the best belovedst King that ever was if to call all the aspersions that possibly could be devised upon his government by publique elaborate remonstrances if to suffer and give Texts to the strongest lung'd Pulpiteers to poyson the hearts of his subjects to intoxicate their braines with fumes of forg'd jealousies to possesse them with an opinion that he is a Papist in his heart and consequently hath a designe to introduce Popery if to sleight his words his promises if to his Asseverations Oaths and Protestations when he calls heaven and earth to witnesse when he desires no blessing otherwise to fall upon himselfe his wife and children with other pathetick deep-fetcht expressions that would have made the meanest of those millions of Christians which are his vessals to be believed if to protect Delinquants and proclaim'd Traytors against him if to suscitate authorise and encourage all sorts of subjects to heave up their hands against and levie armes to emancipate themselves from that naturall allegeance loyalty and subjection wherein they and their fore-fathers were ever tied to his royall Progenitors if to make them sweare and damne themselves into a rebellion if this be to make a King beloved then this Parliament hath made King Charles the best belovedst King that ever was in England Pereg. I cannot compare this Rebellion in England more properly then to that in this Kingdome in King Iohn's time which in our French Cronicle beares to this day the infamous name of Iaqerie de Beauvoisin Then Peasans then out of a surfet of plenty had growne up to that heighth of insolenco that they confronted the Gentcie and gathered in multitudes and put themselves in armes to suppresse them and this popular tumult never ceased till Charles le Sage suppressed it and it made the Kings of France more puissant ever since for it much increased their Finances in regard that these extraordinary taxes which the people imposed upon themselves for the support of the war hath continued ever since a firme revenue to the Crowne which makes me thinke of a fractious speech of the late Henry the Great to them of Orleans for whereas a new imposition was laid upon them during the league by Monseur de la Chastre who was a great stickler in those wars they petitioned Henry the fourth that he would be pleased to take of that taxe the King asked them Who had laid that taxe upon them they said Mons de la Castres during the time of the League the King replyed Puis que Monsieur de la Chatre vous à ligue qu'il vous dessligue and so the said taxe continueth to this day I have observed in your Cronicles that it hath been the fate of your Kings to be baffled often by petty companions as Iack Stpawe Wat Tyler Cade Warbecke and Symnel A Waspe may sometimes doe a shrew turne to the Eagle as you said before your Island hath been fruitfull for Rebellions for I thinke there hapned neere upon a hundred since the last Conquest the City of London as I remember in your Storie hath rebelled seven times at least and forfeited her Charter I know not how often but she bled soundly for it at last and commonly the better your Princes tre worse your people have been or the case stands I see no way for the King to establish a setled peace the by making a fifth Conquest of you and for London there must be a way found to prick that tympany of pride wherewith the swells Patr. 'T is true there hath been from time to time many odde Insurrections in England but our Kings gathered a greater strength out of them the inconstant people are alwayes accessary to their miseries Kings Prerogatives are like the Ocean which as the Civilians tell us if he lose in one place he gets in another Care and Crosse ride behind Kings and the same they say may be eclypsed awhile but they will shine afterwards with a stronger lustre Our gracious Soveraigne hath these three or foure yeeres passed a kind of Ordeal or fiery triall hee hath been matriculated and serv'd halfe an Appretiship in the Schoole of Affliction I hope God will please shortly to cancell the Indenture and restore him to a sweeter liberty then
you prove your selves the greatest grievance at last and so from Starres become Comets Lastly I would have you to be very cautious how you tamper with my Soveraigne power and chop Logick with mee in that point you know what became of Him who once presumed to meddle with my Chariot Hereupon the whole host of Heaven being constellated thus into one great Body fell to a serious deliberation of things and Apollo himselfe continued his presence and sate amongst them in his full lustre but in the meane time whilest they were in the middest of their consultations the lesser sort of the mongrell Starres which make up the Galaxia the milkie way in Heaven gather in a tumultuous disorderly manner about the body of Apollo and commit many strange insolencies which caused Apollo taking young Phosphorus with him to retyre himselfe and to withdraw his light from the Synod so all began to be involv'd in a strange kinde of confusion and obscurity they groaped in the darke not knowing which way to move or what course to take all things went Cancerlike retrograde because the Sunne detained his beames from them Such as the Sun is in the Firmament a Monarch is in his Kingdome for as the Wisest of men saith In the light of the Kings countenance there is life and I believe that to be the morall of this Astrean Fable Pereg. I thanke you a thousand times for this rare high fetcht Apologue there is nothing illustrates things better or fasteneth them more firmely in the mind and makes the memory of them more pleasing to the fancie then Apologues Emblemes Allegories and Parables And now that you compare a Monarch to the Sunne I remember to have read in your story of a complement that Marshall Byron put upon Q Elizabeth who after a splendid audience where the choycest Ladies about the towne were commanded to wait when shee asked him how he liked her Maids he answered Mad me There is no body able to judge of the light of the Stars whilest the Sunne is up A handsomer complement then that Lord whom I will forbeare to name who was sent from his late Majesty to condole the Arch-Duke Albertus his death did put upon the late Infanta at Bruxel who when the Infania had made an Apologie That she could not entertaine him then in that high degree that the Ambassador of so great a King deserved it being a time of mourning he answered Madam This turnes to my advantage for it were dangerous to looke upon the Sunne unlesse some cloud interposed Your Britannick Sun though he be now o're-set with these unluckie clouds engendred of the vapors of distempered braines and the rotten hearts of many of his owne meniall servants who have proved like the sonnes of Serviah unto him ingratefull monsters yet is he still in his owne Orb and will when this foule weather 's passed and the ayre cleared a little by thunder shine more gloriously and powerfully then before it being a maxime of State That Rebellion suppressed makes a Prince the stronger And Rebellion durst never yet looke a Prince long in face for the Majestie of Gods anointed useth to dart such refulgent piercing beames that dazle the eyes of disloyalty and strikes her starke blind at last And truly as you say I am also clearely of opinion that these ingratefull Londoners as they were the comencers so have they been the continuers and contrivers of this ugly Rebellion ever since They seeme to have utterly forgotten who hath given them the sword and by and from whom they hold their Charter Their Corporations are now growne body politicks and so many petty Republikes amongst them so that they begin to smell ranke of a Hans-town Poore simple Annimals how they suffer their pockets to be pick'd their purses to be cut how they part with their vitall spirits every week how desperatly they post on to poverty and their owne ruine suffering themselves in lieu of Scarlet-gownes to be governed by a rude company of Red-coats who 'twixt plundring assessements and visits will quickly make an end of them I feare there is some formidable judgement of regall revenge hangs over that City for the anger of a King is like the roaring of a Lyon and I never read yet of any City that contested with her Soveraigne but she smarted soundly for it at last The present case of London beares a great deale of proportion with that of Monpellier here in France in Charles the seventh's time for when that towne had refused the publishing of many of the Kings Edicts and Declarations murthered some of his Ministers and Servants abused the Church and committed other high acts of insolencie the Duke of Berry was sent to reduce the towne to obedience the Duke pressed them with so hard asiege that at last 600. of the best Citizens came forth in procession bare-headed and bare-footed with white wands in their hands and halters about their necks to deliver the keys of all the gates to the Duke but this would not serve the turne for two hundred of them were condemned to the gallies two hundred of them were hang'd and two hundred beheaded the King saying he offered those as victimes for the lives of his servants whom they had murthered with the false sword of Justice But Sir I much marvell how your Church-government which from all times hath been cryed up to be so exact is so suddenly tumbled into this confusion how your Prelates are fallen under so darke a cloud considering that divers of them were renowned through all the Reform'd Churches in Christendome for their rare learning and pietie At the Synod at Dort you know some of them assisted and no exception at all taken at their degree and dignity how came it to passe that they are now fallen under this Eclypse as to be so persecuted to be push'd out of the House of Peers and hurried into prison I pray you be pleased to tell me Patr. Sir I remember to have read in the Irish Story That when the Earle of Kildare in Henry the eighth's time was brought before the Lord Deputy for burning Cassiles Church he answered My Lord I would never have burnt the Church unlesse I had thought the Bishop had been in it for 't was not the Church but the Bishop I aim'd at One may say so of the Anglican Church at this present that these fierie Zelots these vaporing Sciolists of the times are so furiously enraged against this holy Primitive order some out of Envie some out of Malice some out of Ignorance that one may say our Church had not been thus set on fire unlesse the Bishops had been in 't I grant there was never yet any Profession made up of men but there were some bad we are not Angels upon earth there was a Iudas amongst the first dozen of Christians though Apostles and they by our Saviour's owne election Amongst our Prelates peradventure for I know of no accusation fram'd against them yet some
drowne the Hollanders in their Butter-tubs was nothing to this when I consider the prodigious power they have assumed to themselves and doe daily exercise over the bodies the estates and soules of men In your former Discourse you told me that amongst multitudes of other mischiefs which this new Faction hath wrought they have put division twixt all sorts and sexes twixt all conditions both of men and women one thing more I may say they have done in this kind for they have laboured to put division between the Persons of the holy Trinity by making the first Person to be offended at that voluntary genuflexion and reverence which hath been from all times practised in the Christian Church to the name of the second Person so that Iesu-warship as I have read in some of your profane Pamphlets is growne now to be a word of reproach amongst you But to the point there is one thing I can never cease to wonder at that whereras at the beginning of this Parliament there were as able and experienced as stout and well spoken Gentlemen as any in the whole Kingdome that sate in the House and made the far major part I wonder I say that they would suffer this giddy-headed Faction to carry all before them in that violent manner that they did not crush this Cocatrice in the shell Patr. First Sir you know there is nothing so agreeable to the nature of man as noveltie and in the conduct of humane affaires it is alwayes seene that when any new designe or faction is afoot the Projectors are commonly more pragmaticall and sedulous upon the worke they lie centinell to watch all advantages the Sand of their braines is alwayes running this hath caused this upstart Faction to sticke still close together and continue marvellously constant to their ends they have been used to tyre and out-fast to weary and out-watch the moderate and well-minded Gentlemen sometimes till after midnight by clancular and nocturnall sittings so that as his Majestie sayes in one of his Declarations most of their Votes may be said to be nought else but Verdicts of a starv'd Iury. Another reason is That they countenanced the flocking together of the promiscuous rabble from London notwithstanding the two severall motions the Lords made unto them that they might be suppressed by Parliamentary Order This rioous crue awed the wonted freedome of speech in both Houses cryed up the names and confronted many of their Members yet these new Polititians not onely conniv'd at them but call'd them their friends and so they might well enough or rather their Champions for they had ordered the matter so that they were sure to have them ready at their devotion at the heaving of a finger and from this tumultuous mongrell crue they derived their first encouragements to doe such high prodigious insolencies they have committed since Adde hereunto that they complyed exceedingly besides with the Common Councell of the City they used to attend them earely and late and knock heads together and if any new thing was to passe in the House they would first wait on them to know their pleasure and afterwards it should be propunded and put to Vote in the House And how derogatory it is to the high Law-making councell to make their chiefest Members wait from time to time on the Magistrates of the City who in former times were used to attend them upon all occasions in Westminster I am ashamed to thinke on nor am I lesse ashamed to remember those base Artifices and indirect courses that were practis'd at the election of this pretended Major here they tack'd about to a second choyce after the the first was legally made and how the Common-Councell was pack'd up of the arrandest Schismaticks up and downe the City And to that mutinous wealth-swolne City and the said unbridled packe of Oppidans seconded afterwards by the Countrey clownes who offered such outrages to Gods House the Kings house and the Parliament house may be ascribed all our miseries and the miscarriage of things for they caused his Majesty to forsake his owne standing palace to absent himselfe from his Parliament and make that unusuall progresse up and downe his Kingdome ever since it put all Counsell at a stand and in a confusion But because the businesse may take better impression in you for the further illustration of it I will relate unto you an old Egyptian Fable which comes pat to this purpose Upon a time the Starres complained to Apollo that hee displayed his beames too much upon some malignant Planets That the Moone had too great a share of his influence and that he was carryed away too much by her motion They complained also that the constellation of Libra which holds the ballance of Iustice had but a dim light and that the Astrean Court was growne altogether destructive with divers other grievances Apollo hereupon commanded Mercury to summon a generall Synod where some out of every Asterisme throughout the whole Firmament were to meet Apollo told them I am placed here by the finger of the Almighty to be Monarch of the Skie to be the measurer of Time and I goe upon his errand round about the world every foure and twenty houres I am also the Fountaine of heat and light which though I use to dispence and difofuse in equall proportions throughout the whole universe yet I make difference twixt objects a Castle hath more of my light then a Cottage and the Cedar hath more of me then the Shrub But touching the Moone the second great Luminary I would have you know that she is dearest unto me therefore let none repine that I cherish her with my beames and confer more light on her then upon any other Touching the malignant Planets or any other Star of what magnitude soever that moves not in a regular motion or hath runne any excentrique exorbitant course or that would have made me to move out of the Zodiak I put them over unto you that upon due examination and proofe they may be unsphear'd or extinguished But I would have this done with moderation I would have you to k epe as neere as you can between the Tropiques and temperate Zones I would have things reduced to their true principles reformed not ruin'd I would not have the whole government of the Skie overturned for redresse of a few petty abuses I would have the spirit of malice and lying the spirit of partiality and injustice the spirit of tyranny and rigor the base spirit of feare and jealousie to be far from this glorious Synod I would have all private interests reflecting upon revenge or profit to be utterly banished hence moreover I would not have you to make grievances where no grievances are or dangers where no dangers are I would have no creation of dangers I would have you to husband time as parsimoniously as you can lest by keeping too long together and amusing the world with such tedious hopes of redresse of grievances