reconciled for it toucheth the Hem of a Contradiction But since the Benefit of that Counsel would not rest upon the Head of the King the Honesty of it returned again to him that gave it 98. Who had the Abilities of two Men in one Breast and filled up the Industry of two Persons in one Body He satisfied the King's Affairs in the Civil Theatre and performed the Bishops Part in the Church of Christ As 〈◊〉 and Jehojada were great Judges in the Land and ministred before the Lord to their Linnen Ephods The Custody of the Great Seal would not admit him so long as he kept it to visit his Diocess himself but though he was not upon the Soil of the Vineyard he was in the Tower of it to over-look the Vine-Dressors Though he was absent in his Body he was present in the Care and Watchfulness of his Spirit and as our Saviour said of the Woman that poured her precious Spikenard upon him Quod potuit fecit Marc. 14.8 So I doubt not but God did accept it from him that he did what he could He heard often from those whom he had surrogated and appointed in Office to give him Information and was so assiduous to enquire after all Occurrences in those many Parochial Towns that were under his Pastoral Power that he would be very
foolish in their several Extreams of Years I prostrate at the Feet of your Princely Clemency Which was granted as soon as the Paradox was unridled to pitch upon them Another Gust that blew from the same Cape I mean from the Pulpit began to be so boisterous that it came very cross to his Majesty's Content Our Unity among our selves was troubled in Point of Doctrine which was not wont The Synod of Dort in the Netherlands having lately determined some great Controversies awakned the Opposition of divers Scholars in our Kingdom who lay still before Learned and Unlearned did begin to conflict every Sunday about God's Eternal Election Efficacy of Grace in our Conversion and Perseverance in it with much Noise and little Profit to the People The King who lov'd not to have these Dogmatizers at Variance us'd all speed to take up the Quarrel early that our Variances might not reproach us to them that were without For there was that in him which Pope Leo applauded in Marcian the Emperor Ep. 70. In Christianissimo Principe sacerdotalis affectus He was a mixt Person indeed a King in Civil Power a Bishop in Ecclesiastical Affections After he had struggled with the Contentious Parties a while and interposed like Moses Sirs ye are Brethren Acts 7.26 and that this rebated not the keen Edge of Discord he commanded Silence to both Sides or such a Moderation as was next to Silence First Because of the Sublimity of the Points The most of Men and Women are but Children in Knowledge and strong Meat belongs to them only that are of full Age Hebr. 5.14 St. Austin subscribed to that Prudence Lib. 2. de porsev c. 16. Unile est ut taceatur aliquod verum propter incapaces Secondly Because the ticklish Doctrine of Predestination is frequently marr'd in the handling either by such as press the naked Decree of Election standing alone by it self and do not couple the Means unto it without which Salvation can never be attained or by those that hold out God's peremptory Decrees concerning those whom especially he hath given to Christ and do not as much or more enforce the Truth of Evangelical Promises made to all and to every Man that whosoever believeth in the Son of God shall not be confounded Now let the Reader consider all the Premises and he shall find how the Instructions that follow depend upon them Which in Form and Stile were the Lord Keepers in the Matter his Majesty's Command and were called Directions concerning Preachers 101. Forasmuch as the Abuses and Extravagancies of Preachers in the Pulpit have been in all Ages repressed in this Realm by some Act of Council or State with the Advice and Resolution of Grave and Learned Prelates insomuch as the very Licencing of Preachers had his Beginning by an Order of the Star-Chamber 〈◊〉 July 〈◊〉 Hen. 8. And that at this present young Students by Reading of late Writers and ungrounded Divines do broach Doctrines many times unprofitable unfound Seditious and Dangerous to the Scandal of this Church and Disquieting of the State and present Government His Majesty hath been humbly entreated to settle for the present either by Proclamation Act of Council or Command the several Diocesans of the Kingdom these Limitations and Cautions following untill by a general Convocation or otherwise some more mature Injunctions might be prepared and enacted in that behalf First That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any Discourse or common Place otherwise than by opening the Coherence and Division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in Essence Substance Effect or natural Inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562 or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a Help to the Non-preaching but withal for a Pattern and a Boundary as it were for the Preaching Ministers And for their further Instruction for the Performance hereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies Secondly That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation upon Sundays and Holy Days hereafter in the Afternoon in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout the Kingdom but upon some Part of the Catechism or some Text taken out of the Ten Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted And that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend this Afternoon's Exercise in the Examining of the Children in their Catechisms and in the Expounding the several Heads and Substance of the same which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England Thirdly That no Preacher of what Title soever under the Degree of a Batchelor of Divinity at the least do henceforth presume to Preach in any Popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the Universality Efficacy Resistibility or Irresistibility of Gods Grace but leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that moderately and modestly by way of Use and Application rather than by way of positive Docttine as being Points fitter for the Schools and Universitles than for simple Auditories Fourthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to Declare Limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Sermon or Lecture the Power Prerogative Jurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or to meddle with Matters of State and the References between Princes and the People otherwise than as they are Instructed and Precedented in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to those two Heads of Faith and good Life which are all the Subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies Fifthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any Invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent raising Speeches or Scoslings against the Persons of either Papists or Puritans but modestly and gravely when they are occasion'd thereunto by the Texts of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the Aspersions of either Adversary especially where the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other Infection Lastly That the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath just Cause to blame for former Remisness be more wary and choice in Licensing of Preachers and revoke all Grants made to any Chancellor Official or Commissary to pass Licenses in this kind And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new Body severed from the ancient
and to raise divisions So they dealt now For they put a Paper into my Lord of Buckingham's hands to assist them for the Erection of Titulary Popish Praelates in this Kingdom A most Natural superfaetation with the motion whereof the Lord Marquess being amuzed he sent to the Lord Keeper for advice who damned the Project with these Reasons ensuing First it will set all the Kingdom on Fire and make his Majesty unable to continue those Favours and Connivencies to peaceable Recusants which he now most Graciously affords them Secondly It takes away from his Majesty an Hereditary Branch of the Crown which the Kings of this Land have ever enjoy'd even before the Conquest and hath never since the days of King John been so much as Challeng'd by any Pope to Wit the Investitures of Bishops Thirdly It is a far greater mischief in a State I mean in regard of the Temporal but not of the Spiritual good thereof then an absolute Toleration For a Toleration as we see in France doth so divide and distinguish Towns and Parishes that no place makes above one payment to their Church-men But this invisible Consistory shall be confusedly diffused over all the Kingdom that many of the Subjects shall to the intolerable exhausting of the Wealth of the Realm pay double Tithes double Offerings and double Fees in regard of their double Consistory And if Ireland be so poor as it is suggested I hold under Correction that this invisible Consistory is the principal cause of the exhausting thereof Fourthly If the Princes Match should go on this New Erected Consistory will put the the ensuing Parliament into such a Jealousie and Suspition that it is to be feared that they will shew themselves very untractable upon all propositions Fifthly For the Pope to place a Bishop in this Kingdom is against the Fundamental Law of the Land and the King will be held unjust and injurious to his Successors if to his utmost power he should not resist and punish This Draught was brought to the King who was glad such Pills were prepared to purge away the redundancy of the Catholic Encroachments And his Majesty gave Order to him who had confected them so well to Administer them with his best skill to the Spanish Embassador That they might work gently with him the Lord Keeper at his Visit made shew that he was startled at a heady motion that came from Savoy as he thought taking no notice of any Spanish Agent that had his Finger in it And besought his Excellency to send for the Savoyan and to wish him to throw aside his Advice for Titulary Bishops least it should hinder the King of Spain's desire in accomodating the Catholics with those Courtesies which had been granted which took so well with the Spanish Embassador his own indiscretion being not Taxt but the Folly laid at another Door that the motion sunk in the Mud and was seen no more I will add but one thing how distastful it was to him that the Papists should have so much as the shadow of a governing Church in this Realm taken out of a Letter Cabal pag. 81. Written to my Lord of Buckingham being then at Madrid dated Aug. 30. 1623. Doctor Bishop the New Bishop of Chalcedon is come to London privately and I am much troubled at it not knowing what to Advise his Majesty as things stand at this present If you were Shipped with the Infanta the only Counsel were to let the Judges proceed with him presently Hang him out of the way and the King to blame my Lord of Caterbury or my self for it Surely this doth not favour of addiction to the Purple-Hat or the Purple-Harlot Ovid. Nunquid ei hoe fallax Creta negare potes Nay it was a Pang rather then a Passion to the welfare of this Church which forc'd sentence of Blood out of his sweet and mi'ky Nature 106. Yet well fare those good Fellows that did not defame him for a Papist Much otherwise they charg'd him with a loud Slander and a long Breach for it continued in his days of Sorrow that he was a Puritan of what Colour Siâ—s Blew or Black Both these might he false so they were both could not be True David says of God's Servants whom he Tried as Silver is Tried in the Fire that they went through Fire and through Water Miseâ—ies of Repugnant Natures So Sometimes they pass through Defamations inconsistent and as contrary one to another as Fire and Water The Old Non conformists were call'd by the Nick Name of Puritans in Queen Elizabeth's days I know not who impos'd it first whether Parsons the Jesuit or some such Franion I know it grew not up like Wild Oats without Sowing But some Supercilious Divines a few years before the End of K. James his Reign began to Survey the Narrow way of the Church of England with no Eyes but their own and measuring a Right Protestant with their streight line discriminated as they thought fit sound from unsound so that scarce ten among a Thousand but were Noted to carry some Disguise of a Puritan The very Prelates were not free from it but Tantum non ni â—piscopatu Puritani became an Obloquy At the Session which these Arislarchusses held near to the Court in the Strand the Lord Keeper the most Circumspect of any Man alive to provide for Uniformity and to countenance it was scratch'd with their Obeliske that he favour'd Puritans and that sundâ—y of them had Protection through his Connivency or Clemency All the Quarrel in good Sooth was that their Eye was Evil because his was Good Such whom the Aemulous repin'd at as he cast it out himself were of two Ranks Some were of a very strict Life and a great deal more laborious in their Cure then their Obtrectators Far be it from him to love these the worse because they were Stigmatiz'd to the Offence of Religious and Just-men with a by word of Contumely Pacatus the Orator inveighed against it for a Rank impiety in his Panâ—g Quod Clarevati Matrorae objicicbatur atque 〈◊〉 exprobrabatur mulieri vi luae nimia Religio diligentius culta Divinitas I will lay it open in one particular The Lord Bishop of Norwich Dr. Harsnet a learned Prelate and a Wise Governour bate him perhaps a little roughness began to proceed in his Consistory against Mr. Samuel Ward a Famous Preacher in Ipswich who Appealed from the Bishop to the King And the King committed the Articles exhibited against him to be Examined by the Lord Keeper and by him to be Reported to his Majesty The Lord Keeper found Mr. Ward to be not altogether blameless but a Man to be won easily with fair dealing So he perswaded Bishop Harsnet to take his Submission and to continue him in his Lecture at Ipswich The Truth is he found so much Candor in Mr. Ward so much readiness to serve the Church of England in its present Establishment and made it so clearly appear that he had
of the King Now for your own private I make no question but I may say of you my Lord as one said of Coccius Nerva Foelicior longè quà m cum foelicissimus That you were greater a great deal in your own Contentment than now that you have worthily attained to all this Greatness But as in this World of Things every Element forsakes his Natural Disposition so as we many times see the Earth and Water evaporating upward and the Fire and Air darting downward ad conservationem universi as Philosophy speaks to preserve and maintain the common course So in this World of Men private Must give way to publick Respects Now if it be expected that I should say any thing for your Lordships Direction in this Great Office your Lordships Wisdom and my Ignorance will plead pardon though I omit it I will only say one word and that shall be the same which Pliny said to one Maximus appointed Questor that is Treasurer for Achaia Memenisse oportet Ossicii titulum Remember but your Name and you shall do well enough Your Lordship is appointed Lord Treasurer Take such Order in his Majesties Exchequer that your Lordship do not bear this Denomination and Title in vain and your Lordship shall be worthily honour'd for the happiest Subject in this Kingdom And surely as your Lordship hath the Prayers so you have the Hopes of all good Men that Si Pergama dextrâ defendi poterant If any Man living can improve the Kings Revenue with Skill and Diligence you are that good Husband And so I wish your Lordship as much Joy of your Place as the King and the State do conceive of your Lordship This was the Perfume which was cast upon the new Treasurer in his Robes of Instalment The King was pleased much in his Advancement For his Majesty had proved him with Questions and found that he was well studied in his Lands Customs in all the Profits of the Crown in Stating of Accompts And in the general Opinion the White-Staff was as fit for his Hand as if it been made for it The most that could be objected was that he was true to the King but gripple for himself A good Steward for the Exchequer but sower and unrelishing in Dispatch A better Treasurer than a Courtier There was nothing in appearance but Sun-shine and warm Affections between him and the Lord Keeper The Lord Treasurer I know well had cross'd the other in one or two Suits which had been beneficial to him and not drawn a Denier out of the Kings Purse He dealt so with every Man therefore the Sufferer gave little sign of Grievance It was not his Case alone Another Pick in which they agreed not I cannot say disagreed was about a Brood of Pullein which were never hatcht The last Parliament being dissolv'd it was well thought of by some of the Lords of the Council-Board to sweeten the ill relish which it had in some Palats with a Pardon of Grace that might extend to a fair Latitude for the ease of those that were question'd for old Debts and Duties to the Crown for concealed Wardships and not suing out Liveries and such charges of the like kind which put those that were secure in their Improvidence to a great deal of trouble and disanimated their best Friends for fear of such blind Claps to be their Executors When the Lord Keeper had brought this Pardon so near to his Birth that the Atturney-General was sent for to draw it up the Lord Treasurer mov'd That such as took out this Pardon should pay their Fees which are accustomed in that kind to such Officers as he should appoint that the Advantage might enrich the King and that himself might have that share which the Lord Chancellour us'd to have who put the Seal to those Pardon 's This was heard with a dry laughter and denied him But from thenceforth he struggled to correct the lusty Wine of the Pardon with so much Water that there was no comfort in it and falling short of that Grace which was expected was debated no more The Lord Keeper having obtein'd a good Report for the Conception of the Pardon and the Lord Treasurer a great deal of Envy for the Abortion it curdled in his Stomach into Choler and Mischief And wherefore was he angry with his Brother Abel Look what St. John answers 1 Epist Chap. 3. Vers 12. He endeavoured first to make a Faction in Court against the Lord Keeper and it would not hit because he had no Credit with the Great Ones Then he falls to Pen and Paper and spatters a little Foam draws up Ten What-do-you-call-Um's some of them are neither Charges of Misdemeanour nor Objections which were meant for Accusations but are most pitiful failings entramell'd with Fictions and Ignorance They are extant in the Cabal Pag. 72. which the Lord Keeper puts away as quietly as the Wind blows off the Thistle-Down Pusheth his Adversary down with his little Finger yet insults not upon his Weakness As Pliny writes to Sabin Lib. 9. Ep. Tunc praecipua mansuetudinis laus cum irae causa justissima est It was very laudable to be so mild when there was just cause given to be more angry Yet he complain'd by Letters to the Lord Marquiss as if he were sensible of the despite and unto him was very loud in his own Justification From whom he got no more remedy but that his Adversary was not believ'd And was will'd to consider that he dealt with one whose ill Manners would not pay him Satisfaction for an Injury Unto which the Lord Keeper rejoyn'd to the Lord Marquiss His Majesties Justice and your Lordships Love are Anchors strong enough for a Mind more tost than mine is to ride at Yet pardon me my Noble Lord upon this Consideration if I exceed a little in Passion the Natural Effect of Honesty and Innocency A Church-man and a Woman have no greater Idol under Heav'n than their Good Name And they cannot Fight nor with Credit Scold and least of all Recriminate to Protect and Defend the same The only Revenge left them is to grieve and complain Then he concludes Whom I will either Challenge before his Majesty to make good his Suggestions or else which I hold the greater Valour and which I wanted I confess before this Check of your Lordships go on in my course and scorn all these base and unworthy Scandals as your Lordship shall direct me What need more be said In the space of a Month they wrangled themselves into very good Friends and the Lord Keeper was Gossip to the next Child that was born to the Treasurer As Nazianzen says of Athanasius Encom p. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was the Condition of two kinds of Stones in his Nature that are much commended He was an Adamant to them that smote him found and firm and would never break But a Loadstone to draw them to him that discorded with him though they were as hard as
up the greatest part of the Time in speaking to the Redress of petty Grievances like Spaniels that rett after Larks and Sparrows in the Field and pass over the best Game Therefore his Majesty to loose no time drew up a Proclamation with his own Pen Feb. 20 to this end that certain of the Lords of the Privy Council should have Power and special Commission to receive the Complaints of all the good People of this Land which should be brought before them concerning any Exorbitances Vexations Oppressions and Illegalities and either by their own Authority if it would reach to it to see them corrected or to give Orders to cut them off by the keenest Edge of the Laws That Complainants should be encouraged to present their Grievances as well by the Invitement of the Proclamation as by the Signification of the Judges to the Country and Grand Juries in their respective Circuits The Draught of this the Features of his Majesty's own Brain came by Post to pass the Great Seal Yet for all that Hast the Lord Keeper took time to scan it and sent it back with Advice that the Project would be sweeter if it were double refined presuming therefore that his Majesty would not be unwilling to stop a little at the Bar of good Counsel he wrote this ensuing Letter to the Court Feb. 22. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty 120. I Do humbly crave Your Majesties Pardon that I forbear for two or three days to seal Your Proclamation for Grievances until I have presented to Your Majesty this little Remonstrance which would come too late after the Sealing and Divulging the Proclamation First As it is now coming forth it is generally misconstrued and a little sadly look'd upon by all men as somewhat restreining rather than enlarging Your Majesties former Care and Providence over Your Subjects For whereas before they had a standing Committee of all the Council-Table to repair unto they are now streitned to four or five only Most of which number are not likely to have any leisure to attend the Service Secondly I did conceive Your Majesty upon Your first Royal Expression of Your Grace in this kind in a Resolution to have mingled with some few Lords of Your Privy-Council some other Barons of Your Kingdom Homines as Pliny said of Virginius Rufus innoxiè Populares Whose Ears had been so opened to the like Grievances in the time of Parliament as their Tongues notwithstanding kept themselves within the compass of Duty and due Respect to Your Majesty as the Earls of Dorset and Warwick the Lord Houghton Dr. Morton the Lord Dennie the Lord Russel the Lord North. And among the Lords Spiritual the Bishops of Lichfield Rochester and Ely and especially unless Tour Majesty in Your deep Wisdom have some Reasons of the Omission Dr. Buckeridge the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This mixture would produce the these Effects ensuing First An Intimation of Your Majesties Sincerity and Reality in this Proclamation Dr. Felton Secondly A more free and general Intimation to Parties Aggrieved who will repair soonear to these private Peers then to the great Lords of Your Majesties Council Thirdly The making of these Lords and the like Witnesses of Your Majesties Justice and good Government against the next ensuing Parliament and the stopping of their Ears against such supposed Grievances at that time as shall never be heard of in their Sitting upon this Commission Fourthly and Lastly The gaining of these Temporal Lords to side with the State being formerly much wrought upon by the Factious and Discontented If Your Majesty shall approve of these Reasons it is but to Command Your Secretary to interline these or some of these Names in the Commission which in all other respects is already wisely and exceeding well penn'd with two short Clauses only First That these Lords shall attend very carefully and constantly in Term-time when they are occasion'd to be at London Secondly That they be instructed to receive all Complaints with much Civility and Encouragement giving them full Content and Redress according to the merit of their Grievances For nothing will sooner break the Heart of a People or make them lose their Patience than when hopes of Justice are frustrated after the Royal Word is engaged But if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom will overpass these Particulars which I have dutifully presented upon the return of the Proclamation as it is it shall be sealed and divulged with all expedition But these Reasons were not overpass'd Both the Proclamation and private Orders to the Lords Commissioners were reformed by the Contents of that weighty Letter His Majesty greatly inclining to the Lord-Keeper's Readiness and espying Judgment in all Consultations For as Laertius in Zeno's Life said of a famous Musician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Ismenias could play well upon all Instruments So this was another Ismenias who had the Felicity to make all Deliberations pleasing and tuneable especially he had that way above all that I knew to make sweet Descant upon any plain Song that was prick'd before him It will be to the Profit of the Reader if I rub his memory with one Passage of the Letter for it is but one though it come in twice which presseth the King to Sincerity and Reality to fix his Word like the Center of Justice that cannot be moved Righteous Lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16.23 And a King of Righteous Lips is most delightful Since the coercitive part of the Law doth not reach him upon what Nail shall those Millions that stand before his Throne hang their Hopes if his Word do not bind him A People that cannot give Faith to their Sovereign will never pay him Love It seems that the ancient Latin Kings did profess to use Crookedness and Windings of Dissimulation in their Polity therefore their Scepter was called Lituus because it bent in toward the upper end But the Scepter of thy Kingdom says David of GOD is a right Scepter A right one indeed For Contracts and Promises bind God to Man much more must they oblige the King to his People An Author of our own Dr. Duck in his very Learned Treatise De usu Juris Civilis p. 44. hath well delivered this Morality Princeps ad contractum tenetur uti privatus nec potest contractum suum rescindere ex plenitudine potestatis cum maximè in eo requiratur bena sides Falshood is Shop-keepers Language or worse but 't is beneath Majesty 121. A Parliament being not far of either in the King's Purpose or in Prospect of Likelihood Serj Crooke Cvew Finch Damport Bramston Bridgman Crawly Headly Thin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authurst Blng. Dâ—y the Lord Keeper was provident that the Worthies of the Law should be well entreated Their Learning being most comprehensive of Civil Causes and Affairs they had ever a great Stroke in that Honorable Council Therefore he wrought with his Majesty to sign a Writ for the Advancement of some
mention the parts of the Narration needing as it were Sinews and Tendons without which they cannot grow together Two Years and little more were run out after the Death of Prince Hâ—nry so much miss'd so much bewailed when the principal Statesman then in Spain under King Philip the Third the Duke of Lerma opened the Motion first to Sir J. Digby our King's Embassador Resiant in the Court of Madrid for a Match between our Prince who was by this time every where renown'd for the Diligence he shew'd to that brave Education which was given him and the Infanta Maria the much praised Daughter of his Master the Mightiest Christian Potentate in Europe Our King was passing well pleas'd when his Servant Digby sent him word of it and encouraged him to bring it to as much ripeness as he could The Treatise went on very chearfully with the great Ones on both sides who were only or chiefly concern'd in it But no People meddle more or more impertinently with the discourse of great things which are above them than the paultriest of the English I mean Shop-keepers and Handycrafts-men These had some vain Fears which made them deaf to Reason and swift to murmur But the King was too wise to put his Honour and his greatest Actions under the Hazard of their Interpretation That some of our Nobles sided with the common Mans Opinion it weighed as little For they were such as loved it like their Life to be commended by open Fame and could not dissemble that their coldness to the Match was not without a Fever of Popularity No discreet Person thought that the Success would be the worse because a few gay Coats forbid the Bands with the Tryes and Dewces of Sedentary and Loitering Men. Pliny says of Miscellen Pulses sowed together in Italy in his time Nihil ocymo faecundius quod maledictis probris serendum praecipiunt ut laetius proveniat Lib. 19. N.H. C. 7. The Husbandmen had a Superstition to curse it or to give it all ill words when it was sown and thought it would grow the better With more Reason I may affirm it were Superstition to imagine that a good Design would the sooner go back because it was rashly malign'd by them that walk'd in Pauls or throng'd together in the Markets There was nothing like a halt in the Treaty of this Marriage between the two Kings till the Prince Elector our Kings Son-in-Law made his Excursion into Bohemia and left his own Country naked and undefensible behind him and lost it Though in fair dealing now the Nuptials should have hastned faster to a Conclusion than before because the young Parties were grown up to a mature Age for Marriage Yet the Spaniard could be brought on to no dispatch but took respite of time about three Years to resolve how the Bridal-Joy should be doubled with the Settlement of the Palsgrave in his own Principality For till that was done Peace between the two Kingdoms was but in a doubtful and a catching Condition 126. The Castilian Court is ever slow but to make it worse it was suspected as I incline to think uncharitably that in this great Business it would not be sure It is incident when one State offends another to impute the fault not to that one Errour but to a general and National Vice So the Spaniards were set out to the Prince in some busie Pamphlets and other Draughts put into his Hand for such as the Parthians are describ'd in Justin Lib. 41. Parthi Naturâ taciti ad faciendum quam ad dicendum promptiores sides diclis promissisque nuila nisi quatenus expedit Such as were given to suppress and conceal their Counsels Such as would sooner bite than bark Such as would keep no Faith but when it serv'd their turn The Prince both discountenanc'd and discarded those that in Zeal to his Affairs presum'd to write contumeliously of that Prepotent Wise and Grave Nation He had cast the Anchor of great Hopes and Joys upon that Shore Every Tongue gave loud Commendation to the Infanta his Mistress He loved the report of her Vertues and Beauty and he that is sick of Love will be more sick of Procrastination Thereupon as he did publickly before the ensuing Parliament take it upon himself 〈◊〉 Heroick Thought started out of his own Brain to visit the Court of 〈◊〉 as well to shew what Confidence he had in the Justice and Honour of that King committing the safety of his Person to him in a strange Land as to bring his Comforts to a sudden Consummation if his Catholick Majesty meant seriously 〈◊〉 bellow his Sister upon him But if he had plaid an ignoble part by counte â—ing Proâ—tions then resolutely to give King Philip no leisure to abuse him any longer And set the Discrediâ—e at his Door that had done the wrong for it is more honourable to suffer an injury than to do it The Lord Marquess of Buckingham then a great Graâ—o was put on by the Prince to ask the Kings liking to this Amour◠〈◊〉 â—enure Of whom he obtein'd both his Consent and his Secresie 〈…〉 â—ere over the Seas For this was the Pirithous that went with 〈…〉 his Love They left New Market on the 17th of 〈…〉 on the 18th from thence posted to Dover and were in France before they were miss'd But then upon the Bruit of the Prince's sudden departure so thinly Guarded for so long a Journey even the Wisest were troubled The Courtiers chiefly those that wanted their Master talk'd out their Discontents boldly The Lords of the Counsel look'd dejectedly that they were pretermitted in a Consultation of so great Importance but prayed heartily That since his Majesty was pleas'd to walk softly that he might not be heard his chance were not to tread away Among them all the Lord Keeper was the only Counsellor suspected to be of the Plot. Yet he knew as little as the rest and satisfied their Lordships that Ignorance was often a happy thing as in this instance For if the Prince had gone out of the Kingdom privily with their Lordships Knowledge and Counsel and some misfortune which God avert should prevent his safe return their Heads would be forfeited to Justice and their Names expos'd to perpetual Infamy Indeed this was but the second time that King James had baulk'd his whose Counsel upon a like Occasion Not out of Confidence that he knew enough without them but out of tenderness to their safety that they might not undergo the Anger exacted upon ill Events if God should cause them In the Year 1589. he caused some Ships to be Rigg'd that the Admiral of Scotland might fetch Queen Ann out of Denmark But when the Fleet was ready he went Aboard himself hoisted Sails and took his leave of no Man For which sudden Voyage not imparted to the Lords that fate close at Edinburgh he gives this Satisfaction to them in a Letter see it in worthy Spotswood pag. 377. I took this Resolution none of
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be
came thither privily out of Love he scorn'd to steal away privily out of Fear But when he heard that some were set in ambush to interrupt his Return he bore it Heroically and without strife of Passion because he knew no Remedy to help it and wrote to the King his Father to be couragious in the sufferance with these Lines That if his Majesty should receive any Intelligence that he was deteined in that State as a Prisoner he would be pleased for his sake never to think of him more as a Son but to reflect with all Royal Thoughts upon the good of his Sister and the safety of his own Kingdoms That Family and those Children with whom King Philip held less Amity than with the English secur'd us afterwards from those fears But for other things the Grandees of the Consulto till their heat had vapoured out stood upon such Terms as had no Equity or Moderation For when Sir Fr. Cottington return'd with our Kings Oath plighted to the annexed Conditions for the ease of the Roman Catholicks the Spaniards made no Remonstrance of Joy says the Prince in his Report or of an ordinary liking to it Therefore the Lord Keeper observing that they had an insatiate and hydropical Malady that the more they gulpt down the more they thirsted he tried if they would take this Julip as he prepared it in his Letter to the Duke of Buckingham July 21. May it please your Grace I Have Received yours of the 8 of Julyby the Lord Andover and heartily thank your Grace for the News though not so compleatly good as we desir'd yet better then for many days together I expected beside the hope I retain it may still be better His Majesty and the Lords have taken the Oaths and the Laws against the Roman Catholicks are actually suspended as upon my Credit and Honesty they were a good while before Now July August September and a piece of October are left for a further Probation This being so what good will it do that Wise and Great Estate to Publish to all Christiandom their diffidence of so just a Prince especially being Sworn and Deposed Your Grace knoweth very well I would the State of Spain knew as much that all our Proceedings against Recusants is at our Assises which are holden at this instant and do not return again till after the first of March So as all the probate of the suspension of the Laws against them betwixt this and the first of March will be seen and discerned by the last of our August For between that and the first of March there can be no Trial at all I know if this were understood in that place it were unanswerable For the Proceedings in the King's-Bench which only can be objected are altogether depending upon Indictments at the Assises so that the Spring once stopt as now it is these Rivers grow Dry and run no more This will mollifie all Stubborness which is Resolv'd to stoop to Reason c. Here 's a Remonstrance then which nothing could be more placid or more solid upon which I look as upon Thaboren in Parthia as Justin describes it lib. 41. Cuius loci ea conditio est ut neque munitius quicquam neque amoenius esse possit Just at this time the Days of Trouble look'd darker and darker in Spain The Prince disgusted to Treat with a People that ask'd much and granted little and Wire-drew Counsels into Vexatious length resolv'd to take his leave and shew'd the King of Spain his Fathers Royal and Indispensable Pleasure that no Proffer should interpose but that he should hasten him for which his Navy did attend him upon the Coast of Biscay That it was no fault of his that he must depart when the Treaty was so imperfect but in them that made it a Justitium or Intermission of all Proceedings because upon the Death of the Pope the Court of Rome was not open Olivarez to divert his Highness made Two Propositions First That the Prince would come in to the Conditions as they came formerly from Rome or to stay till new ones might be agreed upon and Ratified at Rome Hoc illud cornucopiae est ubi in est quicquid volo says Pseudolus in Plautus Grant the Conde to make his Reference to Rome and you grant him all That 's the Goats-Horn or Jugglers Box out of which he can fetch any thing with a sleight The Prince answer'd him very gravely for one so young as he made the Report at St. James's The first motion he had declin'd before neither had he chang'd his Judgment nor should they find him a Shechem to pass over into a New Religion for a Wife Gen. 34. The other Motion he accepted this way He would go for England to perfect the Articles there and let them do the like at Rome Olivarez admired at his Reply but took it up with this Answer That to be gone so soon and nothing Model'd to the Content of any side would be a Breach therefore he humbly besought his Highness to stay but Twenty Days and he swore by all the Saints of Heaven then he was sure it would be a Marriage The Duke of Buckingham standing by said It is well but it might have been as well Seven years ago Which put the Conde to a great Anger and in his Anger made him Fome out a Secret That there was no Match intended Seven Months ago and says he I will fetch that out of my Desk that shall assure you of it So he produced a Letter written to one Don Baltasar with King Philip III. his own Hand as he Vowed The Prince was allowed to Read it then as much as he would but not to take a Copy all this was declared to the next Parliament in the Banquetting-House His Highness with Sir Wal. Aston better Skill'd in the Castilian Language Translated the Letter as their Memories would bear it away and kept it for a Monument This is the Letter which I think Mr. Prinn was the first that divulged out of the Lord Cottington's Papers which he had Ransack'd Whether it were a true Letter of King Philip's lies upon Olivarez Credit it never came out of his Custody or whether the Prince and Sir W. Aston mist nothing of the right Sense of it through Frailty of Memory when they came to Recollect the Sum of it in private is not yet decided Salomon alluding to the Contradictions that are in some Mens Parables says They are like the Legs of the Lame that are not equal Prov. 26.7 Let the best Bone-setter in the Hundred set these Legs even if he can An Authentical Notary in Spain Conde Olivarez shews it under Black and White that Philip the Father of the Infanta who died Anno 1621 held our King in Hopes but never intended to give his Daughter to the Prince of Wales Hear the Evidence of the other side His Highness Remembred the Parliament That Sir Wal. Aston was struck Mute at the Reading of
for Legal Notions When the Lord Keeper had done with the Living he began with the Dead and scrupled how their Dead should be Interr'd so as to give no offence nor be obnoxious to be offended The Resolution was brought to him that sent it That their Burials should be in their private Houses as secret as might be and without any sign of Manifestation but Notice to be given to the Parish-Clerk of their departure 164. Never was Man so entangled in an Els-lock all this while that could not be unravell'd as Marquiss Inoiosa till he publish'd his Choler in all sorts of Impatiency The Reader may take in so small a matter by the way that the Writer of these Passages said to the Lord Keeper That the Marquiss was the most surly unpleasing Man that ever came to his House His Lordship answer'd They were his Manners by Nature But he had been so vain to profess That he came an Enemy to us into England and for this Dowty Cause His Father was a Page to King Philip the Second while he lived here with Queen Mary and was discourteously used in our Court perhaps by the Pages Which was a Quarrel of Seventy Years old and bearing date before the Marquiss was born Which will cause a Passage of Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily to be remembred who had robb'd and spoil'd some of the Islands under the Protection of Athens and when the Injury was expostulated he told them Their Countryman Ulysses had used the Sicilians worse 700 Years before as he believ'd it to be very true in Homer This Ambassador was a restless Man and held the Lord Keeper so close to turn and plow up the fallow of this Business that he would not give him the Jubilee of a Day to rest Yet the time do what he could had run at waste from the 20th of July to the end of August Then and no sooner the Frames of the Pardon and Dispensation were contriv'd and dispatch'd Yet the Mill would not go with this Water The Ambassadors call'd for more That two general Commands should be issued forth under the Great Seal the first to all the Judges and Justices of Peace the other to all Bishops Chancellors and Commissaries not to execute any Statute made against the Papists Hereupon the Spanish Faction was suspected that they had no hopes to bring some secret Drifts to pass but by raising a general hatred against our Government The Lord Keeper repulsed the Motion and wrote to the King being at Aldershot That whatsoever Instance the Ambassador makes to the contrary there was no reason why his Majesties Wisdom should give place to them He propounded That a private Warrant might be directed to himself to will him to write to the respective Magistrates fore-nam'd to acquaint them with the Graces which his Majesty had past for Recusants in that Exigence and to suspend their Proceeding till they heard further For as the Civilians say Cessant extraordinaria ubi ordinariis est locus Thus he contriv'd it that the King as much as might be should escape the Offence and let the Rumour light upon his private Letters For which he never put the King to stand between the People and his Errour nor besought him to excuse it to the next Parliament But as Mamertinus in Paneg. said of his own Consulship Non modò nullum popularium deprecatus sum sed ne te quidem Imperator quem orare praeclarum cui preces adhibere plenissimum dignitatis est Yet lest the Ambassador should complain of him to the Prince in Spain he writes to the Duke Cab. P. 8. Aug. 30. THat he had prevailed with the Lords to stop that vast and general Prohibition and gave in three Days Conference such Reasons to the two Ambassadors although it is no easie matter to satisfie the Capriciousness of the latter of them that they were both content it should rest till the Infanta had been six Months in England For to forbid Judges against their Oath and Justices of Peace sworn likewise not to execute the Law of the Land is a thing unprecedented in this Kingdom Durus sermo a harsh and bitter Pill to be digested upon a suddain and without some Preparation But to grant a Pardon even for a thing that is malum in se and a Dispensation with Poenal Statutes in the profit whereof the King only is interested is usual full of Precedents and Examples And yet this latter only serves to the Safety the former but to the Glory and Insolency of the Papists and the magnifying the service of the Ambassadors too dearly purchas'd with the endangering of a Tumult in three Kingdoms His Majesty useth to speak to his Judges and Justices of Peace by his Chancellor or Keeper as your Grace well knoweth And I can signifie his Majesties Pleasure unto them with less Noise and Danger which I mean to do hereafter if the Ambassador shall press it to that effect unless your Grace shall from his Highness or your own Judgment direct otherwise That whereas his Majesty being at this time to Mediate for Favour to many Protestants in Foreign Parts with the Princes of another Religion and to sweeten the Entertainment of the Princess into this Kingdom who is yet a Roman Catholick doth hold the Mitigation of the Rigour of those Laws made against Recusants to be a necessary Inducement to both those Purposes and hath therefore issued forth some Pardons of Grace and Favour to such Roman Catholicks of whose Fidelity to the State he rests assur'd That therefore you the Lord Bishops Judges and Justices each of those to be written to by themselves do take Notice of his Majesties Pardon and Dispensation with all such Poenal Laws and demean your selves accordingly This is the lively Character of him that wrote it Policy mixt with Innocency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nazianzen Cunning enough yet not divided from Conscience For Wit when it is not sheathed as it were in the fear of God will cut like a sharp Razor 165. All his Art would be requir'd to reconcile two things That the Ambassador should be put off no longer for so the King had now commanded by Dispatches from both the Secretaries And that he would finish nothing till he had heard either his Highness or the Duke's Opinion upon the Proceeding The general Pardon and the Dispensation were both sealed So he began But kept them by him and would not open the least Window to let either Dove or Raven fly abroad The King being return'd to Windsor signification was given that none of the Lords should come to him till he sent for them and was ready for Matters of moment No Superstructure could go on very fast when that Stone was laid From Windsor Sept. 5. Sir G. Calvert writes to him My very good Lord His Majesty being resolv'd to extend his Gracious Favour to the Roman Catholicks signifies his Pleasure That your Lordship should direct your Letter to the Bishops Judges
Humanity Grotius who best could do it hath sweetly translated such a Contemplation out of Euripides Lib. 2. de Bel. Pa. Cap. 24. Co. 4. Quod si in Comitiis funera ante oculos forent Furiata bello non pâ—risset Graecia Some will adventure to say more that every Sheba that sounded the first Trumpet to Battail hath been unlucky in his own Person So Sir W. Aston to the Duke Cab. P. 37. The most prosperous War hath misfortune enough in it to make the Author of it unhappy Else Isocrates was mistaken who lived to be an old and a Prophetical Orator among the Athenians Orat. de Pace says he Your Humour Athenians is well known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you like them best that incite you to War Yet I wonder if old Men do not remember and young Men have not heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we never receiv'd hurt by listning to them that exhorted us to preserve our Peace but the Counsels of others have brought Dishonour and put us to Shifts and Calamities 177. I would these Notions might be read considerately when any rash Spirit shall attempt to open Janus's Temple after it hath been long shut Yet wo be to the Vicar that should have read this Homily to my Lord Duke The Lord Keeper's Name was in his black Book of Remembrance for it till his Lordship did not only cross him but blot him out Revenge is the effect of smother'd Anger as Flame is but lighted Smoak The Scene wherein an Argument of a kind of Tragedy is couch'd upon it is in the Lord Duke's Secretaries Letter Cab. Pag. 86. challenging the Lord Keeper That at the select Council he had run a course opposite to his Lordship and by consequent to sill up the Crime dangerous to the Kingdom prejudicious to the cause of Religion That the two last times they met in Council the Duke found that he took his Kue from the Kings Mind just as other Men did and joyn'd with them in their Opinions whose aim was to tax his Proceedings in the managing of the Prince's Business How imperious is this And how all that follows it like the roaring of a Lyon And for no more offence but because he would not condemn the King of Spain out of the proof of his Grace's Mouth and ammerce him with an implacable War wherein an Hundred Thousand Lives might be spilt for a Quarrel begun between himself and Olivarez which was not worth a bloody Nose Certainly the Lord Keeper could not be afraid of the Duke being so much alienated for any hurt that could come of it at the present I was not in his Heart to espy whether he look'd forward upon another Age in the next Reign One thing I am conscious of that he courted no Man but him with supple Submission being unwilling to nothing more than that the World should observe him dissever'd from his Promoter though he were innocent as to making a breach or the least thought of Opposition The best part he could act was to protest how much and how unseignedly he was that Lords in a most Pathetical Vow as it is to be found Cab. P. 89. Let this Paper bear Record against me at the great Parliament of all if I be not in my Heart and Soul your Graces most faithful and most constant poor Friend and Servant Somewhat also may be pick'd out of that Letter by a sharp Censure as if he had sought the Duke with Phrases too low and too Petitionary And I am my self within a little of that Opinion But this was ever a venial Fault at Court where it was usual for Men in Place to drink down such hot Affronts as would scald their Throats that could not endure the Vassallage which was tied to Ambition The best Apology is That a Thankful Man looks for leave chuse you whether you will grant it for he will take it to lay himself under the Feet of his Benefactor to be reconciled to him I learn it from Tully pleading for himself against Lateranensis Orat pro Plancio Nimis magnum beneficium Plancii exaggero Quare verò me tuo arbitratu non meo gratum esse oportet Lateranensis says I do too much extol the Favours which I have received from Plancius As if it were not Reason that I should be Grateful by my own Acknowledgment and not by his Opinion In short that the Duke might be the better aslur'd of the reading of so able a Minister in the Parliament at Hand the Prince with his never-failing Sweetness made up this Gap between them but with a loose Pale Yet leave should have been given where leave was look'd for The Lord Keeper did not give the Duke content in this select Junto no more did the Duke give content to the King In the same Measure that he did mete it was measured unto him 178. Look back about a Twelve-month and a story will drop in where the Duke did hearken to the Party with more content That which was acted a Year ago is in season to be produced now because it was publish'd upon Consideration against the Parliament that sate now Those dangerous and busie Flies which the Roman Seminaries send abroad had buzzed about the Countess of Buckingham had blown upon and infected her She was Mother to the great Favourite but in Religion become a Stepmother She doated upon him extreamly as the Glory of her Womb Yet by turning her Coat so wantonly when the Eyes of all the Kingdom were upon her Family she could not have wrought him a worse turn if she had studied a mischief against him Many marvelled what rumbled in her Conscience at that time For from a Maid to an Old Madam she had not every ones good Word for practice of Piety And she suffered Censure to the last that she lest the Company of Sir Tho. Compton her Husband It hath been so with many others But why should a Libertine that cares not to live after the way of the Gospel pretend to seek Satisfaction more than ordinary about the true Doctrine of The Gospel They that have Beams in their own Eyes unsanctified Manners beyond the most why should they cavil at Moats in the Eye of the Reformed Religion Let them answer it to Him alone who hath Power to judge them But divers that had sense of a Godly Fear as they pitied the Revolt of this Lady so they dreaded the Consequents that did hang upon her Power and Opportunity Ar. Wilson complains P. 275. That the Countess of Buckingham was the Cynosura that all the Papists steered by I believe it was above her Ability to bear the weight of that Metaphor The common Jealousie was that the Duke would be ring-streaked with spots of Popery by resorting to his Mothers Trough Nay there was a trivial Gradation in Vulgar Mouths which reach'd higher That the Mother had a great Influence upon her Son the Son upon the King and the King upon the People The Lord
being Resolute to out Face envy and as secure as a former prosperous Life could make him to suspect no Ignominy or Infelicity 180. The week that stayed the Parliament being over it met as it were in the Temple of Concord Common presagements seldom fail It came so welcom to all Men that they rejoyced for it according to the Joy of Harvest The Solemnity began with a Sermon in the Abby of Westminster made by Dr. Carew Bishop of Exon. Even Idolaters did not omit to enter upon any great Work without some Ceremony of Religion Omnia levius casura rebus Divinis procuratis Tull. l. 2. de divin The Bishops Theme upon which he raised his Exhortations very prudently was out of the Words of dying Jacob to the Head of one of the Tribes Gen. 49.13 Zabulon shall dwell at the Haven of the Sea c. From which he Preach'd and Pray'd earnestly it might be considered Zabulon juxta mare positus aliorum videt naufragia sed ipse salvus est How Zabulon might thank God that he saw Wars abroad and none at home and that he saw many Shipwrack'd at Sea while he was safe in his Haven But the Stream of Opinion was then against his Doctrine For we think every thing good whose Evil we have not felt Immediately from thence the Train removed to the Higher House where the King being set under his State the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and other Assistants of the Court Attending his Royal person and the Lower House being admitted to the Audience of that which was to be said his Majesty Feasted them with a Speech then which nothing could be apter for the Subject or more Eloquent for the matter All the helps of that Faculty were extreamly perfect in him abounding in Wit by Nature in Art by Education in Wisdom by Experience Mr. George Herbert being Praelector in the Rhetorique School in Cambridg anno 1618. Pass'd by those fluent Orators that Domineered in the Pulpits of Athens and Rome and insisted to Read upon an Oration of King James which he Analysed shew'd the concinnity of the Parts the propriety of the Phrase the height and Power of it to move Affections the Style utterly unknown to the Ancients who could not conceive what Kingly Eloquence was in respect of which those noted Demagogi were but Hirelings and Triobulary Rhetoricians The Speech which was had at the opening of this Parliament doth commend Mr. Herbet for his Censure Which yet I Engross not here for the Reader that is Conversant in Books will find it often Printed The Sum of it was to ask Advice of the Lords and Commons what was fittest to be done for Advancement of Religion and the good of the Common Wealth how the Treaty of the Princes Match would agree with these and the good of the Children of the Palatine for restoring them to that which they had lost As the whole Contexture was a right Purple Robe that became Majesty so there were three Golden Nails or Studs in it which even dazled the Eye with their Splendor In the First he touchld modestly that his Reign had not been unhappy to us But says he You have found the Fruits of my Government if you consider the Peace which my Kingdoms Enjoy in the midst of the Miseries our Neighbours are afflicted with And though I cannot say my Government hath been without Error yet I can avouch before God and his Angels never King Govern'd with a more pure sincerity and Incorrupt Heart In the Second he Purgeth himself from the Detraction of a false Rumor Jealousies says He Are of a strange Depth but let them be far from you It hath been Talked of my Remissness in maintenance of Religion and Suspicion of a Toleration But as God shall Judg me I never thought or meant it nor ever in Word Exprest any thing that Savour'd of it It is true That at times best known to my self I did not so fully put those Laws in Execution but did Wink and Connive at some things which must have hindred more weighty Affairs Yet I never in all my Treaties agreed to any thing to the overthrow and disagreeing of these Laws For as it is a good Horsman's Part not always to use the Spur ot keep strict the Reins but sometimes to spare the Spur and to hold the Reins more slackly so it is the part of a wise King and my Age and Experience have inform'd me sometimes to quicken the Laws with strict Execution and at other times upon just occasion to be more Remiss Thirdly The Shells of a Cockle could not lye closer and evener to one another then these last last words clasp'd with the Parliament God is my Judg and I speak it as a Christian King never any wayfaring men in the Burning Dry and Sandy Deserts more Thirsted for water to quench his Thirst then I Thirst and Long for the Happy Success of this Parliament that the good Issue of this may expiate and acquit the Fruitless Issue of the former The King having spread this Banquet to the Tast of their Judgments the Lord Keeper pro formâ set on the Grace Cup as followeth My Lords and Gentlemen all YOU have heard his Majesties Speech and find the extraordinary Confidence his Majesty reposeth in the Wisdom and loving Affections of this present Parliament You do hot expect I am sure any Repetition or reiteration of the same A Lacedemonian being invited to hear a Man that could counterfeit very well the Notes of a Nightingale put him off with these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have heard the Nightingale her self And why should you now be troubled with the Croaking of a Chancellor that have heard the loving Expressions of a most Eloquent King And indeed for me to gloss upon his Majesties Speech were nothing else then as it is in the Satyr Annulum aureum ferreis Stellis ferruminare to Enamel a Ring of pure Gold with Stars of Iren. I know his Majesties Grave and weighty Sentences have left as Aâ—schines Orations were wont to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of Prick or Sting in the Hearts and Minds of all the Hearers It is not fit that with my Rude Fumbling I should unsettle or discompose his Elegancies For as Pliny Observes of Nerva That when he had Adopted the Emperor Trajan he was taken away forthwith and never did any Publick Act after it Ne post illud Divinum immortale factum aliquid mortale faceret Least after so Transcendent and Divine an Act he should commit any thing might relish of Mortality So is it fit that the Judicious Ears of these Noble Hearers be no further troubled this day Ne quid post illud Divinum immortale dictum mâ—rtale audirent I will only put you in mind of your Ancient and laudable Custom to Elect one to be your Common Mouth or Speaker And whom his Majesty Assigns unto you for his Liking and Presentation Mr. Secretary will declare 181. So
Memory of our Saviours Birth I conceive the like for Geneva For when Calvin had retir'd to Basil some mutation about Holy Feasts was made in Geneva Upon his Return thither again Hallerius both in his own and in Musculus his Name complains that the Celebration of that Memorable Feast was Neglected Calvin Returns him Answer the Epistle is extant dat anno 1551. Jan. Sancte testari possum me inscio ac ne optante quidem hanc rem â—uisse transactam Ex quo sum revocatus hoc temperamentum quaesivi ut Christi Natalis celebraretur vestro more But will you have the Judgment of Protest out Divines when they were in a Globe and Collection together from all Quarters At the Synod of Dort convened about six years past all the Divines with the Assessors from the States intermitted their Sessions against the Feast of Christ's Nativity with 〈◊〉 Suffrages and the Reason is given in plain Words Sessio 36. Decem. 1â— Quia to tempore Festum Natalis D. N. Jesu Christi instabat propter cujus celebrationem c. It will be the harder for those of the Religion in France to Answer for this Omission Yet Judg more Charitably then to think they do it only out of Crossness to disconform to your Practise He that runs backward further then he need from his Adversary plays his Prize like a Coward And I use to say it often that there ought to be no secret Antipathies in Divinity or in Churches for which no Reason can be given But let every House sweep the Dust from their own Door We have done our endeavour God be Praised in England to Model a Churchway which is not afraid to be search'd into by the sharpest Criticks for Purity and Antiquity But as Pacat. said in his Paneg in another Case Parum est quando caeperit terminum non habebit Yet I am confident it began when Christ taught upon Earth and I hope it shall last till he comes again I will put my Attestation thus far to your Confidence says the Abbat that I think you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven So with mutual Smiles and Embraces they parted 219. Paulo Majora The next was the greater grapple upon Terms Political and Scholastical between the Lord Keeper and Mounsieur Villoclare who is mention'd before The King was now at White-Hall and the French Agents plied it to concord Conditions for the Royal Marriage And who so busie to trouble the Scene with a new part not concern'd in the Plot of the Comedy as our Nimble-headed Recusants The Secretary Villoclare was accounted and not mistaken to be a servent Zealot in his own Religion which our English had learnt by resorting daily to Mass in the Embassadors House These found Access unto him and sighed out their Grievances before him that their Priests who adventur'd to come to them for their Souls Health were Executed for Traytors and themselves were set such Fines for their Conscience that they were utterly impoverish'd How happy should that Honourable Person be that would skreen them from the scorching of this Persecution That his Lordship had Opportunity for his Power and his Piety could not want will to enter into a Motion for a relaxation of their Miseries among such Articles as were to be Granted for the Honour and Happiness of the approaching Nuptials The Secretary heard them and condoled with them promis'd his Pains and to be an earnest Proctor in their Cause holding it most meritorious to go or run on such an Errand And he sell to his work in good earnest and ask'd such large concessions for his Clients or rather challeng'd such Grace with horrid Liberty then Petition'd for it that the King was observ'd to begin to be cooler in the Treaty for the Marriage then he had been The Lords that plied it beyond the Seas at the Lâ—â—r had not discouraged the Embassadors before they set forward but rather pleased them with hopes of English Courtesies and condescentions And I fear they were perswaded into too much confidence for I have heard it often from the Followers of the Earl of Carlile that after Articles had been drawn and Engross'd some things were Erazed some things Interlaced which never had his Lordships Approbation Our Courtiers at White-Hall through whose Counsels and Resolves the Grants of Monsieur Villoclare were to pass though directly they did dot yield to him yet his driving was so furious that they declin'd to deny him and shift for themselves that the first Storm of his Passion might not fall upon them Therefore they told him they could not assure him he had prevail'd till he had spoke with the Lord Keeper whose Duty it was to Examine such things upon his Peril what were sit or not sit for the King's Conscience Honour and Safety before the Great Seal were put to The Keeper heard of all this and sent to the Duke as he had wrote to him before Cab. p. 95. I shall be in a pitiful perplexity if his Majesty shall turn the Embassadors upon me altogether unprovided how to Answer But he cast it up into this short Sum that the disappointment of this Vexatious Solicitor so far engag'd must light upon himself and the displeasure of all the French that wish'd it good speed He was not to learn that a Magistrate in his Place must have a strong back to bear the Burthen of Envy So he Collected his thoughts into rational preparations and was provided for a Bickering which began on the Eighth of January and held long And it must be warned that the Report of it which follows extends the length above that which past between them on that occasion The Secretary Villâ—are after he had parted from the Lord Keeper and brought his business to a justifiable Maturity through the direction of some of our best Lawyers as the way was chalked to to him had Audience with the King and Entreated with his Majesty upon Terms of greater moderation then formerly he had done which he confest was brought about from a Conference with the Lord Keeper And told his Majesty That Counsellor had given him small content in a long Argument vext between them for he had Preach'd to him till he was weary to hear his Divinity tho' it was Learned and of more Acuteness then he expected in that Cause but unsatisfactory to Catholicks as could be fram'd Yet he made him amends with such Counsel in the end that now he knew upon what Ground he stood what Laws and Statutes were in force against that model of Mercy which he had urg'd and how the Clemency and Power of his Majesty was retrench'd by them Therefore as he hoped to find his Majesty Sweet and Gracious so his Majesty should find him tractable that the Thrice Noble and Primary design about which he came might not hover any longer in suspence Blessed be the Reduction of things to this good pass said the King And that Aequanimity might not slip the Knot his
excluded the Kingdom of Heaven for want of that Ordinance This shift is vulgarly approved among you in all places of the World Then let that content Catholick Parents in England which is so general a remedy among your own Devotees in case of necessity And this Bush will stop the first Gap Next If the Baptized die without Confirmation none ever made it a Salvation-hazard Especially that Ceremony being not stubbornly rejected but privatively intercepted because the proper Instrument is not in the way to act it For how many Biscainers have never heard of it In whose Craggy Mountains I am told a Bishop appears as seldom as a black Swan I presume your Lordship is a Mainteiner of the Canonical Privileges of Episcopacy and you know without a Bishop's shop 's Hand the Blessing of Confirmation hand no Validity by the Canons and perhaps no Entity in the Doctrine of the best Antiquity Now if this Sacrament which comes limping after Baptism must have a Bishop's Crosier to stay it up I know not whether our Romish Male contents demand that Then here 's a Tale of new Tidings comes to my Ears that to integrate Sacred Offices they would have the Presence of a Bishop as well as of a Priest and then these Adonijahs fly so high to ask for Abishag that they may ask the Kingdom also The Ministers of the King of Spain upon such an Occasion as your Lordship is employed in offered at such a thing in their Propositions to my Royal Master's Commissioners It pleaseth the Castilian Mouth to speak big and ask high but we checkt them with repulse and disdeign And good Cause for it A Bishop will think his Wings pinion'd if he have not a Consistory for Jurisdiction Vexations of Jurisdictive Power will provoke Appeals to the Court of Rome And then my Masters People should crouch for Justice to a Foreign Potentate But that Beast shall never get the Head to run a Wild-Goose-Chase where it lists while he holds the Bridle in his Hand My Lord Ambassador There is nothing discoverable though the wideness of the British Ocean flow still between us and your Bishops that their absence should cross their Party that is among us from entering into Eternal Life Which makes the Sacrament of Order not to belong to our Argument But Marriage doth it is Gods Ordinance who joyned Man and Woman together in Paradise and is fittest to be celebrated among Christians in the Paradise of the Church-Assembly And to be blessed by those Servants of God his Priests who are to bless his People in all things especially in so great a Mystery The Question is Whether a Man should scruple not to Wed a Woman unless she were joyned to him by the Priests of his own Communion My Lord Let me set the shape of it before you in another Glass If a Roman born and bred made choice of a Greekish Woman for his Wife among Greeks in Morea or Thessalonica would the Wedlock be esteemed ineffectual if a Priest of the Ordination of the Greek Church did tie the Knot The Ordination of our Clergy is nearer to you than the Greeks Indeed I never heard but a good Wife and a rich Portion would be welcom to a Recusant though a Minister made by Imposition of Hands in this Kingdom did joyn them And I never heard that such Married Ones as departed out of our Church to yours were question'd among you upon the Truth of their Matrimony which they brought with them from hence And 't is well done of you lest we should require Exceptions and make the Issue of the most of the Roman Catholiques in the Land Illegitimate It is in our Power to do so because they are not scrupulously Married by that Form which our Laws have provided and with an even Obedience to every tittle of our Prescriptions But many things are lawful which are not expedient 224. The Annoiting of the Sick may come in next or in what Order you will my Lord. I know it is called Extreme Unction in some Writers sense because it is the Extreme Sacrament when the Soul is about to take its leave of all Sacraments As soon as I have named it I am ready to shake Hands and part with it What if some in the infirmity of their Sickness desire it because the Tradition of the Church hath commended it Yet none is so superstitious to think that Comfort cannot be infused into them that are at the point of Death sufficiently without it St. Stephen departed without Extreme Unction and yet the Lord Jesus receiv'd his Spirit Men condemn'd by the Law and led to Execution but well prepar'd for a better Life by their Ghostly Fathers neither have it nor crave it But they that are most impotent most affected with Languor are subject to a most disorder'd Appetite Why suppose then one that is sick should have this Pica and long to be Annoiled Why might not a Lay-Friend Annoil as well as Baptize Eckius would have us believe that the blessed Virgin and your peculiar Saint St. Genouefa have Anointed many that were sick and they have recover'd Yet lest it should be evaded that these were Persons of miraculous Endowments hear the Words of Pope Innocent the First that are as large as can be and allowed to be his speaking of this sick Man's Salve Omnibus uti Christianis licet in suâ aut suorum necessitate inungendo Which Papal Sentence our Countryman Bede quotes and makes it full on this wise not only Presbyters but any Christians may Anoint the Infirm in case of necessity Will you have the Judgment of some that are latter than Innocent and Bede Hear one but a sound Card Bonaventure upon the Sentences Potest dispensari in casu necessitatis à non Sacerdotibus For the Sacrament of the Altar my Lord as you speak in your Dialect it is necessary Necessitate Praecepti non Medii say both your Divines and ours That is in a longer Paraphrase the Commandment to Take and Eat I and to Drink too must necessarily be obeyed by them that can keep it But it hath not such a strict tie with the Covenant of Salvation That all they shall fail of final Mercy who are impeded to partake without any fault of theirs Infants lack the taste of that Heavenly Food and are not prejudiced For our Saviour requir'd it of none but of such as could actually believe that he died for the Sins of the World Is not the same Indulgence intended towards them and far rather who believe in Christ's Death and would enjoy the Sacrament that Annuntiates his Death but cannot Your Gravest Authors do please themselves in the Words of Rupertus and they are grown to be the trivial Quotation upon this Case Non judicatur apud Deum non manducare nisi qui manducare noluit qui non curavit qui neglexit The desire of the Heart supplies the defect of actual Manducation Time was more than 1300 Years ago when those that
the most Guilty of their own Ruine that ever was heard of in any History And now let a Man of more Authority Judgment and Experience than the Observator speak upon the Wisdom of my Lord the King It is the most Reverend Spotswood in his last Page He was the Solomon of his Age admired for his wise Government and for his Knowledge of all manner of Learning for his Wisdom Moderation Love of Justice for his Patience and Piety which shined above all his other Vertues and is witnessed in his Learned Works he left to Posterity his Name shall never be forgotten but remain in Honour so long as the World indureth We that have had the Honour and Happiness many times to hear him discourse of the most weighty Matters as well of Policy as of Divinity now that he is gone must comfort our selves with the Remembrance of those Excellencies and reckon it not the least Part of our Happiness to have lived in his Days It is well that King James passeth for a Solomon with that Holy Bishop and wise Counsellor Now that I may decline an over-weening Opinion of any mortal Man Nazianzen minds me very well Orat. in laud. Athenas that among God's Worthies he commends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solomon in some things not in all No Man ruled the least Principality so well much less three Kingdoms with Isles adjacent and remote but the Modest and Impartial might have required somewhat to be amended in the Administration for it is true what Pliny says in his Paneg. Nemo extitit cujus virtutes nullo vitiorum confinio laederâ—mur If small Motes be discerned by piercing Eyes yet such Minutes are easily covered over with egregious and heroical Vertues And the hard Heart of Sir An. W. softned into this Confession at last Take him all together and not in pieces such a King I wish this Kingdom have never any worse on the Condition not any better 234. I have borrowed thus much Room to set up a little Obelisk for King James out of that which is only intended to the Memorials of his Lord Keeper which Servant of that King's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he had any Sense of it would be willing to lend that and more to his good Master With whose Death the Day of the Servant's Prosperity shut up and a Night of long and troublesome Adversity followed Which if I can compass in my Old Age and decay'd Health to bring into a Frame for the Reader to behold he may say as Socrates did of Antisthenes in Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that two Athenians would not make up one so Noble as Antisthenes And two Men would never have discharged those two Parts so well as this one Man performed them Which Representation may meet with some perchance that will not be favourable to it whom I wish to take heed of the Character which Theophrastus gives of an impure Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will lengthen it thus he acts his own Part ill that Hisseth at him that deserves to be applauded FINIS A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF JOHN WILLIAMS D.D. Who sometimes Held the PLACES of LORD-KEEPER of the GREAT-SEAL OF ENGLAND Lord Bishop of LINCOLN AND Lord Arch Bishop of YORK Written by JOHN HACKETT Late Lord Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield PART II. Isocrates ad Evagoram pag. 80. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salust de Caio Caesari In te praeter caeteras artem unam egregiè mirabilem comperi semper tibi majorem in adversis quà m in secundis rebus auimum esse pag. 171. LONDON Printed for Samuel Lowndes over-against the Exchange in the Strand MDCXCIII A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF JOHN WILLIAMS D.D. Who sometimes Held the Places of the LORD-KEEPER of the GREAT-SEAL of England c. PART II. CAmerarius Writing the Life of Melanchthon Paragraph 1. the Darling of the Champions of the Reformed Religion divided his Work into two Parts and gave no reason for it but because he would make his Web of a new piece after the Death of Luther It is the Pattern which I set before me to make a new Exordium as he did upon the Subject which I handle after the Death of King James Especially since I must take his Shadow whom my Pens draws forth no more by a Noon-tide Light but by an Evening declension Manilias His Prosperity or shall I say his Honours and Court-Favours were now in their Tropick Cum lucem vincere noctes incipiunt But Vertue is not Fortune's Servant He rose with great Light and he set with as great Brightness as he rose And as Paterculus writes of Mithridates I may refer it to him Aliâ—uando fortunâ semper animo maximus He was once high in Fortune but always strong in Courage and great in Worth 'T is common to see a Stock ingrafted with two forts of Fruits The Almighty Planter shews greater differences when he pleaseth in Moral than in Natural Plantations As he ordain'd the Noble Williams to become two contrary Parts as well as any Man had perform'd them in five Ages before him keeping the golden Mean in the Tryals of the Right-hand and of the Lest being neither corrupted with the Advancements nor the Persecutions of the Times As Paul and Barnabas were neither transported with the Honours which the Lycaonians did intend nor deterr'd with the Stones which they cast at them Acts 14. But the latter is most to be remarked For if this Lord-keeper had not drest himself with Vertue when he was clad in Honour nor rendred a sweet Air in every Close when the Diapason of Peace Wealth and the King's Love were all in tune he had abus'd Fortune which had given him his pay in hand Nec tam meruit gloriam quà m effugit flagitium as Pliny hath it But to stand upright when he was dismounted to cross his Crosses with Generosity and Patience to pass through a hot Furnace of Afflictions which was heated with all kind of Malice and no smell of Fire to remain upon him Dan. 3. v. 27. this deserves to be Canonized and will keep green in the Memory of more Ages than one From the Forty third Year of his Life to the full term of his Sixty eighth Year trouble upon trouble mischief after mischief had him in chase and yet the Huntsmen those Salvaggi could never blow the Death of this well-breath'd Hart. Fifteen Years the pursuit came from them that made use of the Frown of the King When they were a fault But when were they otherwise One Woe was past but there came two Woes or rather a thousand after it Apoc. 9.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Parliament of Destruction or of absolute Reprobation Sine praeviso peccato which spared none supprest him opprest him and he was under that Sufferance ten Years Was not the Ship well built Were not the Ribs of it heart of Oak which endured a Storm of twenty five Years and in that
Subjects Roman Catholicks and every of them as well by Information Presentment Indictment Conviction Process Seisure Distress or Imprisonment as also by any other ways or means whatsoever whereby they may be molested for the Causes aforesaid And further also That from time to time you take notice of and speedily redress all Causes of Complaints for or by reason of any thing done contrary to this our will And this shall be unto you and to all to whom you shall give such Warrant Order and Direction a sufficient Warrant and Discharge in that behalf There was no scrupling of this Order but it must be dispatch'd For though as a great Counsellor the Keeper was to be watchful over the Voices and Affections of the People and that he knew this was not the Course to keep the Subject in terms of Contentment yet he had no power to stop the Tide as in former days My Lord of Buckin would not stay to hear the Arguments of his Wisdom Altissimo orbe praecipuâ potentiâ stella Saturni fortur Tacit. 1 list lib. 5. The Planet of Saturn was in the highest Orb and ruled all the Influence of the Court Where was now the Cavil against the Spanish Match that in the Treaty for it it encroach'd too far upon Religion Indeed my Lord of Kensington writes from Paris Cab. p. 275. The French will not strain us to any unreasonableness in Conditions for the Catholicks And as much again p. 284. Their Pulse in matter of Religion beats temperately So he told us in another Pacquet p. 292. That the French will never abandon us in the Action for the recovering the Palatinate Which of these Engagements were broken last a more solid Question than to ask Which of their Promises were kept first They kept none Some chop out Promises as Nurses tell Tales to Children to lull them asleep As it is in the neat Phrase of Arnobius Somno occupari ut possint leves audiendoe sunt naenioe The Histories of Spain and the Netherlands as well as of England do not spare to touch that Noble Nation that none have taken greater liberty to play fast and loose with Articles and Covenants And as the French were inconstant to us so new Symptoms and new Apprehensions made us variable and inconstant to our selves Now a Letter must be sent to all Magistrates Spiritual and Temporal to cause them to suspend the Execution of all Laws against the Papists At the Term at Reading in November following Divulgation is made in all Courts under the Broad-Seal that all Officers and Judges should proceed against them according to Law After the Second Parliament of King Charles was broken up that is in the Summer that followed the Term at Reading by the Mediation of the French Embassador Marshal Bassampere new Letters come from the King to redintegrate Favours to the Recusants and that all Pursevants must be restrained and their Warrants to search the Houses of Papists taken from them And this continued but till Winter It was safe and just to return quickly again into the High-way of the Law for the shortest Errors are the best Especially in God's Cause Which Vincen. Lirin well adviseth Nos religionem non quo volumus ducere sed quò illa nos ducit sequi debemus We must take up the Train of Religion and come after it and not lead it after us in a String of Policy 5. Private Men may better keep this Rule than such as are publickly employed in the State But though the Keeper had no remedy but the preceding Warrant must be obeyed Yet he tryed his Majesty how his Service would be taken in stopping a Warrant upon another occasion bearing date May 23. Because the sumptuous Entertainment of the Queen and her magnificient Convoy being ready to land would be very chargeable he thrust in his Judgment to advise the King against disorderly Liberality And though he knew the Secretary Conway for no other than a Friend yet he lik'd not his Encroachment upon the Royal Bounty but signifies it in this manner Most dread Sovereign and my most gracious Master I Received this Morning a Warrant from your most Excellent Majesty to pass a Grant under the Great-Seal of England of the Sum of Two thousand Pounds out of the Court of Wards to my Lord Conway for Twenty One Years to come The which I durst not for fear of infringing my Duty to your Majesty and drawing some danger upon my self pass under the Great-Seal before I had made unto your most Excellent Majesty this most humble Representation First The issuing of so great a Lease of such a vast Sum of Money is under your Majesty's Favour and Correction disadvantageous to your Majesty's Service in regard of the time being in the face of that Parliament from which your Majesty is to expect a main Supply Secondly It is I believe without Prsident or Example that Pensions have been granted in Contemplation of Services for Years But for the Party's Life only My Lord of Middlesex his Lease of the Sugars is the only President in that kind which hath hapned during the time of my Service in this Place Thirdly The Assigning of this Pension upon the Court of Wards or any other Place than the Receipt of the Exchequer is directly against the Rules and Orders taken upon mature deliberation by your Father of Blessed Memory Fourthly This great Lord for so be is indeed is in the Eye and the Envy of many Men as your Majesty I fear it will hear e're long As having received more great Favours within these two Years than any Three Subjects within this Kingdom Although I do believe looking up to the hands that conferred them he may well deserve them all Most gracious Sovereign I am not ignorant of the danger I incur in making this Representation But I have put on an irremoveable Resolution that as long as you are pleased to continue me in your Service I will never from this time forth out of Contemplation of mine own Safety or any other carnal Respect neglect voluntarily any part of my Duty to my God or my King Which I suppose I had greatly forgotten without presenting your most Excellent Majesty with this Remonstrance And having perform'd this part of my Duty I shall most punctually obey your Majesty's Direction in this particular For this good Service it was well he had no check yet he had no gra-mercy to seem wiser than those that had prepared the business And though the Patent for that Pension was a flat Violation of good Order yet the Plea was it would be unkind to revoke it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch in the Life of Agis observes it in some Mens Humours Though a thing be ill undertaken it is held a shame to go back This Lord Secretary was the Keeper's cold Friend upon it but he lived not long and quitted his Office before he ceased to live Only some deckings of empty Titles were given him
an actual King you also shall be known by advancing his nay your Enterterprize to be a valiant faithful and obedient People And now you are directed to choose your Speaker and present him to his Majesty Which was Sir Thomas Crew so well tryed for his worth in the Precedent Parliament that he was elected again in this To whose Oration the next day the Lord-Keeper answer'd as followeth Mr. Speaker YOU have endeavour'd to excuse yourself from this place of great Trust But I perceive by his most Excellent Majesty that I was not much amiss when I took you to be in the same Case that Evathlus was to Protagoras as Gellius reports it Lib. 5. c. 11. That is sure to be denied and to lose your Cause whether you argued strongly or faintly St. Paul was called Mercurius by the Lycaonians because he was the chief Speaker Acts 14.12 But to whom shall I liken you Truly to nothing but to yourself who have spoken more too learnedly and pithily the manner whereof hath confuted the Matter and your Rhetorick hath spoil'd your Logick For no Man that hath heard you speak can believe your unfitness to be a Speaker His Majesty therefore doth applaud and confirm your Election and commands me to return an Answer to some parts of that you have delivered Which though it was as all great and excellent Bodies are observ'd to be round and sphaerical in the Composition without a nook or a corner for a Man to lay hold upon yet as some late Mathematicians have born us in hand that they can find Quadraturam circ uli some corners in a Circle so for Method and Memory's sake Aut inveniam aut faciam where I do not find you must give me leave to make some parts and to run them over briefly distinctly and orderly You have said somewhat concerning yourself somewhat concerning the last Parliament somewhat of the Primus motor and Divine Intelligence which enliv'd the same somewhat of his Majesty's Entrance upon his Government and that in five several Respects First in respect of the Way which is by Parliament Secondly in respect of his Blood as the Son of Nobles Thirdly in respect to Succession to so worthy a Father Fourthly in respect of our Hopes of a rare and religious Government And Lastly in respect of his great Delivery in his famous Journey by Sea and Land Somewhat also you have said of our Religion as much recommended unto the King and much prosperous and profitable to the People Somewhat of the ancient Common-Law somewhat of cherishing our Friends abroad Somewhat of abating our Foes at home Somewhat of the Four Petitions presented to all Kings Immunity of Persons Liberty of Speech readiness of Access and benign Interpretation the four corner Stones which bear up the Structure of the House of Parliament I shall from his most Excellent Majesty make answer to these things according to your Sense and with my Method as they lie in order 11. First for your self you say little but you do much in yielding thus to his Majesty's Pleasure You offer'd a Sacrifice before the Sacrifice of your Lips an excuse from this Service and that was refused Now you offer up Obedience and that is amply accepted For Obedience is better than Sacrifice Quod felix faustumque sit a most happy Concatenation to open a Parliament when the Hearts of the People are in the Hands of the King and the Heart of the King in the Hand of God Secondly for the last Parliament it was happy indeed so accompted by our late so esteemed by our present Sovereign so denominated by the Effects which it produced For therein as you well observe those male-sida foedera and unfaithful Treatises were dissolv'd the King and his People indissolubly united the Flowers of the Crown a little pruned but with the Love of the Subjects better scented and perfumed Lastly if not more Bills of Grace yet surely more Bills from pure Grace passed and were enacted than in that Session of Magna Charta Gratia enim non est gratia si non sit gratis data And surely as Pliny said of Nerva Debebatur maximo operi haec veneratio ut novissimum sit autorque ejus statim consecraretur It became a Prince who was now ready to be Sainted in Heaven to close in that manner his Government here on Earth For I could never learn in all my Reading any other way for King or Subject than this one by the Kingdom of Grace to pass along to the Kingdom of Glory Thirdly for the part the King our Master bore in the late Parliament surely he was Actus primus the very proper Soul of that Politick Body Tota in toto tota in quâlibet parte now in the Committees as in the Members by and by with the Lords as in the Heart anon with the King his Father as in the Head of the Body and every where the principal Author of Life Motion and Resolution So that we may say to our now Sovereign as the Romans did by their Orator to the Emperor Trajan that he is no stranger to our Assembly Meminit quae optare quae sit queri solitus he cannot forget the Desires of the Commons nor the â—ishes of the upper House of Parliament Fourthly your five Circumstances for so I number them of his Majesty's Entrance into his Reign are very well noted and observ'd 1. That he begins it with a Parliament It is a sign indeed of his Love to that way Those Actions of Men are most pure and sincere Quae singendi non habent tempus that are done in such haste as admits no Fiction His Majesty was scarce proclaimed when the Writs went out and before the Solemnities of his Coronation behold him present in the midst of his People 2. That he comes into it with the Blood of Nobles Yes Mr. Speaker Deus est in utroque parente No King in Europe that breaths this day can shew so fair and so Royal a Pedigree 3. That by his Succession he hath sweetned much our loss of his Father A great and a glorious Act indeed And such an act as I will be bold to say in his Majesty's hearing could never have been done by any King not by himself had he been the Son of his Body only and not withal of his Mind and Vertues Herein indeed he equals his Father Neque enim de Caesaris actis Ullum majus opus quà m quòd Pater extitit hujus 4. For our hopes they have good cause God make us thankful to him for the same to sore high and to expect a King that shall exceed Hezekias in Policy of State for our Master I hope will never discover the Secrets of his Dominion to Foreigners and Strangers and equal him at the least in the Advancement of Religion You heard his Profession the last day His God above him his People under him his Heart within him and his Kindred about him must enflame his Zeal to this
true Religion Et pater Aeneas avunculus excitat Hector Lastly for his great delivery by Sea and Land which so filled our Mouths with Laughter and our Tongues with Joy it shew'd him betimes a Child of King James and withal a Child of God and being so Nolite tangere no Evil might touch him As God was with Moses so he was and will be with him non deseret aut derelinquet he will never fail him nor forsake him To the which Prayer all we his representative Kingdom will never fail to say Amen 12. What you said of the true Religion is most apparently true that it hath been very piously charged upon our King and hitherto full of Blessings upon our Kingdom For the first his Majesty well remembers what I ill forgot in another occasion that the last Blessing of all his Father gave him and I think upon a Motion of mine was with a Recommendation of his Religion and of his People to his special Care Love and Protection And I nothing doubt but that Blessing shall so bless him that he shall see Jerusalem in Prosperity all his Life long And for the effect of our Religion it hath hitherto produced in this Kingdom a very Kingdom of Heaven not only after this Life but even in this Life for the space of sixty Seven Years wherein it hath been most constantly professed All that time Peace hath been within our Walls and plenteousness within our Palaces Non fecit sic omni nationi God hath not dealt so with many nor with any Nation in Europe that I know or read of Sixthly what you recommended to the King concerning the Laws of the Land the King hath already in private and doth now in publick recommend to his Judges and by them to the Professors and Students of the Laws to wit that they would spend their time as their Fore-fathers did in the ancient Common-Laws of the Kingdom and not altogether as the Complaint hath been of late in Statutes new Cases and modern Abridgments In the former Studies you meet with Reason created by God in the latter with Opinion only invented by Men. Here you find peradventure some strong Conclusions but upon weak Grounds and Premises there you learn strong Premises that can never produce a weak Conclusion In a word to borrow the Simile of St. Basil there like Ulysses you Court Penelope herself here like the foolish Wooers but her Hand-maids only Seventhly that just Resentment you express of the Dishonour of our Nation in that hostile Acquisition and Detension of the Palatinate you cannot imagine Mr. Speaker how much it contents his most Excellent Majesty Now he finds indeed his People to be lively Members of this Politick Body because they sympathize so seelingly with the grievous Pains and Troubles of their Head And surely he is no true Part but an Excrescency or dead Flesh upon the outside of the State that is not sensible of his Majesty's Sufferings in those Affairs God forbid against all these Professions this Kingdom should prove to a People so allied either a Meroz as you term it for Inhumanity or an Aegypt for Infidelity or a whit inferior to Caesar himself to aid and relieve them You heard the full Measure of the King's Resolution the last day Ire oportet vivere non oportet He doth not desire to live otherwise than in Glory and Reputation And so he cannot live you know it well enough till somewhat be vigorously effected in that great business of the Palatinate Eightly for the abandoning of those Sons of Bichri the Priest and Jesuits his Majesty returns you this Answer As he doth approve your Zeal and Devotion herein and acknowledgeth that of St. Ambrose to be true Quod in religionem committitur in omnium vertitur injuriam that the meanest Subject in this Kingdom hath a great right and Interest in the Religion so being appointed by and under God Custos utriusque tabulae the Guardian and Keeper of both the Tables he desires you to trust him whose Zeal was never yet questioned or suspected with the ways and means to propagate the same Yet in this Petition of yours his most Excellent Majesty doth absolutely grant the Effect and the Matter that is to be most careful of our Religion or which you more desire to improve and better the Form and Manner But as St. Austin saith of God himself Non tribuit aliquando quod volumus ut quod malimus attribuat Lastly for your four ordinary Petitions for Immunity of Persons liberty of Speech readiness of Access benign Interpretation his most Excellent Majesty grants them all and will have them limited by no other bounds than your own Wisdom Modesty and good Discrietion So his Majesty bids God Speed the Plow 13. I look upon him that spake so well for the King two days together as Antiquarius did upon the L. Picus Mirandula Ratio oratio cum ipso ex côdem utero natae videantur Ep. 279. Here 's strong Mettle and a keen Edge able to cleave the hardest Knot Here 's Reason to convince Judgment with store of Eloquence to delight the Affections Which could not be past over without this censure for it is an ill thrift to be parsimonious in the praise of that which is very good The King reposed much upon the Success of this Meeting because his Mind was so well deliver'd and so strongly put on The Cause of the War was made the Kingdoms The Counsel that began it was the Parliaments and were they not bound to find the Succours As our Poet Mr. Johnson says upon Prince Henry's Barriers He doth but scourge himself his Sword that draws Without a Purse a Counsel and a Cause But the Registers of all Ages I believe will not shew a Man in whom Vertue was more perpetually unfortunate than in this King The Influence of those ill Stars that reigned over all his Reign began thus soon The Parliament was told as if a Dictator had been nominated for this War that all must be consulted and executed together that the present Sacrifice must be eaten in haste like the Lord's first Passover for in that juncture slow help was no help Yet in five Weeks so long they sat at Westminster there was not an Arrow to any purpose shot towards that Mark. These were they that thrust his Majesty upon a War to the mortifying of his Father's part and now his Enemies were awak'd with the Alarum they let him shift for himself Being told enough that there must be Gold as well as Iron to play this Game and that a good Purse made a good Army they gave him such discouragement that they dropt no more than two Mites into the Corban An incredible disproportion between what was found and what was lookt for and suitable to a Passage in an Italian Comedy where a Guest complains of his ill Entertainment at a Miser's Table that there was not enough to make a good Supper nor scarce
crouded them in about the Reign of an Antoninus where he had spent his Powder and vented all that he had seen with the Fore-face of Janus but Posticâ caecus he was no Prophet and could not see behind him Seventhly Far be it from my thoughts to have a Jealousie of the Holy Fathers that lived about that time for dressing up the Sibylline Oracles with new Ornaments of their own patching They were full of Faith and never fear'd that Christ's Kingdom did need a Lye to advance it I have read of Stratagems military and political but Martyrs and Saints would never give countenance to Stratagems Theological But who looks most suspiciously of all that lived in that Age to bear the blame of such a Forgery It is an hard thing to find a Father for a Bastard But Reader What think you of Montanus and his Baggages about him Maximilla Prisca Quintilla call'd Cata-Phrygians from the place of their wont These put forth to be known says Eusebius in his Chronicle under M. Antoninus Anno. 1â—â— That 's well for the time Though Hereticks they were Christians and which is more divulg'd for Prophetesses and which is more than that famed for being great dablers in Verse They bemoan the Phrygians thrice in Sixteen Verses Lib. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Phrygians will miserably perish And further they have not reveal'd themselves that I find in any thing that favour'd of Montanus his Paraclete or the Cata-Phrygian Heresie I am only dubious therefore in this last Conclusion Perhaps I have not the Door by the Ring He that likes it not let him bite a Bay-leaf and make a better Divination I am not peremptory that I have found out such Sibyls as I look'd for in Phrygia But I am sure our prudent Bishop discover'd that Sibyl that he look'd for in St. Ives 50. His second and particular Visitation made amends for the former at Little Giding in the same County where he found a Congregation of Saints not walking after the Flesh but after the Spirit Let this History give Glory to God in their behalf shewing in a Touch oâ— what religious Grounds their Polity was sounded and how uncharitably suspected and how unhappily dissolv'd A Family of the Farrars the Mother with Sons and Daughters of both Sexes in the plural Number other Branches of the Kindred with Servants fit to be about them were collected into a House of their own at Giding aforesaid purposing and covenanting between themselves to live in as strict a way according to the Gospel of Christ as good Rules could chalk out and humane Infirmity undergo This pious Design was proposed and perswaded to them by the eldest Son in Holy Orders bred in Clare Hall in Cambridge an humble diligent devout Servant of God learned in the Theory more in the Practice of Divinity Their House fit for their Contemplation stood alone All were single Persons in it to the best I could learn The Church was so near that it was next to the Pale of their Yard the easier for them that frequented it so often The whole Village of Giding had been depopulated or I am misinform'd the House which contained them remaining for an whole Parish The Tythes had been impropriated but were restored back again by the Mother to the use of the Rector then her own Son and to the succeeding Rectors by a firm Deed as Law could make which in its time shall be declared They kept much at home their turns of Prayer and Watching which they observ'd requir'd it Yet Visits perhaps once a Month they made abroad but shunning such Diversions as much as they could which rob us of a great part of the Employment of our Life Non horam tecum esse potes non otia rectè Ponere as an Heathen complained Horat. Serm. 7. Strangers that came to them were fairly receiv'd all the Tribe was meek and courteous and did let none depart before they gave them an account of their Conversation if they ask'd it And withall offer'd to read to them what was written in a Table hanging up in their Parlour as followeth He that by report of our Endeavours will remonstrate that which is more perfect and seek to make us better is welcome as an Angel of God He that by chearful participating and approbation of that which is good confirms us in the same is welcome as a Christian friend He that any way goes about to divert or disturb us in that which is as it ought to be among Christians though it be not usual in the World is a Burthen while he stays and shall bear his Judgment whosoever he be He that faults us in absence for that which in presence he made shew to approve shall by a double guilt of Flattery and Slander violate the Bands both of Friendship and Christianity Subscribed Mary Farrar Widow Mother of this Family aged about Fourscore Years who bids adieu to all Hopes and Fears of this World and only desires to serve God Their Apparel had nothing in it of Fashion but that which was common yet plain and much of it for Linnen and Woollen spun at home such as modest Christians thought to be the best Habit. Fateor vobis de pretiosâ veste erubesco says St. Austin Inter serm de diver They gave no Entertainment but to the Poor whom they instructed first and then relieved not with Fragments but with the best they had and having sufficiency did abound to every good work 2 Cor. 11.8 Their business was either they were at Prayer or at work nothing came between the Devil had the less Power to tempt them that he never found them idle They had the more leisure for work because they fasted so much and their diet at their meals was soon drest beside their daily temperance was such as they fat not long at them It was not by fits but by constancy that they subdued their Bodies by Sobriety Their Bread was course their Drink small and of ill relish to the Taste that it was sure they strived for nothing that a dainty Appetite might long for As Alms and Fasting were frequent with them so Prayers and Watching with Reading and Singing Psalms were continually in their Practice Note The Word continually For there was no Intermission day nor night Four times every day they offer'd up their Supplications to God twice in the Words of the Common-Prayer in the Church twice in their Family with several Petitions for their own needs and for such as desired upon some special occasions to be remembred by them to God At all times one or more by their Constitutions were drawn aside to some private Holy Exercise By night they kept watch in the House of the Lord and two by turns did supply the Office for the rest from whence they departed not till the Morning Their Scope was to be ready like wise Virgins with Oil in their Lamps when the Bridegroom came This was the hardest part of their Discipline
was on this side of despicable Baseness But because being sent to for his Opinion both by his Grace's Mother and his mostsollicitous Friends he had faithfully express That he did not like the ways wherein he magnified himself to serve the King Who did not foresee the Envy that his Magniloquence bred ranting it sometimes That he would make His Majesty the greatest Monarch in Europe I doubt not but his Head did work about it and was so noble that he would have died to effect it And some that fawned upon him with all obsequiousness did seem to admire him in it as the Earl of Holland among others such are the Contents of his Letters Cab. p. 297. I hope nothing shall light upon your Lordship but what you deserve the which to my knowledge is of more Value and Esteem than any man in the World could or ever can merit from this Kingdom The Bishop that would not concur to destroy him by misguidance of Flattery who had been Copartner with King James in his Preferments sung quite to another Tune He liked not his Preparations against Cales but presaged a dishonourable Return and prest that Maxim home to divert him from it That a King must make himself sure in the Love of his own People at home before he bid War abroad to such a rich and mighty Nation Next the second Parliament being summoned and this Bishop demanded what was best for the Duke's abearing in it he resolv'd it to those Friends that ask'd it His best way will be not to come near it for it will be impossible for him to close with this Parliament who contrary to my Advice offended the former and broke it up Let him remove himself by some great Embassage till the first Session be ended into Germany if he will as far as Vienna if he dare trust the King of Spain's greatest Friend and nearest Ally This was disrelish'd for they of E. Buck. Counsel rather than send him so far from the King would hazard him in the Parliament in which they thought they were strong enough by the Party they had made to keep him from all Offence as well in his Honour as in his Person The Bishop persisted to remove them from their Confidence for nothing is more fallacious than such Expectation Many that are bespoken and promise fair are quite alter'd when they are mingled with their fellow-Judges in the House As Matchiavel says it was a Florentine Proverb Populus alurm animum in foro alium in Senatu habet De Rep. lib. 1. c. 47. All that he said followed as right as ever Lucas Guaricus drew up a Scheme of Predictions for that Parliament discharged such a Volley of Complaints against his Lordship that the Votes of the Declinators could not be heard for the noise And his Grace pluck'd hard for Peace and Popularity with the Commons but could not encounter them But what a struggling he kept with his hard Destiny to be enflamed the more against the much abused Bishop because his Predictions were so prophetical A good Chaplain would have told him that God's Wisdom is seen by his Fore-warnings and his Goodness in giving them Nor was it Justice to account him a Foe because he was wiser than an ordinary Friend But who had the worst of it in the end Or rather who had the worst of it from the very beginning Miserior est qui suscipit in se scelus quà m qui alterius facinus subire cogitur Tul. Phil. II. He is more miserable that doth a Wrong than he that suffers it Yet by the Mediation of wise men the Duke continued not full two years more in this Uncharitableness for he promised at a secret Meeting two months before he died to repossess the Bishop in Favour and design'd a time for the open profession of it so that the Sun of his Life did not go down in Wrath And God did appear in it who will not always chide neither will he keep his anger for ever Psal 103. v 9. 66. Of all men Bishop Laud was the Party whose Enmity was most tedious and most spightful against his great Benefactor Lincoln He batter'd him with old and new Contrivances fifteen years His very Dreams were not without them as they are enrolled in his Memorials drawn out with his own Hand I will touch that Fault that great Fault with a gentle Hand because of that Good which was in him because in other things I believe for my part he was better than he was commonly thought because his Death did extinguish a great deal of Envy I meet with him in his worst Action that ever he did and cannot shun it If I should draw him in purposely to defame him now he is at rest I were more sacrilegious than if I rob'd his Tomb. Qui cineres atque ossa perempti insequitur Virg. Let it be the Character of a Miscreant But his Part is in every Act and Scene of a Tragical Persecution of 15 years Hoc etiam ipsi culpabunt mali Plautus in Bacchid Perhaps it began from an Emulation to keep him back who was only like to be Bishop Laud's Competitor for the greatest Place of our Church Had it gone no further it might be cenfur'd moderately for a common Temptation No wonder if the Seal and the Sword-fish never swim quietly in the same Channel But to discontinue Brotherly Love upon that score to throw it aside to further all pernicious means tending to the Infamy and Ruin of his imagin'd Rival it is past Excuse and can bear no Apology O how many are in Safety of Conscience that should not be so For he that loveth not his Brother much more he that hateth him abideth in death 1 Joh. 3.14 That opinion which my self and many have of his Sincerity appearing not in a little and the Proofs of his Bitterness being so evident in this Cause it deserves a little Direction to take away suspense of Judgment Experience one of the plainest Teachers doth demonstrate that some Drift or Delight may creep so far into the Heart of him that fears God that he will not look upon the Deformity of it as he should to think it a Sin Which I take to be the reason of Polygamy in the Patriarchs and the best Kings of Juda. Most of all an evil thing may soon be attempted when we think we may do it without hazarding our Salvation and we dare yet do more when we have no Fear to be answerable to the Justice of Men. Spalat says lib. 4. Ecc. Reip c. 7. par 13. That John Bishop of Constantinople that assumed to himself the Title of Universal Bishop or Patriarch was a good man given greatly to Alms and Fasting but too much addicted to advance the Title of his See which made a plausible Prelate seem to be Antichrist to Gregory the Great Pick out of this to the present Subject what a Provocation it was to the ambitious Spirit of Bishop Laud a man of many
illa quibus conciliatur plebis animus cò usque ne differantur donec ea praestare cogi videantur Passing right is Sir J. Haward's Hist of H. IV. p. 4. says he The Multitude are more strongly drawn by unprofitable Courtesies than by churlish Benefits Among those that argued for this Petition de Droit I shall remember what past from two eminent Prelates Archbishop Abbot offer'd his own Case to be consider'd banish'd from his own Houses of Croydon and Lambeth confin'd to a moorish Mansion-place of Foord to kill him debarr'd from the management of his Jurisdiction and no cause given for it to that time harder measure than ever was done to him in his Pedagogy for no Scholar was ever corrected till his Fault was told him But he had fuller'd the Lash in a Message brought by the Secretary and no cause pretended for it And what Light of Safety could be seen under such dark Justice The Bishop of Lincoln likewise promoted the Petition but he was a great Stickler for an Addition that it might come to the King's Hands with a mannerly Clause That as they desir'd to preserve their own Liberties so they had regard to leave entire that Power wherewith His Majesty was entrusted for the Protection of his People which the Commons disrelish'd and caused to be cancell'd This caused the Bishop to be suspected at first as if he had been sprinkled with some Court-holy-water which was nothing so but a due Consideration flowing from his own Breast that somewhat might be inserted to bear witness to the Grandeur of Majesty A Passage in Xenophon commends such unbespoken Service lib. 8. Cyrip says he Hystaspus would do all that Cyrus bade but Chrysantus would do all which he thought was good for Cyrus before he bade him 77. In the Debate of this great matter among the Lords this Bishop hath left under his own Pen what he deliver'd partly in glossing upon a Letter which His Majesty under the Signet sent to the House May the 12th partly in contesting with the chief Speakers that quarrel'd at the Petition As to the former First the King says That his Predecessors had never given Leave to the free Debates of the highest Points of Prerogative Royal. The Bishop answered The Prerogative Royal should not be debated at all otherwise than it is every Term in Westminster-hall Secondly the Letter objects What if some Discovery nearly concerning Matters of State and Government be made May not the King and his Council commit the Party in question without cause shewn For then Detection will dangerously come forth before due time Resp No matter of State or Government would be destroyed or defeated if the Cause be exprest in general terms And no danger can likely ensue if in three Terms the Matter be prepared to be brought to Trial. Ob. 3. May not some Cause be such as the Judges have no Capacity of Judicature or Rules of Law to direct or guide their Judgment Resp What can those things be which neither the Kings-bench nor Star-chamber can meet them Obj. 4. Is it not enough that we declare our Royal Will and Resolution to be which God willing we will constantly keep not to go beyond a just Rule and Moderation in any thing which shall be contrary to our Laws and Customs And that neither we nor our Council shall or will at any time hereafter commit or command to Prison for any other cause than doth concern the State the Publick Good and Safety of our People Resp Not the Council-Table but the appointed Judges must determine what are Laws and Customs and what is contrary to them And this gracious Concession is too indefinite to make us depend upon that broad Expression of Just Rule and Moderation Especially be it mark'd That all the Causes in the Kingdom may be said to concern either the State the Publick Good or the Safety of the King and People This under Favour is abundantly irresolute and signifies nothing obtain'd Obj. 5. In all Causes hereafter of this nature which shall happen we shall upon the humble Petition of the Party or Signification of our Judges unto us readily and really express the true cause of the Commitment so as with Conveniency and Safety it be fit to be disolosed And that in all Causes of ordinary Jurisdiction our Judges shall proceed to the delivery or bailment of the Prisoner according to the known and ordinary Rules of this Land and according to the Statutes of Magna Charta and those six Statutes insisted on which we intend not to abrogate or weaken according to the true intention thereof Resp To disclose the cause of Imprisonment except Conveniency and Safety do hinder are ambiguous words and may suffice to hold a man fast for coming forth And if all Causes be not of ordinary Jurisdiction as I hope they are who shall judge which be the extraordinary Causes We are lost again in that Uncertainty So likewise for the Intention of Magna Charta and the six Statutes who shall judge of the true Intention of them That being arbitrary we are still in nubibus for any assurance of legal Liberty So the Concessions of His Majesty's Letter were waved as unsatisfactory 78. And the Bishop went on to shew that the Contents of the Petition were suitable to the ancient Laws of the Realm ever claimed and pleaded expedient for the Subject and no less honourable for the King which made him a King of Men and not of Beasts of brave-spirited Freemen and not of broken-hearted Peasants The Statute in 28 Edw. 3. is as clear for it as the day at Noon-tide That no man of what state or condition soever shall be put out of his Lands or Tenements nor taken nor imprison'd nor disinherited nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of Law I know one Lord replied to this lately That the Law was wholsom for the good of private men and sometime it might be as wholsom for the Publick Weal that the Soveraign Power should commit to Custody some private man the cause not being shew'd in Law upon more beneficial occasion than a private man's legal Liberty And though the Hand of Power should seem to be hard upon that one person a Benefit might redound to many First be it consider'd if no Law shall be fixt and inviolable but that which will prevent all Inconveniencies we must take Laws from God alone and not from men Then be it observ'd that to bring the exception of a Soveraign Power beside the Laws in Cases determined in the Laws takes away all Laws when the King is pleas'd to use and put forth this Soveraign Power wherewith he is trusted and makes the Government purely arbitrary and at the Will of the King So shall this Reason of State eat up and devour the Reason of Laws Shew me he that can how the affirmation of a Soveraign Power working beside the Law insisted upon shall not bring our Goods and our
long sought and now the Words which past between the King and him in Conference were the Seed of all his Troubles in the Star-Chamber for the King conjuring him to deliver his Opinion how he might win the Love of the Commons and be popular among them the Bishop answered readily That the Puritans were many and main Sticklers if His Majesty would please to direct his Ministers by his secret Appointment to shew some Connivance and Indulgence to their Party he might possibly mollifie them and bend their Stubbornness though he did not promise that they would be trusty very long to any Government The King said He must needs like the Counsel for he had thought of it before and would use it Two months after the Bishop regulated his own Courts at Leicester with some such Condescentions and told Sir J. Lamb and Dr. Sibthorp the reason that it was not only his own but the Royal Pleasure These two Pick-thanks carried these words to Bishop Laud and he to the King being then at Bisham The Resolution was That upon the Depositions of these two no Saints in my Almanack a Bill should be drawn up in the Star-chamber against the Bishop for revealing the King's Counsels being a sworn Counsellor But that he was sentenc'd because his Tongue betrayed him into Speeches that entrencht upon Loyalty as the Historian H. L. says p. 152. upon whose Trust W. S. writes the same is utterly mistaken upon the word of Holy Faith and let all Ear-witnesses of the Cause and Eye-witnesses of the Records judge between us Nor do I say that the Bill of disclosing the King's Counsels held Water for it was laid aside There the Troubles began and did run through Motions Meanders and Alterations till ending at last in tampering with Witnesses as will be shewn in due place 80. To make this seem a Jubilee to our Bishop wherein all Bonds of Malevolence should be cancell'd he had a very courteous Interview with the L. Duke nothing of Unkindness repeated between them his Grace had the Bishop's Consent with a little asking that he would be his Grace's faithful Servant in the next Session of Parliament and was allow'd to hold up a seeming Enmity and his own Popular Estimation that he might the sooner do the Work Blessed be God that they parted then in perfect Charity for they never met again the horrid Assassine J. Felton frustrated whatever might have followed a mean despicable unsuspected Enemy Sed nihil tam firmum est cui non sit periculum ab invalido says Curtius lib. 7. What Strength is there in a Cedar since every weak Arm can cut it down And though I am perswaded none but the Devil and this melancholy Miscreant were in the Plot yet in foro Dei many were guilty of this Blood that rejoiced it was spilt Tully confest of himself that he was as much a Murderer of Caesar as Brutus and Cassius 2 Philip. Quid interest utrum voluerim fieri an gaudeam factum So did God see that Thousands were guilty of this Sin which made the whole Land Nocent for the violent death of an Innocent for every one is innocent in right of his Life till the Law hath tryed him Felton's Impulsive was impious from the allegation of the late Remonstrance that the Duke was the principal cause of our Evils and Dangers As the Commons had no power to take his life away so they never intended it but to remove him from the King if it were possible I will be bold to censure the Romans that many things were uncivil in their Laws barbarous in their Valour and odious in their Justice Let this be the Instance out of Budaeus lib. 2. Pandec c. 28. Si quis eum qui plebiscito sacer sit occiderit homicida non est As if every man had the power of a Magistrate to cut off him whom the People had devoved A Maxim for the Sons of Cadmus or for the Sons of Romulus not for the Sons of God Be they Jesuites Anabaptists or of whatsoever Race of new Zealots they have not learnt so much good Divinity as is in Aristotle 3 Erh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No Pretence can justifie Manslaughter no End or Intention can excuse it Was it so lately enacted in Parliament that no Freeman should be imprison'd without due course of Law and did Hell break loose at the other end to make it meritorious or popular to kill without Law For such another Outrage had pass'd but two months before upon the Body of one Lamb in the day-light and in the Skirts of the City beaten cruelly to Death by a scum of Vagabonds being no Conjurer for certain though the Fry fell upon him for that suspicion but a notorious Impostor a Fortune-teller and an employ'd Bawd two Qualities that commonly make up one pair of Scissors to cut Purses as was evident by his Books Papers Schemes Pictures Figures Glasses the Utensils of his Trade found in his Lodgings near the Horse-ferry in Westminster But that he was a Creature of the Duke's and commended to him by Bishop Williams the Historian is strangely out again It is possible an Ear-dropper might hear such things talk'd at Cock-pits and Dancing-schools miserable Intelligence to thrust into an History This Lamb living in the Verge of the Deanry was once admitted to speak with this Bishop and as soon as he began to impeach some of the Bishop's Acquaintance for Falshood he was bidden be gone for a meddling Knave and a Sower of Dissentions and had Warning to come near him no more And for the Duke his domestick Creatures have avowed to me that Lamb was so little their Lord's Creature that they were ready to take an Oath of Credulity that the Duke never saw him I would all the Tales that got his Grace Ill will had been as false as this That which did undo him was chiefly that which made him the immoderate Favour of two Kings and not moderately used as many a Ship is lost that 's overset with too much Sail. After Thirteen years triumphing in Grace and Gallantry one Stab dispatch'd him So Symmachus speaks of the sad Catastrophe of such a mighty man Fortunae diu lenocinantis perfidus finis quem ultimâ sui parte ut scorpius percussit lib. 2. ep 13. Great Felicities not seldom go out suddenly in a Flash like a Silk-worm that dyes in three months after it is quicken'd God would have us look after better things when we behold the sudden and prodigious Eclipses of Human Glory and brought to pass like Buckingham's by vile and wicked Instruments A foreign Writer gives very hard words to our whole Nation upon it that we are savage and frentick in our Fury And will he say as ill of the Kingdom of Israel for Joab's sake that murder'd Abner It might be replied to him That the Loyalty of his Nation is besmeared with the Blood of two Kings of France deadly wounded with a Knife But that we have
to Practice and Use in our own Country Why it was in use in this Island before the Romans entred the same when the Druids gave all the Sentences in Causes of Blood Si coedes facâ—e pâ—as constituunt Caesar Bel. Gai. li. 6. And see Mr. Selden's Epinomis c. 2. Nor is it like that the Romans when they were our Masters should forbid it in Priests whose Pontifical College after they had entertain'd the twelve Tables meddled in all matters of this kind Strabo Geogr. lib. 4. And it is as unlike that the Christian Religion excluded Bishops in this Island from Secular Judicatures since King Lucius is directed to take out his Laws for the regulating of his Kingdom by the Advice of his Council ex utráque pagina the Old and New Testament which could not be done in that Age without the help of his Bishops See Sir H. Spelman's Councils p. 34. Ann. Dom. 185. And how the great Prelates among the ancient Britains were wholly employ'd in these kind of secular agitations you may see in the Ecclesiastical Laws of Howel Dha set forth by Sir H. Spelman pag. 408. anno 940. And a little before this Howel Dha lived K. Aetheljtan in the second Chapter of whose Ecclesiastical Laws we have it peremptorily set down Hinc debent Episcopi cum Saeculi Judicibus interesse judiciis and particularly in all Judgments of the Ordeals which no man that understands the word can make any doubt to have been extended to Mutilation and Death Sir H. S. Counc p. 405. ann 928. And that the Bishops joyned alwaies with the secular Lords in all Judicatory Laws and Acts under the whole reign of the Saxons and Danes in this Island we may see by those Saxon-Danish Laws or rather Capitularies which among the French and Germans do signifie a mixture of Laws made by the Prince the Bishops and the Barons to rule both Church and Common-wealth set forth by Mr. Lambert anno 1568. See particularly the ninth Chapter of St. Edward's Laws De his qui ad judicium sorri vel aquae judicati sunt fol. 128. And thus it continued in this Kingdom long after the Conquest to wit in Henry Beu-clerk's time after whose Reign it began to be a little limited and restrained for at Clarendon anno 1164 8 Calend. Febr. 11 Henr. 21 a general Record is agreed upon by that King 's Special Command of all the Customs and Liberties of this Kingdom ever since Hen. the First the King's Grandfather as you may see in Matth. Paris p. 96 of the first Edition where among other Customs agreed upon this is one Archbishops and Bishops and all other persons of this Kingdom which hold of the King in capite are to enjoy their Possessions of the King as a Barony and by reason thereof are to answer before the Judges and Officers of the King and to observe and perform all the King's Customs And just as the rest of the Barons ought for it was a Duty required of them as the King now by his Summons doth from us to be present in the Judgments of the King's Courts together with the rest of the Barons until such time as they shall there proceed to the mangling of Members or Sentence of Death 147. Observe that there is a diversity of reading in the last words for Matth. Paris a young Monk that lived long after reads this Custom thus Quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem Which may be wrested to the first agitation of any Charge tending that way but Quadrilogus a Book written in that very Age and the original Copy of the Articles of Clarendon which Becket sent to Rome extant at this day in the Vatican Library and out of which Baronius in his Annals anno 1164 transcribes it reads the Custom thus Usque perveniatur in judicio ad diminutionem membrorum c. which leaves the Bishops to sit there until the Judgment come to be pronounced amounting to Death or Mutilation of Members And as this was agreed to be the Custom so was it the Practice also after that 11th year to wit in the 15th year of Henry the Second at what time the Lay-Peers are so far from requiring the Bishops to withdraw that they endeavour to force them alone to hear and determine a matter of Treason in the person of Becket Stephanides is my Author for this who was a Chaplain and Follower of that Archbishop The Barons say saith that Author You Bishops ought to pronounce Sentence upon your selves we are Laicks you are Church-men as Becket is you are his fellow-Priests and fellow-Bishops To whom some one of the Bishops replied This belongs to you my Lords rather than to us for this is no ecclesiastical but a secular Judicature We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons Nos Barones vos Barones hic Pares sumus And in vain it is that you should labour to find any difference at all in our Order or Calling See this Manuscript cited by Mr. Selden Titles of Honour 2 Edit p. 705. And thus the Custom continued till the 21st year of the same King Henry II. at what time that Provincial Synod was kept at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury and some few of his Suffragans which Roger Hoveden mentions in his History p. 543. And it seems Gervasius Dorobernensis which is a Manuscript I have not seen The quoting of this Monk in the Margin of that Collection of Privileges which Mr. Selden by command had made for the Upper House of Parliament is the only ground of stirring up this Question against the Bishops at this present intended by Mr. Selden for a Privilege to the Bishops not for a Privilege to the Lay Peers to be pressed against the Bishops The Canon runs thus It is not lawful for such as are constituted in Holy Orders Judicium sanguinis agitare to put in execution Judgment of Blood and therefore we forbid that they shall either in their own persons execute any such mutilation of Members or sentence them to be so acted by others And if any such person shall do any such thing he shall be deprived of the Office and Place of his Order and Function We do likewise sorbid under the peril of Excommunication that no Priest be a secular Sheriff or Provost Now this is no Canon made in England much less confirmed by Common Law or assented to by all the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury or by any one of the Province of York but transcribed as appears by Hovenden's Margin out of a Council of Toledo which in the time that Council is supposed to be held was the least Kingdom in Spain and not so big as York-shire and consequently improper to regulate all the World and especially this remote Kingdom of England Beside as this poor Monk sets it down it doth inhibit Church-men from being Hang-men rather than from being Judges to condemn men to be thus mutilated and mangled in their
Members an ordinary Punishment of the Goths and Vandals who then lived in Spain but never heard of here with us of many years before the Reign of Hen. II and therefore not sitly pressed to drive Bishops from sitting as Peers in the case of the Earl of Strafford who is not to be sentenc'd to any mutilation of Members True it is that in the Council it self being the Eleventh Council of Toledo Can. 6. they are forbidden Quod morte plectendum sit sententiâ propria judicare to sentence in any Cause that is to be punish'd with Death Whereas in the Fourth Council of Toledo Can. 31 under Sisinandus not long before held anno 633 it is said That the Kings do oftentimes commit to Priests and Bishops their Judicature Contra quoscunque Majestatis obnoxios against all Treasons howbeit they are directed not to obey their King in this particular unless they have him bound by Oath to pardon the Party in case they shall find reason to mediate for him And thus the Canon-Law went in Spain but no where else in Christendom in that Age. 148. But these Bishops at Westm travelled not so far as Toledo to fetch in this Canon into their Synod but took it out of Gratian then in vogue for he lived in the time of Hen. Beu-clerk Grandfather to this Hen. II. who in the second part of his Decrees Cap. de Clericis saith thus Clericis in sacris ordinibus constitutis ex concil Tolet. Judicium sanguinis agitaro non licet And so this Canon was fetch'd from Spain into these other parts of Europe above four hundred years after the first making thereof upon this occasion Pope Gregory the Seventh otherwise called Hildebrand who lived in the time of William the Conqueror having so many deadly Quarrels against Hen. IV. Emperor of Germany to make his part good and strong laid the first ground which his Successors in their Canons closely pursued to draw the Bishops and other great Prelates of Germany France England and Spain from their Lay-Soveraigns and Leige-Lords to depend wholly upon him and so by colour and pretence of Ecclesiastical Immunities withdrew them from the Services of their Princes in War and in Peace and particularly from exercising all Places of Judicature in the Civil Courts of Princes to the which Offices they were by their Breeding and Education more enabled than the martial Lay-Lords of that rough Age and by their Fiefs and Baronies which they held from Kings and Emperors particularly bound and obliged And therefore you shall find that whereas the Bishops of this Island before the Conquest did still joyn with the Thanes Aldermen and Lay-Lords in the making and executing of all Laws whatsoever touching deprivation of Life and mutilation of Members Yet soon after when the Norman and English Prelates Lanfrank Anselm Becket and the rest began to trade with Rome and as Legati nati to wed the Laws and Canons cried up in Rome and to plant them here in England they withdrew by little and little our Prelates from these Employments and Dependencies upon the Kings of England and under the colour of Exemptions and Church-Immunities erected in this Land an Ecclesiastical Estate and Monarchy depending wholly upon the Pope inhibiting them to exercise secular Employments or to sit with the rest of the Peers in Judicatures of Life and Members otherwise than as they list themselves and hence principally did arise those great heats between our Rufus and Anselm which Eadmer speaks of and those ancient Customs of this Kingdom which Hen. II. pressed upon Becket in the Articles of Clarendon that the Prelates ought to be present in the King's Courts c. Which Pope Alexander a notable Boutefeu of those times in the Church of God did tolerate though not approve of as he apostyles that Article with his own Hand to be shewn to this day in the M. S. extant in the Vatican Library And although I shall not deny but the Popes did plead Scripture for this Inhibition as they did for all things else and allude unto that place 2 Tim. 3.4 which they backed with one of the Canons of the Apostles as they call them the seventh in number Yet it is clear their main Authority is fetch'd from this obscure Synod of Toledo where eighteen Bishops only were convened under Bamba the Goth who of a Plowman was made a King and of a King a Cloyster'd Monk as you may see in the History of Rodericus Santius par 2. c. 32. This is all the goodly Ground that either Gratian in his Decrees or Innocent III in the Decretals or Roger Hoveden in his History alledges against the Ecclesiastical Peers their sitting as Judges in Causes of Blood to wit this famous Gothish Council of Toledo The first that planted this Canon here in England was Stephen Langton a Cardinal the Pope's Creature as his Holiness was pleased to stile him in his Bull and thrust upon the See of Canterbury by a Papal Provision where he continued in Rebellion against his Soveraign as long as King John lived This Archbishop under colour of Ecclesiastical Immunity for so this Canon is marshall'd by Linwood at Osney near Oxford did ordain Ne quis Clericus beneficiatus vol in sacris Ordinibus constitutus praesumat interesse ubi judicium sanguinis tractatur vel exerceatur And this is the first Canon broach'd in this Kingdom to this effect that of Othobone being subsequent in time and a meer Foreign or Legantine Constitution See it at large in Linwood Constit lib. 3. ad sinem And by vertue of a Branch of this very Constitution the now Archbishop two years since sined the Bishop of Gloucester in the High-Commission because he had given way in time of Pestilence only that a Sessions a Judgment of Blood might be kept in a sacred place which was likewise inhibited in this Canon But this admits of a multitude of Answers First 149. Quod haec dictio Clericus ex vi verbi non comprehendit Episcopum Linwood lib. 3. de locat is conductis Secondly the irregularity incurr'd by Judicature in Causes of Blood is only Jure positivo and therefore dispensable by the Pope saith Covarruvias in Clemen si furiosus p. 2. com 5. n. 1. and here in England is dispens'd with in Bishops by the King who in his Writs or Summons to the Parliament commands the Lords Spiritual without any exception of Causes of Blood to joyn in all Matters and Consultations whatsoever with the Temporal Peers of the Kingdom their Summons being unto them a sufficient Dispensation so to do And Othobon himself inhibiting other Clerks to use these Secular Judicatures hath a Salvo to preserve the Priviledges of our Lord the King whereby he may use any of their Services in that kind when he shall see cause Tit. ne Clerici Juris saec exerceant And Linwood upon that Text doth instance in the Clerks of the Chancery and others Nor are these Writs that summon the
this Common-wealth is no more in being it sufficeth it hath been once and that planted by God himself who would never have appointed persons in Holy Orders to intermeddle with things they ought not to intermeddle withal I will go on with my Chronology of persons in Holy Orders and only put you in mind of Ely and Samuel among the Judges of Sadock's Employment under K. David of Jehojada's under his Nephew King Joash and would sain know what Hurt these men in Holy Orders did by intermedling in Secular Affairs of that time Now we are returned from the Captivity of Babylon I desire you to look upon the whole Race of the Maccabâ—s eveâ— to Antigonus the last of them all taken Prisoner by Pompey and 〈◊〉 afterwards by M Antony and shew me any of those Princes a Woman or two excepted that was not a Priest and a Magistrate 161. We are now come to Christ's time when methinks I hear St. Paul 23. of the Acts excuse himself for reviling of the High-Priest I wist not Brethren that he was the High-â—iest for it is written Thoushalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Where observe that the word Ruler in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very same word that is used by St. Paul Rom. 13.3 where this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated by Beza Magistrates Then you must be pleased to imagine the Church asleep or almost dead under Persecution for almost 300 years until the happy days of the Emperor Constantine and not expect to find many Magistrates among the Christians Yet you shall find St. Paul 1 Cor. 6.5 offend against this Bill and intermeddle Knuckle-deep with Secular Affairs by inhibiting the Corinthians very sharply for their Chicanery their Pettisoggery and common Barretry in going to Law one with another Besides that as all learned men agree both the Apostles and Apostolical men that lived presently after them had a miraculous power of punishing exorbitant Crimes which supplied the power of the ordinary Magistrate as appears in Ananias and Sapphira the incestuous Corinthian and many others But then from Constantine's Age till the Reformation began by Luther Churchmen were so usually employed in managing of Secular Affairs that I shall confess ingenuously it was too much there lying an Appeal from the Courts of the Empire to the Bishops Judicatory as you shall find it every where in the Code of Justinian So it was under Carolus Magnus and all the Carolovingian Line of our neighbour Kingdom of France So and somewhat more it was with us in the Saxon Heptarchy the Bishop and the Sheriff sitting together check by jowl in their Turns and Courts But these exorbitant and vast Employment in Secular Affairs I stand not up to desend and therefore I will hasten to the Reformation Where Mr. Calvin in the fourth Book of his Institutions and eleventh Distinction doth confess that the holy men heretofore did refer their Controversies to the Bishop to avoid Troubles in Law You shall find that from Luther to this present day in all the flux of Time in all Nations in all manner of Reformations persons in Holy Orders were thought fit to intermeddle in Secular Affairs Brentius was a Privy-Councillor to his Duke and Prince Functius was a Privy-Councillor to the great Duke of Borussâ—a as it is but too notoriously known to those that are versed in Histories Calvin and Beza while they lived carried all the Council of the State of Geneva under their own Gowns Bancroft in his Survey c. 26. observeth that they were of the Council of State there which consisteth of Threescore And I have my self known Abraham Scultetus a Privy-Councillor to the Prince Palatine Reverend Monsieur Du Moulin for many years together a Councillor to the Princess of Sedan his Brother-in-law Monsieur Rivet a great learned Personage now in England of the Privy-Council of the Prince of Orange You all hear and I know much good by his former Writings of a learned man called Mr. Henderson and most of your Lordships understand better than I what Employment he hath at this time in this Kingdom And truly I do believe that there is no Reformed Church in the World settled and constituted by the State wherein it is held for a point in Divinity that persons in Holy Orders ought not to intermeddle with Secular Affairs Which is all I shall say of this Duty of Ministers in point of Divinity 162. Now I come to the second Duty of men in Holy Orders in point of Conveniency or Policy and am clearly of opinion that even in this Regard and Reâ—ection they ought not to be debarred from modestly intermeddling in Secular Affairs for iâ— there be any such Inconvenience it must needs arise from this That to exercise some Secular Jurisdiction must be evil in it self or evil to a person in Holy Orders Which is neither so nor so for the whole Office of a subordinate civil Magistrate is most exactly described in Rom. 13. v. 3 4. and no man can add or detract from the same The Civil Power is a Divine Ordinance set up to be a Terror to the Evil and an Encouragement to Good Works This is the whole compass of the Civil Power And theresore I do here demand with the most learned Bishop Davenant that within a few days did sit by my side in the Eleventh Question of his Determinations What is there of Impiety what of Unlawfulness what unbecoming either the Holiness or Calling of a Priest in terrifying the bad or comforting the good Subject in repressing of Sin or punishing of Sinners For this is the whole and entire act of Civil Jurisdiction It is in its own nature repugnant to no Person to no Function to no fort or condition of Men let them hold themselves never so holy never so seraphical it becomes them very well to repress Sin and punish Sinners that is to say to exercise in a moderate manner Civil Jurisdiction if the Soveraign shall require it And you shall find that this Doctrine of debarring persons in Holy Orders from Secular Employments is no Doctrine of the Reformed but the Popish Church and first brought into this Kingdom by the Popes of Rome and Lambeth Lanfrank Anselm Stephen Langton and the rest together with Otho and Ottobon and to this only end that the man of Rome might withdraw all the Clergy of this Kingdom from their obligation to the King and Nobility who were most of them great Princes in those times and thereby might establish and create as in great part he did Regnum in Regno a Kingdom of Shavelings in the midst of this Kingdom of England And hence came those Canons of mighty consequence able to shoot up a Priest at one shot into Heaven as that he must not meddle with matters of Blood that he must not exercise Civil Jurisdiction that he must not be a Steward to a Noble-man in his House and all the rest of this Palea and
memory and they may repent it when they want us Now what banding here was on every side to ruin the greatest Saint that ever ruled our Nation God was in them that came about him with their homage in such a time of hazard Magna negotia magnis adjutoribus egent Paterc And I am sure the Metropolitan of York was none of the meanest of David's Worthies for Plot and Direction He was fit for the Service and obliged to assist it For as Scipio Nasica very well No good man is a private man most of all if the weal publick needs him 172. But the King's Condition at York was not in such strength and readiness as it deserved though the brave and resolute Spirits about him thought not so They perswaded themselves that the very Name of a King would supply the want of Power and that they were on the right side as sure as God's Word could warrant them Causáque valent causamque tuentibus armis Ut puto vincemus Luca. l. 8. For all that the Parliament had made better preparation for a War First A most deluded People made to believe that his Majesty had gathered a Popish Army to change Religion Quod sibi probare non possunt id persuadere aliis conantur Cic. pro Rose Com. But upon this false Fame their great Preacher St. Marshall tells them pag. 6. of his Letter That they may secure their Religion against their King with a good Conscience Next they had the Nerves of War all the Money of London at their command and which was the worst of all Infelicities they had cheated his Majesty of his Navy and seized on his Magazines It was not sit that the King should stay out their Provocations and when they had soaled then see what was in their Belly Dubia pro veris solent Timere Reges Sen. Oedi. And it was not reasonable to abide their Courtesie who had voted for Delinquents all that did Service to their Lord and Master They did all they could to disturb the tranquillity of a Soul most excellently composed and to tire him out of his Principles He held out the first Olive-branch and sought Peace from them by a most gracious Message who in right should have begun But as Lasicius notes of the sullen-proud Russians Ni prior ipse salutaveris non salutaberis Theol. Mosc p. 64. They salute none that do not first uncover and salute them It was not once or twice that his Majesty sent but he persisted yet all in vain to draw a dutiful Answer from them And what 's more tedious than to cast all day and not to throw a good Chance Since nothing would serve them but to rally the Sons of the Earth the Titans of their Tumults and to fill up an Army with them the King retired into his deep Thoughts what was best to be done Hic magnus sedet AEneas secúmque volutat Eventus belli varios Aen. l. 10. A Prince of so much Religion and Mercy was not to learn That it was sit to be slow in an Enterprize of so high a nature For Kingdoms in their Channels safely run But rudely overflowing are undone says our English Horace It is Marcianus his Maxim in Zonaras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A King must never fly to Arms if a noble nay if a tolerable Peace may be had Yet again he did not forget that a prosperous Wind might blow away a Storm that was gathering before the Shower fell upon him Fest inandum antequà m cresceret invalida conjuratio paucorum Tacit. Hist l. 1. Be sudden before a Conjuration strengthen it self and give it no day And Pliny brings it for the Advice of Apollo's Oracle Biduo citiùs messem potiùs facere quam biduo seriùs Lib. 18. c. 3. Begin Harvest two days too soon rather than two days too late Alluding not to the Rural but the Politick Harvest Another and a good Genius too would say to the contrary What! will you embroil the Land in a Civil War Every Life that is slain in it on either side is the King's damage And the blood of Christians shed in rebellion is poured on the Devil's Altar Every Field and Town and Castle that 's spoil'd is the Kings loss who hath the dominion of all the Earth that serves him though not the Property His Majesty knew the worth and good Governance of many in his List Pacisque boni bellique ministri Aen. l. 11. But who could promise for so many hot Bloods as were upon the place that they would not rob and ransack the Innocent and make the Army odious by too much Cruelty upon the Nocent All are not a King's Friends that follow him so do Flies the smell of strong Drink but they that will maintain his Honour with Obedience as well as his Quarrel with Manhood If the Headstronger should be more in number Such an If is enough to discourage any one to be the Captain of a Civil War Nam in civilibus bellis plus militibus quà m Duci licet Tacit. Hist lib. 2. Their Commander dare not displease them so much he fears Revolt or Treachery And his Majesty's great Wildom could not like it that his Cavaliers were too consident and Secure Contemnendis quà m cavendis hostibus aptiores Idem Hist l. 4. No man could perswade them that there was either number wit skill or valour among the Rebels But says a Master of Military Art Veget. l. 3. Ille difficile vincitur qui de suis adversarii copiis rectè potest judicare It was safer for the Royal Battalion to know that the Enemy multiplied fast and pleased divers by laying themselves forth abroad to to all shew of Sobriety and Holiness though sincere Honesty had no Charge of them And Despair will make Chicken-hearted Souldiers couragious They that had drawn their Sword against their Soveraign must throw away the Scabbard They must purple their hands with slaughter in the Field or be hang'd in Ignominy What would they do to break all the Bands of the Law in sunder the King's Name and Authority which would not allow them their Book to save them These things might be so deliberated in the King's Camp or Cabinet I cannot definitely say it For after the Archbishop departed from Westminster to the North I never saw him more to confer with him from whom before I learnt all things in effect that I knew But as Tully writes L. de Senec. of L. Maximus Illud divinavi quod jam evenit illo extincto fore unde discerem neminem After I mist him who was wont to tell me not barely what was done but the reasons the fitness or incommodities of it I have heard somewhat but I understand little And I make as much moan for the want of him as St. Basil did for Martinlan Ep. 379. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What skills it to hear many Discourse one after another when this one had gathered as much Experience and Wisdom as them all
Accordance did he make in that very Instant How many Messengers were posted to London which was no better than to dry-ditch the business for every Offer of Grace made his Enemies haughty the King's Reputation less his Friends suspicious that he could sooner entreat for than defend his Cause Paper Mercuries well worded are fine things but not forcible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Ulysses sake so much abused says Homer For K. Charles so much rejected say I let no Prince hope to bend the stubborn and revolted Subject with Goodness and Mildness break them to pieces and quell them with Power there is no other Art to work upon such churlish Metal Forasmuch then as the King saw that he but abused advantage of time to knock at a Door that would never be opened he opened the Temple of Janus that was close shut before and let out War if it might be called so who brought scarce 600 into the Field but had his Array been forty times more he would not have look'd how strong he was but how innocent and the more innocent because most unwilling Well did the Orator state it lib. 4. ep 7. Sapientem bonum virum initia belli civilis invitum suscipere 〈◊〉 non libenter persequi Which was consonant to the Hearts-affection of our King as he took it upon his Death And to speak to common Reason and Charity a man whose Paths were Piety his Governance Mercy his Bed Chastity his Repast Sobriety his Addresses Humility how could he set a Ditty to any other Prick'd Song but the Tune of Peace 175. What Pardon can we expect from the Censure of a better Age that we did not stop the Fury of Malecontents before any drop of Blood was shed I appeal to Fidelity Homage Duty why did we no instantly raise an Host of Horse and Foot which Rebels would not dare to encounter And because Help from remoter Countries would be too flow for sudden action why did not the adjacent Counties come in all as one man where the Royal Standard was pitch'd Water which is to be setch'd far will not quench a Fire There are some Vertues which lose their Name unless they operate as soon as their fit Object is before them To be loyal to be thankful to be just to be remorseful should be done ex tempore And I appeal to Prudence who doth not know that if you endure the Feaver of a Civil War to have one Fit it will have more and consume the Body-politick before it be cured Semper erit paribus bellum quia viribus aequant Manil. lib. 1. Which Sir Walter Ralâ—igh well translates Hist p. 179. Equals from Equals will receive equal harms When a domestick War seizeth on a Country rich in Plenty and full of Surfeits with continual Ease it never leaves purging those Superfluities till all be wast d. It was an Imposture which many were willing to put upon their own Cenference by this Excuse that they did nothing against Allegiance because they took not the contrary part First None can sin against themselves but that they incurr a great Guilt and those betrayed their Liberties and Livelihoods to the Rage of Tyrants for not defending themselves themselves I say for while they fight for their King they fight for themselves if he fall they are ruin'd in whose Weal their own is comprehended And their not listing themselves in the King's Battalion was a Trespass It is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one word in Greek when the Subjects make not ready to follow their Soveraign in Arms And note the Punishment of it 1 Sam. 11.7 Saul hewed a yoke of oxen and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of his messengers saying Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and Samuel so shall it be done to his oxen and the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent Not the care of Wife and Children in a Family not a weak Body not a grey Head should free a Subject from such a Service To the latter which may look more excusable than the rest Symmachus gives an Instance p. 10. Epis Nullam Nestor tertio aetatis curriculo militiae vacationem poposcit Where was the English Piety or where was their Bravery at this season that so few adventur'd themselves to draw their Swords for the Lord 's Anointed when so many invited themselves unbidden to do a Mischief I go further They were basely backward to come forth into the Field when they should have stood manfully to their own Cause for it was not the King's Cause alone it was the Kingdoms Cause and the King was in the Cause Non magni partes sed magnum in partibus esse Lucan lib. 5. Put King Charles into the Verse for Pompey and the sence is the same I have no Name scurvy enough for it that without some special feelings and ends of their own few lead on to remove an Evil for the common Relief but would thrust every man before them into the danger of an Action if they can share in the Profit of an Event they mind not the Glory And that which in Reason should have drawn the Peasants on held them back the small Band of Souldiers that march'd after His Majesty This Objection was every man's Fault that did not make the thin Files more by one And it was every ones Infidelity that would not trust in the Lord of Hosts to maintain the Right He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might he encreaseth strength Isa 40.29 What Cowardice was it to think all was lost before they struck a stroke Turpiter desperatur quicquid fieri potest Liv. lib. 10. If God had given the Multitude Faith to remove this Despair and to have obeyed the King in the first Onset Rebellion had sunk into the Ground like Snow and nothing could have been added to our Prosperity with wishing 176. And yet I will not say that the Sin of Omission was bad in all alike some did not discharge Allegiance out of Imprudence and Frailty but take them by the Poll and more offended out of Design and Subtilty such as turned their Sails to the changableness of the Wind Utcunque in alto ventus est velum vortitur So Plautus of such crafty Time-servers That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I condemn'd when subjects did not give up their names to the king's militia was worse in them by far that kept at home till they saw how fortune went abroad who would be of no side in the open dispute that in the end they might be of the victor's side they would wear the king's colours in the pale purple if the day were his or Essex's Badge in Orange-tawny if Treason proved prosperous These Neutralists are of a Spaniel Brood that will fawn as much upon a Stranger as upon their Master and are welcome to none because they undertake Impossibilities to
the elder would never punish a Slave till the Slaves of the Family who did wear the same Chain did cast him by their Verdict Now the case is alter'd at Westminster-Hall a Prisoner is tryed at the Bar neither by the Law for Reason nor by Jury upon Matter of Fact but by the Conscience of some that are commissioned to judge upon Law Reason Right and Fact Suppose that the Conscience of Sultan Cromwel and his Visier Bashaw alias Bradshaw sit among them that Court must prove a Rock against which an Innocent cannot chuse but split and these high Justitiaries Gentlemen of the first Edition Quid facturi sunt illi si consules si Dictatores fuissent qui proconsulorem imaginem tam trucem saevamque fecissent Liv. Dec. 1. lib. 5. They that raised such Storms among us being Vapours in the lower Air would have lightned and thunder'd if they had been Exhalations in the middle Region but that the Authors of the forenamed Miseries and Depressions durst say that they took up Arms against the King for Liberty take out the Tables and write down Villany 188. Our Observation must not launch now into the Whirl-pool or rather plounce into the Mudd and Quagmire of the Peoples Power and Right pretended That the Soveraignty is theirs and originally in them That they of meer Choice and Election cast themselves into such and such forms of Government at first and may dissolve them by Force and Constraint when they will and do no man Injury for they recall their own which they did but lend during pleasure upon a natural Paction Some things discovered before were very ill which did disorder us to Rebellion saying that this Invention doth disembogue it self into the roughest and blackest Sea of Treason Like to Verres's stripping the Sicilians his last Oppression was a more grievous Pillage than all the former Secum ipse certat id agit ut semper superius suum sacinus novo scelere vincat Act. 7. The Axiom which hath gone from hand to hand in some dangerous Books is Rex singulis major est Universis minor Grotius said so but it was Grotius the Advocate of Rotterdam a Minister to a popular State and Barnevale's Creature but Grotius the Ambassador to the French King from the Swedish Crown would be asham'd of such Politicks So says as spightful an Author to the Honour and Safety of Princes as ever writ Stephanus Junius Brutus that 's the Title of his disguise whom learned K. James suspected to be a Papist dissembling the person of an Hugonote to make them all odious But we are beholden to Gisb. Vootius who hath pull'd off his Mask Tom. 2. Disp p. 852. he says that Tronchinus making an Oration in Geneva at the Funerals of Simon Goulartius made it known to his Auditors that Simon Goulartius had assured him that Hubertus Languettus a Gentleman of Burgundy and of good same till this Mischief came to light did hatch the Monster and send it forth To spare the rest all but one the same is the Doctrine of Parsons the Jesuite in his Dolman who follows it all the way That Civil Government is radically in the People that they may set up and pull down their Rulers for the publick good as they will Let the Index of Expurgation look to it whether the Temporal Soveraignty of the Pope come not under the Whip of this Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The People of Romania Bononia Ancona Ferrara will be very insolent if you buz such a Bee into their Brain every light Offence taken will make them threaten But whence do these People-pleasers draw this Maxim That a King is greater than every Subject apart but less than their Body taken altogether Not from Scripture for the Kings of Israel and Judah in that Book were above all the Tribes in their Aggregation Hiram writes to Solomon Blessed be the Lord who hath given to David a wise Son over this great people 1 Kin. 5.7 Hear the Queen of Sheba likewise That Solomon was Minister Dei non populi God delighted in thee to set thee in his Throne to be a King for the Lord thy God and made thee over them to do judgment and justice to all 1 Chron. 9.8 Shall I leave my fatness says the Olive in the Parable to be promoted over the Trees That is over every Tree in the Forrest But these Dogmatists dare not recourse to Scripture they must be traced in prudential ways Proteus the man of all shapes says Synesius Ep. 136. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acted always among Men not in Heavenly but in Earthly Wisdom Let it be Reason and not Fallacy wise men will be ready to hear it One Argument of the Adversaries is That once upon a time they know not when Men were gathered out of Desarts and Savageness into a body to live sociably and it was their Courtesie then to set up such a King as did please them He is but the Peoples Creature therefore in his first making and always at their mercy This is a Tale put together of a thing out of the Memory of all Writers which were it true as it is unlikely it will come to nothing If the People did part with their Right to a King to be governed and defended in Wealth and Peace their Act is irrevocable the Bond indissoluble Though Democritus thought his Atoms might concurr to make a World yet the World being made those Atoms could not fall asunder again to dissolve the World Conceive we were in Polonia at this day the Eligents who make the King by their Vote are tyed fast by their Oaths and Faith to their own Act. Nor do they give the King his Power but design his Person because Election is not an Act of Power but of Privilege That a Monarch is not greater than the Universe of his People whether it look like somewhat to the weakness of Sence I know not but it is nothing to Reason for Comparisons are to be made between things of the same kind Mark then A part of the Body is less than the whole Body in magnitude but the Soul though one part of Man and no more is greater in Virtue than all the Body The intellectual Faculty is but one Faculty yet greater in Dignity and Regency than all the Faculties of the Soul beside The Sorbonists adhering to the Council of Constance tell us That a Pope is less than a whole general Council they give him Honour and Place before any single Prelate Metropolitan or Patriarch by Ecclesiastical Constitution yet he is inferiour to an Oecumenial Synod in totâ because he comprehends not in his Office the Vertue of the Catholick Church for that 's an Usurpation But the Vertual Power of the Kingdom is in the King which discovers the odds of the Comparison Our Politico's also object that the People were before the King Not before him if Soveraignity grew first out of Paternal Right
201. First let the magnanimous Junto be heard who would try the hazard of War to the last and had rather lose their Heads than put them under the Girdle of a Presbyterian Conventicle It is enough quoth they to lend our Ears to a dishonourable Advice but shall we buy Peace with Dishonour We will never rent it for so much He that fears Death doth not enjoy his Life It was an Ignominy in the Athenians which they will never blow off Just lib. 5. Imminente periculo belli major salut is quà m dignitatis cura fuit Faint Hearts that in a sore War had more respect to their Safety than their Dignity We are not of Athens but of England and what are they under whose Authority we should truckle Heady arrogant implacable that look upon their Speaker's Mace as if it were the Scepter that sway'd the whole World Adeo est natura multitudinis aut servit humiliter aut impotenter dominatur Liv. lib. 23. One of the three things that disquiet the Earth says Solomon is an Handmaid that is Heir to her Mistriss Prov. 30.23 But it will disquiet the Earth a great deal more to have such Vassals exalted to be Kings and while His Majesty lives to become Heirs to their Master We 'll not cap and kneel to them we 'll meet them on Hounslow-health Totidem nobis animaeque manusque Aen. 10. We cannot believe that God will suffer such Foes and Furies to prosper any longer Fortune hath served them and will soon be weary of that Service Nulli fortuna tam dedita est ut multa tentanti ubique respondeat Senec. lib. 1. de irâ c. 3. We are great Sinners we confess yet we are obedient to the Church loyal to the King faithful to our Laws and Country Non potest baerere in tam bonâ causâ tam bonis civibus tam acerba injuria Cic. Orat. pro Caecinnâ Our fellow-Subjects in London and most about in all places have been entranced or bewitch'd Neighbour-Princes are drowsie and supine not aware that their turn will come shortly if they endure a Rebellion so near them and not advance to correct it The Crown of England hath never wanted Aid in the most desperate plunges Regum afflictae fortunae multorum opem alliciunt ad misericordiam quod regale nomen magnum Sanctum esse videtur Orat. pro le Manil. But whatsoever becomes of us God forbid the King should leave himself to the will of the Kirk and John Knoxe's Scholars The Indignities they shew'd to his Grandmother will never be forgotten Trust these broken Reeds Parthis fides dictis faclisque nulla nisi ubi expedit Just lib. 21. They are lovers of their own Faction falâ—e to all the World beside In fine this is a Knot not to be unloosened with our Tongue as if we were Boys at Blow point but we will cut it asunder with our Swords This was strong and rough But to this one of the Lords of the Moderation would be like to reply That it were pity such redoubted Valour should not be reserved for Service of more likely Success Quantum ipse feroci Virtute exuperas tantò me impensiùs aequum est Consulere atque omnes mâ—tuentem expendere casus Aen. 11. Our Sins have brought us to this dejection to ask Quarter of them when it was our Right to have given Mercy and Life to them when they had beg'd it I expect these will shew no Generosity to their Betters upon the close Omne â—l justum censent quicquid superior contra inferiorem decerneret as Augustus said of the Pannenians Dion lib. 44. The baser their Carriage shall be to His Majesty and his Friends the worse it will be for themselves for it will make their Tyranny more odious Do you imagine when we yield so far but that we foresee their own Pride and Demerits will in a little time cast them out of possession and we are confident ere long all will revert into its former Channel God seâ—â—geth us by them to let the People feel the difference between the Reign of a sweet King and the Violence of a sort of Mahumetan Bashaws As in the like case God says 2 Chron. 12.8 Nevertheless they shall be Shisach ' s servants that they may know my service and the service of the Kingdoms of the Countries Gentlemen you see much Hope to raise up the King but where in that Courage that is within your selves I cannot see it abroad Trust not in Princes nor in any Child of Man The next-neighbour King the French I mean might and ought to assist His Majesty by alliance of Blood and I think I say not amiss that he is his greatest Enemy I remember the words of a Stranger that writes our History Polyd. Virg. lib. 23. Hine colligere licet Aethiopem posse priùs mutare pellem quà m qui terram incolunt Gallicam valde multum diligere Anglos At home in our own Country the silly People every day fall away apace Si labant res lassae itidem amici collabaseunt Plaut in Styc And we our selves are in part guilty of it Most look to govern Garrisons and to take Contributions of the Villages to the quick and to spend them lavishly as Diodor says lib. 5. That the Dogs at Cuma leave the scent of the Beasts they hunt and stoop to smell at the Flowers of the Meadows Therefore I say before we be quite abandoned and our Fortunes stoop lower give this Sop to Cerberus give them a Blank and we shall bleed fewer ounce of Wealth and Honour I would I knew once the worst that shall be imposed on us It is better to grieve for what we bear than to fear at Uncertainty what we may bear Doleas quantum scias accidisse timeas quantum potest accidere Plin. lib. 8. Grief is finite but Fear is infinite That Parliament dare not but receive the King with all outward Gratulations they have made so much protestation to it already and the Law of God and Nations extort it For if the People rebel and be tired out to submit the King is still bound to keep his Oath and to govern them by his known Laws And if the King be wearied out in a Civil War and let the People win the Day the People must still perform their sworn Allegiance to the King You hear my Judgment different from worthy persons in a great case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is an honourable Error to be mistaken in so great a matter Marvel not that my words appear the fruits of a low Spirit marvel that the Anger of God hath compelled us to it I reckon not my self in the motion but the King his Posterity and his Kingdoms Wisdom is not the same thing at all times neither is Truth always of the same stature Hear Tully because he never spake better Orat. pro Planc Hoc de sapientibus clarissimis viris accepi non semper easdem sententias ab
Languages are you not astonish'd at it Which you will not believe though it be told you Habbak 1.5 Crediderim tunc ipsam fidem humana negotia spectantem moestum vultum gessisse Valer. lib. 6. whom Cromwel their Paymaster used as they deserv'd and after that day would never believe the false Lesly that made the Market nor the turbulent Kirk in any thing Cromwel was cunning in that Art and could see through Lesly and his treacherous Nature that if Lesly had advantage to betray him he would take ready Mony for him Like Ptolemy that betray'd Pompey to Caesar's Executioners Qui Pompeii caedem partium fato non Caesari dederat Haud dubiè idem in ipsum ausurus si expediret He would have serv'd Caesar so if Caesar had been the Blot to hit and by that to win the Game he play'd for Florus lib. 4. c. 8. There were Thousands and Millions of the Scots innocent of this Crime Onus invidiae non exuperabile terris Manil. lib. 2. which struck Grief to the bottom of their Souls to hear it that wash'd their Hands from the foulness of it and cursed the Traytors to Damnation who had left such an indelible Stain upon their Kingdom But what an iniquous thing it is that the Contagion of a part should infect the Honour of all the good People of a Country 207. England deserv'd worse and heard worse than these Jocky-Pedlars that chaffer'd away their King and our Countrymen are received abroad in some places to this day as the Off-scouring of Europe Our Gentlemen that travel know it how the Spaniards shrugg'd and stopp'd their Noses at them when they met them in Madrid There is a Reason why the French give them no less Civility than they were wont their Heads were in the Plot of our Civil Wars they look'd on as unconcern'd Spectators till our King was taken out of the way and instantly confederated with our new States the Traytors and consented to all their Articles and base Demands So much are they fallen from that Honour which their own Thuanus gives them an 1559. p. 616. Afflict is Principibus fidum ac tutissimum semper fuit apud Gallos persugium This perhaps was true when such sage Senators as Thuanus sway'd the Court But how much of late is the case alter'd But I hasten to the beginning and end of the saddest Tragedy that ever was acted since that of our Blessed Saviour Our Innocent King a Lamb dumb before the Shearer being cheated out of the Presbyterian Guards which kept him Cromwel and his Maniple of Miscreants seized on him Cromwel that Imp of Satan compounded of all Vice and Violence and Titan-like Courage devoid of all Pity and Conscience the greatest of the Souldiery and by his Arts greater than them all waxen to be a Colossus between whose strides the Seas flowed his Countenance confess'd him a Tyrant such as Domitian was Saevus ille vultus rubor à quo se contra ruborem muniebat Tacit. Vit. Jul. Agr. But he that blusheth always can give no Testimony of Shame in his Face He regarded not Parliament Courts of Law Patents Charters much less any Canons which Holy Church had ever appointed no nor the Scriptures of God in comparison of some new Light shining in the Lanthorn of his own Head But his way was to govern three Kingdoms by his Armies the Armies by the Agitators and the Agitators by himself whom he shot dead upon the place if they cross'd his Will Superbus sanguinarius volens militariter imperare It is as true Cromwel as it was Macinus in Capitol's History But that which sped him in all his Villanies was Perjury like Ferdinand the Castilian Ferdinandus grande perfidiae lucrum tulit Thuan. anno 1502. a very Lysander in Plutarch that couzened men with Oaths as Nurses do Children with Plums and Cake-bread He took as many Oaths they were the Full-Moons of his Protestations and kept as few as any that was ever baptised in the Name of Christ unless Pope Alexander the Sixth did match him Quo nemo speciosius juramentum juravit qui minus praestitit nemo unquam fuit Match Resp p. 76. He was so accustom'd to forswear himself that he could not leave it in Toys and Driblets yet would sooner keep Faith with Fernando the Portugal Jew to provide him the best Sacks and Tobacco than with his Cabinet and all the fawning Folk that were about him If I had ever met with a more odious Passage than that in St. Basil ep 246. I would afford it him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Morsel fit for the Devil's Stomach This arch-juggler to feel the Pulse of the People suffer'd His Majesty's Servants to have better access to him than was under the Presbyterian Restraint and he set out Declarations in print That no sure Peace could be made without due care taken for His Majesty and his Posterity You would think he had been as penitent and as much changed as Apuleius was lib. 4. Statis jaâ— dolis abjectis asinum me bonae frugi Dominis exhibere that he was grown weary of all his Roguerieâ— in his transformed shape Yet these were but Tricks to rock all those asleep who he knew would oppose him if they were prepared Sonmo occupari ut possint lenes audiendae sunt naeniae Arnob. lib. 7. But as soon as he had disposed his Forces to bridle all popitious and strong places of the Land and to controul the Assurance that the City of London might make to save the King's Life he sell to compass that which Plutarch in Solon's Life calls the most hated thing among men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Perpetuity or Eternity of falling out and to implicate the souldiers in such a Crime as could not be pardon'd to make Rebellion immortal So Tolumnius put the Fidenates on such an Action as they must fight with Rome to the last man and never hope for Peace Liv. lib. 5. Fidennates cruento seâ—lere interficiendi legatos implicuit ne spem ullam à Romanis possint recipere And together he found a means to forgive himself all the Mischief he had done by getting himself above all Law and Power that might question him Matchiavel could find no fault in Cromwel as he did in Pagalous because he kill'd not Pope Julius the Second when he had him in Perusium Sic rei magnitudo omnia priora seclerâ— obtegere potuit à periculo conservare De Rep. l. 1. c. 〈◊〉 So he calls his Familiar Ireton to him the common Sewer of Malice Sator sartorque scelerum messor maximus Plaut and these complot to draw in above an hundred more to sit in an High Court of Justice give them their Phrase to bring the King in person to be try'd before them the Indictment is studied and made ready but St. John and Dorilaus The great Bellows that blew out the fatal Sentence was that Son of Perdition Bradshaw the Rider upon the red
Horse for he sate in Scarlet and had power to take peace from the earth that men should kill one another and there was given to him a great sword to cut off the Lord 's Anointed his dear Servant Rev. 6.4 208. These with the Cubbs of the same Litter shed the Royal Blood upon a Scaffold openly for no Fault God knows but as Beda reports of K. Sigebert slain by two Ruffians who render'd this Cause for it That his Meekness had made many Malefactors and his Goodness had undone the Kingdom O unheard of Immanity above Mariana and all Jesuitical Positions Quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa Nomen á nullo posuit natura metallo Juven Sat. 13. O Sons and Daughters of Jerusalem droul out an Elegy for good King Josias Tristius lacrymis Simonidaeis Catullus O most facinorous Fact next above that of the Priests that to poyson the Emperor Henry the Seventh forbore not to poyson their own God in the Sacrament O ruthless Monsters that could stop their Ears at the Prayers of so many Nobles male and female that kneeled unto them to spare their Soveraign who would never have been moved if the People had wept Blood O day of wailment to all that are yet unborn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes Ep. 58. As apt as ever words did light in my way It was the day that they crucified Christ upon the Cross again O ye Kings of the Earth wherefore do ye not revenge it When Bessus kill'd Darius Justin puts you in mind Communis Regum omnium est causa lib. 13. every Monarch in Europe was wounded with that stroke If those Royal persons will not regard it to whom should the Crown of England make its moan Let the words of Tully be mark'd Act. 7. in Verrem Si in aliquâ desertissimâ solitudine ad saxa scopulos haec conqueri vellem tamen omnia muta inanima tantâ ac tam indignâ rerum atrocitate commoverentur But wherefore do we quarrel the remissness of Princes abroad Since there is not among our selves that hath the Courage of a gallant man to meet with Cromwel who jetts up and down and strike him to the Heart and expire upon the Murderer since the Law cannot punish him for so confess'd a Treason is not the Equity and Vigour of the Law in every one that can attach him Si quis eum qui plebiscito sacer sit occiderit homicida non est That 's Law with Budaeus lib. 2. Pand. fol. 28. Private Revenge is infamous and unlawful but he is actually condemn'd that hath killed the supreme Magistrate and every man is a Magistrate to cut off that Malefactor when there is no Magistrate or Bench of Justice sitting to try the Traytor But it is our Shame that every one wisheth that were done by another's Hand which he dare not for fear do himself Metellus Macedonicus was dragged to Prison by Catinius Labeo Tribune of the People Says Pliny lib. 7. c. 44. Indignationis dolori accedit inter tot Metellos tam sceleratam Catinii audaciam semper fuisse inultam The Cattive Cannibal Cromwel lives and is mighty cockers his Genius and abounds in Luxury 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 1. Here Cyclops drink Wine says Ulysses since you have eaten so much Man's-flesh Says the learned Dr. Duport Ironicè moraliter dictum ut somno vinoque conscientiam sopiat qui homicidium commisit But our Cyclops will never be able to cast his Conscience into a sound Sleep the Furies of Hell will often lash him and awake him Nero was the Murtherer of his Mother Agrippina and though afterward he drowned himself in all sort of Pleasure he could not avoid the Torment of heavy Remembrance So Sueton. par 24. Neque tamen sceleris conscientiam quanquam militum senatus populi acclamationibus confirmaretur aut statim aut unquam postea serre potuit Had Zimri Peace that slew his Master Richard the Third seemed to see many Devils haling him and tormenting him the night before he was slain in Bosworth Field Pol. Virg. Hist p. 25. The same continual Excruciation must be in the Breast of brazen-fac'd Bradshaw God will run him into Phrenzy with the sight of his Sins as our Acts and Monuments record That Judge Morgan fell mad after he had pass'd Sentence of Death upon Lady Jane and cried out Take away the Lady Jane from me and died in that Horror But whither am I carried Silence in such a Subject before me would condemn me and Writing enrageth me Our Criticks blame Euripides that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too long in his Bewailings I could not contract Laments into a less compass upon the most deplored end of a thrice-honour'd King a most pious Saint a patient and a crowned Martyr of whom our Prelate Williams preacheth in a Fast-Sermon p. 55. That he was as like Virtue it self as could be pattern'd in Flesh and Blood What Velleius writes of Aemilianus is too much for a man but scarce any one came nearer it than this man Qui nihil in vitâ nisi laude dignum aut fecit aut dixit aut sensit But I will challenge to King Martyr Charles what a Christian Historian writes of a very Christian King of ours Malmsb. lib. 1. c. 4. It is King Kenwolf to whom Beda dedicates his Ecclesiastical History Nihil quod livor dignè carperet unquam admisit And let his Death be bewailed his Memory be resresh'd with glorious Praises and immortal Fame to the Worlds end 209. The Thread of his Life so dismally cut off who was the Darling of all that were holy and fear'd God who was the Breath of our Nostrils as Naz. writ to Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You are more my Breath than the Air I breathe in This the heaviest Judgment of God that could befall us turn'd all England into such a Mourning as no Relation can describe or Fancy imagine Tears burst out Groanings bellowed forth Hearts melted like Wax few but forgat to eat their Bread Melancholy struck abundance dumb the saddest Event was that Frenzies seized on some and sudden Death on many It pierced the Archbishop's Heart with so sharp a point that Sorrow run him down the Hill with that violence that he never stay'd till he came to the bottom and died As soon as this Blow was given many conceived Despairs and are big with it yet that the Slavery under which the three Nations are fallen is irrecoverable till the last and terrible day of the Lord. In which doleful Sadness Lord Primate Usher I am witness of it continued to his End We English are observ'd to be too credulous of vain Prophecies such as are Father'd upon Merlin and no better Authors I remember an old Scotch man called Mony-penny if it were his right Name taught me this Rhime when I was Fourteen years old After Six is One And after One is None But Hey-ho and Weal-a-day To the day of