day before to murther him but before he went out of the field sent Sir William Le-neve Clarencieux King at Arms to Warwick whither the Earl of Essex was fled with a Proclamation of Pardon to all that would lay down arms which though they scornfully received and the Herald threatned to be hanged if he did not depart the sooner cannot perswade him from sending a Declaration or Message to the Parliament to offer them all that could be requested by Subjects but all the use they made of it was to make the City of London believe they were in greater danger then ever if they lent them not more moneys and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army and to cousen and put the people on the more to seek their own misery a day of thanksgiving was publiquely kept for the great Victory obtained against the King And Stephen Marshal a Factious bloody minister though he confessed he was so carried on in the crowd of those that fled from the battel as he knew not where he was till he came to a Market Town which was some miles from Edge-hill where the Battel was fought preaches to the people too little believing the Word of God and too much believing him That to his knowledge there was not above 200. men lost on the Parliaments side that he picked up bullets in his black Velvet cap and that a very small supply would now serve to reduce the King and bring Him to His Parliament And here ye may see Janus Temple wide open though the doors of it were not lift off the hinges or broken open at once but pickt open by those either knew not the misery of War or knowing it will prove to be the more guilty promoters of it That we may the better therefore find out though the matter of Fact already represented may be evidence enough of it self who it was that let out the fury and rage of War upon us we shall consider CHAP. III. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the People be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War if it were made between equals WAr where it is made by any rules of justice between equals is to be for necessity where the determining of controversies cannot otherwise be obtained or when between two Princes of equal power it cannot be had because they have no superiour A Rebel therefore cannot properly be called an enemy for Hostis nomen notat aequalitatem and when any such arms are born against Rebels it is not to be called a War but an exercise of jurisdiction upon traiterous and dis-loyal persons y atque est ratio manifesta saith Albericus Gentilis qui enim jure judex est superior non jure cogitur ad subeundas partes partis aequalis non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant exercitus proinde nec ulla cum illis belli jura saith z Besoldus The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publique denouncing of War and sending Ambassadors before they made War against any other Nation did not do it in cases of rebellion and defection and therefore a Fidenatibus Campanis non denunciant Romani And Cicero that was of opinion that nullum bellum justum haberi videtur nisi nunciatum nisi indictum nisi repetitis rebus stood not upon those solemnities in the Cataline conspiracy for the rules of justifying a War against an enemy or equals as demanding restitution denunciation and the like are not requisite in that of punishing of Rebels b Pompey justifies the war maintained by the Senate against Caesar not then their Soveraign with neque enim vocari praelia justa decet c. Cicero did not think it convenient to send Ambassadors to Anthony nor intreat him by fair words but that it was meet to enforce him by Arms to raise his siege from Mutina for he said c They had not to do with Hannibal an enemy to the Common-wealth but with a Rebellious Citizen The resisting of the Kings Authority when the Sheriff of a County goes with the posse Comitatus to execute it was never yet so much as called a War but Rebellion insurrection or commotion were the best terms which were bestowed upon it For such attempts are not called wars but robberies of which the Law taketh no other care of but to punish them And the haste that all our Kings and Princes in England have made in suppressing Rebellions as that of the Barons Wars by Henry the 3. and his sending his son the Prince to besiege Warren Earl of Surrey in his Castle of Rygate for affronting the Kings Justices saying That he would hold his Lands by the Sword That which Ri. 2. made to suppresse Wat. Tiler H. 6. Jack Cade H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels and Queen Eliz. to suppress the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland may tell us that they understood it no otherwise then all the Kings and Magistrates of the World have ever practised it by the d Laws of England if Englishmen that are Traytors go into France and confederate with Aliens or Frenchmen and come afterwards and make a War in England and be taken prisoners the strangers may be ransomed but not the English for they were the Kings Subjects and are to be reckoned as Traytors not strangers And the Parliaments own advise to the King to suppress the Irish Rebels that ploughed but with their own Heyfer and pretended as they did to defend their Religion Laws and Liberties and the opinion also of Mr. President Bradshaw as Sir John Owen called him in his late sentence given against the Earls of Cambridge Holland and Norwich Lord Capel and Sir John Owen whom he mistakenly God and the Law knows would make to be the subjects of their worser fellow subjects may be enough toturn the question out of doors But lest all this should not be thought sufficient to satisfie those who can like nothing but what there is Scripture for we shall a little turn over the leaves of that Sacred Volume and see what is to be found therein concerning this matter Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the World and better acquainted with Him that made the fifth Commandment then these that now pretend Revelations against it thought fit to suppress the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram as soon as he could and for no greater offence then a desire to be co-ordinate with him procured them to be buried alive with all that appertained unto them When Absalon had Rebelled against his father David and it was told him e That the hearts of the men of Israel were after him David a man after Gods own heart without any Message of Peace or Declaration sent unto his dear son Absalon or offering half or any part of his Kingdom to him sent three several armies
it 192 CHAP. VIII VVHether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have got instead of them 205 ERRATA Which escaped the Press PAg. 120. l. 15. read their for they p. 118. l. 20. Saxon for Sixon p. 122. l. 22. interfere a. KING CHARLES The first No Man of Blood BUT A Martyr for his People THat there hath been now almost seven years spent in Civil Wars abundance of Blood-shed and more Ruine and Misery brought upon the Kingdom by it then all the several Changes Conquests and Civil Wars it hath endured from the time of Brute or the first Inhabitants of it every mans woful experience some onely excepted who have been gainers by it will easily assent unto No mervail therefore that many of those who if all they alledge for themselves that they were not the cause of it could be granted to be true might either have hindred or lessened it would now put the blame of so horrid a business from themselves and lay it upon any they can perswade to bear it And that the Conquerours who would binde their Kings in Chains and their Princes with fetters of Iron and think they have a Commission from Heaven to do it the guilt of it being necessarily either to be charged upon the Conquerors or conquered are not willing to have their triumphant Chayres and the glories as they are made believe that hang upon their shoulders defiled with it but do all they can to load their Captives with it But howsoever though the successe and power of an Army hath frighted it so far out of question as to charge it upon the King and take away his life for it by making those that must of necessity be guilty of the fact if He should have been as in all reason He ought to have been acquited of it the onely Judges of him It may well become the judgement and conscience of every man that will be but either a good Subject or a Christian not to lend out his Soul and Salvation so much on trust as to take those that are parties and the most ignorant sort of mens words for it but to enter into a most serious examination of the matter of Fact it self and by tracing out the footsteps of Truth see what a conclusion may be drawn out of it In pursuance whereof for I hope the original of this Sea of blood will not prove so unsearchable as the head of Nile we shall enquire who first of all raised the Feares and Jealousies Secondly represent set down the truth of the matter of Fact and proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the tumultuous and seditious coming of the People to the Parliament and Whitehall until the 25. Aug. 1642. when he set up his Standard at Nottingham and from the setting up of his Standard until the 13 Septemb. 1642. when the Parliament by their many acts of hostility and a negative and churlish answer to his propositions might well have put him out of hope of any good to be obtained from them by messages of Peace sent unto them Thirdly whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppresse or punish a rebellion of the People be tied to those rules are necessary to the justifying of a war if it were made between equals Fourthly suppose the war to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it Fifthly whether the Parliament in their pretended magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against insurrections treasons and rebellions as they are pleased to call them Sixthly who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it Seventhly who laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen it Eightly whether the Conditions proffered by the King would not have been more profitable for the People if they had been accepted and what the Kingdom and People have got in stead of it CHAP. I. Who first of all Raised the Fears and Jealousies THe desiring of a guard for the Parliament because of a tale rather then a plot That the Earl of Crawford had a purpose to take away the Marquis of Hamiltons life in Scotland the refusing of a legal guard offered by the King and His protestation to be as careful of their safety as of the safety of His Wife and Children The dream of a Taylor lying in a ditch in Finsbury fields of this and the other good Lord and Common-wealths-men to be taken away The training of horses under ground and a plague-plaister or rather a clout taken from a galled horse-back sent into the House of Commons to Mr. Pym A designe of the Inhabitants of Covent-Garden to murther the City of London News from France Italy Spain and Denmark of Armies ready to come for England and a supposition or feaverish fancy That the King intended to introduce Popery and alter Religion and take away the Laws and Liberties of the people and many other the like seditious delusions the People so much as their misery will give them leave have now found out the way to laugh at either came from the Parliament party or were cherished and turned into advantages by them For they had found the way and lost nothing by it to be ever jealous of the King And whilest he did all he could to shew them that there was no cause for it they who were jealous without a cause could be so cunning as to make all the haste they could to weaken Him and strengthen themselves by such kind of artifices But He that could not choose but take notice that there were secret ties and combinations betwixt his English and Scottish subjects the latter of whom the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax themselves understood to be no better then Rebels and therefore served in places of Command in His Majesties Army against them That Sir Arthur Haselrig had brought in a Bill in Parliament to take the Militia by Sea and Land away from him saw himself not long after by a printed Remonstrance or Declaration made to the People of all they could but imagine to be errours in his government arraigned and little lesse then deposed The Bishops and divers great Lords driven from the Parliament by Tumults Was inforced to keep his gates at White-hall shut and procure divers Captains and Commanders to lodge there and to allow them a table to be a guard for him and had been fully informed of many Trayterous Speeches used by some seditious mechaniques of London as that It was pitty He should raigne and that The Prince would make a better King was yet so far from being jealous or solicitous to defend himself by the sword and power which God had intrusted him with as when he had need and reason enough to do it he still granted them that he might not seem to deny what might but seem to be for the good
might be delivered unto Him all Armies and Levies made by the Parliament laid down the pretended Ordinance for the Militia disavowed and the Parliament adjourned to a secure place He would lay down Armes and repair to them and desired all differences might be freely debated in a Parliamentary way whereby the Law might recover its due reverence the Subject his just Liberty Parliaments their full vigour and estimation and the whole Kingdom a blessed Peace and prosperity and requiring their answer by the 27. of that July promised till then not to make any attempt of force upon Hull they had Armed their General with power against Him given him a Commission to kill and slay all that should oppose him in the execution of it and chosen their General of the Horse 8. August 1642. Upon information That some of the Town of Portsmouth had revolted to Collonel Goring being but sent thither with a message from the King and Declared for His Majesty Order Forces to be sent thither speedily to beleaguer it by Land and the Earl of Warwick to send thither 5. Ships of the Navy to prevent any Forraign forces coming to their assistance and upon Intelligence that the Earl of Northampton appeared with great strength at Banbury to hinder the Lord Brooks carrying the pieces of Ordinance to Warwick Ordered 5000. Horse and Foot to be sent to assist Him 9. August 1642. Upon information That the Marquis of Hartford and divers others were in Somerset-shire demanding obedience to the Kings Commission of Array and to have the Magazine of the County to be delivered unto them Gave power to the Earl of Essex their Lord-General the Lord Brook and others to apprehend the Marquis of Hartford and Earl of Northampton and their complices and to kill and slay all that should oppose them And the day following gave the Earl of Stamford a Commission to raise forces for the suppressing of any that should attempt for the King in Leicester-shire or the adjacent Counties And on the eleventh of August 1642. Upon the Kings Proclamation two dayes before Declaring the Earl of Essex and all that should adhere unto him in the levying of Forces and not come in and yield to His Majesty within 6. dayes to be Traytors p vote the said Proclamation to be against the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom Declare their resolutions to maintain and assist the Earl of Essex and resolve to spend no more time in Declarations and Petitions but to endeavour by raising of Forces to suppress the Kings Party Though all that the Kings Loyal Subjects did at that time for Him was but to execute the Commission of Array in the old legal way of the Militia and within a day or two after Ordered the Earl of Essex their Lord General to set forth with his Army of Horse upon the Monday following but not so much as an answer would be afforded to the Kings message sent from Hull where whilest He with patience and hope forbore any action or attempt of force according to His promise Sir John Hotham sallied out in the night and murdered many of His fellow Subjects 12. August 1642. The King though he might well understand the great leavies of Men and Armes ready to march against Him by a Declaration published to all His Subjects assures them as in the presence of God That all the Acts passed by him in this Parliament should be as equally observed as those which most of all concerned His own interest and rights and that His quarrel was not against the Parliament but particular men and therefore desired That the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Hollis Sir Henry Ludlow Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Strode Mr. Martin Mr. Hampden Alderman Pennington and Capt. Venne might be delivered into the hands of Iustice to be tried by their Peeres according to the known Laws of the Land and against the Earles of Essex Warwick Stamford Lord Brook Sir John Hotham Major General Skippon and those who should exercise the Militia by vertue of the Ordinance He would cause Indictments to be drawn of High Treason upon the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. and if they submit to trial and plead the Ordinance would rest satisfied if they should be acquited But when this produced as little effect as all other endeavours He had used for peace He that saw the Hydra in the mud and slime of Sedition in its Embryo birth and growth and finds him now erected ready to devour him must now though very unwilling to cast off His beloved Robe of Peace forsake an abused patience and believe no more in the hopes of other remedies which had so often deceived Him but if He will give any account to the Watch-man of Israel of the People committed to his Charge or to the People of his protection of them or any maner of satisfaction to his own judgement and discretion betake himselfe to the sword which God had intrusted Him with and therefore makes the best use He could of those few friends were about Him and with the money which the Queen had not long before borrowed and the small supplies He had obtained of His servants and friends about Him who pawned and engaged their Plate Jewels and Lands for Him with those Lords and Gentlemen that willingly offered to bear him company in His troubles provides what men arms He could in his way towards Nottingham where He intended to set up His Standard But the Parliament about the 23. of August 1642. having received some information that He intended to set up His Standard at Nottingham Declare q That now it appears to all the world that there is good ground of their fears and jealousies which if ever there had been any as there was no cause at all of any more then that some of them meaning to murder or ruine Him they were often afraid He should take notice of it and seek to defend himself there was by their own confession till this time no manifest or certain ground appearing that He intended to defend himself against the Parliament and therefore Order That all that shall suffer in their Estates by any forces raised by the King without consent of Parliament shall have full reparation of their damages out of the Estates of the Actors and out of the Estates of all such Persons in any part of the Kingdom who should persist to serve the King in this War against the Parliament and That it should be Lawful for any number of persons to ioyn and defend themselves and that the Earl of Essex their General should grant out Commissions for levying and conducting forces into the Northern parts And Sir John Hotham the Governor of Hull assist them and Command also the Sheriffs of the County of York and the adjacent Counties with the power of the Counties and Trained bands to aide them and to seize upon all that shall execute the Commission of Array for His Majesty who thus sufficiently beset by those that intended what since
the Kings Seal since it was carried away by the Lord Keeper Littleton should be Null and of no force in the Law and that a new Seal should be provided The King therefore seeing what He must trust to 19. September 1642. being at Wellington in Shrop-shire in the head of such small forces and friends as He could get together for the Parliament that very day had received letters That the King but the week before having a muster at Nottingham there appeared but about 3000. foot and 2000. horse and 1500. dragoons and that a great part of His men were not provided with Arms made His protestation and promise as in the presence of x Almighty God and as He hoped for His blessing and protection to maintain to the utmost of His power the true Reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England and that He desired to govern by the known Laws of the Land and that the Liberty and property of the Subject should be preserved with the same care as His own just rights and to observe inviolably the Laws consented to by Him in this Parliament and promised as in the sight of Almighty God if He would please by His blessing upon that Army raised for His necessary defence to preserve Him from that Rebellion to maintain the just priviledges and freedom of Parliament and govern by the known Laws of the Land In the mean while if this time of War and the great necessity and straights He was driven to should be get any violation of them He hoped it would be imputed by God and man to the Authors of the War and not to Him who had so earnestly desired and laboured for the Peace of the Kingdom and preservation thereof and that when He should fail in any of those particulars He would expect no aid or relief from any man nor protection from Heaven And now that the stage of War seems to be made ready and the Parliament party being the better furnished had not seldom shewed themselves and made several traverses over it for indeed the King having so many necessities upon him and so out of power and provision for it might in that regard onely if He had not been so unwilling to have any hurt come to his people by his own defending of himself be backward and unwillingly drawn unto it we may do well to stand by and observe who cometh first to act upon it 22. of September 1642. The Earl of Essex writeth from Warwick that he was upon his march after the King and before the 6. of October following had written to the County of Warwick with all speed to raise their Trained bands and Voluntiers to resist his forces if they should come that way and to the three Counties of Northampton Leicester and Darby to gather head and resist him if he should retire into those parts and by all that can be judged of a matter of fact so truely and faithfully represented must needs be acknowledged to have great advantages of the King by the City and Tower of London Navy Shipping Armes Ammunition the Kings Magazines all the strong Towns of the Kingdom most of the Kingdoms plate and money the Parliaments credit and high esteem which at that time the people Idolized the fiery Zeal of a Seditious Clergy to preach the people into a Rebellion and the people head-long running into the witchcraft of it When the King on the other side had little more to help him then the Laws and Religion of the Land which at that time every man began to mis-construe and pull in pieces had neither ammunition ships places of strength nor money nor any of his party or followers after the Parliament had as it were proclaimed a War against Him could come single or in small numbers through any Town or Village but were either openly assaulted or secretly betrayed no man could adventure to serve or own him but must expose himself and his Estate to be ruined either by the Parliament or people or such as for malice or profit would inform against him All the gains and places of preferment were on the Parliaments part and nothing but losses and mis-fortunes on the Kings No man was afraid to go openly to the Parliaments side and no man durst openly so much as take acquaintance of his Soveraign but if he had done a quarter of that which Ziba did to David when he brought him the 200. loaves of bread or old Barzillai or Ittai the Gittise when he went along with him when his son Absalom rebelled against him They should never have escaped so well as they did but have been sure to be undone and sequestred for it So much of the affections of the people had the Parliament cousened and stoln from them so much profit and preferment had they to perswade it and so much power to enforce those that otherwise had not a minde to it to fight against him Who thus every way encompassed about with dangers and like a Partridge hunted upon the Mountains marcheth from Shrewsbury towards Banbury perswading and picking up what help and assistance His better sort of Subjects durst adventure to afford Him in the way to which On Sunday the 23. of October 1642. for they thought it better to rob God of his Sabbath then lose an opportunity of murdering their Soveraign The Earl of Essex and Parliament army powring in from all quarters of the kingdom upon him had at Edge-hill compassed Him in on all sides and before the King could put His men in battel Array many of whom being young country fellows had no better Arms then Clubs and Staves in their hands cut out of the hedges and put His two young Sons the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York in the guard of a troop of horse at the further end of the field and had finished a short prayer a bullet of the Earl of Essex's Canon grazed at His heels as He was kneeling at His prayers on the side of a bank for Blague a villain in the Kings Army having a great Pension allowed Him for it had given notice in what part of the field the King stood that they might the better know how to shoot at him But God having a greater care of his Anointed then of their Rebellious pretences so ordered the hands of those that fought for the King as the Earl of Essex was so loaden with Victories as he left five of His men for one of the Kings dead behinde him lost his babbage and Artillery retired back to Warwick and left the King to bless God in the field where He supped with such Victuals as the more Loyal and better natured neighbours sent him when the worser sort refused to do it and lying there all night sent warrants out the next day to the neighbour Parishes to bury the dead drew off His Ordinance and marched to Banbury and yet he could not forget to pity those which were at such pains and hazard the
fight and have been told that the King shot at them for the safety of His own Person and that they also shot against Him for the safety of His own Person and being asked which of the two parties he believed did really or most of all intend the safety of it we cannot tell how to think any man such a stranger to nature reason or understanding as to think the King should not fight as the Dictates of nature perswaded him to or that the King could tell how to fight against those that fought for him or that if he should be so hugely mistaken in that one year or Battel he should be in several other years and Battels after To fight for the defence of the Religion established as they made also the people believe was as needless when the King offered to do every thing might help to promote it and they are so little also to be credited in that pretence as we know they did all they could from the beginning to ruine it took away Episcopacy the hedge and bounds of it brought in Presbytery to preach up and aid their Rebellion and when their own turns were served encouraged Conventicles and Tub-preachers to pull down the Presbytery And being demanded at the treaty at Uxbridge by the Kings Commissioners what Religion they would have the King to establish were so unprovided of an answer as they could not resolve what to nominate nor in any of their propositions afterwards sent to the King though ofted urged and complained of by the Scottish Commissioners could ever finde the way to do it but have now set up an Independent extemporary enthusiastick kinde of worshipping God if there were any such thing in it or rather a religious Chaos or gallimaufrey of all maner of heresies errours blasphemies and opinions put together not any of the owners of which we can be confident will subscribe to that opinion that Wars may be made for Religion or that conscience ought to be forced by it As for the restrictive part of the Laws to keep the people in subjection we can very well perswade our selves no such War was ever made yet in the World nor any people ever found that would engage in a War for that they obeyed but against their wills And for that part of the Law that gives them the Kings protection priviledges immunities and certainties of deciding controversies which are more fitly to be called the Liberties of the people then to have 45. of the House of Commons or a Faction to make daily and hourly Laws Religion and Government and vote their estates in and out to pay an Army to force their obedience to it if we had not out-lived the Parliaments disguises and pretences saw them now tearing them up by the roots that there may be no hope of their growing up again and setting up their own as well as the ignorant and illiterate fancies of Mechaniques and Souldiers in stead of them we might have said that also had been needless when the King had done abundantly enough already and offered to grant any thing more that could in reason be demanded of Him And as touching their priviledges of Parliament They that understand but any thing of the Laws of England or have but looked into the Records and Journals of Parliament can tell that all priviledges of Parliament as King James said were at first bestowed upon them by the Kings and Princes of this Kingdom That priviledges of Parliament extended not to Treason or Felony or breach of the Peace That m 32. Hen. 6. Sir Thomas Thorpe Speaker of the House of Commons being arrested in execution in the time of the prorogation of the Parliament the Commons demanded he might be set at liberty according to their priviledges whereupon the Judges being asked their Councel therein made answer that general supersedeas of Parliament there were none but special supersedeas there was in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the House of Commons ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony or breach of the Peace After which answer it was determined that the said Sir Thomas Thorpe should lye in execution and the Commons were required on the behalf of the King to choose a new Speaker which they did and presented to the King accordingly That Queen Elizabeth was assured by her Judges that she might commit any of her Parliament during the Parliament for any offence committed against her Crown and dignity and they shewed her precedents for it and that primo tertio Caroli Regis upon search of precedents in the several great cases of the Earls of Arundel and Bristol very much insisted and stood upon the House of Peers in Parliament allowed of the exception of Treason Felony and breach of the Peace For indeed it is as impossible to think that there can be any priviledge to commit Treason as to think that a King should priviledge all his Nobility and every one of his Subjects that could get to be elected into the House of Commons in Parliament to commit Treason and to take away his life in the time of Parliament whensoever their revenge or malice or interest should find the opportunity to do it or that if it could be so any King or Prince would ever call or summon a Parliament to expose himself to such a latitude of danger or give them leave to sit as long as they would to breed it or that priviledges of Treason can be consistent with the name or being of a Parliament to consult and advise with the King for the defence of him and his Kingdom or that when Felony and breach of Peace are excepted out of their priviledge Treason that is of a far higher nature consequence and punishment should be allowed them or if there could have been any such priviledge and a meaner man then their Soveraign had broke it a small understanding may inform them that they could not without breach of the Peace have fought for it against a fellow Subject and then also could not their priviledges have reached to it but the King might have punished them for it and if they cannot upon a breach of priviledge n as it was adjudged in Halls case without the Kings writ and the cause first certified in Chancery deliver one of their own servants arrested It is not likely any warrant can be found in Law to inforce the King to reparation though he himself should have broken it but to petition the King for an allowance of that or any other priviledge as well in the middle or any other time of their sitting in Parliament as they alwayes do at the presenting of their Speaker in the beginning of it Wherefore certainly the People never gave the Parliament Commission if they could have given a Commission to make a War against their Soveraign to claim that was never due to them or to fight for that was never yet fought for by any of their
killed upon no provocation women and maids ravished and their fingers cut off for their rings old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the privities others tortured and had burning matches tied to their fingers to make them confess where their money was women and children and sick and aged persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the fields and barns their sheep cattel and provisions devoured houses ruined or burnt and their horses that should help to plough and do other works of husbandry taken away in so much as some were inforced to blinde and put out their horses eyes that they might not be taken from them Churches that escaped defacing prophaned and made Stables or Gaoles or Victualing or Bawdy houses Monuments defaced and Sepulchers opened as were those of the Saxon Kings at Winchester and the Priests and Ministers not so much as suffered to weep betwixt the Porch and the Altar but their benefices and livelyhoods taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places had their bookes burned and all their means and maintenance plundred from them and those that were newtrals and medled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could either totally undone or cast in prison not for that they did them any hurt but because they might do it and if they were not imprisoned their Lands Money or goods were sure to be in the fault and taken away from them u Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur necesse est ut adsit intentio bona There ought to be a good intention to make the War conscionable which in this appears to fail also For the Charge against the five Members is now as true as it was then they meant to ruine the King and they have done it and to alter the Government and subvert the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and they have done a great part of it and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder x Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus honestis ne salutem quidem turpibus We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by honest and lawful means and not to do soul and dishonest things to procure our safety from which they made fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use of to usher in their pretences their faining of victories and scandaling the King and his actions not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets Battels Towns and Garrisons and making too many Judases of all that were about him will hardly be able to free them or if they could the making use of men and money intended for the support of Ireland and leaving them wallowing in their blood for seven yeares together whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them violating of their oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which many of their members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oathes taken in their Protestation and Nationall Covenant and not so few as one hundred solemn promises and undertakings in their severall Petitions Remonstrances and Declarations forcing the People to take the Protestation and Covenant and compel them as soon as they had taken it to break them and by cousening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries cheat them out of their Religion Loyalty Laws and Liberties will be sure enough to condemn them and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladâ—staus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensigne of publique detestation in the battel wherein he slew him invoked the God of the Christians to help him to revenge so great a treachery there will be more reason now for all that are but Christians or but pretend to any morality to carry in their banner the pourtraict of the Kings bleeding head as it was cut from His shoulders and make War in revenge of the masterpiece and totum aggregatum of all maner of wickedness and perfidiousness who besides all their own and the peoples oaths taken to defend him when those they called Delinquents some few onely which were specially named and excepted for obeying the known Laws of the Land as well as their Oaths and Consciences were never questioned for their lives but suffered to compound for their Estates would not suffer the King that was neither a Delinquent or Excepted Person to enjoy either His Life or Estate though to save his people and keep them from killing one another He had yielded himself and became a Prisoner upon the publique faiâ—h of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland Pax aequa non est recusanda licet victoriae spes adsit y saith Besoldus A good or fitting Peace is not to be refused though the victory were certain And in this also the Parliament will be as far to seek for a justification as in the other For in stead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it they caused men and women in the first year of their War to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a Peace and in the third and fourth year of their War plundred and robbed others that petitioned them but to hearken to it and put out of office and made all as Delinquents in the seventh year of their War that did but petition them for a Treaty with the King and refused all the Kings many very many Messages for Peace not onely when He was at the highest of His success in the war but when he was at the lowest and a prisoner to them and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadful day of Judgement to pity the bleeding conditions of His Kingdoms and people and send propositions of Peace unto Him and quarters and half years and more then a whole year together after the battel of Naseby insomuch as their fellow Rebels the Scotch Commissioners did heavily complain of it were at several times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready though those which they sent to Oxford Uxbridge Newcastle and Hampton-Court were but substantially and materially the same with their nineteen Propositions which they made unto the King before the Earl of Essex was made their General and in all the Treaties made Propositions for themselves and the Soveraignty and great offices and places of the Kingdom but would neither for Gods sake or their Kings sake or their Oaths or Consciences sake or the Peoples sake or Peace sake which the people petitioned and hungred and thirsted for alter or abate one Iota or tittle of them but were so unwilling to have any Peace at all as six or seven Messengers or Trumpeters could come from the King before they could be at leisure or so manerly as to answer one of them but this or that Message from the King was received and read and laid by till a week or when they would after and the Kings Commissioners in the Treaties must
to pursue and give him battail When Sheba the son of Bichri blew a Trumpet and said f We have no part in David every man to his Tent O Israel and thereupon every man of Israel followed after him and forsook their King David who knew that Moses would not make a War upon the Amorites though he had Gods commandment for it without offers of Peace and messengers sent first unto them said to Amasa Assemble me the men of Judah within three dayes and when he tarried longer said unto him Take thou thy Lords servants and pursue after him lest he get him fenced Cities and escape us For they that would take heed of Cockatrices have ever used to kill them in the shell And g diligenti cuique Imperatori ac magistratui danda est opera saith Bodin ut non tam seditiones tollere quam praeoccupare studeant For sedition saith he once kindled like a spark of fire blown by popular fury may sooner fire a whole City then be extinguished Et tales igitur pestes opprimere derepente necesse est Princes and Soveraigns who are bound to protect and defend their Subjects are not to stand still and suffer one to oppress another and themselves to be undone by it afterwards But put the case that the Parliament could have been called â— Parliament when they had driven away the King which is the head and life of it or could have been said to have been two Houses of Parliament when there was not at that time above a third part of the House of Peers nor the half of the House of Commons remaining in them and what those few did in their absence was either forced by a Faction of their own or a party of Seditious Londoners for indeed the War rightly considered was not betwixt the Parliament and the King but a War made by a Factious and Seditious part of the Parliament against the King and the major part of the Parliament and had been as it never was nor could be by the Laws and constitution of the Kingdom co-ordinate and equal with the King and joint tenants of the Kingdom it would have been necessary to make the War as just as they could and to have done all that had been in order to it and therefore we hope they which pretend so much to the Justice of the Kingdom will not be offended to have the Justice of their War something examined CHAP. IV. Suppose the War to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it PLerique h saith learned Grotius tres statuunt bellorum justas causas defensionem recuperationem punitionem Three causes are usually alleaged by Princes or States to justifie wars viz. in the defence or recovery of their own or for punishment for a wrong done For any defence the Parliament might pretend a necessity of The King neither assaulted them nor used any violence to them when they first of all granted out their Propositions and Commissions of War unless they can turn their jealousies into a Creed and make the Kings demanding the five Members and Kimbolton being done by warrant of the Law of the Land and the Records and precedents of their own houses appear to be an assaulting of them Or if any reasonable man knew but how to make that to be an assault or a necessary cause of War for them to revenge it the Kings waving and relinquishing of his charge afterwards against them might have certainly been enough to have taken away the cause of it if there had been any howsoever a War made onely to revenge a bare demand or request of a thing was neither so much as forced or a second time demanded of them but was totally laid aside and retracted can never be accounted just As for the recovery of things lost or taken away the Parliament it self had nothing taken from them for both they and the people were so far from being losers at that time by the King as i the Remonstrance of the House of Commons made to the people 15. December 1641. of the Kings errors as they pleased to call them in the government but indeed the errors rather of his Ministers and themselves also in busying him with brawles and quarrels and denying to give him fitting supplies k mentions how much and how many beneficial Laws the King had granted them And so the Parliament and people being no losers and the King never denying them any thing which could in honour or conscience be granted them That part of the justifying of a War will no way also belong to them But if the punishment for offences and injuries past if they could be so properly called being a third cause of justifying a War could be but imagined to be a cause to justifie the Parliaments War against the King Yet they were to remember another Rule or Law of War l Ne nimis veteres causae accersantur That they do not pick quarrels by raking up past grievances and that it be not propter leviusculas injurias or for trifles For when the King who if he had been no more then co-ordinate with them had called them to counsel to advise him followed their advice in every thing he could finde any reason for taken away all grievances made a large provision to prevent them for the future by granting the Triennial Parliament and so large an amends for every thing they could but tell how to complain of there was so little left to the people and the Parliament to quarrel for as they were much behind in thankfulness for what they had got of him already Or if any other causes or provocations should be imagined as mis-using the Parliaments Messengers or the like we know the King unless it were by his patience and often Messages for Peace was guilty of no provocations but on the contrary though he had all maner of scorns and reproaches cast upon him and his Messengers evil intreated by them could never be brought to return or retaliate it to any of theirs But nothing as yet serving to excuse them it will not be amiss to examine the Causes as they are set down by themselves to justifie their war and so we may well suppose there are no other A War against the King for safety of His own Person was needless and then it comes within that rule of War and Law of Nations Ne leves sint causae belli not to make a War unnecessary for the King would look to that himself and as they were His Subjects they as well as every honest Subject were bound to defend and assist Him but not whether he would or no and in such a way of defence as would tend to His ruine rather then His safety For surely should any stranger of another Kingdom or Nation have casually passed by Edge-hill when the Kings and the Parliaments Armies were in